Page 27 of Dragon Gods

“Me?”

“If you’re stupid, tell me now.”

“No, sir. Yes, I can do that.”

He leaned back, nodding and still inspecting her more than looking at her. “Good, then all we need to do is talk about punishment.”

Her stomach dropped. “Punishment?”

“I can’t let you get away with your crimes without any form of punishment.”

“Sir?” She hated how small her voice sounded.

“A finger, I think,” he said, nodding to himself. “A finger seems a fair price to pay.”

And perhaps it was.

But as Sofia walked home that night, her hand throbbing beneath the bandage, she wondered if it would be the last punishment she faced for daring to think.

CHAPTERTWELVE

SOFIA

The stub of Sofia’s finger was aching when she woke, heart thumping. She had opened her eyes the moment before the axe that had taken her finger hit the wood table, but she still heard the crash shuddering through her body. It was so visceral that as she laid there in the dark, her ears strained to hear it. But the only sound was the soft hum of Flor’s and Javi’s breathing on her right. The room was cold, the blankets they had been sharing wrapped mostly around Flor at this point.

Sofia rolled over in the dark, burrowing her back closer to Javi and trying to steal back some of the blankets. The darkness was near complete, even the lantern outside not leaking its light beneath the door. Some days she might have found the shadows comforting. It never got dark in Suvi, the streets always lit with gas lamps or torches and the hall at the inn always lined with lanterns even at midnight. Darkness was something unknown in the city, but in the rainforest it was at home.

Yet, tonight, even the soft shadows of night couldn’t calm her thudding heart. Thoughts fluttered through her mind like birds flittering and never settling. It wasn’t until she felt the wet trickle of blood on her finger that she realized she’d been picking at her skin. She clenched her hands into fists, trying to distract herself from the urge to pick more.

She wasn’t sure how long she laid in the dark, trying to even out her breathing as if she might summon sleep. Eventually, when she caught herself picking at the skin along her nails again, she moved. The ground was cold beneath her as she carefully rolled over, disentangling herself from the blanket and sleeping pads. Javi was a light sleeper and the last thing she wanted was to talk to either him or Flor right now. She grabbed her sandals and a shawl, wrapping it around her shoulders before she silently left the room and crept into the hall. She was wearing thin knit leggings and the chill in the air slipped through the fabric with ease. It was only after she had closed the door that she recognized the hall was as dark as the room had been, the lantern along the wall blown out.

She shivered in the cold hallway, trying to decide her next steps. There were matches inside the room she could go grab, but the chances of waking the other two wasn’t worth it. The darkness was familiar to her and there were lanterns elsewhere. So after a few moments, she only shrugged and turned left, hoping to find a lit lantern and somewhere to sit with the warmth of a fire.

Yet at the next turn, she was still faced with darkness. There were usually two lanterns in this hall. One going out was common, three at the same time was unusual. Her stomach churned and her muscles tensed as she stood frozen, staring into the darkness. Something was wrong and she knew it like she knew the cadence of Javi’s and Flor’s breaths and the smell of the rainforest after the first season’s rain.

Her mother used to say she was dragon-touched. She used it as an insult when she thought Sofia was daydreaming too much or dwelling on faerytales. But even when she was younger, she understood her mother just said it when she couldn’t explain something Sofiaknew.

She moved swiftly in the darkness, no hesitation in her steps, mentally checking through the roster of the other rebels staying in the cenote until she was relatively sure which room was empty. She still opened the door slowly, listening for the sound of breathing. When only silence met her, she ducked in quickly and grabbed the matches that sat on the shelf in every bedroom.

She pulled down the first lantern she found, relighting it before moving decisively toward Ocon’s cell. Her hand reached for her belt automatically only to find her waist empty. She was still wearing her sleeping clothes, a shawl her only armor. The lantern only made the shadows around her darker as she moved forward, weaponless but determined. If something had happened, she needed to know now before she went running for help.

Her hand trembled as she pushed open the door. It had been closed but not latched, only deepening her dread as she strained to peer into the dark room. As her eyes adjusted and she saw the body lying on the floor, recognizing immediately the tight curls of Emilio. He had only been recruited a few blinks before after his mother had been killed, caught up in the witch hunt for the resistance. And now he was lying dead, discarded in Ocon’s cell like the garbage the crown saw their people as.

Beside him, she saw the crushed bucket, the wire handle gone and she knew—this had been her fault. She’d broken the bucket. She’d let Ocon escape and now Emilio was lying dead. Jaw clenched tightly, she checked Emilio for weapons and found only a small blade tucked in the ankle of his boot. His weapons belt was gone. Ocon was running around with a dagger now, too.

As she stepped into the hall and looked around, she could hear Micael’s voice in her mind.

Tell someone so we can put together a search party.

And Sofia was all too aware that search party wouldn’t include her. This was just a further example of how she’d failed the resistance. She would be sent back to Suvi and maybe in a blink or two they’d remember she existed. Or perhaps they’d leave her there forever, rotting away in the gutters where she belonged.

Even with that image in her mind, she did almost turn down the hall to call out to Micael and the others. She wanted to play the perfect, loyal rebel. But before she could move more than a few yards down the hall, she saw the smeared footsteps in the dirt floor headed into the shadowed darkness behind her. He’d wandered deeper into the cenote toward the back exits. How long ago had he left? How much of a head start would he have by the time they put together a search party?

If she went after him now—if she caught him and brought him back for Micael alive and well, would that be enough to show her loyalty? If she could fix her mistake…

And then she was moving, down the hall toward the small storage room where they kept the weapons and supplies. She grabbed a small bag, packing away a flint, some rope, and a borrowed bow and quiver, not wanting to risk waking Javi by going back to the room to get her own. She switched out her lantern for a torch, easier to carry through the tunnels, and followed the smudges across the floor. Hunting a human wasn’t any different than hunting an animal.

Her eyes stayed focused on the ground as she walked, as fast as she could without losing his trail. At times the tunnel floor became too compact to track the marks, but eventually they’d appear a little farther down. Each branch of the tunnel held another set of steps, moving forward until they hit the water and then retracting. Sofia couldn’t stop the chuckle that slipped out as she noticed the third tunnel he had attempted to move down before turning back. He was trying to find a dry exit, which meant he was headed to the north-most tunnel that wound for miles and miles into the rainforest. All three of the other tunnels he had passed led almost immediately out of the cenote, though they took a bit of swimming. Anyone who knew the rainforest would have known this, but the king-worshippers had never bothered to hold on to such knowledge. They simply bent what they could to their will and built a wall to hide from the rest.

---