Chapter 42
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
SOFIA
They couldn’t bury their dead at the nesting grounds. The soil was too frozen beneath the snow.
The day after the battle, a few dragons volunteered to fly the bodies down into a small valley between the mountains, where the frost hadn’t set in so deeply.
The Deyeran bodies were given a pyre, and Fox gave a brief prayer before returning to Sofia’s side as they dug a shallow grave for their dead.
The dragons watched from a distance, looking perturbed by human customs. Before they’d flown down for the burial, the dragons had held their own funeral for their lost flock member.
They’d taken Niola’s body to the top of the nesting mountain’s peak and laid her out for the vultures and scavengers to take what they needed from the body.
Chalia explained that a sun cycle after her death, her bones would be taken and laid out in the death fields, which were miles away and closer to the eastern sea.
As Jacinta, Javi, and a few others dug, Micael and Sofia helped build a fire and collected snow for tea. Once they’d laid the bodies in the ground and buried them, they set a layer of stones in a pattern across the loose dirt. Sofia helped distribute the mugs of tea.
Chalia was the only dragon willing to get close to the fire.
As tears traced down Sofia’s cheeks, Chalia nudged her, cold breath against her back.
She reached back, placing a hand on Chalia’s brow, her scales icy beneath her palm.
On her other side, she reached out, and Fox took her hand, intertwining his fingers with hers.
Micael spoke the traditional parting words, sending their souls to the Depths where Quelia waited to greet them.
Clarita added her own words for Victor, the shapeshifter who’d been killed.
Sofia hoped Maya and Victor knew that the dragon gods themselves were watching over their funeral. They’d be with Quelia all the sooner.
They ate and drank their tea while the Dereyans’ pyre burned, and Sofia explained the customs of the Dragonborn to Fox and Chalia both.
Chalia stated it was a waste of the meat to bury or burn the bodies, while Fox noted that eating a meal over the dead was something the Dereyans would be horrified by, and Sofia smiled.
“For a people obsessed with killing, they’re so terrified of death,” Sofia said.
“Perhaps that’s why we kill,” Fox said, “to prevent us from having to face death.”
“I hope Harlow sees his death coming, and he feels every ounce of fear of it.”
“I’m starting to think there will be a line of people waiting to kill him.” Fox’s fist clenched around the mug of tea he was holding, knuckles going white. “You’re going to have to vie for your spot.”
Sofia gave a sharp smile. “I’m always ready for a fight.”
A shadow passed over Fox’s eyes, the line at the corner of his lip deepening just the smallest bit.
Sofia wondered at how far he’d come and how much he’d changed since she’d first met him as the loyal king’s man.
He looked at home sitting among the resistance and shapeshifters, drinking his tea.
He was smiling at something Jacinta had said, and he almost looked content—almost. She saw the way his smile didn’t quite meet his eyes and the way the furrow between his brow had deepened over the past weeks.
They were set off to the side, far enough from the fire for Chalia to lie behind them comfortably. It also meant they were far enough away that they could speak privately without being overheard.
“How are you doing?” Sofia asked.
Fox looked at her, eyebrows furrowed. “Fine.” It was more question than statement.
“You’re not.”
“I’m fine,” he said, voice rough.
“He said Ian was with your mother. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt her.”
Fox didn’t look at her. “You know a side of Ian I might never know. But a king’s man doesn’t disobey the chief commander’s orders. If Harlow orders Ian to kill her—”
“You did.”
Fox stopped and looked at her.
Her eyes were fierce, her lips a thin line.
“I did what?”
“You disobeyed his orders,” she said, her voice stern, more confident. “You went against what he said and changed. And Ian’s already on our side. He’s been working with the resistance since before me.”
“And if he doesn’t have a choice? If Harlow doesn’t let him decide?”
“We’re going to get them out. Your mother and my father. Right around the time I tear Harlow’s eyes out and shove them down his throat until he chokes.”
Fox looked at her, face softening. “I’m glad I’m not on your bad side anymore.”
“Don’t speak too soon,” she said, gently nudging his shoulder.
“Will we free Eha, too?” Chalia asked, her head coming around to rest at Sofia’s side. “While you’re feeding the evil man his own eyeballs?”
“Yes,” Sofia said without thinking.
Fox’s smile faded, and he looked ahead, eyes lost in thought. “We need to figure out how he’s controlling them,” he said. “How we can free them.”
“You were working with him. Is there anything you can remember?”
“That’s the problem,” he said. “Last time I was with him, the idea seemed impossible. I didn’t worry about him finding some secret because I didn’t think there was a secret to hide. He was insistent that you were controlling the dragons somehow, and I knew that wasn’t true.”
“So, he found an answer to a question you didn’t even think existed.”
“I thought he was being paranoid.”
“But he wasn’t,” Sofia said grimly. “Chalia, any ideas?”
“I’ve never heard anything about humans controlling us. I can’t imagine if that information existed, we would have allowed it to be written down, or even known to the humans to begin with.”
“No, I don’t imagine the dragons would have loved that information floating around.”
“Bruta would have known,” Chalia said, almost wistfully.
“Bruta?” Sofia had only met a handful of the dragons over their time here, and she didn’t think Bruta was one of them.
“She was an elder—a leader of our people. But she only speaks with Quelia now.”
Sofia didn’t need to ask what that meant. She placed a warm hand on Chalia’s nose, as if she might comfort the god.
Chalia spent the rest of the funeral talking about the times she’d spoken with Bruta and the stories she’d tell of the time before the kings and the wars that went on between the tribes.
It included parts of her history that Sofia didn’t even know.
She knew the tribes were never peaceful, even before the first king took over the kingdom, but hearing about some of the atrocities, she was beginning to think that humans were just evil by nature.
“Fighting and war are not necessarily evil,” Fox said, continuing when she gave him a deep frown.
“Bad, yes, but not evil. They were fighting for resources and land. For keeping their people alive. We don’t consider the jaguar evil for killing to feed itself.
It’s different from fighting and killing for the sake of power and control. ”
“Maybe,” Sofia said. He wasn’t wrong, but she wasn’t sure the difference was so clear cut.
When the pyre burned down at last and they’d finished their meal, Micael took a small bowl, scooping out the dirt from the edge of the grave, before making the customary slash across his chest and passing it on.
“It’s a reminder that the dead forever remain with us in our hearts and souls,” Sofia told Fox.
She showed him how to wipe the mud across his chest before doing her own. Chalia even let Sofia place a bit of mud across her scales, somewhere beneath where Sofia imagined her neck was. Sofia could have sworn her silvery white scales glowed around where the dirt was placed.
The flight back to the nesting grounds was quiet.
The moment they touched down, Chalia’s father was there, checking his daughter over as if he’d been afraid the entire time she’d been gone.
He’d chosen to stay up with the dragons to watch the eggs and the grounds.
They’d blocked off every tunnel inside the mountain and stationed at least seven dragons to watch the eggs, but everyone was on edge.
Sofia couldn’t blame them. There was no way to tell when Harlow would decide to attack again.
More Dereyan soldiers had died than their people, but their numbers were overwhelming, and Harlow knew it now.
He’d seen just how few resistance fighters there were, even with the dragons on their side.
“Come with me,” Chalia’s father said, eyes turning first to Fox, and then back to Sofia. “Pale Scales, too.”
Fox and Sofia exchanged a look. Fox’s hand was hot as it encircled her own and she gave a nod, the two of them following after Chalia’s father.
Sofia reached out to Chalia, but the smaller dragon didn’t know what her father wanted either. It took only a few minutes of walking to realize they were headed toward Aurelia and a few other dragons.
“Sofia, Fox,” Aurelia said, her voice warm and deep in her mind. Her next words were slow and careful. “I wanted to thank you and apologize again for my doubt in you and your allies. You saved our eggs—our nestlings.”
Sofia nodded, trying to accept the gratitude.
“We owe you a life debt. Each of you.”
Sofia felt her cheeks going red, but Fox beside her looked pale.
“So, what’s the plan now?” she asked, wanting to change the subject.
Fox looked absolutely sick at the compliment from the dragons, and she didn’t think his puking on them would be taken kindly.
He never seemed to know how to handle softness or kindness.
She hated his father and Harlow just as much for teaching him he didn’t deserve such things.
“We attack,” the dragon said, letting out an icy blast that had Sofia stumbling back a step. Aurelia noticed and looked a bit bashful. “We must reclaim our eggs and our family.”
Sofia felt the pain and anger behind the words. She knew them deep in her soul. “We need to understand how the dragons are being controlled,” she said. “Have you ever heard of such a thing?”
“No,” she said, her voice biting.
“We may be able to help,” Fox said, and Sofia turned, not knowing where he was going with his statement. “I know someone in the chief commander’s camp. Ian may know how he’s doing it. If we’re able to sneak in and talk to him.”
The dragons didn’t speak for a long while, and Sofia saw the way their feathers rippled and wings twitched. They were speaking to each other. At last, Aurelia turned back to them.
“We will give you three days to try it your way. If you cannot discover the secrets, we will raze the camp to the ground.”
“Fair enough,” Fox said. His face was neutral, but she knew what he was thinking because she was thinking it, too.
Their plan had to work.
Their parents were in the camp, and they couldn’t be there if the dragons attacked.
“We’ll leave tonight,” Fox said, glancing at Sofia for confirmation.
She was exhausted to her bones, but she couldn’t argue. She nodded.
“And you,” Aurelia said, examining Sofia carefully. “I do not understand the connection you have to my daughter, not yet, but I trust you to keep her safe.”
“Always,” she said. “As if she were a part of me.”
Aurelia watched her for a moment, something unreadable in the dragon’s gaze.
At last, she gave a snort of approval before turning away to speak to the rest of the dragons.
Sofia and Fox were dismissed. They looked at each other as they turned to walk back up the slope, and Sofia wondered how they would accomplish what they had just promised.