Clay was always the biggest dragon compared to the other dragonets and because of clay being the biggest he was supposed to be the protector But he was the monster at least that's what they thought of him because of him trying to crack open the other eggs. They then learn the history of pyhira.
The dragonets get word of the talons of peace are planing for the dragonnets. they end up over hearing Dune one of the care takers of the dragonets opening the only entrance of the caves. which starts a spark of hope of escaping in their minds so thay brain storm Ideas without sunny knowing because sunny would try to stop them from escaping and try to think of another way to live life.
The dragonets are in a meeting with morowseer one of the creators of the dragonet prophecy which has imprisoned the dragonets lives under a mountain. But once the dragonets are done arguing with morowseer. The dragonets overhear the care takers talking about eliminate Glory because she shouldn't be apart of the prophecy because shes a rain wing not a skywing like the prophecy needs.Clay talks to star flight about what he was talking to morowseer about.The care takers plan to execute Glory because of morowwseers orders to execute her because shes not apart of the dragonet prophecy while clay is brainstorming a way to escape to get the other dragonets out and away from the care takers.
Clay has to go through this little hole in the river to get out of the caves to get to the outside and open the door. As clay went into the river banks all he saw was darkness nothing else except for a darker hole that that tsunami was talking about. It was smaller than the gap in the guardians hall as he was squeezing through the hole he could feel the sharp rocks scraping against his wings. As he reaches in to the darkness he finds a rock to grab onto to pull himself through the hole as he flys through losing his sense of direction. But now he follows the current out of the the cave system but as hes coming up from the water he then grabs up on a rock and then his wings get something sticky on them and and he feels sharp pains in his tendons and then he blacks out. He then wakes up with a gasp when water gets splashed on his face by Tsunami who was chained up when clay left but she was freed by sunnys and starflights fire combined to melt the chains off the wood she was chained up to. once they get to the shore Clay finds a puddle of mud so he puts his feet in it and the all the sudden he gets this sense of warmth and comfort so he decides to roll around in the mud as he does that he then feels like all of his injures went away, Tsunami then criticizes clay for rolling around in the mud and talk about how its weird that he loves the mud but then again he a mudwing so hes obviously gonna love mud. As their hanging out they hear crashing in the forest coming toward them. They were confused because it was not big enough to be a dragon so they were curious what this small creature could be.
Clay the protagonist of the story had to put his life on the line to save himself and his friends at least that's what he thought was going to happen. He ends up running into Queen scarlet of the sky kingdom with tsunami.
As Clay and Tsunami hed back to the bottom of the mountain where the other dragonets are waiting for Clay and Tsunami to open the cave door so they would be free from the care takers. But little did they know that they were being followed by queen Scarlet and her soldiers. When they open the door the dragonets come out of the cave. As their admiring the nature they get attaked by Queen Scarlet and her soldiers and then the caretakers come to help and they get out numbered exept for one of the care takers who ran to get help which leads to everyone else getting imprisoned.
He is on top of a “spire of rock,” wired to other prisoners on top of similar platforms some distance away. He is one of 100 prisoners, all looking over an arena. On the second day, a SkyWing dragon named Peril lands on his rock. She throws a charred piece of meat at him. His mind races to Dune's body and he vomits over the side of the rock. Clay says he is not hungry. Peril asks what he would like to eat, saying he is the first MudWing prisoner and that she is looking forward to killing him. She is happy she will possibly get to fight Starflight as well. Clay looks around and sees Starflight, too far away to communicate.
Clay was un latched from his chains and taken to see the Queen as he was getting dragged along to the Queen and on the way he saw that there were lots of skywings working some exchanging scrolls in midair others transporting buckets of water. One of the smaller skywings in the air carrying a bucket of water he then accedintley dropped the bucket of water and hit fell down to kestrels cell then she was covered in water, She then roared in fury of being covered in water, As all the workers laugh at kestrel. As the meeting of the dragonets and Queen Scarlet went on. Clay was dropped off in the arena with a Ice wing. Clay then tryed to sweet talk the ice wing but the ice wing immediately attackes with his frost breath causeing clays wing to be hit and soar clay then notices the ice wing charging up again to use his frost breathe again so clay breathes fire into the ice wings mouth causing him to be unable to use his frost breathe but then the icewing then pines clay to the ground. But all the sudden a liquid falls onto the ice wings face and he then yells in agonizing pain. Then the crowd goes wild and so does the Queen.
As Clay gets mud from Peril for his injuries Clay asks her if someone will be look for her she then responded with no saying that shes supposed to be in the mines collecting black rocks for herself. She then said for clay to spread his wings so Peril can hide under them so she wont be spotted by the Guards. All the sudden Kestrel was hauled into the ring nipping and hissing at the guards around her as chains were holding her down from whipping her tail at the guards or breathing fire. Clay then said that he hated Kestrel but hated to see her like that then Peril asks clay how do you know her, Clay then explains that she was one of the dragons that were taking care of the dragnets. As the Trail goes on Peril notices the mark on Kestrels face and realized that Kestrel is her mother she then dives down in a blaze of fury and then try's to defend her mother from being eliminated But instead of Kestrel getting punished Peril has to fight a draogn of the Queens choosing. As the night goes on Queen Scarlet takes the dragonets to perils room to stay imprisoned while Peril has to sleep in the arena. Queen scarlet and Queen Blaze then put coal at the entrance of the room and then set it on fire so the dragonets can't escape, with out burning them selfs at least. As the dragonets brainstorm a way to get out and save Glory and sunny. They then get a visit from peril who also brainstorms how to break out the dragonets. Then starflight suggests that peril could move the coal because her scales are fire so she then moves the coal making a path way for the dragonets. once they are out from the coal they then count on peril to find a way to break them out. But then peril gets worried that Clay Likes Glory and Sunny more than her but clay explains that he loves Glory and Sunny as sisters. Then peril leaves to look out for the Queen and any guards as they are waiting for peril to get back they look oustside and see a big birds cage and saw golden wings and they then realised that it was sunny in the bird cage sitting up there like another piece of treasure. Once peril opens the door to the room the dragonets rush out but then hear the chilling voice of Queen Scarlet saying not so fast.
Queen Scarlet was not pleased to find her coal wall was not moved, so she thinks that they figured out that mudwings hatched from a Blood red egg have fire proof scales she then orders the 10 most sober guards to stand posted at the hallway of the dragonets room. Tsunami then pulls Clay and Starflight over to talk about the legends of fire proof scales that Clay has. Tsunami then talks about how they cant trust Peril even though clay likes her they cant trust her.The next day they are woken up by dragons roaring and before they knew it guards came swarming in their cave multiple guards took tsunami down to the arena while the others got clay and Starflight to the Queen. Once Tsunami got to the arena they announced her competitor Gill who refused to fight months ago but they kept him away from water for months and once a Seawing is away from water for months they start going crazy Now Gill is going crazy and fights. As their battling the audience cant even keep up with the Seawings fighting because of how fast they are once they land a few scratches on each other Tsunami finds an opening to pin Gill to the ground and once she does she says to the Queen that shes pined him I won and then the Queen sat there with a mug face waiting for something and then all the sudden a few Skywings yelled at the same time saying snap his neck pull out his teeth and pull out his claws. As she put down her head and was breathing heavily she looked up and stared at the Queen and snapped Gills neck but imagining that it was the Queens neck broken.
In Chapter 26, Starflight was hauled down to the arena to fight Tsunami but of course they did not fight which displeased the Queen, so she got a cage of scavengers to fight the dragonets as the scavengers rush towards the dragonets Tsunami hits one away causing it to land in the bleachers of the arena where dragons pile on top of the scavenger to eat it,while the others team up on Tsunami one of the scavengers stabs Tsunami in the stomach with the silver blade it had. then Tsunami was chasing after the scavenger that stabbed her. As the other scavenger was trying to climb up Starflight then the scavenger climbed on to Starflight's face and all Clay could think about was if the Scavenger stabbed Starflight in the eye. Then starflight yells for Tsunami and she stops chasing the Scavenger that stabbed her and ran toward Starflight. Starflight then jerks his head wildly and then it flew off to a wall, as the other scavenger ran to help the other lean on the wall the scavengers look around the stadium full of dragons and then yelled out a screech, then Queen Burn told Queen scarlet that this is crazy and Queen scarlet said that this is not amusing so she calls in the Icewing prisoners, then Clay begs to go down to the arena to help the other Dragonets fight even though he knows that 3 Dragonets vs 8 Icewings wouldn't be good for them but he doesn't want to live knowing he could have done something about them dying. Then there seemed like a cloud had passed over the arena with the sound of wings flapping had all the dragons looking up to see shadows of dragons then clay recognized the shape of the the lead dragon, and he thought to himself Morrowseer had finally arrived.
In Chapter 27, Morrowseer announces he is taking Starflight. Clay, knowing Morrowseer can hear his thoughts, silently pleads for help. Scarlet demands to see Starflight fight. Without any visible sign from Morrowseer, the other dragons fall to the ground, killing all the IceWings. Clay cannot understand why the NightWings killed the dragons instead of freeing them. He adjusts his thoughts, thanking Morrowseer. Starflight says they have to take the other dragonets but Morrowseer simply flies away with Starflight. Scarlet is furious and pits Clay against Peril.
Peril and clay are forced to fight eachother for the life of Kestrel to be spared. When clay turned to face peril coming out of the tunnel Peril had every emotion in her face all at once "Of course she pairs me up to the only dragon who can touch me" peril mutters. She then slides towards him and then he runs to the opposite wall she hesitates but she chases after him, and once shes a heartbeat away from clay he turns back and body slams her as the crowd gasp's and as Perils in shock he runs away again from peril. Clay is then crouched against a wall waiting for peril to get up. As she starts pacing towards clay she says that she had a plan to save Kestrel and then Clay but then Clay says that all he wants is for her to save his friends but then Peril gets mad and says "BUT I'M YOUR FRIEND!" and then she leaps towards clay, then clay redirected Peril into the wall. By the time Peril was up on her feet Clay was on the other side of the arena. Peril then rose up to the sky in fury and she yelled at Clay saying "ANY DRAGON CAN HAVE ANYONE ELSE BUT I JUST WANT YOU!". She then dove down to him in fury then clay grabbed a handful of dirt and threw the dirt at perils face to where she did not know where to go then clay jumped up to Perils shoulders and threw her down to the ground he then rolled over to sit on her. Queen Scarlet then said use your venom and then Clay and peril looked at each other and thought if it wasn't Queen scarlet than who is it? Then Glory broke through her chains and jumped from the silicone tree with her mouth open like a snake then a jet black liquid came out of her fangs at Queen burn but she pulled Queen scarlet in front of herself so she did not get attacked. Then all the guards rush to the Queen and fly her out of the stadium. Then Peril burns the locks on Clay's wings then they take off to free the others and burn their chains. they then get to sunny and burn the lock off of sunny's cage, they then get to Kestrels cell and once they unlock her its kind of awkward due to the history of the dragonets and Kestrel and the fact that she left peril behind when she was a child. As they go their seperate ways clay says when the war is over that Peril should come visit the dragonets.
On Clays way back from hunting he realizes how hard it was on the caretakers to teach them how to hunt when ever they'd let the prey get passed them in the caves. As clay is pulling a big boar back to the others then out of nowhere sunny pops out to help Clay pull the boar back to the others once they get there Clay saw that Tsunami caught some fish and Glory was eating fruit, then he was looking for Starflight but then remembered that hes with Morowseer. Then they talk about which Queen is the best to choose but they only know enough about Burn and that she's a Brute and would only want this war to keep going. They then decide to go meet clay's family but only Clay and Glory could go because Glory can change her colors to mud wing colors and because the others are rivals of The Mudwings Queen. As Clay and Glory leave to find Clay's family they see dead body's of Mudwings and Icewings they fly over more to get a Closer look and they then notice it was a battle field from a recent battle. Glory and Clay then talk to a Mudwing who goes by Cattail and they then talk to her about how Clay may be her son and at first she wasn't phased until she recognized that he was from a blood red egg, she said that she sold the egg to the talons of peace for cows that they were supposed to farm but instead ate.
Clay's first thought is to run away, but Glory says that will make them seem guilty. They face five dragonets, all smaller than Clay. Clay and the smallest had briefly locked eyes in the village. The smallest, Umber, now asks if they know what happened to the blood-red egg. The biggest of the group introduces himself as Reed, and introduces Sora, Pheasant, and Marsh. Reed asks if either Clay or Glory is “our missing sib” . Clay realizes he means sibling. Reed and the others decide Clay is their nestmate. Pheasant points out that Clay's size identifies him as “our bigwings,” meaning leader. Reed currently holds that position for the group. As they keep talking the "sibs" ask him if hed like to join them in battle along with the other mudwings in the kingdom, But he says no because he's already with the dragonets as their big wings. Once they fly back to the other dragonets they see that Starfight is back. They tell them what happened and that nothing can seperate them all.
Morrowseer takes Kestrel up to a mountain where when she asked why she was up there, the wind threw away her words and Morrowseer ignored her anyways. Then she saw Queen Blister and knew that it was a meeting they then were talking about the dragonets and then she said that the dragonets did not need her anymore. But Queen Blister used those words against her by agreeing that the dragonets didn't need her and while saying that she stabs Kestrel with her poisonous barb through her heart and pushed the body off the edge. Queen Blister then talks to Morrowseer and makes a deal that he will insure that Queen Blister gets chosen to be Queen of the sandwings.