Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
FOX
F or a second, Fox thought she’d fainted, though from what, he wasn’t sure. As he twisted her around to look at her face, he saw the glazed look in her eyes and heard the shallow wheeze of her breaths. She gave a weak cough closer to a gasp and sucked in air even as her faced turned gray.
“What?” He helped her to sit against the cave wall as she grabbed at her chest. He was happy the stone was at least dry, despite the cave smelling of damp moss and stone. “Is it poison? Are you choking?”
“My lungs. Can’t?—”
The words were a whisper—a wheeze—and he pressed a hand against her chest, feeling the struggle beneath his palm. For a moment, pure panic flared through him. He couldn’t afford for her to die. Not yet. He pressed her hand against his own chest, taking an exaggerated breath. He was moving off pure instinct.
“Follow my breaths.”
Her hands were still stained with blood, the not quite dry flakes leaving an imprint on his chest as she did what he asked. He watched her chest attempting to fall into time with his own, the breaths still shallow, but the wheezing seemed to lessen with each passing minute. He watched her lips, the blue tint receding, their usual rose hue slowly returning, visible even in the shadowy cave.
They sat like that, hands against chests until he was sure her breaths, while pained, were full. It was only when her lips were a deep rose and her cheeks flushed with blood that he recognized he was still holding his hand against her chest. And he could feel more than just her lungs expanding beneath his palm. He could feel the heat of her skin and the soft give of her chest. Their faces were mere inches apart as he watched her own eyes flicker down to their hands pressed against each other.
He pulled his hand back and she did the same without comment, neither meeting the other’s eyes.
“Do you need anything?”
She shook her head, the movements slow and pained. “Nothing you could do.”
It felt like a pointed jab, but she wasn’t looking at him and he didn’t have the energy to argue. Happy to know she wasn’t going to die in the next five minutes, he finally let himself collapse on the cavern floor. It was cold against his aching muscles and he pressed his hand against his side feeling a wetness that told him the man—the shifter—hadn’t missed his mark when he’d clawed Fox. It was difficult to see in the shadows, but he lifted his hand and saw a dark smudge coating his fingers.
“You’re hurt,” Sofia said.
“Don’t sound so gleeful.”
“We should find somewhere to wash it and dress it before the sun sets. I have a few of my own.”
He grunted in agreement. He didn’t want to think about how dirty that man’s claws were. Reluctant to see the damage, he lifted his tunic slowly and twisted so he could see his side in the thin strip of light bleeding in through the crevice.
The cuts weren’t as deep as he feared. They would likely scar, but they wouldn’t need stitches, which he was all too happy for. He didn’t want to know what Dragonborn considered first aid out here in the middle of the forest.
“We should head out,” Sofia said.
Fox was surprised to see her pushing herself up. Her skin still had a gray tint to it, but perhaps that was the lighting. He didn’t argue, letting his tunic drop and standing despite his body’s protests.
Squeezing back out through the rocks was easier, but Fox was careful to avoid the body of the wolf—the shapeshifter. This time, there was no pretending he hadn’t seen what he’d seen. But just because a few of the myths from the old Dragonborn tales were real didn’t mean anything. It didn’t mean that the dragons were alive or had ever been gods.
Though his father had refused to suffer faerytales in his house, he’d read them the histories of Wueco. The great king had seen the creatures of the forest for what they were—a plague on the humans that needed to be cured. The wall had been built to protect them from those things that had refused to be tamed. The truth of the creatures may have faded into myth over time, but the great king had truly protected the humans from the dark that could have killed them all. Nothing good came from this place.
“You’re going the wrong way.”
Sofia’s voice broke him from his thoughts and he saw she was walking left, between two particularly thick trees choked with vines. He muttered a curse, but followed her, unhappy as the sharp thorns on the vine pricked at his tunic and scraped against his side, aggravating his wound.
“What else lives out here?”
She didn’t answer immediately and he looked up from where he was focused on not tripping to see her staring at him with something akin to hatred.
“Making a list so you can bring your fellow murderers out here to destroy more of the land?”
“You can’t possibly have empathy for these blood-sucking faeries and murderous man-wolves? Why is everything in this rainforest so fixated on killing humans?”
“Because certain humans spent centuries hunting them and murdering them for daring to exist in the land that created them.”
“It’s normal to kill the things that threaten us. As normal as hunting to eat.”
“They’re threatening us because we’re in their territory. Because for the past five centuries, we’ve been locked behind a wall and allowed the chaos to thrive. Because not even the dragons are here anymore to create the balance they were made for.”
“Then I’m all too glad to be behind the wall. If you and your people are so desperate to leave Suvi, we should let you. You can die out here trying to find balance and be one with this evil shithole.”
“Do you ever wonder why your king doesn’t do just that? Let us go free into the rainforest?”
“He’s your king, too,” he muttered, but she ignored the comment.
“Because he knows that if we were allowed back in our native land, we would thrive. Because our existence threatens his claim as the true god. If we thrive without him, then what claim does he have to rule over any of us?”
Fox felt his face flushed red with anger. He wasn’t as devoted as some to the belief that the king was a god, but to speak such things out loud was blasphemy—the kind that he usually arrested and executed people for.
“You forget who I am,” he said.
She whirled on him, stepping in close even as it forced her to tilt her chin up at him. “And who are you? The spoiled brat son of the general? The chief commander’s favorite little killer? The soldier not even important enough to give up a few Dragonborn prisoners to save? Tell me, Ocon , who am I supposed to think you are?”
“They didn’t trade me because they knew they wouldn’t need to,” he said, spitting the words even as the band around his chest tightened. “And they were right. I escaped and your traitor friends were still executed. I call it a win-win.”
He didn’t see her move until her fist was already flying toward his face. He had only a second to dodge to the side, grabbing her wrist. Before he could further subdue her, she twisted, kneeing him hard in the groin. He bent in half with a groan. In all the fights he’d been in, it was the first someone had been dirty enough to aim there.
“Bitch!”
She pulled back her fist, but he grabbed her by the waist and toppled them both over before she had the chance. He straddled her, pressing her wrists into the hard ground as she continued to flail, hips bucking as if to throw him off. Fox gave a grunt as he held her down.
Her face was flushed red and her eyes burned with such intensity he thought they might catch fire.
“Afraid to fight me like a man?” she seethed.
“You’re the one fighting dirty,” he said, pressing her harder into the soil.
“Dirty wins.”
She bucked beneath him and the friction of her body against his sent a thrill of electricity through him. He froze, suddenly aware of their positions. The last time he’d had a woman laid out beneath him like this, the circumstances had been much different. Though looking down at her with her face flushed and lips wet, he needed to remind himself of that fact. Heat crawled up his neck and he couldn’t draw his eyes away from where her lips stretched over bared teeth.
Unaware of his dilemma, Sofia continued to twist and fight beneath him, her hips shifting against him in rhythm.
“Stop moving!” he seethed, even as she went rigid beneath him. His body was thrumming, with anger and something more, and he knew she now felt his reaction to her. It was pressed against her hip and impossible to ignore. She went limp beneath him and he immediately let her go, pushing himself up.
He turned, straightening his clothes and adjusting himself, trying his best to suppress the red creeping up his neck. She brushed the dirt off herself and combed the leaves from her tangled curls before turning back to him.
“Don’t touch me again,” she said, sneering as she looked down at his crotch.
“That didn’t mean anything. It was a natural reaction.”
“I know how cocks work.”
“Why are you so crass?”
She gave a sharp laugh. “You don’t like me saying cock?”
The heat rose in his face and her smirk deepened.
“C..o..c..k…” she said, slowly enunciating each sound.
“Bitch,” he said, copying her tone with a smile. He ignored the snarl that rose from her throat, stepping closer to her. “Don’t hit me again.”
“Fine.” She didn’t meet his eyes.
He opened his mouth, not sure what he was even going to say, but she didn’t give him the chance. She turned and stormed away, not bothering to wait for him to follow. He was tempted not to. He wouldn’t have to deal with her constant verbal sparring or what his body’s reaction meant. He wouldn’t have to remember the feel of her body writhing underneath him. But it would be a pointless act of suicide to allow himself to be left out here alone—at least until they found water and he could get his brain working again. He had a weapon now and knew a vague direction he needed to go. If he could figure out his water situation, he could easily survive a few days alone in the rainforest as he made his way back to the city. He wouldn’t have her, but he’d have the information for the chief commander.
He was still trying to weigh his options, when he saw Sofia, who was walking a few yards ahead of him, vanish without warning. He stopped, staring at where she had just been, as if she might reappear at any moment, her disappearance another nasty trick of the rainforest. Was this some new faery magic he’d never heard of? But in the same moment he thought that, he heard the splash of water echoing from somewhere beneath him.
With more care than he thought possible given his dehydrated and exhausted state, he inched forward, checking his weight on the ground with each step. If Sofia had missed the hole in the earth, he’d likely not fare any better. Once he made it to where she’d disappeared, he saw a small tear in the vines and bushes that crowded across the forest floor and hid the small cenote opening from view.
The ground beneath his feet was unsteady and he carefully moved onto his stomach to yell down into the opening.
“Are you okay?”
There was a splash before he heard an answering splutter.
“I think so, yes.”
He leaned back, content to know she was at least breathing. As much as he wanted to simply walk away, the splashing of water beneath him made his jaw ache with need. But he also didn’t want to take the same way down.
“Is the water fresh?” he said as he ripped the vines away, careful to keep his feet on solid ground.
“Gods, yes!” she said after a delay that only made his thirst louder. He could almost imagine the cold, fresh water rushing down her throat which each swallow.
Once he’d ripped more of the vines away, he was able to see that the opening she’d fallen into was only a few feet across at its widest and there was no option for getting down without jumping. The hole itself was at the top of a large cavernous ceiling stretching above an emerald lake.
Even as he mentally prepared himself to jump down, he realized that the lake was sparkling with sunlight—too much sunlight given the small hole. He stood up, looking farther in the distance and trying to see the ground ahead, but the thick underbrush was impossible to read.
“I’m going to find the other opening,” he called down, trying to see where she was splashing below.
“Farther up. You won’t miss it.”
He kept his footsteps careful, all too aware that another crevice could appear and it was only luck that would send him into the lake below and not the ground beside it.
A few minutes of searching later, he saw the telltale sign of the trees dipping down, and the ground gave way to a much larger cenote opening. Here, the walls of the cavern below butted up against the opening, allowing for a precarious path down to the lake.
He moved around the cenote from above, tracing the best path down with his eyes. He wasn’t keen on climbing down, but it was a safer option than jumping. The closer he looked, the more he realized this wasn’t just a simple cliff. Somewhere beneath the yellowing vines and the damp earth, he could make out the occasional stone step carved into the side of the cenote, moving down in a large spiral.
“Can you hear me?” he asked, no longer able to see where she was in the cavern.
“Yes,” she said, sounding farther away.
“I’m going to try and climb down.”
“Just jump!”
“No, thank you.”
“I didn’t realize king’s men were such babies.” The words were muttered, yet he heard them clearly, as if the echo had wanted to ensure he caught her snark.
He gave a small growl, looking over the edge of the wall once more. Fine .
He jumped.
The water was surprisingly warm when he hit it, a gasp escaping his lips at the sudden impact. He choked on water, pulled between wanting to drink it immediately and knowing he needed to breathe. In the confusion and desperation, he did both, breathing in a lungful of water before coughing it back up.
Then Sofia was there beside him in the water, dragging him to shore.
“Gods help us, are you trying to kill yourself? Do you not know how to swim?”
He doubled over, coughing up another mouthful of water as he tried to reply.
“I know—how—to swim.” He managed to press out the words between hacking coughs. Sofia smacked him along his back a few times and he almost thanked her, but she was probably only happy to have an excuse to hit him.
“I’m good. I’m okay,” he said as the air started moving through his lungs again.
“Thank the gods,” Sofia said with a tone of sarcasm, as if she hadn’t been the one to help drag him out. She was standing before he could respond, taking in their surroundings, and his own eyes followed.
The afternoon sun was slanted, lighting the cavern in contrasted stripes of shadow and light. He had been impressed with the cenote that the resistance had thrown him into, with its cavernous ceiling and twisting tunnels. He now saw that their base was nothing but a haphazard campsite.
The cavern stretched out much farther than the opening above, to the left and right, large and intricately carved columns holding up the ceiling above. They were brown and gray, but he saw the occasional remnants of paint along the grooves. The floors themselves, while dirt and stone along the edge of the lake, transitioned into painted tiles farther on, and lanterns hung from chains on the ceiling, their painted glass rivaling the rainforest’s most colorful flowers. They hung dark and limp, but waiting to be lit once more.
This wasn’t just a hole in the ground or a hovel to hide in. It was an entire building carved and cherished, stretched out in secret beneath the forest.
It was also a dying thing, the earth around it slowly laying claim to what humans had created. Although Fox saw the intricate lines of the flowers and patterns painted along the floors, roots and vines broke between the tiles, leaving many of them cracked or obscured. A few of the lanterns had fallen, glass shattering onto the ground below and leaving a mosaic of color behind. Most disturbingly, one or two of the columns were beginning to crumble. He wondered if this was why the hole that Sofia had fallen through was beginning to open up in the ground above.
“Did you know this place existed? Is this another resistance base?” he asked, even though a part of him already knew the answer. Everything looked too old yet too beautiful.
“I often fall into holes I know are there,” she said, rolling her eyes. “This must be an abandoned settlement, from before the tribal war.”
He saw her out of the corner of his eye. She was looking around with just as much awe as he was, her eyes turning bright with unshed tears. He looked away, knowing she wouldn’t want him to see, and stood instead. His fingers brushed the dirt and leaves away from one of the tiles along the floor, the color of the paint still shining in the sunlight from above.
Despite the occasional Dragonborn book he’d snuck out of his father’s study and read, he’d never expected their homes to look like this . The Dereyan history books talked about the king bringing farming, saltwater purification, and commerce to the land. The first kings tamed the monsters that sent the Dragonborn underground and taught them how to make a city and build lives together. The books only talked of Wueco before the kings as a wild and lawless place where the people worshipped and feared the monsters in turn.
He felt half in a trance as he made his way along the edge of the lake and toward the main portion of the cavern where the columns stood and the lanterns swayed in the breeze.
“Is your flint dry?” he asked, looking up and seeing the dirty remnants of a candle sitting inside the closest lantern.
She didn’t answer immediately but instead dug through her bag. It was oiled leather, but she’d fallen directly into the lake. Still, when she pulled the small stone out from her pack, he saw the look of satisfaction on her face. He held out his hand, but she simply walked past him to stand under the lantern herself. To his satisfaction, she was a few inches too short to reach the candle.
“Do you need help?” he asked, amusement tinging his tone.
She didn’t reply for a moment, as if she were contemplating a heretofore unknown ability to fly.
“Can you hand me the candle?”
“I can light it.”
“Do you know how the use a flint?”
“You hit it and it lights,” he said.
She held out her hand to him and stared in silence. After a moment, he gave in and reached up to hand her the candle inside. It was caked with dirt and dust, but not as much as one might assume. He imagined it was mostly protected in its small glass cage.
She lit it and handed it back before he slipped it into place. They did this to the next three lanterns they found with candles in good enough shape to light, wiping away the dirt that caked the glass as best as possible. With each one, the cavern brightened, shadows melting away to show the spaces that had been hidden. The walls of the cavern were painted with murals of blue, black, and white dragons, scales and feathers almost gleaming wet with the details of the paint. And beyond those walls stretched hallways in nearly every direction, dropping off into shadow. The large room, with its emerald lake and intricate artwork, was only the beginning of the ancient complex, and for a moment, Fox glimpsed the glory of the Dragonborn before the first king had been born. With all their myths and stories of magic, the reality of this couldn’t be denied.
And for the first time in many cycles, a seed of doubt bloomed in his chest. If their histories had neglected the architectural beauty of the Dragonborn’s cenotes, what else might be lost in the records they were taught?