Today, let’s take a look at Wings of Fire book eight: Escaping Peril. Spoilers ahead!
Escaping Peril starts at Jade Mountain Academy. Peril is confined to her room because Queen Ruby is coming to collect Carnelian’s body. She runs into a SeaWing named Turtle, and they decide to eavesdrop on Ruby. As they are listening, Queen Scarlet arrives and throws a decapitated head at the Jade Mountain staff. Peril decides that the best thing to do is find and kill Queen Scarlet. She and Turtle fly to Possibility to locate Moon and Qibli. After Peril almost kills Winter -who is returning from the Ice Kingdom- and we find out that Turtle has animus magic, she leaves and runs into a SkyWing named Soar, who turns out to be her father, and also a RainWing named Chameleon. He leads Peril to Queen Scarlet and offers her an enchanted necklace that will take away her fire scales. She accepts it, and the three go to the Sky Palace to reclaim Queen Scarlet’s throne. Once they arrive, they capture Prince Cliff and waltz into the throne room without much trouble. Soon, Queen Ruby arrives and agrees to give up the throne in order to protect her son, Cliff. During this conversation, we also find out that Peril’s necklace not only takes away her firescales but also all her memories of Clay.
Peril and Chameleon are ordered to guard Cliff on a tall tower, assuming that the little dragon doesn’t know how to fly. Cliff, however, can fly and escapes and finds his mother, who was poorly imprisoned and is also able to escape. Queen Scarlet shows up, and Peril, now aware of the enchantment on her necklace, takes off said necklace and tries to kill Queen Scarlet. Ruby interjects and challenges her mother for the throne. The two SkyWings fight, and Peril realizes that Ruby is enchanted to lose the battle, so she burns off her earring. With the enchantment gone, Ruby is discovered to have been Tourmaline, Ruby’s sister, all along. Without the enchantment, Ruby/Tourmaline can win the fight and become the new queen of the SkyWings. Then Turtle also appears, planning to save Peril (who now doesn’t need saving). Chameleon turns Tourmaline back into Ruby and then escapes.
Peril and Turtle meet up with the rest of Jade Winglet, and they search for Chameleon. They find him and take away the scroll he uses to shapeshift and debate about what they should do with it. Moonwatcher reveals that the scroll belongs to Darkstalker, an ancient, legendary NightWing dragon. They decide to continue the discussion in the morning; however, when they wake up, Moon’s missing and has taken the scroll with her. Peril pursues Moon and eventually finds her. When the others eventually catch up, they argue over who should get the scroll. Peril decides to intervene and burn the scroll. She’s confident that she made the right decision until the ground starts violently shaking, and Darkstalker emerges from under a mountain. And that cliffhanger is where Escaping Peril ends.
Queen Scarlet is a very great villain. She is the primary antagonist in book one, The Dragonet Prophecy, where she imprisons the Dragonets of Destiny (although her actions aren’t entirely unjustified since the first thing Clay and Tsunami did when they met Queen Scarlet was attack her). She is terribly wounded as the Dragonets escape and is assumed to be dead. However, in The Hidden Kingdom, we learn that Scarlet is still alive. She doesn’t really do anything else in arc one besides appearing briefly in The Brightest Night. The ex-queen is the main villain for the first half of arc two, although her direct involvement in the story is limited until Escaping Peril. For about six books, she acts as more of a looming threat rather than an actively dangerous antagonist. In book eight, Escaping Peril, her story comes full circle as she takes back her throne, only to be defeated in a royal challenge shortly after.
Clay is an essential character in Escaping Peril and is pivotal to Peril’s character arc. At first, she does everything in an attempt to please Clay, always thinking about what he would want her to do. In fact, Peril’s attempts to make Clay like her were what caused the story to happen in the first place. Throughout the book, Peril must learn that she is her own dragon and doesn’t need a dragon like Queen Scarlet to tell her what to do.