Prologue: Hvitur the IceWing has successfully managed to steal a dragonet egg from the Sky Kingdom for the prophecy, and is now flying towards the cave where the five eggs will be raised. His victory is very short lived, as the malevolent Queen Burn knows of his theft and captures both him and the egg. As Burn muses on his motives, she notes that Hvitur must be a member of "The Talons of Peace", a group of dragons dedicated to ending the war between all the tribes. Hvitur pleads with Burn, but ultimately both he and the egg are killed. Much later in the night, two other members of the Talons of Peace, Kestrel and Webs, happen upon his corpse and worry about what happens next. Webs decides to steal a RainWing egg from the rainforest in order to fufill the prophecy.
We flash-forward to six years later, where our point-of-view character Clay, is fighting his temperamental "teacher" Kestrel as a training excercise. He notes that Kestrel desires him to return to a feral state he was apparently born in. Being the All-Loving Hero he is, he simply cannot do it, even when he tries to imagine his friends in trouble. As he's about to defeated and choked unconscious (as usual), he is granted a reprieve is distracted by his friend (and adoptive sibling) Tsunami, biting a scale off of Kestrel's tail.
Kestrel is disapponted and leaves, leaving Tsunami and Clay alone. They talk for a while, discussing about their families. Tsunami theorizes that she's a long-lost heir to the SeaWing throne, while Clay talks about how much he misses his parents and hopes to meet them one day. Tsunami suggests that the dragonets escape the cave they've been trapped in for their whole lives, despite it being two years until the propchecy is fated to happen.
As Clay exits, literally licking his wounds, he is jumpscared by Sunny the SandWing, who quickly establishes herself as an overenthusiastic little-sister type dragonet. As Sunny talks, Clay takes a moment to reflect on Sunny's odd and tiny appearance, noting that it doesn't matter to him.
Later that evening, the dragonets meet with their other friends; Glory the RainWing, and Starflight the NightWing. Glory was originally not supposed to be the prophecy, causing her to recieve a lot of abuse from Kestrel. Due to this, she is a snarky and grumpy most of the time. Starflight is a geeky, shy bookworm who often annoys the others with his passion for anything intellectually-inclined.
The five dragonets do a dramatic, So Bad, It's Good re-enactment of how the war started.
Tropes in this book
- Broken Pedestal: Clay is pretty disheartened to realize his mother, his (allegedly) only familial tie, actively sold him to the Talons of Peace and didn't want him.
- Peril is nothing short of furious when she learns Queen Scarlet lied to her about her mother trying to kill her and being dead all this time. Also, she's not happy at learning her mother Kestrel is Maternally Challenged and hasn't exactly been kindly to her surrogate "children" either.
- Establishing Character Moment: Both book and graphic novel show Scarlet's true colors in but the first few moments. The book has her bite off the head of the scavenger Clay and Tsunami find, despite that these little creatures are endangered. The graphic novel has her sadistically grab Clay's claw very roughly when he tries to peacefully return her stolen treasure.
- Everybody Has Standards: Kestrel is a callous jerk towards the dragonets at best and an abusive guardian at worst. But when she hears Scarlet accuse her before Peril she probably wished she killed her, Kestrel is livid and is steaming mad at such a twisted lie.
- Ironic Hatchday: Scarlet intended her hatchday to be the best (and bloodiest) she had ever had. Well, she got one right, as her hatchday is one Humiliation Conga. First Tsunami ends up being favored in the arena (much to Scarlet's chagrin), then Tsunami and Starflight defy fighting in the arena, and then Morrowseer and the other Nightwings thwart her using Icewings to liven up the fight. It all comes to a head when her "artwork" (Glory) spits venom in her eyes, potentially killing her. Happy Hatchday, Scarlet.
- Laser-Guided Karma: For her overall cruelty to every dragon she touches, her "artwork" Glory sprays venom into Queen Scarlet's eyes, courtesy of Burn using her as a Dragon Shield. Whether she dies or not is up for debate at this point, but no doubt the experience was as unpleasant and nasty as her sadistic personality.
- Maternally Challenged: According to Reed, Mudwing mothers are supposed to be like this. Their only purpose is to lay eggs and leave them be, leaving the eldest in the nest to raise their siblings. Justified, as their nests are highly protected anyway.
- Kestrel also has shades of this towards the Dragonets, as (according to Tsunami's dialogue) they aren't strangers to her being mean towards them. At best, she's only successful at keeping them alive and nothing else.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Played with. In order to stay in Scarlet's good graces, Glory pretends she's but a "lazy and stupid rainwing" so the Skywing Queen would use her for living "art" and leave her be. When the right moment comes up, Glory drops the act and spits venom into Scarlet's eyes.
- Stranger in a Familiar Land: Downplayed. On one hand, the Mud Kingdom's swampy environment delights Clay, who finds he's suited for wallowing in mud. On the other hand, Clay only entertains the idea of being his estranged siblings' long lost "big wings" before he contemplates the downsides. Although he'd be among his own kind and his long-lost kin, it would mean never seeing the dragonets again, having to fight in the war alongside them, and even take up the accountability of losing any (if not all) of his siblings to battle.
