Sofia
SOFIA
AGE 14
Gods grant me the resilience of the dragon scale,
the strength of the fangs,
the patience of the feather,
the reliability of the wings.
May your storms light our spirits,
your rain feed the seeds we’ve sown,
your wind fill our lungs,
and your waves always carry us home.
- In Praise of Dragons and Monsters by Maria Nunes
S ofia snuck up behind Gabriel while he was focused on his task. If he’d been working with the horses, she’d have taken more care, but he was sitting in an empty portion of the stables, a leather saddle laid across his lap as he rubbed oil into it.
She crept silently up before wrapping her arms around him.
“Hello!”
He jumped, giving a small yelp that had the horse in the nearest stall letting out a snort of air.
“Sof!” he said as he twisted to look at her, eyes wide for only a moment before his smile stretched wide. She’d learned over the past cycle that when his smile was at its widest, he had two dimples. She enjoyed the challenge of bringing that second dimple out.
He stood, wrapping her in a warm embrace, planting a soft kiss on her forehead and then her lips.
“What are you doing here? Aren’t you working?”
She gave a sheepish shrug. She was in fact working, but like most days over the past few blinks, she’d finished the transcribing early, and with Mina out sick, she’d been left in the office alone. It was the peak of the hot season and even the breeze through the wide windows was blistering and stale.
“I won’t be missed for another hour.”
“Jorge might be back before then.”
“He won’t.” Jorge—the head of the stables—was currently in a meeting with the chief commander and general, something she only knew because she’d transcribed the schedule for the chief commander last week.
Gabriel only gave a small smirk and rolled his eyes. She’d never quite confessed what she did in the chief commander’s office for him, but he wasn’t stupid and had picked up over their time together that she wasn’t just dusting shelves.
“Are you ever going to tell me how you know everything?”
“Are you ever going to kiss me without having to give a speech first?” she asked, pressing herself closer to him.
He grinned in the way she knew he would and pulled her in for another kiss, his tongue tentatively touching her lips before he pulled away.
“I do still have work to do, unfortunately. The leathers need to be oiled by the end of the day and at this rate, I’m going to be here until dawn.”
She gave a dramatic sigh, but grabbed an extra rag from the workbench and sat across from where he’d been in front of the saddle. He followed suit, although she saw the glint of disappointment in his eyes that made her heart swell and the butterflies in her stomach dance. He’d have been happier to keep kissing.
Their relationship had started as stolen kisses in the evening after their shifts, but over the past few blinks, they’d spent more and more time together after work. Gabriel had even walked her home a few times, despite living in the complete opposite direction. Her parents had invited him for dinner for the coming week, despite knowing it would cut their rations for a few days following.
They worked in companionable silence for a while, relishing in the work that gave her fingers a break from the constant writing.
“So did the chief commander teach you how to read?”
“Gods no, I taught myself,” she said, before snapping her jaw shut, almost biting her tongue in the process.
Gabriel looked at her with such glee that she might almost forget she’d just admitted treason to him.
“I knew it!” he said, voice a sharp whisper. “But Chief Commander Harlow knows. He has to know. It’s what you’ve been doing for him in his office this entire time? Reading?”
“Quiet,” she said, voice shrill and heart pounding hard. Her eyes darted around the stables as if a horse might jump out with an aha at having heard their conversation.
“No one’s around, you said so yourself.”
“Yes, I read and write for him, but no one knows. No one. Not even my parents.”
“Shit,” he said. “That’s seriously incredible. I don’t know what’s more impressive, the chief commander breaking the law or you teaching yourself how to read.”
Her cheeks heated and she forced herself to focus on the task at hand. Hot tears burned at the backs of her eyes and she hated herself for it. The tears weren’t for sadness, but the realization that beyond the chief commander catching her all those cycles ago, she’d never been able to share this part of her. And she’d never had someone looking at her like this, with such admiration and love.
The word popped into her mind and had to push it away. Love wasn’t something Dragonborn experienced.
“Your finger, then?”
He said the words carefully. She knew he’d seen the missing digit back when they’d first started spending time together. He’d likely felt it the first time he’d grabbed her hand as they walked to the inner gates together. But he’d been smart enough to never ask.
“The chief commander caught me. He deemed the finger a worthy punishment if I promised to work for him.”
She was still avoiding his eyes, so when his fingers grazed across her cheek, she flinched before finally sinking into the warmth of his skin.
“You are truly amazing.”
She looked up and saw his eyes, staring at her with such earnestness. “Most people wouldn’t dare call treason amazing,” she said, placing her own hand over his, forcing his hand to stay there, cradled against her cheek.
He looked thoughtful for a moment.
“I knew my old boss was skimming stocks back when I worked on the docks.” had to strain to hear the words that he mumbled out.
She blinked for a moment. “What?”
“I knew long before he got caught. He was feeding some of the families in the drowned quarter that didn’t have sanctioned jobs for rations.” He paused, looking at her. “The point is it’s not like I haven’t done my fair share of treason. I might have even helped deliver the fish occasionally—not that I would have claimed to know it wasn’t sanctioned by the king’s food assessor.”
felt something swell in her chest. Even Mina, who loved listening to her stories of dragons and faeries, had never spoken a word against the king or crown. Her parents, for all the anger she knew they held against the crown, had never spoken a single word out loud to threaten their position in Suvi as loyalists.
“I still read sometimes,” she said softly, watching his face. “When the chief commander isn’t in the office.”
“Let’s take a break from this. If you help me with a few more saddles, I’ll be on track even if we do—other things.”
She bit her lip and they stood, and when he pressed her against the wall of the closet stall and sealed his lips onto her own, she almost forgot about their troubles and the sins they had confessed to each other. Almost.