Sofia nodded. She normally couldn’t speak to Chalia over such alarge distance. But there was something more. The distance felt different this time. It felt hollow—infinite.
She shook herself, pulling up and swallowing hard.
“I’m okay.”
Perhaps Ian was right—she was terrible at lying. Thinking of him brought another wave of nausea and pain.
It was only another minute before they made it to the cave. They stayed in the outer cavern. A large fire roared at the opening, keeping the wind at bay.
Javi brought furs for her father to sit on, and she noticed the stiffness in his joints as he carefully sat himself by the fire. She didn’t know if it was age or the cold. And that thought alone made her eyes burn again. She knew so little about the man before her.
She opened her mouth as if she might ask him. But ask him what? Who are you? What do you do in your free time? Do you still love cooking stewed beans, but hate the cleaning process?
Did Mom still love sitting by the fire and weaving, or had her hands grown too tired for that? Did she still look up at the moons when they rose over the horizon as if she’d forgotten the magic of seeing them appear?
She wouldn’t anymore.
So instead of asking any of the thousand questions that pressed up against her lips and clawed at her throat, she only said:
“I’m so sorry.”
Her father had the gall to look confused. As if he didn’t understand the dozen reasons she had to apologize to him. “Mom?—”
“Was not your fault,” he said, his own voice pinched with tears and exhaustion. “Thatmancouldn’t force me to blame you. She would have been so proud of you. She would have been so proud to see you fighting.”
Sofia shook her head, eyes staring into the fire until the heat burned.
“She hated the resistance. She wanted me to follow the rules.”
Her father laughed, and the sound was both so familiar and yet so foreign. He grabbed her hand, lifting it and tracing over the stub of her ring finger, eyebrows furrowed and lips tight.
“She used to pass information along to them when she could, before she’d lost her job in the royal district for lingering too long in rooms and watching too closely.”
Sofia felt something inside her twist. “She never told me she worked in the royal district.”
“She lost the job before you were born. And then when you came—she didn’t want to risk it anymore. She refused to riskyoufor their fight. After everything she’d given for the resistance, she—” he stopped, looking around, but Javi was the only one in the chamber and he was lying on the ground, seemingly ignoring them, “—well, she said they’d never given her a damned thing back. She said that all we had was you and she’d do whatever she needed to protect you. Even if it meant giving up on them.”
Sofia felt her thoughts swarming like moon wasps in her skull. Her mother had given up on the rebellion for her. And then what had Sofia done? Gone and broken her heart and joined the resistance without ever knowing. And her mother had died knowing she’d been alive and had abandoned her.
The heaviness hit her again, and she felt her shoulders slumping, her entire body cracking under the weight of everything. Her father took her by the shoulder, pulling her down until her head was resting along his thigh, his hand running through her hair.
“She would have been proud of the choices you made,” he murmured. “I think she was proud in those last moments. She always loved you more than words could express.”
She closed her eyes, pushing away the tears. Her chest hurt too much to cry. She felt as if she were six again, her father comforting her after her first day working in the chief commander’s manor.
She remembered that day vividly, walking up to the royal district alone because her parents didn’t have permission to pass through the gate. It had been her first time crossing the wall herself. She’d seen the upper city from a distance—the towering turrets of the castle and the ivy-covered walls. But up close, seeing the clean, straight lines of everything and the pressed clothes of the people, she’d felt herself breaking. Because for the first time in her life she had realized there was anotheroption. There were people who didn’t have holes in their shoes and dirt smudged across their faces because they couldn’t afford the cost of the bathhouse every week. Here jewels gleamed, smiles shone, and eyes passed over her as if she were nothing.
That night, she’d cried in her father’s lap as her mother cooked dinner and complained about him coddling her. She’d thought her mom cruel at the time. Only later did she realize how her mother was protecting her in her own way. They’d always tried to protect her.
Could she truly throw her life away—a life they’d given so much for?
She would destroy the army. She would destroy Harlow. They’d proven he wasn’t infallible. Javi had broken her father out because Harlow hadn’t guessed everything. And now she knew she would bring down the wrath of the dragons on his head to protect the ones she loved. But maybe she needed to fight for herself, too. Perhaps she deserved to live a life with the ones she loved. She deserved the future she was helping build.
Sofia felt herself drift away, her father humming a song her mother had loved.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
FOX
