Page 50 of Dragon Gods

She didn’t reply for a moment, as if she were contemplating a heretofore unknown ability to fly.

“Can you hand me the candle?”

“I can light it.”

“Do you know how the use a flint?”

“You hit it and it lights,” he said.

She held out her hand to him and stared in silence. After a moment, he gave in and reached up to hand her the candle inside. It was caked with dirt and dust, but not as much as one might assume. He imagined it was mostly protected in its small glass cage.

She lit it and handed it back before he slipped it into place. They did this to the next three lanterns they found with candles in good enough shape to light, wiping away the dirt that caked the glass as best as possible. With each one, the cavern brightened, shadows melting away to show the spaces that had been hidden. The walls of the cavern were painted with murals of blue, black, and white dragons, scales and feathers almost gleaming wet with the details of the paint. And beyond those walls stretched hallways in nearly every direction, dropping off into shadow. The large room, with its emerald lake and intricate artwork, was only the beginning of the ancient complex, and for a moment, Fox glimpsed the glory of the Dragonborn before the first king had been born. With all their myths and stories of magic, the reality ofthiscouldn’t be denied.

And for the first time in many cycles, a seed of doubt bloomed in his chest. If their histories had neglected the architectural beauty of the Dragonborn’s cenotes, what else might be lost in the records they were taught?

FOX

AGE 13

Prior to the first king’s revelation, the tribes of Wueco built their cities underground in the many cenotes that cover the land. While they were happy with their existence, it was the first king that suggested the humans fight the dark creatures of the forest rather than hiding away from them. He saw the forest as belonging to their people as much as the dragons and faeries. It was through him that his tribe laid claim to the first above-ground city east of what is now Suvi.

-The Legacy of the Kings: A History of Wueco’s Creation by Francis Knoll

The silence wasn’t new to their family. There had been many silent meals and silent evenings before, but it had never been so heavy or so loud. Fox heard the rush of his blood in his ears and the pounding of his heart. He almost imagined his father could hear them both from his place at the head of the table a few feet away. But if he did, he didn’t say anything, choosing to keep his eyes on his bowl as he ate another spoonful of the bean stew the cook had made.

A stifled sob from his mother broke the silence. It was a choked-off thing that she almost immediately swallowed. Father’s eyes shot up and narrowed as if her cry had somehow interrupted a perfectly good evening. Is that what he thought? That if none of them addressed the empty seat across the table from Fox that they might forget that Leon was gone? Dead? They could simply pretend he was in the barracks and would return for his next leave.

Seven others had died in the explosion. They’d been lucky, the chief commander said. Half the main unit had been sent out on a reconnaissance mission and another handful were taking care of the breach along the wall. The same breach that Leon was supposed to be at before he’d returned to collect Fox.

His father hadn’t cried. Not that Fox had seen. And Fox had followed his lead, keeping his jaw tight and his eyes dry. If he focused on his anger and his hate, then the grief didn’t feel as overwhelming. He could scream at the Dragonborn maid when she broke the mug his brother had given him two cycles ago. He could kick the dirty Dragonborn garden boy when he looked at him the wrong way. But he couldn’t curse his brother for daring to die. He couldn’t scream at himself loud enough to make his own guilt and pain go away.

He was starting to hate the sound of silence. It only made the voice in his head louder.

Another broken sob crawled up from Mother’s throat and he saw her clench her fist to her chest out of the corner of his eye, as if she was trying to hold herself together.

“Paoletta, if you insist on causing a scene, you can go to your room,” his father said, still not looking up from his food.

Mother didn’t point out that she wasn’t a child to be sent away. She simply stood up and walked out, the sobs left as an echo in the dining room.

“Eat,” his father snapped, and Fox quickly returned his gaze to his bowl, the spoon rising to his mouth and his throat swallowing automatically.

That was the last word spoken for the rest of dinner until his father had scraped his bowl clean. Fox had barely made a dent in his food, but the moment his father stood from the table, he knew it was the sign that dinner was done. He stood, giving his father a silent bow as he walked out, following the same path Mother had taken just minutes before.

He went back to his room. At least the silence in there was his and his alone. But when he opened the door, the light from the gas lamps in the hallway fell perfectly across his small desk where the leather-bound book was laid. The cover was cracked now, the gold title gone beneath the dirt and stains, but Fox could still picture exactly what it looked like when he’d plucked it off the shelf. He also remembered how the book felt pressed against his chest in the hours he laid beneath the rubble as the blood trickled down, soaking into the leather. His brother’s blood.

Fox’s fist crashed against his bedroom wall before he knew what he was doing. He stomped across the room in half a daze, something bigger than anger boiling in his chest. The leather was warm beneath his hands as he grabbed it, twisting it as if he might break it. But the binding was tight, the pages thick. He glanced at the fire in his hearth; he couldn’t do that, not with his brother’s blood still staining the cover. Instead, he marched to his closet, wrenching the loose panel away. There was a small stash of books hidden from his father tucked in the dark space between the walls. He didn’t look at them, shoving the book deeper into the crevice before shutting it away.

It was only when the panel was back on the wall that he felt like he could breathe again, though he still couldn’t stay in his room.

He walked down the hall, not sure where he was going until he was standing, looking at the carved door with its detailed ferns and the prowling jaguar looking out through the underbrush. It was Dragonborn made—a gift from the chief commander when Leon had been born. Fox had his own door, a similar scene with a serpent twisting around a tree branch, ready to strike. When they were younger, his brother had convinced him that the snake would move when Fox wasn’t looking.

He rested a hand on the door, feeling the lacquered wood under his fingertips. It was cold against his skin. When he heard the shuffle of movement beyond, his instinct was to step away, muscles tense. His father had always told him ghosts were myths, but sometimes in the night when everyone else was sleeping, Fox thought he could feel something moving in the halls, something watching him.

But then he heard Mother’s muffled voice beyond and his shoulders slumped. Of course, it wasn’t a ghost. He should have walked away and left his mother to her grief. He didn’t need to sit in it. Crying wouldn’t bring his brother back, and it wouldn’t stop the resistance from murdering anyone else. But his hand was on the knob, turning it and pushing the door open without his permission.

He hadn’t spent time alone with Mother in cycles and a stupid, childish part of him simply missed her. She was sitting on his brother’s old bed, holding his pillow to her chest. Fox stepped forward without thinking and let her wrap him in a hug. Her arms were tight around his back and the pillow was warm where it pressed between them.

“I miss him,” Fox said, finally feeling safe enough to express the words in the muffled folds of the pillow and her knit sweater. He wasn’t sure how she understood him, but she did and she held him tighter.

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