“Let’s go,” she said.
She and Javi dashed forward, running from one tree to the next. The shapeshifters in the canopy covered them with a volley of arrows, though it was nothing compared to what the soldiers sent back.
By the time they’d made it to the border of the camp, they were left facing a thin line of soldiers. Bodies already littered the ground from the archers and the dragons, but there were more soldiers left than Sofiawould have preferred. Her heart was in her throat as a sword came swinging down toward her.
Her body reacted before her mind, and she brought her sword up to block and spun to the side. The energy of the man’s swing went to her left, sliding off her blade and allowing her to step back and return the blow. He blocked before she could make contact with his leather-clad side, and the clash of their blades vibrated up her arm.
She clenched her jaw as she fought, ignoring the burning of her arms as she kept her sword raised. She focused on her feet, stepping side to side and staying far enough away from the soldier that he had to move toward her. At last, the roar of a dragon above drew his eyes. It was a split second, but it was the opportunity she had been waiting for. She stepped and swung. The blade of her sword cut through his side, in the crease between his leather vest and the tassets that protected his hips and thighs, exactly where Fox had shown her.
He dropped with a cry, and she kicked his sword away before she moved onward. Around her, the battlefield was in complete disarray, soldiers swinging swords as rebels swarmed the camp and shapeshifters slipped in and out of their human forms. And above them the dragons still fought and magic fizzled in the air. Sofia caught a flash of Javi’s hair to her right as he spun around a soldier. Through the fighting mass, she could just see the bars of Fox’s cage, gleaming in the evening light. She thought she could just see him, hands clinging to the bars as if he might bend them by his will alone.
She tucked her sword to her side, bent her head, and ran. She dodged left and right, between fighting pairs, nearly tripping over her own feet as she ducked under a swinging sword. The battlefield was a muddy mess. She was so close and yet so far as Fox looked up, his eyes meeting her own. He looked so nakedly scared. She felt his fear shudder through her. He was trapped, helpless until she could get to him.
A roar from above had her stumbling, the ground beneath her quaking with the dragon’s call, and she looked up to see pale blue scales shooting down toward her. Ice landed directly in front of her, shards shattering against the ground. She screamed, covering her face as splinters sliced across her exposed skin.
Only after the air stilled did she look up. Chalia’s fogged eyes gazed at her from a couple feet away.
“Chief Commander Harlow said you’d be stupid enough to come back for them. I didn’t believe him.” The soldier sitting on Chalia’s back pulled at the rope, and she saw it bite into her neck. The dragon wheezed, stumbling back a step as the soldier looked about to lose his seat. “Stop moving!”
“Stop pulling at the rope, you dumbass.”
“I’m not the one that just walked straight into a trap.”
“You don’t have me yet.”
She reached out, pressing her thoughts against Chalia’s, trying to get her to hear her—to notice her. But there was nothing there beyond a buzzing sense of something. It was like reaching into the air and feeling the vague sense of heat or coolness with nothing tangible to hold on to. The familiarity of Chalia’s mind, so intrinsically intertwined with her own, was gone.
She swallowed back the scream that threatened to slip from her. Hot tears burned at the corners of her eyes.
Wind whistled, and Eha slowly lowered to stand beside Chalia, Harlow looking as if he’d already won the war.
“Like rats when it floods, you come scrambling out of the shadows.” His sneer was icy. “You had to know it was a trap, yet out you still came.”
“We don’t abandon our own,” Sofia said.
“Under different circumstances, I might respect whatever you and Fox have between you. If it wasn’t extremely inconvenient.”
“I’m sorry toinconvenienceyou. I should have stayed conveniently locked in your office reading and writing exactly what you wanted me to. Never thinking for myself or questioning my place.”
“You are just proof that your kind can’t handle learning. I should have taken your hand and thrown you out on the streets the day I caught you.”
“I am proof that the Dragonborn had every ability to think and reason until the king took that right from us. I am proof that you are nobetter than us—that every bit of your superiority is built on oppression, control, and fear.”
“I am the last line of defense for our kingdom between civilization and chaos. Your people, with their animal shifters and dragon gods will destroy Suvi in your fight for power. You want freedom? From what? The food and water the kingdom gives you? From the protection the wall provides?”
“Control isn’t protection.”
“Enough,” he snapped. “There is no reasoning with animals.”
He raised his hand, and before Sofia could understand the signal, a blast of icy water threw her back, slamming her into the muddy ground. She looked up to see Chalia staring at her, jaw opened wide. The wind danced across her wet skin like sharpened blades, and she felt something break inside of her.
She was going to have to fight Chalia, and she didn’t know if she had the courage.
CHAPTER SIXTY
FOX
Fox watched as another blast of ice and water streaked across the ground near his cage. The icy mist sprayed against his face, and his body vibrated with some combination of anxiety and annoyance. The blasts could at least hit his cage and allow him the chance of breaking the bars. Sofia had disappeared into the melee, and he was desperate to escape and join her.
