“Eha. She lost a toe in the fight. He’d been reading about using the feathers to communicate with them, but he couldn’t use them to control the dragon. But the toe—he’s able to control her mind when he’s in possession of the bone. Only her own bone.”
“He’s mutilating them and then using their own bones to control them,” Sofia said. Chalia let out a whine, soft but high in the night.
Fox felt sick, remembering the warmth of Eha’s voice in his mind and that numbing buzz he felt when he tried to reach out to her with Harlow.
“So, how do we stop him? Do we just need to get their bones?”
“It depends on how they work,” Sofia said. “Will the dragons be free the moment we have the bones?”
Ian gave a halfhearted shrug. “I don’t think it’s immediate. They take the bones off at night while still having control over the dragons. It might be about getting the bones farther away. But if you do that, you’ll have to do it all at once. The second one bone disappears, Harlow will know what’s happening.”
“So, we need to get the bones away all at once, right under their noses, with no one noticing.”
“Easy enough,” Ian said, lips pulled down in a frown. “You’ll also need to get your parents away, too, if you can. Harlow will retaliate the moment the bones are gone.”
Fox and Sofia exchanged a glance. He knew Ian was right, and it made dread settle in his stomach.
“We have allies,” Sofia said. “We’ll have to have one group ready tosteal the bones and run, and another group ready to break out our parents. You said Fox’s mom is in Harlow’s tent. Is there a chance of getting her to the prison tent where they’re keeping my dad?”
“She’s not chained up, so there is a chance I can use a distraction to get her away from Harlow.”
They talked details as well as they could with as little information as they had. Fox tried not to think about all the what-ifs and maybes and hopefullys tucked between the folds of their plan. So much could go wrong, but they had little choice. Because it was this or letting the dragons raze the camp with their parents still in it.
“I’m sorry I don’t have more information,” Ian said after twenty minutes of talking in circles and examining all the holes in their plans. “Harlow trusts me as much as he trusts anyone right now, but he’s been keeping a lot close to his chest. Luna’s going crazy, and the wolfshifters aren’t helping any of it.”
“How did that happen, anyway?” Sofia said, the derision clear in her voice. “The man sees everyone who’s not Dereyan as less than.”
“It’s a truce out of utility. He offered them free rein of the forest as soon as the war is over. He gets peace and the perimeter around Suvi, and they get everything north of that.”
“It’s not his to give away.”
“Try telling him that,” Ian said with a shrug. “But with the dragons under his control, the wolfshifters are willing to take that risk.”
“They’ll massacre whatever other shapeshifter tribes there are out there,” Fox said, feeling sick.
“They’ve already started,” Sofia said, thinking back to the shifters that had attacked them by the cenote. “The wolfshifters are already breaking the old treaties and moving into territory beyond theirs.”
Fox narrowed his eyes, but Ian asked before he could.
“How do you know that?”
“They attacked us when we hid after the escape from Suvi.” She looked at Fox. “I thought they were just angry at me specifically for when we killed their own. They recognized my scent.”
Fox’s nostrils flared, and he felt his anger rise at the idea of thewolfshifters attacking her. Those bastards had already done enough damage to them during their first encounter.
“Why didn’t you tell me about that?”
“We’ve been a little busy,” Sofia said, waving her hand.
Fox clenched his fist, resisting the urge to badger her more about the incident. She’d clearly made it out alive. She was okay.
He looked up to see Ian studying him, his gaze shifting between Sofia and back to Fox before the corner of his mouth tipped up. Fox glared back.
“The truce is still on shaky ground,” Ian said after a beat, looking back at Sofia. “It might not be of any use or comfort, but the soldiers distrust the shifters, no matter how many times Harlow tries to convince them otherwise. Even Luna is muttering shit behind Harlow’s back. And the wolfshifters sure as hell don’t trust us. They still look at us like they’d rather eat us than help us.”
Fox knew on either front that Ian was correct.
“I should get back,” Ian said, standing up. “I told them I was going on a loop to scout the perimeter, but someone is going to notice if I’m gone too long. I’ll try to work on a plan to get the bones away from the soldiers. Getting Eha’s bone from Harlow might be tricky, but I’ll figure it out. I promise.”
