Page 97 of Dragon Gods

There were king’s guards in the cenote.

Her hand tightened on the dagger at her side, and she was tempted to run out screaming, praying to get a few stabs in before she was killed. Her eyes burned with anger, and she bit back the rush of emotions that flooded her. Where were her friends? Were they gone, dead, or captured?

And had Fox known? Had he somehow sent them here before her?

She let out a slow breath, pressing herself against the cool stone wall behind her. The voices were still distant, probably a few more turns through the cenote. She judged that they were coming from somewhere between the dorms and the kitchens. Closing her eyes, she let the warm hilt beneath her hand center her. She could attack, but it wouldn’t do anyone any good. She needed to retreat. She needed information and she needed time.

So against every bone and muscle in her body, she stepped back, toward where she’d come from. She’d leave the same way she’d come and then head into the city to find out what the resistance’s network had to say of what was happening. She had been gone too long. How much had she missed? When had the cenote even been emptied?

“Breathe,” she said, the softest whisper of a mantra chanting through her mind with every step away from the voices and her home.

And then before she could register the sound of footsteps louder than her own, a large callused hand wrapped around her arm and then around her shoulder, pulling her back into the body of a man.

SOFIA

AGE 16

The weeping willow which grows throughout the southern and central peninsula and thrives off the nutrients provided by dead animals decaying near its root system is named due to its unique ability to rain. Its branches and leaves are able to produce a poisonous water which falls around the tree, attracting prey, and then poisoning them before they are able to stumble away and thus provide the tree with its food.

-Tales of the So-Called Dragonborn by Jules Vond

The sun was low enough in the sky that the shadows in the streets and alleys had finally stretched wide, giving Sofia her first sense of safety since that morning. It was the dry season and the days were long and hot, leaving her little time to relax. Dragonborn caught not working could be sent to the farms without cause and the ugly scar on her wrist was enough to send her to the execution block if she ran into an angry guard. It meant that most days, when she wasn’t actively trying to survive, she had to stay moving around the lower slums, looking busy and keeping her head down.

She was lucky on the days she found an open barn she could sneak into long enough to rest her eyes and escape from the sun. Her skin, once sallow from hours locked away in the chief commander’s house was now a dark ochre, freckles she hadn’t known she possessed painting the evidence of her cycle on the streets across her face.

“Get out of the way!”

Two guards stormed down the street, a bloodied man struggling between them. Sofia stumbled in her bid to get away, her foot catching on a stone along the edge of the street. The guard pushed her instead of waiting for her to straighten herself. Her knee scraped across the hard road as she fell, but she bit her tongue to stop from crying out. Silence was safer around here.

She stayed crouched on the ground, not moving until she heard the trio disappear around the corner. The moment they were gone, she sprang up, careful not to draw attention to herself even as she shuffled away as fast as she could. Three turns later and she was in the narrow space between two houses, just wide enough for her shoulders. Only then did she pull out the small sack from her pocket and count through the coins. It was a dangerous game stealing from the guards, but they were always distracted in the middle of an arrest and they were some of the few people on this side of the slums who were actually worth stealing from. Lately, she was more likely to pickpocket stones or fake coins from a fellow Dragonborn than anything useful.

There was a gold coin and four coppers, based on the size. It was too dark to inspect them carefully, but she doubted more than one or two were fake. Guards were usually able to keep counterfeit coins out of their purses. Her stomach gave a low growl, but she didn’t move from her hiding space. It was safer to spend her earnings tomorrow or the next day and stay hidden tonight. If it meant going to bed hungry, well that wasn’t anything new.

So instead, Sofia curled up in the space between two crates tucked in the narrow alley. She fell asleep before the streets had even gone quiet.

* * *

She’d only been back home oncesincethatday. Her parents hadn’t seen her. She stayed tucked in the shadows, watching as her mother passed in front of the window.

She wondered if they’d been given the news directly or if they’d simply seen the papers announcing her private execution after the scene she’d made in the square. Either way, she couldn’t quite bring herself to cross the street and knock on the blue-draped door.

She was dirty and unwashed, the scars on her back still ached when she moved too much. And she was supposed to be dead. She had to stay that way. She was grateful the chief commander hadn’t taken his anger out on her family. He could have easily had them arrested and sent them to the farms. She wouldn’t put them in further danger.

So instead of running to fall into her parents’ arms, she sat huddled in the shadows until they lengthened into night and then she walked away without looking back.

She hadn’t been back to that side of town since, preferring to stay in the western slums or wandering the drowned quarter. The streets were always dotted with puddles, and if she wanted to sleep through the night, she had to find a roof to perch on to avoid the tide, but the guards avoided that section of Suvi and rarely bothered searching out the homeless there.

And that was what she was now, in part by her own hands. She could have stayed with the couple that had saved her—Talia and Manny. They’d been giving the rites to the dead in secret the night Sofia crawled out of the grave.

She learned their names eventually, when she was healed enough to sit up and talk with them. That took two weeks. She’d almost died twice from the wounds and infection. It was only their adherence to illegal Dragonborn medicine and a compassion that she didn’t deserve that saved her.

They would have welcomed her to their home with open arms, but three weeks into healing, when she was able to sleep through the night without the opium milk that made her mind foggy, she’d heard them fighting over her. There had been three raids in the neighborhood in a single week, the army cracking down on illegal dragon worship after a resistance bombing.

They wouldn’t have kicked her out. She heard that in the frantic whispers between them, but she was putting them in danger by existing in their house. And they were worried about their daughter—someone Sofia hadn’t even met. She decided to not give them a choice. She left the next day while they were sleeping.

* * *

The sun wokeher the next morning, a sharp beam between the buildings shining directly into her eyes. Her body was cramped and stiff from the awkward position she’d fallen asleep in, not quite lying down. The positive of the dry season was that despite the sun being high enough to wake her, the streets were still quiet, with only the most motivated workers going about their mornings.

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