He’d ensure they made it out of the city unbothered and unseen.
Where had the bomb hit? Whose lives had been snuffed out in a flash just to distract the eyes of the city? Who had Chief Commander Harlow sentenced to death for nothing more than being in the wrong place?
And how many of these pointless massacres had Fox witnessed before the veil had been lifted? How many more had died while he blindly followed orders for this kingdom?
Fox didn’t have time to wallow in self-pity. Despite any good intentions he had, Sofia didn’t know where he was going and why. He hadn’t had a moment alone after leaving his mother’s house to sneak a message to Ian or Sofia. He’d made promises, and he’d failed her. Eha knew, but she was just as much a prisoner as before.
He should have argued harder. He should have convinced Harlow to keep him in Suvi.
The ghost of his father’s fingers closed on his shoulder once more, digging in. A sharp breeze came off the water. He shut his eyes, breathing in the salty air.
They would be at sea for the next twelve hours, at least. General Luna didn’t want to make port until after dark. They’d be trudging through the labor farms before entering the forest on the eastern side of Wueco. It also meant they’d be marching diagonally across the forest to get to the western mountains. Where they were going after that, Fox wasn’t sure. The chief commander had shown the journal to Fox only briefly—jotted notes and drawings of two peaks showing where the dragons’ nesting grounds were.
Not much to go on, considering they were headed to the mountains that had claimed countless lives before them. No king’s man alive had seen the mountains up close—the peaks seen on the distant horizon no less impossible to reach than the clouds.
Fox could only be grateful their job wouldn’t be easy. Perhaps Sofia would find out what was happening. Ian would realize something was going on when Fox disappeared and get word to Sofia.
And she’ll assume you betrayed her and abandoned the cause.
Fox straightened his shoulders, plodding over to where Junior Specialist Nesto sat against a set of barrels, hunched over a pile of maps. The boy had only just turned nineteen but had been promoted to specialist when General Luna found out about his expertise in cartography. His hair was a mousy brown, curled where it had grown too long, and he had thin-rimmed glasses perched on his nose.
“Plotting the journey?” Fox asked, taking the opportunity to sit, his knees buckling at the last moment as the ship lurched, and his ass landing hard on the deck. He winced, but Nesto was so engrossed in the maps that he didn’t seem to notice.
“Trying to,” Nesto said, pulling his lip into his mouth.
“Are you okay?”
The young man didn’t answer, looking out over the horizon where Suvi was barely visible. “Did you hear the bomb?”
Fox took a breath. “I did.”
“Where do you think it went off?”
He was probably worried about his family. “I think it was in the slums. It would have been more visible if it were in the upper city.”
Nesto’s brows remained furrowed. “The rebels wouldn’t attack the slums.”
“Not usually, no,” Fox said. He studied the man carefully. Perhaps it wasn’t his family he was anxious about.
“We needed a distraction to get out of the city.”
Fox said nothing immediately, surveying the other soldiers and sailors milling about. No one was listening to their conversation.
“Maybe we got lucky.”
“You don’t believe that,” Nesto said.
“You should; it’s safer.”
Nesto stared out at the horizon as if he could still see the smoke there, but wind and distance had already hidden any evidence of the explosion.
“How’s the navigation going?” Fox asked, uncomfortable with the direction of this conversation.
“I don’t even know if our maps are accurate,” Nesto said, looking back at the charts spread across the deck in front of him, weighted down by stones. “We have near-perfect records for the forest closest to the wall, but the farther we go, the more inaccurate everything becomes.”
“So, we’ll be moving forward blind.”
“We have some record of rivers and a few cenotes, but with no other large landmarks to track our progress, I don’t know how much this will help. And any cenotes thatwererecorded on these maps have likely changed over time.” He waved at one of the larger maps, showing a swath of forest. “This map is from Danico’s rule. I don’t even know if the rivers are in the same place or what segments will be visible above ground. And don’t get me started on the mountains.”