Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
SOFIA
Chalia’s wings cracked against the wind, and Sofia pressed herself against her back, focusing on the whistle of the wind instead of the shapeshifter she was leaving behind, bleeding.
They moved faster than Sofia thought possible, and in a few brief minutes they were back in the cenote, Chalia diving straight into the cavern below.
Flor took one look at Sofia covered in blood before grabbing her healing supplies.
“Jacinta, Javi, come, too,” Sofia said, noticing them emerge from the interior of the caverns, confused at the commotion.
Chalia was just as fast on the way back. Before she’d even touched down, Flor was leaping off her back and darting into the trees where Lumi lay.
As she barked orders at the others, Sofia let herself collapse against the trunk of a nearby tree. Her lungs screamed with pain, and she hacked a painful, dry cough, the tightness in her chest fighting against each breath.
“Shit, Sofia. Your chest!” Flor yelled over her shoulder even as she continued to tend Lumi.
“It’s fine,” Sofia insisted. “I’ll get some coldfled when we get back. Just fix them.”
Flor didn’t answer, returning to her more pressing task. Sofia could just see Lumi’s face from where she was. Their eyes were shut and their face was gray, but their chest rose and fell with sharp breaths.
Flor seemed almost frantic as she worked, stuffing the cut with something Sofia couldn’t place before pulling the skin together and starting to stitch. Sofia tried not to worry about her friend’s anxiety. Lumi would be okay. They had to be okay.
“You,” the wolfshifter had said. He’d known her. Or at least known that she’d been the one to kill the wolfshifters that had attacked her and Fox. Would they have attacked Lumi otherwise?
Chalia’s breath was frosty against her skin.
“You blame yourself for everything,” she said, pressing her nose against Sofia’s forearms. Most of her body was in the clearing, but she’d twisted her neck through two trees to place it beside Sofia.
She remembered then, the vision Chalia had had after the attack—the dragon diving between two boulders, sharp and craggy as she snatched up a wolfshifter.
The landscape had been rocky, snow and ice packed high, and two jutting peaks had broken through the air above it all, bent just barely inward toward each other.
The peaks had been bent in the shape of wings.
They laid Lumi in the closest bedroom kindly donated by Jacinta, who managed a small, sympathetic nod to Sofia as they arranged the shapeshifter. It was the closest she’d get to an apology for what had happened with Chalia, but Sofia would take it. She had more important things to worry about now.
She left them the moment Lumi was comfortable, retreating to her own room. The books and maps were scattered across the floor, a mess of papers.
Quelia’s Wings.
She tossed aside the books that didn’t contain maps, ignoring her internal protests that every page was precious. Then, of those with maps, she tossed even more to the opposite end of the room, removing those that only showed the southern forest and coasts.
Finally, she was left with layers and layers of the northern mountains. Each map had its own rendition. Some were painted, the snowy peaks glistening off the page. Others were rough sketches, vague recollections from artists who may never have even seen the peaks in person.
The terrain of the mountains themselves wasn’t shown in much detail, save for two maps.
One was from the oldest book she had. The three main passes that moved through the mountains were sketched out, trails showing where someone might theoretically hike through to the land on the other side.
There were a few markers, lakes, rivers, and springs drawn in, but not labeled.
And then there was the newest map, clearly copied from the older one, each peak matching the other perfectly, but here the lakes and rivers were named: Lake Charles, Regold’s Peak, Newl’s Springs.
Each name was a past king or military hero. The Dereyans had overwritten Wueco’s history, why not rename the land as well?
And there, nestled between two peaks, curving into the center over a pass, was drawn a tiny set of lakes and waterfalls—Janeo’s Springs.
Perhaps at some point there had been a map with the old name sketched onto the pass, but no longer.
Even in the rough sketch, Sofia could see how the twin peaks curved inward, as if trying to protect the lakes below.
Quelia’s Wings.
Sofia had found them. If she were correct, the dragons were in the western mountains. And now, they had a map.