Chapter 67
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
SOFIA
Fox’s eyes flew open, a scream tearing through the air. Sofia felt sick as his face twisted in agony. He tried to sit up, but Eha was still pressed against his chest.
“Shh, Pale One,” she said, her voice a soothing balm in Sofia’s mind. Fox’s scream cut off, but his body seized in a way that made Sofia taste bile. Her chest ached, and she realized Javi was holding her back, stopping her from racing forward.
After another minute of no one speaking, Eha stepped back, her movements sluggish. The ground shook as she slumped into the muddy snow a few feet away, eyes closed.
“Chalia?” Sofia asked, staring at the collapsed dragon.
“Eha’s okay,” Chalia said. “Just tired. But look.”
Chalia nudged her and Javi from behind, and Sofia turned. Fox was lying on the ground, his eyes closed, but his chest was rising and falling in a steady rhythm.
Javi finally let her go, and she scrambled forward on hands and knees, heedless of the mud and blood staining her pants. His eyes flew open as she got to him, silver and shining.
“Miss me, my captor?”
Sofia fell on top of him, grasping his face in her hands as she kissed him, heedless of her tear-stained face.
She tasted blood on his lips, but couldn’t be bothered to care.
He kissed her back, his lips dry and warm.
She pressed into him harder, as if he might disappear again if she let go.
She couldn’t tell which of them was trembling.
He let out a pained groan, and she pulled herself back, hands fluttering over his body. The cut across his neck had healed, but the spider web of red scars was still painted across his skin.
“What hurts?” she asked, slightly frantic.
“Literally everything,” he said. “But probably not as much as it should.”
Sofia let out a strangled sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh. “No, probably not as much as it should. You died. You were dead.” She couldn’t stop the broken sob that tore through her at the words.
He reached for her, his hand soft against her cheek. He ran his fingers along her cheekbone and tangled them in her hair. She ached for the familiarity of his touch.
“I’m okay,” he said. “I think I’m alive. I don’t think death hurts this much. Gods, death better not hurt this much.”
Sofia held his face in her hands and watched as his face twisted into something.
“What?” she asked, looking at him as if he might break.
He just shook his head slowly. “Nothing. I just—I think I need a drink.”
“Of water,” Javi said, looking over Fox’s body with more care than she’d managed. “But you look—healed.”
Fox groaned. “Tell that to my body.”
“I was able to fix the worst of it,” Eha said, her voice soft. “But not everything. Not perfectly.”
Sofia reluctantly let go of Fox and walked over to Eha, the crunching of the snow loud beneath her feet. She pressed her forehead against the dragon’s snout, looking her in one eye.
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for bringing him back.”
Eha blinked. “I didn’t bring him back. I just healed him.”
“You saved him,” she said again.
“Be careful,” Javi snapped behind her, and she turned to see Fox pushing himself up into a sitting position.
Fox’s mother was there, her hands shaking as she tried to stop herself from grabbing him.
He decided for her, pulling her toward him and wrapping her in a hug.
Sofia gave Eha a kiss before returning to Fox’s side.
She didn’t want to interrupt his reunion with his mother, but he stretched an arm out, intertwining their fingers.
“Sofia, meet my mother. Mother, Sofia.” Sofia smiled awkwardly, but Fox’s mother pulled her in tightly. She gave a small squeak of surprise, but carefully wrapped an arm around her. The woman was covered in blood, but she realized as his mother pulled back, it wasn’t her own.
“It’s lovely to meet you, Sofia,” she said. “You can call me Paoletta.”
Sofia tried not to think too hard about the fact that this woman just watched her kill her son—no, not kill. Almost kill. He was alive. He was always alive. They just missed his pulse, his breathing.
She repeated the words to herself, even as another part of her wasn’t convinced. He hadn’t been breathing. She’d checked. His mother had checked.
“We should get somewhere safe,” Sofia said, brushing away the thoughts, just realizing they were still in the middle of a battle. “We need to talk to the shifters—the other dragons. We need—”
“Sofia,” Javi said, suddenly in front of her, an icy hand on her cheek. “Breathe. Look up.”
She blinked, following his instructions despite the pounding of her heart.
She looked up. The sky was a dark gray—sunset turning into dusk turning into night without her noticing.
But even in the darkness, with the stars tucked behind clouds, she noticed the dragons circling, and not in the defensive patterns of before.
A small dragon darted away from the formation, diving out of the sky and directly toward them. Her heart caught in her throat before she heard the soft warble of joy and turned to see Eha looking up at him, eyes shining.
“Mama!” screamed the dragon.
“Zuni!” The small dragon flew directly into Eha. She twisted her body around him as they met, enveloping him in white wings. Mist and clouds gathered around them, as if she were wrapping him in every layer of protection she could in that moment.
Sofia couldn’t stop her own tears from falling as she watched their reunion.
Aurelia landed softly beside Sofia, scales glowing faintly in the night.
“We freed every dragon,” she said, landing along the edge of the clearing—the only place she fit. “We did not retrieve the eggs, but I’ve sent a few of my best hunters to see if we can find them. The humans are running away. What should we do with them?”
Sofia looked around, truly, for the first time since she’d taken Harlow down. There were no Dereyan soldiers left fighting, only a scattering of dead bodies across the field.
“How many are left?”
“It is hard to say,” the dragon said. “Dozens? Many started fleeing when the battle turned and we started freeing the dragons.”
Sofia scowled. She didn’t blame them for running but was disgusted at their cowardice all the same. Javi was right, after all. They only fought for loyalty—and even that didn’t take them very far.
“You should go after General Luna if you can,” she said, sending the dragon an image of the man as best she could conjure.
“You can leave the rest, unless you wish to kill them,” she said, surprising herself.
She had gotten her vengeance. She wouldn’t order a massacre.
“They likely won’t even make it back to Suvi alive.
The wolfshifters and faeries are still out there. ”
She was done killing for today.
They lit torches, gathering the shifters and the resistance fighters back to the clearing.
Some were farther than others, slowly trickling into the clearing, drawn by the light.
Sofia didn’t see Micael, but Jacinta limped over, saying she’d seen him fighting near the tents.
She saw Carmen coming out of the trees, a cut bleeding across her forehead, but otherwise unharmed. Javi burst into tears as he hugged her.
Fox, leaning heavily on his mother, went to show Jacinta where the food and liquor was stored. It was decided they would head back into the mountains for the night before returning tomorrow to take stock of the camp and bury the dead.
Sofia couldn’t stop herself from walking the camp, closing the eyes of the shifters she found.
In the end, there were so many more Dereyans left dead, but it didn’t ease her guilt.
There were still too many shapeshifters and a few resistance fighters, unmoving as the fresh snow slowly hid the worst of the blood and gore.
She found Micael on his side, a sword protruding from his chest. The Dereyan that had seemingly stabbed him was lying nearby.
Micael’s skin was cold already, but the snow made it impossible to know how long he’d been dead.
She stood unmoving, staring down at the man who had trained her, eyes burning.
But no tears fell. A hollowness rang through her, grief and sadness and simple exhaustion.
Sofia was careful to arrange him on his back, crossing his hands over his chest and closing his eyes. She took the sword that had killed him and arranged it in his hands as a shield against the death that had already come for him.
He’d been aging over the past blink, his back bowing under the stress of the coming war.
Sofia had watched him, her own bones aching when his limp became more pronounced and his joints cracked.
But now, looking down at him lying in the middle of the battlefield, snowflakes in his hair, he looked young again, as if it had only been the war weighing him down.
He was free, the heaviness of those responsibilities gone from his shoulders, and she could have sworn he was smiling.
She said a prayer over him, body too dried out to cry, but she kissed him on the cheek before she left. No matter how many times they’d fought and how many mistakes she’d made, he had been the closest thing to a father since she’d lost her family.
She sent a message to Chalia about Micael, knowing the others should hear it sooner rather than later.
And perhaps she also knew passing on the message this way would mean she wouldn’t need to see the others’ reactions.
Jacinta would be devastated. The resistance was going to be lost without him.
Though after tonight, the resistance would need to change.
The war had changed.
Sofia finished her sweep of the camp before she returned. She lost track of everyone who had died. Many of the shifters whose names she didn’t remember. She would make sure Clarita told her each and every one before they were buried.
“They knew what they were fighting for,” Chalia said, voice soft. Sofia looked around, but the dragon wasn’t in sight. “We all did.”
Sofia bit the inside of her cheek. She knew it was true. She hated that they wouldn’t be the last to die in this war.
“Come back to the clearing,” Chalia said. “We’re preparing to leave.”
Fox was already on Chalia’s back along with his mother when she returned.
He helped her up, immediately wrapping his arms around her.
His body was warm, and she closed her eyes, letting her head fall back, ignoring the fact that his mother was directly behind them.
The steady beat of his heart thrummed against her back, and in that moment, it may have been the best feeling in the world.
At the same time, she felt Chalia, her presence resting in the back of her mind, cool and soothing. It was amazing that despite the utter horror her absence had caused, having her back felt so simple—so normal.
“I missed you, too,” Chalia said, voice nearly a whisper.
Sofia’s chest tightened. “Did you know what was happening?”
She didn’t want to ask—she wondered if it was her business. But Chalia and she didn’t have secrets.
“Yes,” she said. “I could feel everything that was happening, but I couldn’t act on my own thoughts. It was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever felt.”
Her voice was soft, barely there, and Sofia stretched a hand down to press into her scales.
“I’m so sorry, Chalia. I’m sorry I left you. I’m sorry I let that happen to you.”
“I told you to go. I would have been extremely angry with you if you hadn’t listened.”
Sofia let out a laugh, unable to hold it back, and she felt Fox’s arm tighten around her.
“I’m never going to let that happen to you again,” Sofia said, her words vehement.
“You can’t promise that,” Chalia said, “but I like the idea of trying.”
She would try. The way to control the dragons didn’t die with Harlow. Luna knew—the soldiers that escaped might know. Perhaps she should have ordered Aurelia to kill them, but she couldn’t stomach it. Did that make her weak?
Fox’s hand traced a path over her hip and back in soothing circles.
She focused on the warmth of his skin against her shirt and let her thoughts dissipate into the air.
The snow had stopped. A thin layer covered the battlefield like a blanket, and the clouds had blown away.
The stars shone above them like jewels in the night sky, the faintest green glowing on the northern horizon ahead of them.
And for just this moment, she appreciated perfection.