They broke through the white and landed beside a large boiling lake in the center of the giant cavern. Sofia couldn’t see the ceiling above or the opening they’d come through. She almost choked on the steaming humidity of the space.
It was dim in the cave, but somehow lit, the lake emitting a rainbow of light from its hazy depths.
Ielo’s wings beat hard in place, blowing away the steam and fog and revealing countless crystals tucked along the edge of the shallow lake. Only when Fox dismounted and stepped forward, hand outstretched but not quite touching one of the sapphire clusters, did Sofia realize they weren’t gems at all, but massive eggs.
Dozens of them in every imaginable color.
Sofia also noticed the divots—empty spaces between them.
There were a handful of dragons scattered along the shore, two keening painfully as Ielo tried to talk to them. Another lay on the ground, bleeding from large slashes across their scales, chest rising and falling in sharp breaths.
Yet another was slamming his head into the wall, and Sofia watched with a gaping mouth as stones crumbled down the wall, the mountain groaning in protest.
“Rost, stop,”Ielo said.
“I can break it open wider,”the dragon snarled.“We can go after them.”
“You’ll bring it all down on the rest of the eggs.”
“They stole our nestlings! We can’t let them go.”
The dragon stopped with a growl, stomping the ground in frustration. Sofia saw the thin crack that ran down along the stone from where he’d been trying to break open the mountain. Near the ground, the crack opened up into a narrow crevice just big enough for a large human to slip through—or a wolfshifter.
“We’re too late,” Fox said, his shoulders sagging with the weight of the words.
Sofia slipped from Chalia quickly and strode toward the crevice. She peered into the darkness of the tunnel beyond, ears straining. Fox stood behind her, breath held.
“Do you hear that?” she asked, but Fox only shook his head. She looked at the empty divots where eggs used to be—at least seven were missing. Two of the dragons were still wailing as Ielo tried to calm them, but there was nothing the dragon could say to comfort them. One of their own was seemingly dead, and their nestlings had been kidnapped.
Sofia knew what she was going to do—what she had to do.
“ Are you with me?” she asked Fox before she had time to second-guess herself. She didn’t know how many wolfshifters they’d be facing.
“Always,” Fox said. Before she could process the depth of his response, he was already pushing ahead of her, diving through the tunnel. She followed, pulling out her dagger. Her bow and arrow wouldn’t do much good in the tunnel’s confines.
Only a few minutes into running, Fox nearly slammed into the wall as the path took a sharp turn.
“I can’t see a king-damned thing in here,” he cursed.
“I can see well enough,” Sofia said, stepping past him with a hand on his shoulder. It was dark, but she could just make out the traces of the walls and floor around her. Perhaps her sun cycles spent in the cenote had done her good.
Fox followed her footsteps closely, occasionally reaching out to brush a hand along her back to help guide him when the tunnel turned or dipped.
In any other world, the wolfshifters would have slipped away long before they’d caught up. They were faster than humans. But the tunnel was thin and twisted. Plus, they were carrying a set of oversized dragon eggs. When Sofia and Fox came upon them, they were moving single file, hunched over, each holding a glowing egg against their chests. The light sent colors dancing across the dark tunnel as the shifters ran.
The moment they were within view, Sofia heard the growled words exchanged. The shifter in the back passed his egg to the man in front of him before turning on them.
“Fox—”
“I’ve got him.Youget the eggs.”
The shifter heard their exchange, lunging for Sofia first, his claws extended. She smiled with her teeth as she ran to meet him, waiting until the last minute to duck under him. The floor scraped against her arm as she fell, but she jumped up the moment she’d cleared him and kept running. Behind her, she heard Fox and the shifter collide. There was no time to worry about their fight. She was already on to the next shifter, moving even slower now, a purple egg under one arm and an opal white one under the other. He couldn’t fit in the tunnel without twisting sideways and shuffling.
Sofia was wondering how she’d attack him without threatening the eggs, when he dropped them himself. She winced to see them bounce against the rocky tunnel floor, but it just opened her up to attack him without fear. She dove at him with her dagger extended. He feinted to the left, but the tunnel was so thin that Sofia dodged the swipe from hisclawed hands—mostly. It missed her stomach but slashed into her upper hip instead. She let out a cry as she lashed out to the left with her dagger and cut into his thigh.
They twisted around again and came together in the space of a breath, his claws erratic. She stayed low, using her dagger to carve at his thighs, calves, and ankles over and over again. When a claw came too close to her face, she twisted her dagger around and swiped to the left. Two fingers went flying against the wall, and his pained howl made her smile widen. He reared back, but she followed, dagger slashing at his claws as he recoiled, his moves now defensive.
They twisted around in their fight, and the shifter was now moving back up the tunnel, directly toward Fox. The one he’d been fighting was lying on the ground, bleeding.