Firewing Read Online Free Page B

claws, as if something immensely powerful within the earth were stirring, testing its strength. Then the sensation was gone. Probably just the wind off the ocean, or the great ceaseless stirring of the sea itself—or his own nervousness about tonight.
    He wanted to be outside. Dropping from his roost, he stretched his wings, streaked through the opening, and was instantly over the sea. The sun was still high enough above the horizon to set the water alight. Shade banked sharply and soared over the rocky coastline, notched by countless coves and inlets. The tides here were fierce and sudden, and the sea had carved the land into high, blunt cliffs. Stone Hold was deep within the tallest cliff of all, its craggy head crowned with moss-covered rocks, and a few hardy spruce trees bowed by the wind.
    Far away, Shade could hear a pod of whales singing their strange song, somehow mournful and ecstatic all at once, resonating through the water and air, gusting landward. Shade skimmed over the dense forest, intent on hunting now. From the topmost branch of a pine, a raven stared suspiciously as he passed, but said nothing. Shade watched the powerful bird carefully. He’d quickly realized that being
allowed
to fly in sunlight was not the same as being welcome.
    Though the owls had agreed to a peace treaty with the bats, Shade and the other Silverwings still felt wary in the day. Most avoided it, choosing to hunt and fly under the moon and stars, as they had done for millennia. Sometimes Shade wondered what the point had been, fighting to get the sun back. But he knew it wasn’t the daylight itself that was important: it was the freedom. The freedom to choose if you flew by night or day, and, most of all, the freedom from fear of owl attack.
    Shade veered and caught a monarch butterfly. That was one good thing about flying in the sunlight—there were all sorts of new bugs to eat, ones that rarely came out at night.
    “You’re up early,” said a voice behind him, and he glanced over his wing to see his father, Cassiel, pulling alongside.
    “Did you feel the cave shake?” Shade asked. Cassiel shook his head. “You did?”
    “I don’t know if it was real. I’m pretty sure I felt a little tremor.”
    “Could be,” said his father. “Years ago there were a few earthquakes. Nothing very big, though.”
    His father was trying to reassure him, but Shade remembered the low, controlled rhythm of the vibration, like a suggestion of greater things to come. He wondered if they’d felt it at Tree Haven.
    “Do you think Orion will pick me?” he asked.
    “All I know is he always chooses fast, reliable flyers.”
    “Well, I’m not the fastest, sure, but I’m reliable.” His father looked at him with a grin.
    “You don’t think I’m reliable?” Shade asked, hurt.
    “Of course I do. You saved my life. But Orion’s probably worried you might get
distracted
along the way. Discover some evil plan to destroy the world, or accidentally start a war. Something like that.”
    Shade snorted, but he knew his father was right. Even after all his adventures, maybe even
because
of them, he noticed the Silverwing elders didn’t exactly
trust
him.
    “They trust Chinook,” Shade said irritably.
    “Well, he is very trustworthy,” his father agreed. It rankled Shade that Chinook had been one of the first messengers. He’d been to Tree Haven and seen his mate, and his own child. And he’d brought news back about a hundred other newborns as well, among them, Griffin.
    “What did he look like?” Shade had demanded, moments after an exhausted Chinook lurched into Stone Hold.
    “Looked fine. Healthy.”
    Shade’s surge of relief and gratitude had quickly given way to intense curiosity. “What else?” he’d asked Chinook. “Come on, a few more details!”
    “They all look kind of the same at that age, Shade. I mean, they’re all sort of red and floppy-skinned and they don’t have any fur yet and, well, to be honest, they’re pretty