Chapter 47
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
SOFIA
S ofia watched Fox go, her chest tight and her throat dry. When she finally turned, she saw Vato staring at her, a small smirk dancing on his lips. She ignored it.
“We need to get everyone out of here. Do we have any allies coming?”
The man’s smirk fell, face growing serious. “I sent out a message before I came here, but I have no idea who’s in town to receive it. We were hoping for backup from beyond the wall, but I doubt we can rely on that now.”
“Is there a way out of here that doesn’t require us waltzing out the front doors?”
“The only other passage out leads directly to the chief commander’s house. I don’t think we want to go there either.”
“So we’re out of our cells and trapped in the prison,” she said, trying to keep her voice low. It wasn’t a secret, but no one needed a reminder of how screwed they still were.
Sofia turned, surveying the crowd. There were over two dozen of them, but half were actively injured and the other half were civilians picked up under false pretenses. There were even a few young children no older than ten clinging to their parents’ legs. Ian and his friends had brought weapons, but they had a shortage of people well enough to fight.
Then again—they didn’t have a choice. She automatically sought out Micael, assuming he’d want to take control. But he leaned heavily against Luis. He was looking at her though and he gave a small nod of his head.
“Sofia’s right; we either die on our knees or we die fighting.”
She hadn’t been sure she’d heard his words the other day correctly.
Something between pride and horror shuddered through her. But she shut those emotions down. She’d face them tomorrow. She turned back to the group.
“Everyone well enough to fight,” she said, “move to the left, everyone else over here. But take a weapon, whether or not you can use it. It’s best to appear like a threat even if you can’t be one. Vato—you lead the group. We can at least throw off the guards and catch them on their back feet if they aren’t expecting an ambush from within.”
“No one should be expecting us,” Vato said. “As long as Fox catches up with the general and?—”
He hesitated and perhaps for the first time, they both realized the implications of what they were depending on. Fox catching up with his father. Fox willing to kill his father or at least incapacitate him. Fox able to win the fight.
She looked back at the way they had run, farther into the prison. “And what’s that way?”
“I think there is a tunnel that connects the prison to the chief commander’s house,” Vato said. “I can only assume the general headed that way.”
Before she could respond or even think of what she wanted—needed—to do, the ground shuddered and a crack sounded from somewhere not too distant.
“Shit,” Flor said as she stumbled. “Is that the king’s men?”
Vato didn’t answer for a moment, face looking through one of the high windows at the dark night beyond. And then the sky lit up with red and the earth shuddered again.
“I don’t think that’s the king’s men,” he said, smiling. “I think that’s our backup.”
Their allies had come. Sofia didn’t know how many or what chance they even had at making a difference. But they were no longer alone.
“Vato—”
He cut her off before she finished, placing a hand on her shoulder. “I can lead them out to the rendezvous. We’ll have allies waiting there. Go. He might need your help killing the old man, and at least one of us will have the pleasure of watching that bastard die. We’ll be at the inn if you make it back to us.”
“If,” she said, a small smile on her lips. They both knew the odds of her making it to the rendezvous alive and in time to escape with all of them.
Vato pressed his lips together, clearly regretting the admission.
“Javi’s sister, Dia,” Sofia said, “she was in the prison before any of us. Can you get her out, too?”
Vato’s brows pinched together and he bit his lip. “She disappeared from the records last week while you were gone. I assumed she—I don’t think she’s still alive.”
A part of Sofia had known. Dia would have been thrown in with the rest of them if she’d been alive. But her chest ached with the realization that after everything—she’d been too late to stop the girl’s death.
The hot tears that burned her eyes didn’t fall, and she covered his hand with her own squeezing it lightly. “Get the rest of them out for me. No matter what.”
He nodded and turned, rallying their bedraggled group of prisoners-turned-warriors. Before Sofia ran off, Flor pushed forward, wrapping her in a tight hug.
“If you die, I’ll journey to the Depths and kill you again myself.”
Sofia tightened their hug, pressing her face into Flor’s shoulder for a moment, smelling the musk of her beneath the reek of prison.
“I love you, too,” she said when she was sure her voice wouldn’t crack.
“May the dragons be with you,” Flor said, pushing Sofia away, as if needing to force herself to let go. Sofia clenched her jaw, giving Flor once last glance before she turned and ran.