The fourth Wings of Fire book is Wings of Fire: The Dark Secret (young adult fantasy, 295 pages) by Tui T. Sutherland.

“The mysterious NightWings keep everything hidden, from their home and their queen to their allegiance in the war. Now they’ve kidnapped their own dragonet of destiny, and Starflight is finally meeting the rest of his tribe – whether he wants to or not. The NightWings have also kidnapped several innocent RainWings, now trapped in teh dark, barren, miserable place that is the NightWing kingdom. Starflight wants to help the RainWings, but he’s busy saving his own scales and trying to find a way back to his friends. The fate of two kingdoms rests in his talons, and with no one to save him, Starflight will have to find a way to be brave … before it’s too late.”

I’m going to be honest – until this book, Starflight was not my favorite character. He still isn’t, but the neat part about having every book from the perspective of a different dragonet is how much broader an understanding of each character is provided within each story. From my perspective, Starflight hasn’t been a particularly useful dragonet of destiny before this book. The good news is he doesn’t complain much but the bad news is he doesn’t really do much, either.

With the Dark Secret, Starflight is shown to be a fairly relatable character, as he often just doesn’t know what actions he could take that would actually benefit the situation. He’s not much of a fighter because he doesn’t want to hurt anyone and would much rather spend all his days studying and learning so he can provide knowledge to his friends when they need it.

Spending more time with the alternate dragonets of prophecy was also a very eye-opening experience for Starflight, as I think it really demonstrates to him that he and his friends are definitely not safe and can be replaced at any time and there truly is a plan to replace him and all his friends.

And then there’s the whole part about how he meets his father and finds out his father is responsible for kidnapping and torturing the RainWings and Starflight really doesn’t know what to do about that, as he is young and powerless.

I think this book is a really good example of learning how you can take even small steps that turn into big steps to do the right thing, even if your first small steps to those bigger steps are behaving in a way people you admire behave. In fact, that’s one of the best examples of surrounding yourself with friends who are different than you, with different strengths and weaknesses. He imagines what his friends would do if they were faced with the same situations and it helps him to make decisions and move forward.

Overall, this book is probably one of the more depressing ones in this series, as it shows how really crappy environmental conditions to lead to a lot of really bad group decision-making. I think it’s more a low three on my rating scale, but I’m still glad I bought it and will continue to reread it in the future.

Sutherland, Tui T. The Wings of Fire: The Dark Secret. Scholastic Press, 2013.