Chapter 34 #2
“I will never surrender to you,” she said, Chalia snapping the air even as she spoke. The chief commander glanced between them.
“And you pretend you don’t control it.” He stepped forward. He was so confident—so unbothered.
Fox edged to the side, as if he might block Harlow’s view of her.
“What’s the plan then?” Chief Commander Harlow asked, looking around. “I have more men, more dragons. You aren’t leaving free and alive. So why not be done with this?”
Sofia refused to look around. She knew he was speaking the truth. They’d flown directly into a trap. She should have known. She should have seen it coming—thrown her dagger directly into his chest when they’d first seen him flying up on Eha.
“If you surrender,” Harlow said, voice smooth. “I’ll kill you swiftly. No one needs to suffer. I’ll take the dragon, of course.”
“You’ll die before you touch a feather on Chalia.”
He smiled, crooked. “Chalia? How quaint.”
Chalia’s anger swept through Sofia like a wave. Her throat tightened, as if the rage and hatred were physical forces, choking her. He wouldn’t touch Chalia.
Sofia lunged. She was only a few yards from the chief commander. A handful of steps and she would be there, driving her dagger into soft skin and muscle. He wasn’t even wearing his full armor. The hilt was warm beneath her palm.
Harlow sneered and snapped his fingers. An icy wind tore through the clearing, sending leaves and dirt flying before Sofia had even made it two steps. Fox grabbed her, twisting his body around hers and blocking her from the worst of the debris.
A moment later, the clearing was still again, and Sofia looked up to see a new dragon standing over them, scales black as pitch. His face was twisted away, but she saw the same cloudy sense of nothingness behind his eyes.
A muffled cry drew her attention to the back of the black dragon. Two soldiers sat atop it, two civilians, tied and gagged between them. It took a second to register what she was seeing—who she was looking at.
“No,” she said, voice cracking. They were dead. Fox couldn’t find them. “Mom. Dad.”
Her mother’s face shifted first, as if it had taken a moment to recognize her.
Of course it would—she was dead to them, too.
She’d been a child the last time they’d seen her.
Her father wrenched forward, but the soldier behind him yanked him by the shoulder and pulled him back, a dagger pressed against his neck.
Her hands flew to her mouth, and she let out a sob. She couldn’t breathe. She felt as if she’d run for hours and her lungs were burning.
“I knew I might need more leverage.” Harlow paced around the dragon, swaggering as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
“Now, I’ll offer it one more time. Surrender willingly and I’ll make your death quick and painless.
I’ll even send your parents to the farms instead of executing them beside you. I’m being merciful, Sofia.”
The way he said her name twisted inside her like snakes. Her skin crawled as his eyes swept over her, waiting so patiently. She looked between Chalia, her feathers rigid, and Fox, his face gray as he glanced between her parents and where Harlow waited.
She couldn’t watch them die. She wouldn’t let the chief commander take anyone else from her.
“I’ll surrender,” she said, ignoring Fox going rigid beside her. She refused to meet his gaze. “But you’ll let my parents go. And you’ll let Fox and Chalia leave here alive. You get me and me alone.”
“You think you’re in any position to negotiate?” he said, raising his eyebrows.
“Perhaps if we fight, we lose. But you’ll lose people, too.
You won’t make it out of this clearing uninjured.
And if you kill Chalia, you’re guaranteed to start a war with the dragons.
If you let them go, they can go back and explain the deal.
You get me, and the resistance and the dragons will let you leave the mountains alive with your men. ”
“Sofia,” Fox said, stepping in front of her, blocking Harlow from view. He grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him. “Don’t you dare do this.”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“No,” he said, “you have a choice. I won’t let you sacrifice yourself. You won’t make me watch.”
She saw the tears in his eyes and realized she was crying, too, when he swept a thumb over her cheek, smearing the wetness there. “Please.”
“I have a plan,” she said, trying to push as much conviction and confidence as possible into her words. “I need you to trust me.”
Believe me. I need you to believe me. She thought the words as a spell and held her breath.
Chalia simmered in the back of her mind, rage and fear twisting through her, and Sofia did something she didn’t know she could do.
She closed the door between them, shutting Chalia’s emotions on the other side. Her next breath felt hollow.
Fox stepped back, his hand dropping to his side reluctantly, and she turned away. The raw helplessness painted across his face pierced her heart like a blade.
Chief Commander Harlow watched the exchange with a look of disgust.
“And your parents?” he asked.
“I won’t surrender unless you release them.”
Harlow turned to the man closest to him, whispering something Sofia couldn’t hear, but a moment later he stepped forward, a pair of iron cuffs in his hands.
“As I said, I can be merciful.”
“Let my parents go first.”
“And what guarantee do I have that you’ll follow through with your promise?”
“I always follow through on my promises,” she said.
“I’ll let your mother go. Once you’re cuffed, I’ll release your father.”
“And the others?”
“Once you’re kneeling at my feet, the others can leave.”
Sofia swallowed. She had lied to Fox. She didn’t have a plan. But she’d figure something out. She had to. She wouldn’t let Harlow win, but right now, she just needed the others to survive.
She took a step forward, even as Fox grabbed her, trying to pull her back.
“Please,” she said. His hand squeezed tightly around her arm. She almost thought he wouldn’t let her go, but then his hand dropped, and she moved forward quickly, not looking back. If she looked at him now, she might give in, let him grab her and run away.
Harlow waved, and the soldier next to her mother shoved her between the shoulder blades. She tumbled off the dragon’s back, falling to the ground in an awkward roll. She stood slowly, eyes going between Sofia and Harlow.
“Go to Fox,” she said, voice cracking. “He’ll take you both back.”
The soldier moved forward, and she felt her entire body seize up as the iron cuffs fell across her wrists, heavier than they looked.
Chalia let out a hiss behind her, and Harlow’s eyes snapped up, narrowing on the dragon.
“Kneel,” he said, eyes back on Sofia.
She felt Chalia pushing against her mind, the vague sense of the dragon screaming on the other side, trying to get her attention. But she couldn’t listen to her. Not now.
Her muscles felt so weak. It was easy to let her legs buckle. The soil was cold beneath her knees.
“Right where you belong, at last.” His fingers tangled in her hair, pulling it tightly and twisting her neck until she was looking up at him. “Seize the rest of them.”
Sofia tried to wrench away from him, a scream tearing from her in the same moment Chalia let out a roar. She couldn’t see behind her, Harlow’s hand like iron in her hair, hot pain searing her scalp.
“We had a deal!”
He leaned down, his breath hot against her skin. “I don’t make deals with rats.”
She jerked to the side, snapping at him, her teeth grazing skin.
He stumbled back, surprised, and she sent her chained hands straight into his groin.
He snarled, pulling his sword, and she waited for the blow, but there was only the ringing of metal above her.
Fox stood above her, holding back Harlow’s blow with his sword.
She fell back as Fox swung again, sending the chief commander back a step.
Fox didn’t follow, grabbing Sofia instead and pulling her toward where Chalia was lashing out at six soldiers trying to circle her.
Two of them had an iron net hung between them.
Sofia pulled her dagger with her cuffed hands and brought it down on one soldier’s neck.
Her moves were clunky, but Chalia distracted them, shooting bursts of ice and water at them in turn.
“My parents,” Sofia said, whipping around, trying to find them in the chaos.
Her father was still on the dragon, a soldier gripping him tightly.
He wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at Harlow.
Her heart dropped when she saw her mother kneeling in the mud where she had just been, Harlow standing above her with a dagger against her neck.
“I tried to be nice and make this easy,” he said. “You should have taken my deal.” He hadn’t even finished the statement before his arm was moving. A geyser of red sprayed from her mother’s throat, and Sofia screamed.
It couldn’t be real, because blood shouldn’t look so bright—so red—like the flowers that bloomed along the edge of the cenotes during the rainy season.
Sofia lurched forward, trying to reach for her mother. She could hear screaming, and she didn’t know if it was her or someone else. Fox was there, grabbing her. She fought against him, but her hands were still shackled and her body was shaking.
“Let me go!” she screamed. “I need to help her!”
“She’s gone.” He might have been yelling or whispering in her ear. She didn’t know, but the words echoed hollow in her chest as she was pulled back farther and farther. “She’s gone. We need to go.”
Chalia’s scales were icy beneath her as Fox pushed her onto her back and jumped up behind her. He was hot, wrapped around her, holding her. She was still pulling at him, trying to get away but her attempts were too weak. She was useless.
And as they swept into the air, her own screams echoed in her ears.