“We should get back to camp,” Fox said, and no one argued. “We need to tell General Luna what happened.”
Fini groaned. “He’ll want us to sweep the forest.”
Jordi grumbled his annoyance, but he grabbed Immanuel’s weapons belt before leaving behind his body. “I claim his extra furs,” he said, slinging the leather belt over his shoulder.
“You can have it,” Nico said. “Shit’s cursed.”
Fox let the others walk ahead, the fire in the distance enough light to get them back to the camp without his help. Fox kneeled over Immanuel. There were no eyes left to close, but he said a prayer to the kings that he’d find his rest. And then he sent a prayer to the dragons and Quelia, just in case—this was their domain, after all.
Nesto stayed behind with him. “You’re sure that was a blood monkey?” he asked, looking back at the body.
“I am,” Fox said, turning to him. “You believe me?”
“I’ve studied a lot of old Dragonborn books while helping Chief Commander Harlow map the forest. If the rivers and cenotes were true, why not the creatures? There is a lot in this world I haven’t seen. Doesn’t make them myths.”
“You’re a smart man, Nesto,” he said, clapping the young man on the shoulder as they started back toward the fire. “Smarter than people give you credit for.”
He shrugged. “I think it’s helpful to be underestimated.”
“I know someone else who thinks the same.”
“Does it work for them?”
“Definitely.”
That night,after the entire army had swept the half-mile radius around camp and found nothing, Fox was curled under his furs, the night fire burning low and hot a few feet away. He fingered the small book tucked into his chest pocket. He hadn’t pulled it out since they’d left, too afraid of being caught with it, even with the new cover. But now, in the dark of the night, he eased it from beneath his blankets, moving until the pages were just visible in the firelight. He opened it and started reading.
He fell asleep thinking of monsters, but dreamed about Sofia and the scent of the sea.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SOFIA
Chalia managed to keep Sofia’s air bubble solid for five minutes before it finally dissipated, and they were forced back above the water, heading east along the shore. They were far enough away that she could just make out the flat horizon of the farmlands and the labor farms. Sofia was trembling from the fight and the cold of the sea. Her lungs ached from the air within the bubble, not to mention everything she’d put them through over the past couple of hours.
“We need to stop,”Sofia pushed the thoughts into Chalia’s mind, too tired to speak.“We should go inland once we pass the east wall and find a cenote big enough to hide you.”
Chalia sent her agreement and twisted, moving toward the trees. Sofia’s eyes closed against her better wishes, and she felt herself giving in to the exhaustion and pain as Chalia flew. The wind was loud in her ears, but it only helped to block out her racing thoughts and the anxiety of what she was leaving behind in the city. But none of that would matter until she was able to breathe again.
It didn’t take long for Chalia to find a cenote, or perhaps Sofia had fallen asleep. But suddenly the dragon was dropping through the trees. Sofia told her to land outside and slipped from her back before thedragon could question what she was doing. Her legs were shaking and her breaths came in shallow bursts, but she had to ignore that as she worked gathering the driest wood she could find, dead leaves, and much to her relief, some coldfled leaves growing ten minutes from the cenote.
The entire time she was searching, she felt Chalia in her mind, anxiously following her every move to ensure she was ready to attack if anything happened. But the forest was hushed, the only sound the wind and the occasional small animals darting through the underbrush.
Back in the cenote, Chalia turned out to be incredibly helpful in breaking the wood apart into small kindling with her talons.
“What are those for?”she asked, looking at the small pile of fresh leaves Sofia had gathered.
“Coldfled leaves,” she said, a rasp in her throat. “For my lungs. I need them dry so I can burn them.”
Chalia examined them closely, a small talon poking at the leaves, as if she had never seen anything like them before. Sofia was about to push her away when she noticed what the dragon was actually doing. Small droplets of water hovered in the air, pulling from the green leaves as they began to shrink and shrivel.
“Oh,” she said, eyes going wide.
A minute later the leaves looked as if they had been drying for days, and Sofia felt herself gazing at the sight in wonder. A sudden bout of coughing reminded her exactly why she was doing this, and she quickly moved to grab the leaves and arrange herself next to the smoldering fire. It would have been better to smoke the leaves in a pipe, but the small one Javi had carved her cycles ago was somewhere back in the old resistance base, perhaps lost forever. This would have to do. She threw a small bunch of the leaves onto the edge of the flames, where the heat would light them, but not burn them instantly, and she leaned over, breathing in the smoke with deep, shuddering breaths.
The smoke was sweet and cold in her lungs, and she held each breath for several seconds before exhaling slowly. When the leaves had burned away, she put the rest of them into the fire and kept breathinguntil the urge to cough lessened to a slight ache in the back of her throat.
It wasn’t perfect—the smoke from the rest of the fire only further irritating her throat as she tried to breathe in the burning leaves—but it was the best she’d felt since she’d first climbed the cliffs. She gave herself a small reminder to pick more leaves and have Chalia dry them out before they continued on. It seemed she should keep a stash of them with her from now on, as bouts of running for her life were becoming a regular occurrence.