“It will be her choice, and I can’t do anything about that.”
Sofia clenched her jaw. She knew he was right. Everyone was going to make their own choices now, and that meant making the choice to put themselves in danger. Her eyes burned as she thought of Fox and the last flash of blond hair she’d gotten right before he’d been dragged away to wherever Harlow had taken him. She could only hope he was still alive. That Chalia was alive with them, too.
A small part of her knew they were both alive—that somehow she would know if they weren’t—that she’d be able to feel the world shift if they died.
“Come on,” Javi said, pushing himself up. His knees cracked, and Sofia let out an involuntary laugh.
Javi looked startled, but then he was laughing, too, pulling her up after him.
“Don’t even start.”
“Your knees sound like Micael’s.”
“It was one crack.”
“Do you need me to help you walk? I can make you a cane.”
“Shut up,” he said, wrapping an arm around her as they headed out into the bright morning.
The air was chilly, but the sun was hot, leading to an overall bearable temperature. The white of the snow combined with the bright sun was blinding, and Sofia had to squint as they moved toward the circle of dragons and humans down the slope a few hundred yards. They looked like a strange council, though Sofia supposed that’s exactly what they were.
“We cannot win with a straight attack,”Aurelia said, her voice echoingin Sofia’s mind the moment she saw her coming down the hill, inviting her into the conversation.
They were still too far to hear Micael’s answer, but Aurelia gave a snort of agreement.“I will not risk the dragons they have captured.”
The words echoed in the hollow place inside Sofia where Chalia had been tucked for the past blink.
“Then we either need to come up with a plan of attack or we need to run.”
Micael’s voice rang out louder this time, clear as they approached, and the murmur that ensued was clear. Some dragons were waving their wings in dismissal while others snorted in approval. The reactions from the resistance fighters were just as mixed.
“What chance do we have at attacking?”Ielo said.“Every time we send a dragon after them, they end up captured.”
“But we haven’t fought with all the dragons,” Jacinta said from where she was sitting.
Micael shook his head, but Aurelia answered.“We cannot send all the dragons. We need enough to stay behind to watch over the eggs. And I will not send any more younglings.”
Jobin let out a long snort at this assertion.“You’ll have to hold us back!”he said sharply.
“You do not decide that,”Aurelia snapped.
“No,”Jobin said.“You don’t get to decide if we choose to fight.”
Aurelia glared at him, but didn’t argue.
“So how many do we have?” Micael asked.
“Two dozen or so,”Aurelia answered, looking over the circle and then farther down the slope where some others sat watching a few younger dragons playing. Sofia could almost picture what he was seeing—the blank space where Chalia should be, playing with Jobin. Instead, Jobin sat beside his parents, one of the war council now.
“And they have eight dragons of their own, the wolfshifters, and an entire army,” Sofia said, all eyes turning to her. “We don’t stand a chance if we attack head-on.”
“The other option is we run,” Micael said.
Aurelia stomped her foot hard into the ground.“We will not run. Weran once. When the false god-king sent his men after us and tore us from the sky, we ran. My grandmother thought it was the only way to find peace. But all we got was a brief and false respite, and now we are being hunted again. They are turning our own minds against us, and I will not do it. I will not abandon my daughter.”
“And neither will I,” Sofia said, though the words felt like stones in her throat. “I can’t.”
Aurelia was looking at her directly now. Her expression was inscrutable, even for a dragon.