The Hidden Kingdom (book)

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The Hidden Kingdom is the third book of the first arc in the New York Times bestselling series Wings of Fire. It features Glory as the main protagonist. The book was published on May 28th, 2013.

The Hidden Kingdom is preceded by The Lost Heir and is followed by The Dark Secret.

Summary

Deep in the rainforest, danger awaits...

Glory knows the dragon world is wrong about her tribe. After all, she isn't "as lazy as a RainWing" — she isn't lazy at all! Maybe she wasn't meant to be one of the dragonets of destiny, as the older dragons constantly remind her, but Glory is sharp and her venom is deadly... except, of course, no one knows it.

When the dragonets seek shelter in the rainforest, Glory is devastated to find that the treetops are full of RainWings that no dragon could ever call dangerous. They nap all day and know nothing of the rest of Pyrrhia. Worst of all, they don't realize — or care — that RainWings are going missing from their beautiful forest. But Glory and the dragonets are determined to find the missing dragons, even if it drags the peaceful RainWing kingdom where they never wanted to be — in the middle of the war.

Quote on back of hardcover

Clay jumped up and clawed at his neck as well. Starflight's eyes went wide, and then he threw himself to the ground and rolled under the nearest low-hanging bush with his wings over his head.

"What in the world are you —" Glory started, ducking to look at him. She heard a soft buzz as something whizzed by her ear, followed by a tiny thunk as it hit the tree behind her.

She spun around and saw Clay disappear right in front of her. It was as if the forest reached out leafy arms, quietly wrapped him up, and bundled him away. One moment he was there, blinking dizzily, and then he was gone. A heartbeat later so was Tsunami.

Aha, Glory thought.

Dedication

For Elliot, born in a wonderful Year of the Dragon, like these books.

Plot

Prologue

The prologue began with the False dragonets of destiny: Squid the SeaWing, Flame the SkyWing, Fatespeaker the NightWing, Ochre the MudWing, and Viper the SandWing. Nautilus and Morrowseer conversed, ending with Morrowseer deciding to train the dragonets personally, disapproving of what the Talons of Peace had done so far, and telling Nautilus that he would make sure the prophecy was fulfilled "the way it was supposed to be."

Part One: Rainforest Monsters

The dragonets and Webs were traveling through the borders of the Rainforest Kingdom. They heard two MudWings talking about a Rainforest Monster. Before they had left the Mud Kingdom, they came across two MudWings who were patrolling the border, and soon after found the MudWings' dead bodies. As they progressed into the rainforest, Starflight noticed that Sunny was missing. One by one each dragon went missing until Starflight hid and Glory dodged something that turned out to be a tranquilizing dart. Glory ordered the hidden dragons to show themselves. The mystery dragons turned out to be RainWings. Glory met the two of them, Liana and Jambu, who offered to take them to the RainWing village.

While her friends were unconscious from the darts, Glory took her first sun time nap in the rainforest. When she woke up, she felt better and her scales were brighter. She found a sloth lying on her back, which she eventually named Silver. Jambu then showed her the village, where, through a venom test, Glory discovered she and Jambu were related. She also learned that RainWings did not organize their eggs, and that they did not use their venom on any other living being. They returned to find their friends waking and they went to go meet Magnificent. While waiting in line, she met Mangrove, a grumpy RainWing, who mentioned that his partner, Orchid, was missing along with at least twelve other RainWings. Bromeliad, a venom trainer, mentioned that a dragonet named Kinkajou had also gone missing. Glory suggested that they go to the queen together since they were both there about missing dragons. When Mangrove, Bromeliad, and Glory saw Queen Magnificent, Glory suggested someone investigatem Mangrove said Glory should find the missing RainWings, and Queen Magnificent agreed. When Mangrove and Bromeliad left, Tsunami, Starflight, Clay, Webs, and Sunny came in and asked them to help Webs, which Queen Magnificent was reluctant about. After some prompting from Sunny, the queen directed them to the RainWing healers.

After they left the queen's treehouse, Tsunami, Webs, and Sunny headed off to the healer's hut, and Starflight and Clay joined Glory as she set out to find the missing RainWings. They spoke to Mangrove, and he led them to a giant fallen tree. Glory picked up a bad scent and asked Starflight if he could identify it since he had a stronger sense of smell. They found a dying sloth by a stream, which Clay put out of its misery. Glory looked around and discovered an animus-made tunnel to the Kingdom of Sand in a boulder. Starflight and Mangrove returned to the village while Glory and Clay stayed to watch the tunnel overnight. While they watched, something came by, ate the sloth, and disappeared. In the morning, Sunny, Tsunami, Starflight, and Jambu arrived, and they discussed what to do about the tunnel. They settled on Glory and Clay going in with vines. When they went through, they found themselves in the Kingdom of Sand, within sight of Princess Burn's stronghold.

Part Two: Sand, Ice, and Smoke

Glory and Clay took a look around from the mouth of the tunnel's end in the Kingdom of Sand before returning to the rainforest. The dragonets and Jambu talked over the missing RainWings and the tunnel. Mangrove dashed out of the trees and into the tunnel, flying off to the Ice Kingdom to try and find Orchid. Glory put her sloth, Silver, on a nearby tree and, with the rest of the group, ran after Mangrove to the Ice Kingdom.

After flying for the rest of the day, they settled down for the night in rocky terrain. In the morning, Glory flew ahead and saw Princess Blaze's fortress, before spotting a NightWing assassin named Deathbringer settling down. Using an IceWing disguise based on Fjord, she questioned him on what he was doing out in the Ice Kingdom. He responded that he was waiting for a few dragons and told her that he was on a secret mission. After he left, Glory flew back to her friends. Glory and Jambu, disguised as IceWings, went to meet Blaze in her fortress, managing to locate and retrieve a camoflauged Mangrove. They brought Blaze to meet the other dragonets, where she explained that SandWing venom could be counteracted by the juice of a brightsting cactus commonly found in the sand kingdom. Deathbringer attempted to assassinate her in order to avoid having to kill Glory. Blaze's neck was cut by one of two discs, and Tsunami's wing got cut when she shielded Blaze. When they heard IceWings coming, Glory attacked Deathbringer and took his weapons, using one to cut him in the neck. Glory gave him the choice to either fly away or stay and be imprisoned by the IceWings, and he chose to fly away. In fear of getting imprisoned again, the dragonets left, with Blaze's neck bandaged. On the way, Sunny picked up the cactus needed to heal Webs.

When the group returned to the rainforest, Mangrove explained that he had searched Blaze's fortress and had been unable to find Orchid. Glory decided to watch the entrance to the tunnel to see what would came out, enlisting Tsunami's help as the SeaWing could see in the dark. The two dragonets heard whistling coming from the hole, and attacked the dragon that appeared. Glory recognized him as Deathbringer, and after tying him up with vines, sent Tsunami off to inform the others. Alone with Deathbringer, Glory revealed her plan to use herself as bait for whatever was kidnapping the RainWings. Soon after Clay arrived to watch Deathbringer, Glory wandered off and was knocked unconscious. She was taken through another tunnel to the NightWing island, where her snout was bound to prevent her from using her venom. She was woken by Kinkajou, the only RainWing without a gag due to her weak venom, who revealed that the NightWings were taking RainWings to experiment on them. When the NightWings took off her mouth bindings to feed her, she attacked them, and, with Kinkajou's help, took them down. Deathbringer and Clay arrived to rescue Glory, and carried the two RainWings to the tunnel where they fought their way through. Glory informed Magnificent about what she had discovered, but the queen refused to take action, leading Glory to challenge her for the throne.

Part Three: A Throne in the Treetops

An elderly dragon named Handsome told them about a system of that would pick a queen without killing, where there were competitions for the throne. Magnificent agreed to this challenge, and demanded a day to decide on the competition. Glory gave a rousing speech about the missing RainWings to the dragons present, and then rejoined Starflight and Sunny, who were watching over Webs. The cactus Sunny brought from the Sand Kingdom appeared to be healing him. Glory met up with Kinkajou and Mangrove and started preparing for the contest. She memorized and tasted fruits before the RainWings insisted that she had sun time. During her nap, Scarlet visited Glory using a dreamvisitor. Scarlet asked for Glory to rescue her, but Glory refused and woke up from her dream.

In the Arboretum, Magnificent and Glory each assembled their teams. Magnificent's team consisted of all five RainWing queens. Glory, realizing that Magnificent was baiting her into choosing the other dragonets of destiny, chose an all-RainWing team. Jambu and Exquisite competed in the tree gliding and Exquisite cheated by using her sloths to snag him in a vine, nearly strangling him. Tamarin, a blind RainWing, and Fruit Bat competed in the flower finding hunt. Tamarin won by finding the winning flower with her extremely good sense of smell. Glory and Magnificent competed in a camouflage contest, and Glory lost because Silver gave her away. Mangrove and Dazzling competed in a fruit scavenger hunt, and even though Dazzling cheated, Mangrove won by one point. The last contest was between Queen Grandeur and Kinkajou in venom shooting.

In the distance part of the competition, Kinkajou lost, but during the targeting part, Grandeur accidentally shot at a sloth. Kinkajou managed to shield it, meaning the venom hit her wing instead. Glory panicked and tested her venom on Grandeur's, discovering that her venom counteracted the queen's. Grandeur, the original queen, realized Glory was the rightful queen and forfeited, making Glory the queen of the RainWings. In the midst of the celebrations, Clay crashed in and reported that Starflight had left, and may have warned the NightWings that the RainWings would attack.

Epilogue

Fatespeaker and the false dragonets were upset at being kept in the Night Kingdom, lamenting the darkness, lack of food and bad temper of the dragons around them. Fatespeaker prophecized the arrival of a walrus for them to eat, but the other dragonets rudely dismissed her. Choosing to ignore them, Fatespeaker turned and spotted some NightWings carrying an unconscious dragonet (Starflight) to the fortress. Despite not knowing who he was, she had a feeling he was important to her destiny.

Special Edition

A special edition of The Hidden Kingdom was released on October 7th, 2025. It includes a never-before-seen cover sketch, a sketch of the early RainWing design, and a Q&A with Tui.

Mistakes

• It is stated that "five forked tongues hissed with fury" even though Flame, Ochre, and Squid should not have forked tongues.
• It was stated that "Unlike her sisters [Blister] had no scars." However, Blaze had unscathed scales as well.
• Glory uses a leaf to hold the venom, but since RainWing venom can dissolve organic things, the leaf should have dissolved.

Gallery

Click here to see the cover gallery.

International Releases

• German: Wings of Fire. Das bedrohte Königreich (July 2015)
• Chinese: 火翼飞龙. 破译葛萝瑞的龙血之谜 (July 2015)
• French: Les Royaumes de Feu. Au cœur de la jungle (September 2015)
• Polish: Skrzydła ognia. Ukryte królestwo (June 2016)
• Turkish: Ateşten Kanatlar. Gizli Krallık (November 2016)
• Spanish: Alas de Fuego. El Reino Escondido (April 2017)
• Italian: I Regni del Fuoco. Nel Cuore Della Foresta (April 2017)
• Russian: Драконья сага. Скрытое королевство (May 2017)
• Brazilian Portuguese: Asas de Fogo. O Reino Escondido (July 2018)
• Czech: Ohnivá křídla. Skryté království (November 2018)
• Serbian: Na krilima vatre. Skriveno kraljevstvo (2019)
• Persian: قلمروی پنهان .بالهای آتشین
• Ukrainian: Крила Вогню. Таємне королівство (December 2020)
• Korean: 불의 날개와 비밀의 왕국 (November 2021)
• Hungarian: Tűz Szárnyak. A rejtett királyság (December 2021)
• Finnish: Tulisiivet. Kätketty valtakunta (February 2022)
• Dutch: Vleugels Van Vuur. Het verborgen rijk (September 2022)
• Japanese: かくされた王国: 雨の翼のグローリー (March 2025)

References

cs:Kniha 3: Skryté Království de:Das bedrohte Königreich es:El Reino Escondido (libro) fi:Kätketty valtakunta fr:Au Cœur de la Jungle (Livre) ko:불의 날개와 비밀의 왕국 nl:Het verborgen rijk pl:Skrzydła Ognia: Ukryte Królestwo ru:Скрытое королевство uk:Темний секрет