Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
SOFIA
S ofia woke sometime in the night, her body wracked with shivers. The fire had died out, the last of their wood gone, leaving her with nothing but her shawl and the thin, cool leaves beneath her. The moons were glowing bright in the sky and the light reflected down through the ceiling and across the lake. It gave a magical luminescence to the cavern, but the lake and wind whistling across it softly did nothing to warm her.
“I can literally hear your teeth chattering.” Ocon’s grumbled voice sounded from a couple feet away.
“Sorry to wake you,” she said, pushing all the vitriol into her voice she could manage, but he wasn’t exaggerating and it was difficult to talk through the shudders.
“Why don’t you have a cloak, anyway?” he said, as if the thought had just occurred to him.
“I was too busy chasing after my escaped prisoner to take time getting dressed. These are the leggings I sleep in. They aren’t even double layered.” She wondered after that admission if it was awkward to acknowledge she’d been running through the rainforest the last two days in her sleepwear.
“Kings help me,” he said and she thought he might be thinking the same thing, but then she heard a shuffling. “Get over here.”
“Excuse me?”
“We can share my cloak,” he said, sounding as if the idea were absolutely vile to him despite offering. “I need to sleep and I don’t need you freezing to death or keeping me awake with your chattering.”
“No.” She rolled over, hugging herself tightly and trying to still her shaking.
“Have you always been this stubborn?”
“I’m not stubborn. I just don’t feel like cozying up with a murderer.”
“Why do you assume I’m a murderer?”
“I’m not assuming, I know,” she said. “I was in the crowd when you executed Pedro.”
She didn’t expect him to speak and she definitely didn’t expect the vaguest crack in his voice when he did.
“Do you know how many people a single bomb can kill? The damage black powder can do?”
“Do you know how many Dragonborn die daily—not from bombs but hunger? Or how many die every blink on those scales’ damned death farms?”
“Criminals,” he said, voice low. “The labor farms are worked by criminals, and it’s a fairer sentence than most of them deserve.”
“People who stole food to survive or used forbidden magic to heal a child who was dying. Dragonborn who dared read. Those are the criminals you speak of.”
Ocon’s eyes sparkled in the dark, drilling into her. “And the ones that do murder? The ones that set off bombs that kill dozens?”
“We are trying to free our people.”
“Innocents are getting caught up in the fighting, whether or not you admit it.”
“Do you know how many innocent Dragonborn are killed every cycle in the city?” she asked.
“I don’t want innocents on either side to die. I joined the king’s men to stop the death.”
“Do you want me to praise you for your benevolence?” Her voice echoed in the cavern and she heard the shrill pitch of it—the emotion and the weakness behind the words.
“I don’t need praise. I thought it might help you to know I’m not pure evil.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You didn’t need to say it.”
She wanted to argue, but perhaps he was right. It was easier to fight against those she hated.
“Fine,” she said as she stood up, movements stiff with cold and pain. “This doesn’t mean anything.”
He was polite enough not to open his mouth, instead simply moving the cloak and letting her slip in beside him. The warmth was immediate, sinking through her bones as his arm wrapped the cloak around her shoulders.
She grabbed it quickly, letting him pull his arm back. They both did their best under the cloak to not touch, bodies close enough she felt the heat of his chest. Every breath he took had his chest brushing against her back, but she couldn’t move farther without leaving the warmth of the cloak. She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the nearness of his presence. For a few minutes, she wondered if the cloak was worth it. She was so aware of his body, her own muscles aching with the tension. The idea of relaxing enough to fall asleep seemed laughable.
Yet, not too long after, the warmth and the darkness took their toll and her thoughts drifted until there was nothing.
* * *
The next thing she was aware of was the body pressed tightly to hers, the heat of it suffusing her skin. She was facing him, her face pressed into his chest and his arm draped over her. Her awareness of their position came slowly, the sleep and warmth muddling her thoughts as she let herself sink into the heat.
Her entire body stiffened as she realized exactly who was pressed so closely against her. She was very aware of every point of contact and the steady rising and falling of his chest beneath her ear. If she closed her eyes and concentrated she could almost hear his heartbeat. A good confirmation that he did indeed possess a heart, if not a soul. She was also extremely aware of the hardness pressed against her hip for the second time in so many days. She ignored the zip of heat and electricity the thought sent through her body.
It had been too long since she’d taken her energy out in that way. She didn’t mess with love and commitment, but a woman still had needs. There were a few men and women at the inn that she trusted enough to seek out pleasure from without having to worry about emotions, but it had now been blinks since such nights, and Sofia was clearly pent up.
Ocon wasn’t moving either and she could only assume he was still asleep. Even her sudden discomfort and tension hadn’t woken him. She thought briefly of closing her eyes and pretending she was asleep until he woke and rectified the situation himself. He deserved to wake up to his arms wrapped around her. She was the victim here . The other option was to slip out as quietly as possible and save them both the embarrassment of the situation. But then again, she didn’t feel like saving him anything.
So she didn’t.
Not bothering with his comfort, she simply pushed him off of her, pulling herself out from under his arm. She also may have grabbed the cloak tightly in the same moment, ensuring when he went rolling off the small bed of leaves that she was left wearing it.
He let out an—in her opinion—embarrassing squeal and cursed as he woke, jumping up and brandishing his blade blindly. It took a second of blinking before his eyes focused on her. She raised an eyebrow and gave a smirk from where she sat, wrapped in his cloak.
“You couldn’t have found a better way to wake me?” he said after a moment. He seemed to recognize his other situation in the same moment and quickly adjusted himself, face flushing.
She shrugged. “I could have, but I just wanted you to get off me as fast as possible.”
“If I remember correctly, you cuddled into me last night as you were falling asleep.”
“And I forced you to wrap your arms around me? How frightening for you.”
He shuddered in the cool morning air and he growled at the sight of her wrapping the cloak tighter.
“Give that to me.”
“I quite like it,” she said. It wasn’t a lie. The fabric was soft and did a much better job of insulating her from the chill than her shawl.
“I’m rather fond of it, too,” he said, holding out his left hand as his right pointed the dagger in warning. “Now if you don’t hand it back, I’m going to have to fight you for it, and although I don’t doubt you have the skill to face me, I am taller, stronger, and have a dagger. If I win, you’re not getting the cloak tonight. If I lose, you’re going to have to stab me, and we know that will be a pain for both of us.”
She thought about it for a moment. The chances of her winning were probably slightly below fifty percent considering her weapon was a few feet away and she was still crouched on the ground. And the idea of sleeping out in the open that night without the cloak—especially if they didn’t find shelter again—made her chest tight.
Standing with as much dignity as she could manage, she slipped the cloak from her shoulders and threw it on the ground at her feet.
“We should head out soon. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
She didn’t explain herself as she walked away, leaving him to pick up the cloak from where she’d dropped it. Her footsteps echoed on the tiles as she made her way down the widest tunnel and to the dragons’ shrine. She wanted to say one more prayer over the bones of her ancestors before they left. This might be her last chance to do so, given the cenotes closest to the city had been raided and destroyed over the past few generations leaving little evidence of the original habitants of their land. As if they might be able to pretend they had never existed to begin with.
The rabbit hearts she set out the night before after dinner were still sitting along each altar, an appeasement to the ghosts that lingered there. They were untouched by even the insects. Giving a bit more blood to the offering bowl, she kneeled and whispered the words beneath her breath. She asked for them to watch over their journey even as the small voice of her parents and Ocon both sounded in her head, reminding her that the dragons were dead. But she’d believed in many things over her life that she hadn’t seen and many of those things had turned out to be real. The resistance had been a faerytale before she’d met Javi.
And there was something about the air in the room that she couldn’t quite get past. She could almost feel the dragons here, listening and waiting. Or perhaps she was exhausted and underfed.
Ocon was drinking his fill of water by the lake when she returned. He didn’t say anything about her disappearing into the shrine again and she didn’t bother to explain.
She slipped the small cups they’d found into her pack and they silently walked together back toward the steps along the wall. She went first, more sure on the steps after coming in and out of the cavern last night. Even still, her foot slipped twice trying to balance on the thin remnants of the staircase that once was. She didn’t fall and even Ocon managed to make his way out of the cenote shaking, but whole.
The forest was brightly lit by the time they made it out and the morning birds had already finished their sunrise songs, the sounds of the forest fading into the dull hum of day. Sofia was unsure if things truly looked brighter or if she was simply better rested than she’d been in the last couple of days. They hadn’t had any containers to take the water away with them, but they had drunk their fill and then some before leaving.
Still, every step she took away from the cavern and the ruins of her ancestors felt like a weight in her gut. From a young age, her people were taught of the savagery of her ancestors before the kings had come to save them all. How they lived in holes in the ground out of fear of the dragons and only knew how to gather food from the forest. But what they had built back there had been art.
She’d been tempted to take the dragon feather—proof of what she’d found. But she also knew that walking toward Suvi with proof of the dragons was the easiest way to get killed on sight if they were caught before she made it back to the base. She felt its absence and the distance with each step.
“What are the chances we’ll make it back to familiar territory today?” Ocon asked. His tone was rough and his face was set in a deep frown. She almost laughed because the damn man seemed grumpy.
She thought about prodding his poor mood, but shrugged instead. “Well, if the shapeshifters ran perfectly north with us and we have managed to walk perfectly south this entire time, then we might make it back to the tunnel entrance. Or the general area. Probably.”
“You could have just said you don’t know,” he said. “And I assume your plan is to find the tunnel and to take it back to the base.”
“It would be a safer bet than braving the wilds for an extra day.”
“Safer for you.”
She raised an eyebrow in his direction. “Yes.”
They fell into a silence that Sofia took comfort in. She didn’t want to talk to him and pretend they had anything in common. She didn’t want to know anything about the people she had been fighting against. All it would do is make the guilt heavier when the time came to do what the resistance needed.
She had heard the passion in his voice the night before as he had talked of those who had died in the ongoing fight between their people. Could she truly trust such flowery words without the proof to back them up? The king and his people always talked of peace and saving lives, but they’d order the murder of a Dragonborn without regret in their next breath.
And even if she trusted Ocon’s own goodwill, it didn’t change what the others were doing—what his father and Chief Commander Harlow had done in the name of justice. The king’s men needed to pay for the blood they had spilled.
She didn’t need to hear Ocon’s excuses, true or not. Perhaps she could get away with walking the rest of the distance in silence. The sounds of the forest were calming with the sun brushing warm against her skin.
Ocon, of course, had to ruin it.
“So what happened to your parents?”
She turned, eyes sharp as blades, a scream rising up in her chest. She was disappointed when he didn’t flinch. “How is that any of your business?”
“You know my father. It only seems fair.”
Her fists clenched at her sides, but she didn’t punch him. “No one said that life is fair, little prince.”
“Remember that when I have you chained up in my personal dungeons when we get home.”
She spun around, back straight and jaw clenched.
“Over my dead body.”
“I can arrange that.”