Chapter 41
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
FOX
F ox threw up in the alley on his way home from the prison. He couldn’t get rid of the metallic smell of Sofia’s blood from his skin or shake the cold looks from the other prisoners in the cells. He’d recognized the redheaded woman from the cenote and given Sofia the cell next to hers, but it also meant he had to listen as she hissed out a series of dragon-tongue words that he was pretty sure he recognized from the worst drunks in the slums. He didn’t need Sofia awake to translate them for him.
He tried his best to hold on to the look of pride the chief commander had given him, but he also couldn’t shake the discomfort and horror of watching him stand over a broken Sofia. For the first time since before his brother had died, Fox had the sense that something was seriously wrong with the system.
People were dying, but what the crown was doing wasn’t working. If anything, things were getting worse. Perhaps if the people of Suvi knew the dragons were alive—that they were real—they’d recognize that the Dragonborn weren’t stupid or even superstitious.
But he could only imagine the wave of fear that would crash through the city if they knew the monsters of their childhood nightmares were real—and just as destructive as the tales warned.
It was nearly nightfall by the time he made it back home, stopping in the kitchens long enough to order food to be sent up. He collapsed in his reading chair the moment he was alone in his room.
He was only a bit surprised when someone knocked on his door a few minutes later, the cooks having apparently worked faster than normal.
“Come in.”
But it wasn’t a kitchen maid who stepped through the door a second later.
“Ian,” he said, straightening up, as if stiff shoulders might hide his bloodshot eyes or the strain along his brow.
“Your mother said you just came home. You look like shit.”
“About what I’m feeling,” he said, shrugging. “It’s been an adjustment.”
Ian gave a nod, lips pursed. He didn’t look like he believed Fox, but he didn’t ask any follow-up questions, either. Instead, he took the chair across from Fox. He hadn’t visited Fox since those long blinks after Leon’s death. It was turning into a habit for Ian to show up when Fox was at this lowest—first when his brother died and now. Except this time, Fox couldn’t explain what he was feeling to Ian. At least not everything.
“It’s strange being back,” he said, perhaps to break the silence or perhaps because he simply wanted to say it out loud to someone. “There were definitely a few points where I didn’t think I’d make it home.”
“The rainforest can feel like a world of its own. You were out there alone?” Ian watched him carefully. Fox hated the scrutiny.
“No.” The word slipped out before he could question why his brother’s old friend was the one person he wanted to trust with the information. “I was out there with one of the Dragonborn that originally kidnapped me.”
“Is that why it took so long to return?”
Well, we got kidnapped by shapeshifting wolves that ran so fast it took us two days just to get back.
“We…were captured by some men,” he said, knowing just how ridiculous he was sounding. “They knocked us out and dragged us out the opposite way in the forest. It took a while to figure out where we were and what direction to go after that.”
Ian nodded, as if contemplating this. “Perhaps we should add way-finding to the training regimen for all recruits.”
“I think there are a few skills we’ve been missing out on given the assumption we wouldn’t be out in the rainforest.” He looked at Ian, a finger tapping on his leg slowly. “There were…things out there. Animals I can’t explain.”
The corners of Ian’s mouth tightened and his brow twitched, but it wasn’t the look of a man that thought Fox was crazy.
“There’s a reason our ancestors built the wall,” Ian said. “I imagine there is a lot more than savages out there that it’s protecting all of us from.”
“So you believe the Dragonborn stories about monsters and faeries? About the dragons?” Fox asked.
For as long as he’d known Ian, they’d never talked about their beliefs around these things.
Ian didn’t answer immediately and Fox could see the thoughts flickering across his face, even if he couldn’t read them. At last, he nodded.
“They may be a superstitious bunch, but I think their ancestors knew this land. There is a lot that our people chose to forget over the centuries. It doesn’t take magic for monsters to exist.”
Fox might have held the same sentiment if it weren’t for the image of the first faery he’d encountered still burned into his brain. The black smoke seeping from its skin and the black hair of the woman he would have sworn he’d been trying to help. There was more he’d seen out in the rainforest than could be explained by monsters born purely of flesh.
He remembered Sofia’s words.
The dragon shed her feathers, each one falling to the earth, imbued with magic to become the creatures of the forest.
“Did you bring in the woman you were lost with? Or is she still out there?”
“She’s in the prison with the rest,” he said, skipping over the part where he wasn’t the one to arrest her.
“I assume they’re in the basement, readying for execution?” Ian asked, voice thick with bitter vitriol.
Fox shook his head. “Not yet. The chief commander is still hoping for information. There were some interrogations today.”
Ian nodded, and Fox had to wonder if perhaps he wasn’t the only one seeking revenge for what the resistance had done to his brother after all this time. “I’m sure they’ll schedule the executions eventually.”
Fox’s empty stomach churned at his own words and Ian’s eyebrows pinched.
“You should sleep,” he said. “You look exhausted.”
Ian was right, but the idea of sleeping—of closing his eyes—sent a tremor through Fox. He already knew that the crack of the whip on Sofia’s bloody back would haunt his sleep. It was nothing he hadn’t seen before. He’d seen his father’s form of interrogation, although usually there were more questions interspersed between the blows.
But this was different. He knew Sofia. He knew the feel of her hair between his fingers and the smell of her skin, salty and floral. He knew the taste of her?—
“Thanks for coming by,” he said after a moment, shaking away the thoughts of Sofia. “But you’re right. I’m still catching up on sleep and food. Can you tell my mother I plan to sleep the rest of the evening and not to disturb me?”
Ian took the dismissal with a soft smile and a nod. “Of course.” Before he closed the door to Fox’s room, he looked over his shoulder one last time. “I’m glad you made it back alive. I’m not sure what I would have done losing you…after Leon.”
Fox gave a tight smile as the door clicked shut. He was alone once more, the silence of the home settling over him like a blanket, not comforting, but suffocating and heavy.
He didn’t touch the food the kitchen maid finally brought him, falling asleep in his chair by the fire.
* * *
Two days later, he slipped from the house before his parents were awake, when the sun was still below the horizon. The day before, he’d made the mistake of coming down for breakfast only to spend the day listening to his mother’s muffled sobs as she followed him around the house, refusing to let him out of her sight. He couldn’t take another day of it, but he was no more ready to return to the barracks and his job with the king’s men.
It was still early for the wealthy in the city, and the streets on this side of the inner gates were quiet. It was easy to make his way north, out of the royal quarter and into the outer city where the Dragonborn were already rushing around for the day.
He kept his cloak hood up and his hair tied back as he walked through the gates that separated the privileged from the poor. At one point, the small stone wall between the two sections hadn’t existed. But as the resistance grew more and more bold, it was another measure to ensure the safety of those within the wall from those outside. But this early in the day, there were no questions for walking in and out, especially for a Dereyan.
The ring of storefronts and houses that bordered the royal quarter were clean and freshly painted. The windows had glass panes, unbroken. Gas lamps lined the streets, ensuring they never were truly dark, and the workers kept the streets swept of debris and human waste. But a few blocks farther, the gas lamps dwindled and then disappeared altogether.
He wasn’t sure what his plan was as he carefully stepped around the feces that stained the roads here, and walked farther into the slums. He only knew he didn’t want to be home. He wanted to be away from the royal quarter. It smelled, even this early in the day, the sun having baked the filth into the stones long ago. A few blocks from the gates, the polish of the buildings was gone and the poverty flourished.
Perhaps for the first time in over a decade, he actually looked at the city he lived in.
He looked through the windows, which had only a sheet of fabric protecting them from the cold and the wind. While the smell of roasted pork and chicken had drifted through the air on the other side of the gate, here there was nothing. No small booths selling treats. No breakfasts wafting from the houses, despite their exposed windows and doors.
“The Dragonborn are the first to starve and the first to die, yet we wonder why they hate us?”
He remembered his brother’s words, hearing them now as if whispered in his ear, and it startled him to realize that it wasn’t his brother’s voice he heard, but Sofia’s.
“Excuse me, but where is the nearest healer?” Fox asked a man leaning against the wall of an unmarked building. The man didn’t even acknowledge his presence. With a heavy frown, he moved to the following block, asking the next person he saw, a woman with wide hips and a bright face. But the moment he spoke, her eyes clouded and the smile she’d been wearing disappeared.
He could hide his hair and skin beneath the cloak, but he couldn’t hide his accent. Switching tactics, he moved on to asking the children that huddled in the shadows, carefully flashing a coin for only them to see as he asked. The first child he asked pointed him down a narrow street that dead-ended a few minutes later and he realized he’d been lied to. The next time he asked, he didn’t hand the coin over until the small girl had walked him the two blocks to a small shop, an oil lamp burning in the windows where a woman was chopping away at a cutting board. He placed two coins in the child’s grubby hands. He grimaced as she swallowed one before running off, the other tucked in her mouth. That was one way to hide your money.
Ten minutes later, he left the shop with a balm and two tinctures tucked away in his pockets. He’d been overcharged, but he laid down the coins without complaint, handing over two more before asking that she not remember his visit. The small tin of numbing powder he’d slipped from the healer’s bag while he’d been treating Sofia would be gone by now. And he knew there were more interrogations to come. He’d ensured that with his advice to the chief commander.
By the time he made it back to the royal quarter, the sun had fully risen and the guards only stood by as people flowed in and out of the gates. Fox kept his hood up and his face down, not wanting to know if he’d become famous over the past few days since his miraculous return and promotion.
The prison was silent as he approached, a single guard stationed outside. The young soldier barely looked at Fox’s face as he flashed his golden junior major badge and stepped around him. He could get used to the newfound respect this station held, even if he felt like a fraud having earned it.
Inside, the prison was quiet. Unnaturally so, given the hundred or more prisoners it held at any given time. But there were four floors, and each hallway was locked behind its own door, keeping everything separated and all the more quiet. The upper floors housed the minor criminals who would be released after a day or two, or at most a blink. The main floor was where the prisoners under active investigation were locked away, and the basement floor, where darkness was perpetual, was where the condemned waited for the next new moons.
Guards were stationed at the doorway to the resistance cells, but they didn’t even blink as he passed them and opened the doors. He had been here yesterday, after all. The doors closed behind him with a click, the hall quiet except for the hum of the gas lamps that hung high above. They were never turned off, leaving the cells perpetually dimly lit. It was a torture in and of itself to never let the prisoners sleep properly. He knew the guards were ordered to walk along the hall every hour or two, waking up the prisoners who dared to fall asleep.
He moved quickly, ignoring the stares from the other prisoners he recognized. He saw the older man who had saved him from Sofia back in the cenote and the dark-haired woman who had helped capture him.
Sofia was at the end, lying on her stomach, slightly curled as best she could. Her hair was fanned out around her and for only a second, his fingers twitched to touch it.
“You,” a voice said from the cell next to hers. “What are you doing back here?”
It was more accusation than question. Her red hair was barely visible under the grime and blood, and he combed through his memories for her name.
“Flor,” he said after a beat.
She sneered and looked away.
“Ocon.” He was immediately distracted by Sofia’s voice.
His name—his last name—on her lips burned like acid against his skin. Especially when he could still see the dried blood staining her clothes and the bruise peeking out from the torn collar of her shirt. He knew worse scars lurked beneath and it made his empty stomach churn. But he couldn’t throw up here or now.
“You should leave,” she said, looking away from him.
“Not until you take these.” He slipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out the vials and balm, passing them through the bars.
She didn’t move and Flor hissed out another few words in dragon-tongue he refused to acknowledge.
“Take them.” His voice was firm.
Sofia moved carefully to sit up and he watched, face blank, to stop himself from screaming. She reached out and carefully took the medicine from him, sniffing the balm first and then the vials before looking up at him once more.
He expected rage, hatred, or maybe some gratefulness, but instead all he saw was exhaustion.
“It won’t fix anything, but it should lessen the pain.” He spoke the words softly, but he knew Flor heard them from the snort that followed.
“Fixing her up so your father can tear her apart again tomorrow?”
“I’m trying to help.”
“You can help by unlocking the doors,” Flor growled back.
“Perfect,” he said. “You look ready for a fight. I’m sure you’ll make it out of the city before they kill all of you.”
“Well, then. What’s your plan?” she said.
“I don’t have one yet!”
“You marked the cenote,” Sofia’s voice was soft, but both Fox and Flor stopped arguing immediately.
Fox turned back to her, his stomach twisted. He needed to meet her eyes in this moment, even if he hated everything he saw there—raw pain, betrayal, anger, and acceptance.
“When I first escaped—before everything. I...” He stopped. He didn’t have an excuse. There was none.
“Do you regret it? I heard you got promoted for your work.” Her face was carefully blank now, too.
Fox didn’t let his gaze falter. “I regret a lot of who I’ve been and what I’ve done these past few cycles.”
“Why should we trust you?”
The question was so genuine, he didn’t hesitate. “I joined the military to follow in my brother’s footsteps and avenge him. He’d hate who I’ve become.”
Sofia nodded, not taking her eyes off of him as she reached for the small tincture he’d brought her and took a sip from it. His shoulders slumped in something akin to relief.
“We have a plan,” Sofia said.
“That he doesn’t need to know,” Flor muttered before snapping her mouth shut again.
“We’ve spoken—” Sofia started.
“Don’t—”
Sofia glared at Flor before continuing. “We’ve spoken with one of our spies. We got a message out to whatever allies we have left, and Vato thinks they can get us out of the cells, but you’re right. We’re in no condition to fight our way out even with a handful of allies. We need a distraction.”
“Who’s Vato?”
Sofia bit her lips and Flor scowled. “I can’t tell you.”
Fox nodded, taking no offense at the distrust. “What kind of distraction?”
“You want to prove we can trust you?”
“Yes,” he said, in half-prayer.
“I was thinking maybe a dragon.”
Fox stared at her blankly, unable to do more than open and close his mouth.
“I saw you steal my bag back in the cenote. Do you still have it?”
“Yes—I needed to hide the feather?—”
“Exactly.”
“Absolutely not,” he said, before his brain could even process what she was asking.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not Dragonborn!”
Sofia closed the distance between them, the bars the only thing separating them as she wrapped a hand around his own as it clung to the cold metal.
“Remember what I said back in the rainforest? There is no difference between us. We all come from this land. They’ll listen if you pray.”
“I don’t know how to pray! I saw the prayer once—in dragon-tongue.”
“Fox, please. I can teach you. Just let?—”
A sound from the door had Fox reeling, wrenching his hand from Sofia’s as his father stormed through the doors. Two soldiers dragged a body behind him, blood painting his father’s face and clothes. Fox guessed his interrogation hadn’t gone well from the scowl on his face.
“Fox,” he snapped, not bothering to watch his soldiers throw the woman they’d been dragging back into her cell. “What are you doing here?”
“The chief commander had some follow-up questions for this one after his interrogation, sir.”
It was a dangerous strategy to drop the chief commander’s name; his father always hated the relationship between Fox and him—confused as to why the chief commander cared about Fox. Sometimes Fox wondered the same thing. The tick in his father’s jaw told him he was holding back his true thoughts on the matter. He eventually nodded, turning to where Flor sat.
“We’ll take this one next,” he said.
Sofia practically lunged at the bars, but she could do nothing as the soldiers opened the cell next to hers and yanked Flor out, hissing and scratching. Fox walked away before his face gave him away, but not before he sent a silent prayer to the first king—or to the dragons or whoever was listening that Flor gave his father hell.