Chapter 61
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
SOFIA
Sofia dove behind a tent as Eha opened her jaws wide and sent a blast of icy shards toward her.
They tore through its fabric, sending strips of canvas and leather flying as Sofia pressed herself flat against the ground.
Then Chalia was above her, sending water streaming down.
She rolled, icy drops still finding her as she jumped to her feet.
Her chest ached, half from her lungs and half from the heartbreak of looking into Chalia’s eyes and seeing nothing—no love nor recognition. She wanted to grab her and force her to look at her. She wanted to grab the soldier sitting cocksure on her back and stab him through the eyes.
She could do neither, so instead she ran, dodging between soldiers and tents, throwing the occasional Dereyan behind her as ice and water slammed the ground at her feet.
The dragons were strong and large and could fly above the camp, but she could turn and dodge faster than they could.
Sofia was recognizing that the dragons controlled by the Dereyans didn’t move in their natural patterns.
They moved like an animal being controlled by a human—bending to their will and their assumptions.
Humans didn’t think to roll or dive or twist in the same ways the dragons might, and therefore, Chalia and Eha never did.
It was, perhaps, the only advantage she had.
A particularly large blast of ice and water hit the ground at her feet, and Sofia went flying forward, her knees hitting the hard soil of the earth.
She cried out as the pain vibrated through her.
Her body throbbed, and she couldn’t convince her legs to get back up.
She rolled over, seeing Chalia and Eha landing in the mud in front of her.
The surrounding soldiers had thinned out—she had run toward the north of camp and was closer to where the wolfshifters had been.
There was nothing left to hide behind. No soldiers or tents that would protect her.
Only a few stumps and low bushes that would do nothing against the dragons.
“For all the bluster and rage, when faced with your death, you run,” Harlow said. His face was lit with a glee that made her blood heat.
She stood, her knees cracking with the effort. She glared up at him, chin held high, and she pulled her sword. “You say from the back of a dragon. Are you too afraid to face me?”
He laughed, sneering down at her like one might an unruly child. “I don’t fall for taunts.”
Eha opened her jaws and Sofia saw the swirl of ice and water forming.
Before she could dodge or accept her fate with her eyes open, a pale blue mass came down between her and the others, Aurelia letting out a roar that shook the ground.
The sky above rumbled with her anger and lit up for a single second, as if showing its displeasure.
She took the blast from Eha to her side and sent back her own icy explosion that had Eha rearing back to protect the chief commander on her back.
Sofia had a moment to look around and take in the scene.
She watched as Aurelia sprayed ice and water at the other dragons, the sky around her clouding with fog and blocking the soldiers’ views of the scene.
Aurelia didn’t let up on her barrage of attacks, but she also threw nothing more than water and delicate ice at Chalia and Eha, unable to aim at the soldiers without risking her daughter and her friend.
Above them, dragons swooped and fought, though she thought she noticed of few of Harlow’s dragons had changed sides, but she couldn’t be sure from this distance. She still needed to steal the bones that were controlling Eha and Chalia away.
The moment she had those bones, the fight was over. Harlow was nothing without the dragons under his control. It’s the reason he refused to face her, throwing Eha and Chalia at her instead.
As she thought, a shapeshifter launched themselves off their dragon’s wing and flipped onto another dragon’s back, disappearing from view.
“Well, fuck,” she said, already looking for the best way to climb onto Aurelia.
She wouldn’t even be hundreds of feet in the air, so who was she to complain?
She sent a message to Aurelia, even as she gave a running jump onto the lower portion of her tail and began her climb up her back.
The dragon was longer and larger than Chalia, and Sofia felt vertigo spin through her mind as she pulled herself to her feet and looked over the scene from her new perspective.
She was closer to the ground and didn’t have nearly as far to jump as the shapeshifters, but the gap between Aurelia and Chalia seemed daunting nonetheless, and she immediately regretted her plan.
But then Harlow was screaming and Chalia let out a burst of ice toward her mother’s wings, leaving Sofia no time to question her decision.
“I will keep steady until you reach my neck,” Aurelia said. “When my neck arches, bend your knees and jump.”
Sofia repeated the instructions in her head, nearly laughing out loud when she sent an automatic prayer to the dragon gods.
She took a deep breath and ran.
Aurelia kept true to her word, keeping her body still even as Sofia felt the rumbling of her magic through her back as she ran.
The dragon was wider than Chalia, and Sofia focused on staying as close to the line of feathers along her spine as she could.
As Aurelia pushed her neck up, Sofia nearly lost her balance, but she bent her knees and then jumped.
She was flying. Not on the back of a dragon, the steady weight of it beneath her, but truly in the air with nothing between her and the ground. The wind whistled through her hair, brushing her curls back, and for just an instant, she savored the sense of weightlessness before she was falling again.
Chalia barely acknowledged Sofia’s weight as she landed on all fours, fingers scrambling for feathers before she slipped off.
She was all the more aware of how much smaller Chalia was compared to her mother now that she was on her back.
But she didn’t have time to catch her breath or worry because the soldier was turning toward her, face twisted in rage.
The zing of metal echoed in her ears as he pulled his sword, and she did the same.
Her arms, which had been burning before from exhaustion, felt steady as she faced him.
Her eyes were focused on the large talon and bone hanging from a rope around his neck.
She saw red, channeling every ounce of her rage into her arms as she ran at him.
Their swords clashed, the sound of metal scraping against metal filling Sofia’s ears. Her only goal was cutting through this man. She would kill him for what he’d done to Chalia. Javi’s words rang in her ears.
They fight for loyalty. We fight for survival.
This wasn’t just about winning this battle. This was about freeing Chalia from his thrall. This was about freeing herself from the sun cycles she’d spent under Harlow’s thumb—under the king’s thumb. She was sick and tired of greedy men claiming power over everyone.
“You can’t win,” the man hissed, as her sword rattled against his again and again. She could see the sweat along his hairline and the tremor in his shoulders.
“I don’t have a choice,” she said through clenched teeth. She snarled, ever the animal they expected her to be. Her arms were burning, but they weren’t tired or in pain. There was nothing left in her but rage.
Aurelia let out a cry, and Sofia turned to see her wing tearing beneath Eha’s talons.
The soldier took Sofia’s moment of distraction to push her back.
She stumbled, feet catching on the ridge of Chalia’s feathers.
She fell, the sword dropping from her hands as she caught herself from slipping off the side of the dragon. The blade hit the ground below.
She didn’t yield though. She’d been weaponless before. Helpless before.
She kicked out, her foot catching against his knee with a crack, and he yelled out, pitching back.
He snarled words Sofia couldn’t hear over the roaring in her ears.
His face was red, and she saw the truth of his embarrassment and rage on it.
He was angry that she was holding her own against him, even weaponless.
It would make him reckless. She could win against reckless anger.
“I thought the Dereyans trained better than this,” she spat, standing to face him.
He slammed his fist into Chalia’s side, and she saw the dragon stretch, neck twisting back so that her open jaws faced Sofia.
Sofia went to her knees, grabbing on to the feathers along her spine to keep herself steady. Chalia’s teeth glimmered and water swirled deep within her throat.
Sofia didn’t stand, eyes staring up at the dragon she had considered her friend—her sister—a part of her.
Her eyes were clouded as they found hers.
Sofia refused to turn away. She met the dragon’s gaze and for an instant she thought she saw something of recognition in those cloudy depths, but then her jaw widened, and the ice shards shot forward.
Sofia closed her eyes, instinctively raising her arms to block the ice. She waited for the pain. The ice daggers were sharp, and she had nothing but her own skin to protect her. She felt the ice pass by, a single dagger cutting into her shoulder as it spun off behind her.
Her eyes opened in confusion as the soldier screamed again, and Chalia launched another sharp spear of ice toward Sofia. This time it flew over her left shoulder, missing her by the breadth of a blade’s edge.
Chalia let out a roar of frustration as the man screamed impotently, trying to regain control, and Sofia had only one thought in her mind.
Somewhere behind the clouds in her eyes, Chalia recognized Sofia. And she refused to kill her.