The Lost Continent

The Lost Continent, the eleventh book in the Wings of Fire fantasy series, shifts the setting from the continent of Pyrrhia to a distant landmass called Pantala, home to its own dragon tribes and power structures.

A prologue set two thousand years before the main story follows Clearsight, a NightWing (a black-scaled dragon tribe native to Pyrrhia) who can see multiple possible futures. She flies across the ocean ahead of a hurricane and reaches Pantala in time to warn its inhabitants: two unfamiliar tribes, one with leaf-shaped wings and one with shimmering four-winged bodies. They evacuate inland, saving many lives. Clearsight resolves to stay permanently, far from Darkstalker, a dangerous dragon from her past whom she refuses to risk awakening.

Two thousand years later, a young dragonet named Blue, a member of the silk-spinning SilkWing tribe, lives in Cicada Hive. SilkWings are born wingless and undergo a Metamorphosis, spinning a cocoon and emerging five days later with wings and silk-spinning abilities. The HiveWings, the other surviving tribe, rule both tribes under Queen Wasp. A third tribe, the LeafWings, was supposedly wiped out fifty years earlier in the Tree Wars. Blue is deeply empathetic and values safety and order.

It is the Metamorphosis Day of Blue's older sister, Luna. Their blended household includes Burnet, Blue's mother, and Silverspot, Luna's mother. Neither sibling has met their father, Admiral, who was taken to another Hive after the eggs were laid. As Luna prepares, Silverspot hugs her with an expression of fear, as though she suspects she will never see her daughter again.

Blue and Luna spend the day navigating Cicada Hive's rigid hierarchy. Luna voices dangerous ideas about SilkWings deserving their own queen and the right to resist HiveWing authority. Throughout the day, her silk glands glow with unusual intensity, burning orange and gold.

At the Cocoon, the dome where SilkWings transform, Blue notices many armed HiveWing guards. Luna's boyfriend Swordtail, a bold SilkWing punished multiple times for defiance, arrives with his sister Io and Burnet. When Luna's silk emerges, it blazes like threads of lava. Swordtail identifies it as flamesilk, an extremely rare trait. Guards close in with weapons, and Swordtail leaps to fight them.

Io tells Blue that flamesilk is inherited and the HiveWings will imprison him next. She carries him through the Hive, mentioning a secret resistance group called the Chrysalis. Then every HiveWing freezes, eyes turning white. Queen Wasp has seized their minds, commanding them to capture Blue. Io flings Blue toward a HiveWing school on silk strands, and the two are forced to separate.

Cricket, a young HiveWing with gold-and-tangerine scales and spectacles, pulls Blue into a storage shed. She reveals she is immune to Queen Wasp's mind control, a secret she has hidden for six years. Blue's wristband injects him with an incapacitating toxin; Cricket breaks a light globe to extract the flamesilk thread inside and burns through the band. She reveals that flamesilk powers every lamp in every Hive. Cricket then locates records suggesting flamesilk is managed in Wasp Hive, their first clue to Luna's location.

Cricket disguises Blue's scales with paint. They find Swordtail frozen on Misbehaver's Way, a public display where criminals are paralyzed by nerve toxin. Cricket revives him with a heated stimulant that makes him hyperactive and enormously strong. He smashes through the Hive wall, carries Blue in a silk harness, and flies into the night with Cricket following.

At dawn, they descend into a sinkhole and discover an underground cave where a small, monkey-like creature sits reading a tiny book, evidence of an unknown literate species. After the stimulant wears off, they spend a day and night climbing out. On the second night, they reach a greenhouse near Wasp Hive sealed by the queen's order. Inside, three surviving LeafWings ambush them: Belladonna, the commanding leader; her partner Hemlock; and their fierce daughter Sundew, who carries pouches of biological weapons.

Belladonna offers a deal: She knows where the flamesilks are kept and will help rescue Luna if Blue's group first steals the Book of Clearsight, a sacred text that Queen Wasp claims guides her rule, from the Temple in Wasp Hive. Cricket secretly writes in the dirt: "PRETEND TO AGREE. ESCAPE LATER." They accept. Swordtail stays as hostage while Blue, Cricket, and a disguised Sundew infiltrate the Hive.

Inside the Temple of Clearsight, Sundew paralyzes the guards with blow darts. In the inner sanctum, the Librarian emerges with blank white eyes: Queen Wasp permanently controls her mind so no Librarian can reveal the Book's secrets. Speaking through the Librarian, the queen discovers Cricket's immunity and is enraged. During the struggle, Blue retrieves a fallen key and unlocks the Book's case. Sundew uses bullet ants, whose bite causes excruciating pain, to force Queen Wasp to release the Librarian. The freed Librarian agrees to help them escape.

Queen Wasp surrounds the temple with mind-controlled HiveWings. The group flees toward a skylight, but the queen retakes the Librarian's mind and slashes Blue's rope. Blue throws the Book up to Cricket before falling into the mass of HiveWings below. Cricket and Sundew escape with the Book.

Guards march Blue to a secret cavern beneath Wasp Hive, where ten adult flamesilk SilkWings produce silk into stone cauldrons under guard. Blue finds Luna's golden cocoon and, beside it, his father Admiral, who is warm but disturbingly complacent, viewing his lifelong imprisonment as an honor. Blue discovers a small hole in the cavern wall through which he feels open space.

Luna emerges from her cocoon with green-and-gold wings and is furious at their imprisonment. Blue's own wrists begin showing golden fire beneath his scales. At the hole, a talon squeezes his from the other side: Cricket, Swordtail, and Sundew have arrived through a LeafWing tunnel that connected to the cavern.

That night, Sundew forces roots through the crack to shove the stone apart. Admiral panics and shouts for guards, but Danaid, a friendly elderly flamesilk, provokes a massive argument among the others to drown out his warnings. Blue and Luna squeeze through and flee with their friends through the tunnels, emerging in a cave on a beach.

Cricket opens the Book of Clearsight. It contains a letter from Clearsight urging kindness and independent thinking. Her visions taper off after about two hundred years; her last entry warns to "take care of the trees." The remaining pages are blank. Queen Wasp's claim that the Book endorsed her rule has been a lie for over a millennium. Blue argues they should target Queen Wasp specifically, since ordinary HiveWings were also deceived.

Blue's Metamorphosis intensifies. Luna and Swordtail fly out to test her wings, but HiveWing hunters attack. Luna tries to defend Swordtail with flamesilk, but the wind catches the burning strands, and the storm blows her out to sea. Swordtail flies after her; both vanish into the clouds. Cricket guides the disoriented Blue into the caves as flamesilk pours from his wrists. He reflects that following unjust rules sustained a corrupt system and resolves to decide for himself what kind of dragon to be. He closes his eyes and lets the cocoon envelop him.

In an epilogue, Luna wakes on an unfamiliar beach. Jerboa, a Pyrrhian dragon with bat-shaped wings and a scorpion-like tail who knows Moon and Qibli, shelters her in a hut. There Luna meets Moon, a future-seeing dragon from Pyrrhia whose appearance resembles depictions of Clearsight, and Moon's companion Qibli. Moon reveals a vision brought her here. Luna realizes she has reached Pyrrhia, Clearsight's homeland, and asks for help returning, declaring that her tribe needs a dragon who can truly see the future to end Queen Wasp's reign.