The Brightest Night by Tui T. Sutherland

the moment,” Smolder said. He spread one wing and beckoned Sunny toward the main entrance. “She’s out looking for a certain quintet of young dragons.”
    Sunny stopped, looking up at him with a shiver. If Burn was searching for her friends instead of fighting battles, she must really want to destroy them.
    “Wait,” Addax said. “I want to see her — I mean, this is my prisoner — she’s one of the ones in the prophecy —”
    “I know. I’ll take it from here,” Smolder said firmly. “You can wait in the barracks until she returns.” He nodded at the courtyard. “Don’t worry, you’ll get all your pardons and your reinstatement.” He flared his wing across Sunny’s back and ushered her forward again.
    “But … my reward …” Addax’s voice trailed off as Sunny and Smolder stepped out of the bright sunlight into the cool shadows of a vast hall, big enough for a hundred dragons. Far overhead, large fans shaped like dragon wings beat the air, and Sunny spotted a few small dragons pulling on ropes to keep them moving. Tapestries woven in blues and golds and white covered the walls, echoing some of the same patterns in the stonework outside, and airy white curtains billowed at the long windows. A heavy table ran down the middle of the hall, loaded with food, and Sunny heard her stomach grumble.
    “Take anything you like,” Smolder said.
    “No, thank you,” Sunny answered politely. It seemed unlikely that the entire table of food was poisoned, but she didn’t intend to make killing her any easier than it already would be. She tilted her head to study the tapestry closest to her and realized that the odd pattern of rust-colored spots on it was actually dried spatters of blood.
    “The food is for the soldiers,” Smolder said, sounding amused. “I promise it’s safe to eat.”
    “I’m not hungry,” Sunny said. “Um … when do you think Burn will be back?”
    Smolder shifted his wings in a shrug. “I never know. She prefers not to discuss her plans.” He lifted his claws and studied them thoughtfully, shaking out sand that was caught between his scales. “The real question is what to do with you. On the one talon, I assume she’d rather find you alive when she gets back, so she can kill you — or interrogate you and then kill you — herself. On the other talon, if I lock you up and you somehow escape, which I’m sure you’ll try to do, I’ll be in far worse trouble than if I just kill you right now. But on the third talon, if I successfully keep you captive, she should be quite pleased. It’s a risk, though. You’re guaranteed not to escape if I kill you.”
    “But on the fourth talon,” Sunny said hurriedly, “how will Burn find my friends if she can’t ask me questions? Or use me as a hostage? Think about how valuable I am alive.”
    “Hmm,” Smolder said with a little smile. A tiny brown mouse crept out from under the table and made a dash for the nearest wall. Smolder flicked his tail toward it, but stopped at the last minute and let the mouse vanish into one of the cracks. He looked back at Sunny. “All right, you talked me into it. You can live for now, but I’d appreciate it if you’d keep your escape attempts as feeble and ineffective as possible.”
    He started toward a doorway at the far end of the hall and Sunny followed, wondering if that was supposed to be funny. Smolder had this odd way of talking that kind of made everything he said sound like a joke. But then, Sunny’s life and death didn’t seem particularly hilarious, at least if you asked her.
    There were five doors leading off the main hall, plus a staircase that led up to a balcony with two more doorways. Sunny considered trying to memorize the layout of the palace, but as soon as they stepped through into the dark, winding passage beyond, she knew it would be hopeless.
    The corridors of the old palace crisscrossed and twisted almost as often and confusingly as the streets of the Scorpion Den, and they