“I hate him.” She let the words out as a breath, and they filled the cavern, pressing in around her.
“I knew that,” Javi said, his voice light.
“He’s taken so much from me.” Her eyes were focused on the furs where Fox had slept, where her father now slept. “He keeps taking and taking. I joined the resistance because I wanted to take everything fromhim. I wanted to burn down everything he and the king had created. And all I’ve done is find more things for him to take from me. More people.”
Javi pulled her into him, wrapping his arm around her. “I remember when you first found me and slipped that note into my hand,” he said. “Ithought you were the stupidest creature I’d ever met. What were you thinking? I could have been a spy or a random Dragonborn.”
“You weren’t. I’d been watching you for a week at that point. I knew exactly who you worked for.”
“That’s…terrifying.” He pulled back to shake his head at her. “But despite Micael warning me away from you, I knew you needed to join. You needed the resistance. I could see the raw hunger on your face. You needed your revenge, or your helplessness was going to eat you alive.”
“You gave me a chance at that revenge. You gave me a chance to actually kill Harlow. And my goal hasn’t changed. I want to kill him. I want to watch as the life drains from his eyes.”
“But…?” Javi said, starting the sentence she hadn’t said out loud.
“I’m afraid I don’t know who I am outside my rage,” she said. “I think a part of me never expected to live through this. But now?—”
“Now you have a reason to survive.”
Sofia’s eyes burned. “It’s not like I didn’t have a reason to survive before. I’ve always loved you and Flor.”
“It’s different.”
“I don’t know why,” she said.
“You know I love you,” Javi said, his voice turning serious. “I will love you no matter what. But I have to say, I’ve loved seeing you happy.” He reached out, tracing the line between her eyes. “The way the lines around your eyes soften and disappear when you’re with Fox. I don’t get it. I still think he’s an idiot, but I like the way you look when you’re with him. I think he woke up something inside you that had been asleep for a very long time.”
“If I admit I’m happy, doesn’t that just mean I have more to lose?”
“Then you’ll fight harder. You’ll fight for him and you’ll fight to hold on to that happiness. You’ve been fighting with your rage for so long, perhaps it’s time to try something new. You’re not giving up your rage, you’re only adding more reasons to survive this. And what did I say out there? Our need to survive will be the reason we win.”
Tears burned in her eyes, and she shoved Javi. “Why did you go and make me cry?”
He laughed, and she pressed her face into his shoulder, letting the hot tears fall.
“I wish Flor were here.”
“I’m sure she’s being an absolute terror in Suvi right now. She’s probably perfectly content.”
Sofia laughed. She didn’t pull away. She and Javi sat together, her face pressed against him until her tears finally dried.
Resolve beat in her chest.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
FOX
Sleep came in fits and bursts between the pain and the cold and the heckling from the soldiers in the camp. Fox felt like an animal, beaten and caged to be gawked at by the others. He was an example of what it meant to defy the chief commander and the kingdom.
Fox refused to keep his eyes down, glaring at the soldiers who stopped to look at him, sneering through the bars. They took to throwing dirt in his face, forcing him to turn away. He just brushed the dirt away and kept staring, not letting them win.
But the moment they walked away, and he was alone again in the center of camp, he felt his shoulders slump and every ounce of fight leave his body. It was all an act, and they probably knew it, too. He’d been given his shirt back after the whipping, torn as it was, but they hadn’t allowed him to clean his back. The bloody mess had simply dried, fusing the shirt to his skin. It was better than being bare-chested in the cold. They’d only given him a thin scrap of a blanket, barely enough to keep him from freezing when the sun went down, curled like a cat in the center of the cage. Even the metal floor worked against him, sapping the heat from his body.
The weather held out, not quite dropping low enough to snow again. Perhaps someone was looking after him.
Fox watched the moons rise as night fell for the third time since he’d been captured, and he sent a prayer to Quelia and the other dragons. He had no feather, no connection to them, but he hoped they heard him anyway, though his prayer was as disjointed and confused as his thoughts. He wanted to be saved, but he didn’t want Sofia to come. Harlow had made it plenty clear: he was the bait in this trap, and he didn’t want her to suffer for him. But he needed the pain to stop. He didn’t want to make it back to the city after all of this. He didn’t want to walk up the steps to the execution block. The same one he’d stood on once before to serve Luz’s sentence—the one man he’d executed. He’d once been proud of that fact.
His chest ached as he thought of all the mistakes he’d made leading to this moment. Would his brother hate him for everything he’d done? Would he be proud he’d finally seen the truth of their world and fought back—even though he’d failed?