Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SOFIA
Chalia managed to keep Sofia’s air bubble solid for five minutes before it finally dissipated, and they were forced back above the water, heading east along the shore.
They were far enough away that she could just make out the flat horizon of the farmlands and the labor farms. Sofia was trembling from the fight and the cold of the sea.
Her lungs ached from the air within the bubble, not to mention everything she’d put them through over the past couple of hours.
“We need to stop,” Sofia pushed the thoughts into Chalia’s mind, too tired to speak. “We should go inland once we pass the east wall and find a cenote big enough to hide you.”
Chalia sent her agreement and twisted, moving toward the trees.
Sofia’s eyes closed against her better wishes, and she felt herself giving in to the exhaustion and pain as Chalia flew.
The wind was loud in her ears, but it only helped to block out her racing thoughts and the anxiety of what she was leaving behind in the city.
But none of that would matter until she was able to breathe again.
It didn’t take long for Chalia to find a cenote, or perhaps Sofia had fallen asleep.
But suddenly the dragon was dropping through the trees.
Sofia told her to land outside and slipped from her back before the dragon could question what she was doing.
Her legs were shaking and her breaths came in shallow bursts, but she had to ignore that as she worked gathering the driest wood she could find, dead leaves, and much to her relief, some coldfled leaves growing ten minutes from the cenote.
The entire time she was searching, she felt Chalia in her mind, anxiously following her every move to ensure she was ready to attack if anything happened. But the forest was hushed, the only sound the wind and the occasional small animals darting through the underbrush.
Back in the cenote, Chalia turned out to be incredibly helpful in breaking the wood apart into small kindling with her talons.
“What are those for?” she asked, looking at the small pile of fresh leaves Sofia had gathered.
“Coldfled leaves,” she said, a rasp in her throat. “For my lungs. I need them dry so I can burn them.”
Chalia examined them closely, a small talon poking at the leaves, as if she had never seen anything like them before.
Sofia was about to push her away when she noticed what the dragon was actually doing.
Small droplets of water hovered in the air, pulling from the green leaves as they began to shrink and shrivel.
“Oh,” she said, eyes going wide.
A minute later the leaves looked as if they had been drying for days, and Sofia felt herself gazing at the sight in wonder.
A sudden bout of coughing reminded her exactly why she was doing this, and she quickly moved to grab the leaves and arrange herself next to the smoldering fire.
It would have been better to smoke the leaves in a pipe, but the small one Javi had carved her cycles ago was somewhere back in the old resistance base, perhaps lost forever.
This would have to do. She threw a small bunch of the leaves onto the edge of the flames, where the heat would light them, but not burn them instantly, and she leaned over, breathing in the smoke with deep, shuddering breaths.
The smoke was sweet and cold in her lungs, and she held each breath for several seconds before exhaling slowly. When the leaves had burned away, she put the rest of them into the fire and kept breathing until the urge to cough lessened to a slight ache in the back of her throat.
It wasn’t perfect—the smoke from the rest of the fire only further irritating her throat as she tried to breathe in the burning leaves—but it was the best she’d felt since she’d first climbed the cliffs.
She gave herself a small reminder to pick more leaves and have Chalia dry them out before they continued on.
It seemed she should keep a stash of them with her from now on, as bouts of running for her life were becoming a regular occurrence.
When the last of the leaves had burned away, she lay back. Her damp cloak was lying across a rock by the fire, so she just curled in on herself and closed her eyes. Her clothes needed to dry before they took their next steps. For now, she’d rest.
She hadn’t planned on falling asleep, but before she realized it, the fire was gone and the cenote was dark as pitch. She sat up slowly, body groaning with every movement of her muscles. The only light came from the faint glow of the moonbeams coming in through the crack in the ceiling.
Disoriented, Sofia could only blink, trying to understand what time it was and why it was so dark.
She shifted and realized her dry cloak was draped over her, as well as a thin wing.
Chalia snorted in her sleep, and Sofia felt the dragon behind her, pressed against her back.
Her scales were cold, but Sofia didn’t move away.
She smiled, closing her eyes and embracing the comfort for a little longer.
Her mind moved through the past day and everything that had transpired.
She’d killed an innocent woman. Flor and Lumi were alone in the city.
She’d failed at saving Eha, even with the dragon standing before her.
She’d learned where Fox was, and that only made her feel more hopeless. She’d failed. Over and over again.
She was weaponless. She was alone.
A damp breeze rustled the air, and Sofia realized she’d been crying, the tears turning icy against her cheeks.
“Never alone,” Chalia said, voice a soothing balm against her racing thoughts.
“I failed you,” Sofia said, feeling her emotions unravel further with each passing second. “I failed everyone. I should have found the keys to unlock Eha. I could have threatened Harlow. Instead, I killed an innocent woman.”
Chalia’s voice turned firm, and the dragon shifted against her. “He killed that woman. He’s the one who chained Eha and turned her prisoner. You found Eha. She and her son went missing sun cycles ago. We thought she had died or flown across the ocean, abandoning our flock.”
“He’s had her for that long?” Sofia felt sick at the idea of it. And now he’ll have her for longer.
“Not forever though. That’s because of you.”
“Where do we go from here?”
“You know.”
Sofia did know. Both the resistance and the dragons were completely unaware of the army marching their way.
They needed to know. She should be excited—ecstatic.
It had been her dream since she was a child to find the dragons.
But now she just felt sick at the thought. She was leaving so many people behind.
“You’re not abandoning people,” Chalia said. “But we can’t do this alone, and you know it.”
Sofia nodded into the blackness. She couldn’t do this alone. She didn’t need to do this alone.
Her heart raced at the journey ahead of them. She had furs and boots in her bag for the trip, but she was supposed to be making it with Flor and Lumi.
But she had Chalia. She had a dragon. And she knew this forest perhaps better than any Dragonborn from Suvi.
“How long will it take?”
“It takes a couple of days to fly to the mountains.”
“We should head out,” Sofia said, standing. “The sooner we get to the resistance and the dragons, the better. We have some gods to speak to.”