Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
SOFIA
“Stop moving!” Flor snapped, as Sofia flinched for the fifth time in as many minutes.
She was lying on her stomach on the cold ground of the cenote.
Flor was on her knees beside her, bent in concentration as she prodded at Sofia’s back.
Sofia tried to focus on the lake stretching out in front of her, the water sparkling in the sunlight coming through the opening in the ceiling above.
“I’m trying,” she said, gritting her teeth to stop from saying more.
Flor would only remind her that talking was moving.
She rolled her eyes, hoping the other woman at least felt her ire even if she didn’t see it.
Her back was on fire, sparks of pain shooting up her spine with every tug of Flor’s needle.
The ground rumbled around them, and Flor let out another string of curses. Her red hair was falling out of its braid, the wild strays making her look even more frazzled.
“I swear to the gods if you don’t tell that dragon to calm down, I’m going to accidentally tear you open.”
“That’s one of the gods you’re swearing to,” Sofia said.
“I don’t know if I believe that yet. She seems more troublemaker than god.”
“I think it’s more she’s a teenager…god.”
“And I thought humans were annoying teenagers,” Javi said from somewhere above Sofia.
“Don’t you dare interrupt me,” Flor said.
“Were you always this grumpy?” Javi asked, coming around Sofia so she could see him. He sat near her head, reaching out to grab her hand. She hadn’t realized she’d been digging her fingers into the hard soil until he carefully forced her to loosen her hold. “I was coming to help.”
“Then stop her moving,” Flor said. “And you, tell your teenager to shush while I’m working.”
Sofia smiled, but did as she asked. She’d missed her friends over the past few weeks. The night she’d snuck out of the resistance base, chasing after an escaped Fox, she’d had no idea she wouldn’t see her friends again for weeks. But now they were here, safe—at least for now.
Flor’s fingers pinched at a sore spot on her back, and she hissed out a breath.
Chalia gave a snort of annoyance in the back of her mind.
“I’m fine, I promise,” Sofia said.
“You’re in pain.”
“I’ve felt worse. And Flor is helping.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more,” Chalia said, her voice contrite.
“You have done plenty.”
The dragon had tried to heal Sofia’s back when they’d first arrived at the cenote. She’d said it was a magic that many of the older dragons possessed. But her attempts had only left Sofia’s back cold and Chalia frustrated with herself.
“I’m going to be okay,” Sofia said.
“I’m still sticking close by just in case,” Chalia said, but Sofia could feel her settling back down.
She was curled up on the forest floor above, sunbathing for the seventh day in a row.
The dragon had said nothing about where she and the other dragons were, but Sofia was starting to think wherever it was, they didn’t get much sun because Chalia seemed enthralled by the heat of it on her scales.
There was another tug and searing hot pain through Sofia’s back as Flor knotted another stitch.
She should be grateful that they had any medical supplies when they escaped.
Most of the wounds had been closing and healing well over the last week, but there were a few that had been more stubborn.
Flor was doing Sofia the favor of stitching these last few closed.
But it burned as bad as the whipping had.
Javi’s fingers tightened around hers. And Flor’s soft hands ran along the unmarred flesh of her hip, soothing her between the stitches.
She needed to get better. They’d left behind so many people in the city when they’d escaped, and they did not know what had happened to them. How many people had died the night they’d broken out of the prison?
Sofia needed to heal so that she could hop on Chalia and fly back to Suvi and spear Chief Commander Harlow through the chest with a sword.
She hadn’t expressed this wish to anyone else.
They were all tired and healing. They’d been barely scraping by on the few supplies they had and what was left in the cenote they were hiding in—which wasn’t much of anything.
Sofia hadn’t expected to find much. She’d brought Clarita and the few others from the shapeshifter tribe here, and they’d seemingly gathered any useful supplies before going back to their own cenote.
There were some candles left in the lanterns and broken dishes, but that had been it.
The dragon feather had been gone, but Sofia had expected nothing less. Not that she needed a feather to speak to the gods when she had one curled on the forest floor above her and poking around in her mind.
“Are Jacinta and Delio back yet?” Flor asked, breaking the silence.
“No,” Javi said, voice soft. “Even with Sofia’s maps, it will still be a few more days before they’re due back.”
The two had left on a reconnaissance to see what they could learn about what was happening back in Suvi.
A dozen or so of them had made it safely out of city after the prison break, thanks to Chalia, but they still had almost no supplies, no way to contact their allies in the city, and more than half of them were still recovering from their physical injuries.
They were only a broken fragment of the resistance.
Which was nothing to say about the emotional toll the past blink had taken.
Even now, as Sofia watched Javi out of the corner of her eye, she could see the rage and grief simmering beneath the surface. He’d lost the sparkle in his eyes, his smiles turned hollow.
“We don’t even know if they’ll be able to get into the city,” Sofia said, keeping her body stiff even as Flor gave a small huff.
“The fact that they aren’t back yet is a good sign,” Javi said. “They’ll come back with news.”
“Or they were killed the moment they got a mile away from the wall.”
“Sofia,” Flor snapped, and she knew it had nothing to do with her moving.
“Sorry,” she muttered. Javi squeezed her hand.
“I’m done,” Flor said, patting Sofia on the hip. “But move carefully.”
She followed the order, allowing Flor to help her sit up without tearing the fresh stitches.
“So how long until I can fight?” Sofia asked, turning slowly to the side. The stitches pulled tight, bringing Sofia’s awareness to her back and her body in a way that made her itch with discomfort.
“Don’t even think about it,” Flor said, stopping her with a hand on her shoulder. “We wait for Jacinta and Delio and then we plan. Until then, you don’t fight or hunt or move too fast until I give you the go-ahead.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Sofia said, smirking. She grabbed for her shirt, pulling it back on carefully. It was torn across the back, but they’d sewed and tied it together where they could. All of them were still wearing the clothes they’d escaped in, but there wasn’t much they could do about it right now.
“Can you fly?” Chalia chimed in, and Sofia knew she’d been listening the entire time.
She wasn’t completely sure how it worked, but the dragon was able to hear the conversations Sofia had with the others through her mind.
Though she didn’t seem to be able to do it with the others—eavesdropping at least.
“If I don’t ask, then she can’t say no,” Sofia said through their link, smiling until she noticed Flor’s narrowed eyes. “What?” she said aloud.
“I’m not even going to ask,” Flor said, walking the few steps over to the cenote’s lake and washing her hands in the icy water.
It was strange seeing her friend standing there, at the edge of the lake, when Sofia could still remember Fox bathing just a few feet from where she stood, his tattooed back on full display, muscles taut and—
Something between pain and desire throbbed through Sofia, and she averted her eyes.
She didn’t need to explain to her friends how she was still thinking about him.
Javi had been kind enough to not question her about the kiss Fox and she had shared before they’d flown out of the city, but she knew he and Flor had talked behind her back.
She could see it in the way they looked at each other if she let anything about Fox slip.
He was a distraction that none of them needed, least of all her.
“What’s for dinner today? Rabbit, deer, goat?” Flor asked, as she came back, goosebumps prickling her skin.
“Rabbit, but Bela found some piyata and greens on her hike yesterday, so we have a feast for tonight.”
“Humans are coming!” Chalia’s voice cut in, sending a small spike of pain through Sofia’s head, as if the dragon’s anxiety were a physical thing.
“Someone’s nearby. Chalia smells them,” Sofia said, turning toward the stairs to the surface.
One of the first things they’d done once they’d settled into the cenote was fully fix the staircase, carving out new steps where the old ones had crumbled.
Even so, the way was precarious, and Sofia had to slow down to not fall.
“Is it Jacinta and Delio?” Flor said, following on her heels.
“I don’t know!”
Sofia focused on not tripping until she stepped onto the forest floor, stone stairs giving way to soft soil.
She wasn’t sure if it was purposeful on Chalia’s part, but it had rained almost every day in their little section of the forest since they’d gotten here.
The plants shined with the remnants of the last rain in the dappled sunlight, like gems spread across the forest. Even in the short time they’d been there, the undergrowth was thriving with the rain, the green more vibrant than Sofia had ever seen.
The moment she was level with the forest, Chalia was there, slinking through the trees from the small clearing she’d been curled in just west of the cenote.
“They’re almost here,” Chalia said, pointing her nose to the south. “I smelled them when the wind shifted.”
Sofia nodded, exchanging a look with Flor as they separated. Her arm scraped against the bark of a tree as she pressed herself against the trunk beneath a large fern. Across the way, Flor had disappeared.
“Chalia, hide just in case.”
The dragon gave a snort of derision, but complied, twisting backward into the trees, quieter than Sofia would have expected for a creature her size.
She’d been eager for the two resistance fighters to return, but now that they might be, Sofia felt her stomach sinking. It was too soon. If they’d made it into the city to gather supplies and information, they shouldn’t be back so soon.
The forest held its breath. The birds didn’t even chirp, and the wind had settled into silence.
Sofia tried not to focus on the pain in her back or the fact that she hadn’t grabbed a weapon.
She had a dragon, after all. Though Chalia’s magic had yet to do more than make it rain, she was still in possession of teeth and talons.
Sofia’s muscles vibrated under her skin as she heard the soft sound of feet sinking into soil. A second later, Delio stepped through the trees, followed by Jacinta, and her shoulders relaxed with a breath.
“You’re back,” Flor said, stepping out from her hiding spot. Jacinta whirled toward her, bow and arrow pulled and aimed between one breath and the next.
“I come in peace,” Flor said, holding up her hands. “Sofia’s behind you.”
Delio looked over, and Sofia met his eyes as she stepped out from her hiding spot.
“We didn’t expect you for a few days. Does that mean you managed to…” Sofia’s words trailed off at the look on Jacinta’s face. It was tight with anxiety.
“Let’s go get Micael,” Flor said, reading the expression.
“I’m here.” His voice was rough as he came over the lip of the cenote, breathing heavily from the exertion. Despite a week of healing and rest, Micael had only seemed to grow more exhausted and old since they’d escaped. As if the prison had permanently drained him. “You didn’t make it into Suvi?”
“We didn’t make it anywhere near Suvi,” Delio said. His voice was rough with more than just exhaustion from the hike home.
“They’re cutting down the mangroves to extend the wall. I don’t know how, but they must have figured out how we were getting in and out. Or they guessed.”
Javi, standing just behind Micael, jolted at this. “They’re going to flood the rest of the damn slums.”
Jacinta gave a dry laugh. “I don’t think they care.
They’re burning and cutting down the trees around the entire wall.
You can hear the chaos before you even get close to the city.
Smoke nearly blotted out the sun on the day we were there.
I don’t know how we’re going to get back into the city, but it won’t be through the woods. ”
“We can’t exactly sail in,” Flor said.
“I can get into the city,” Chalia said as she pushed through the trees.
Most of their group seemed unbothered by the dragon standing across the way, but Sofia saw the way Delio and Jacinta stiffened, unused to her presence.
They had left the day after they’d arrived.
The others had had a week to get used to the dragon popping in and out of conversations.
The second morning, Chalia had almost given Micael a heart attack bursting out of the lake when he’d gone to pull water for the kitchens.
“You can, but you aren’t exactly stealthy,” Sofia said. “We need to see what’s happening and get supplies. We don’t want eyes on us, not yet. It would only cause more chaos and death.”
The others had fallen silent, and Sofia realized they were all looking at her.
“She said she could fly in. I informed her she’d need to be about a hundred times smaller for that.”
Sofia’s stomach dropped as she said the words, and she looked up slowly at the clear sky above them. A few small birds flitted through the branches near the top of the forest, far from their small group.
In order to fly into the city unseen, you’d need to be the size of a bird. Or a hawk.
Fuck.
Sofia knew exactly how they could get into Suvi and connect with their allies. At least she knew how to give them a fighting chance. There was also a strong possibility that Lumi would stab her long before the hawkshifter agreed to help her.
The last time Sofia had seen the hawkshifter, they were here at the cenote with Clarita and a few others.
She’d been showing them the dragon feather she’d found.
They would have returned to their own cenote by now—their own cenote which the king’s men had razed to the ground.
Fox and Sofia may not have been the ones to kill their people, but they held the blame for bringing the army to the tribe’s doorstep.
She couldn’t blame Clarita and the other shapeshifters for hating her. But Lumi might be their only chance.
“We need to go talk to the shapeshifter tribe. I know someone who can get into the city.”