Page 120 of Dragon Gods

He threw himself down onto his bed, fully clothed and smelling of slums and the prison, but he didn’t have the energy to care. His mind was racing with what Sofia had asked of him—to pray to the dragons. She said she could teach him, but they hadn’t gotten that far in their conversation. What if he was unteachable? He didn’t know where to start other than some muttered dragon-tongue words and slicing open his skin. He doubted the dragons would even listen to him.

But he did still have the feather. It was tucked away in his closet behind the loose wall panel he’d used to hide his books growing up.

Fox’s stomach lurched and he jumped out of the bed, unsteady on his feet from the sudden rush. Once he’d regained his balance, he strode to his closet. He grabbed a small candle off the side table, lighting it before he quietly slipped into the small room and closed the door behind himself. There were no lamps inside and the candle sent shadows stretching and swaying along the walls, demented bodies created by his clothes. He ignored them, setting down the candle and prying open the wooden panel.

He removed the bag first, the feather tucked inside. He hadn’t returned the pack like he had promised himself, unable to part with it, and no one had even bothered to ask after it. He set the bag aside and then reached back into the space behind the wall. Two small paperbacks came out first—romances he’d stolen from his father’s office after he’d almost been caught reading them. One still had tea stains splattered across it. They weren’t what he was looking for, though.

When he reached in again, he had to twist his arm, hand patting around in the dark blindly before his fingers grazed the cool leather of a spine. He pressed himself harder against the wall, changing the angle just enough that he got a grasp on the book and pulled. A web and a few dead spiders came out with it, but he brushed them aside with only a small grimace.

His hand wiped away the layer of dirt and dust that had settled onto the cover. He could make out the faint splotches of blood staining the cover, but the gold lettering of the title was all but gone. The cover creaked as he opened it to the cover page and he read the words he hadn’t thought about in cycles:In Praise of Dragons and Monsters: A Compendium of Dragonborn Mythology and Worship.

The book had spent ten cycles tucked away in the wall, waiting for him to remember he’d stuffed it there.

He didn’t need Sofia to teach him the Dragonborn prayer. He had it here sitting in his hands.

Fox stared down at the title page of the book, not ready to flip through it, though he knew tucked inside were the words to the traditional dragon’s prayer. This little leather-bound book had been the reason for his brother’s death—or at least that’s what he’d believed for a while. He remembered that sun cycle, sitting with the guilt and the anguish—the reality that his foolishness had gotten his brother killed. It had taken that long for him to recognize that his brother’s death had never been his fault or even a stupid book’s fault. They should have been safe in the small fortress built into the wall of Suvi. His brother should have been safe working for the king’s men in a time of peace.

It was the resistance that had taken that away from them. It was the resistance that had killed his brother. And for what? A freedom they still didn’t have? For a revenge that had just circled back around over and over again?

Sofia had lost people. Did it make it fair or right that she, in turn, killed?

Did it make it fair that Fox killed, too?

A muffled knock shook him from his thoughts and he was all too glad for the excuse to tuck the books and pack back behind his closet.

“Give me a second, I’m dressing!” he called, quickly wrapping a robe around his clothes before hurrying out to open his door.

His mother was standing on the other side wringing her hands, looking as if she half-expected Fox not to answer—as if she were still trying to convince herself his return hadn’t been a hallucination.

“Mom,” he said, reaching out a hand to squeeze her forearm, for reassurance.

“I hadn’t seen you yet today. I thought you might have returned to the barracks,” she said, eyes drinking him in like someone starved of water.

“I’m on leave for two more days,” he said. “Give me a minute to dress properly and we can take tea together downstairs.”

She nodded and moved as if to turn before changing her mind. She pulled him in and pressed a kiss to his forehand, her hands clinging to him harder than they needed to before she let go and left.

He slumped against his door as he closed it, hating himself for so easily being swept up in his mother’s grief once more. She’d never quite been the same since Leon’s death. Most days, her small fits of crying or silence were easy to ignore, but Fox’s disappearance had brought all her pain and grief to the surface and it bled from her every pore. The air around her was saturated with it. But Fox couldn’t turn away from her.

He took a deep breath, changing into his house clothes before heading downstairs, locking away all the questions of what was to come behind his bedroom door.

* * *

Fox spentthe rest of the day with Mother. They took their tea and then he watched as she stitched. He could have been doing something useful—going through logs or reading one the strategy books the chief commander had gifted him. Instead, he sat watching her work. There was a brightness in her movements now that he was beside her and he enjoyed the sense of his existence meaning so much to someone.

He didn’t even realize night had fallen until he heard the front door slam open and the stumbling, stomping footsteps of his father coming through the main hall to the sitting room where they were enjoying their silence.

“Did either of you think to call for dinner?” he asked before he’d even slipped through the doorway.

It didn’t take the slurred words for Fox to realize his father was three drinks past drunk. Whatever foul mood he’d been in earlier in the prison had only soured further and his bloodshot eyes searched over Fox and Mother. He was looking for a fight.

“Father,” Fox said, voice a low drawl. “We can call for dinner now. Perhaps you can have some black tea while you wait. I can bring it to your study.”

His father’s icy blue eyes swiveled to meet his, the sneer crooked and wavering. “You,” he spit.

“Mother, why don’t you go call for dinner?” Fox said, not taking his eyes from his father.

She stood silently, slipping out the back door into the servants’ hall, leaving Fox alone with his father.

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