“He has old journals that reference the joining of a dragon to a Dragonborn,” Fox said. “He thinks it’s what Sofia’s done—why Chalia listens to her.”
“He can’t fathom a dragon following someone out of loyalty?”
“He can’t fathom a creature with so much power following…” Fox started, but stopped as he understood where his sentence was going.
“Following someone so small and powerless,” Sofia finished, and he knew his face had confirmed that was exactly what he was thinking.
“Are they using the prisoners, then?” Micael asked, a growl of a question.
“He has separate cells down where he keeps Eha, and removes them whenever he deems them potentially useful. I don’t know how many—I only saw a few of the cells.”
“He took Dragonborn from the prison?” The younger man who Fox recognized as a friend of Sofia’s stood suddenly, stepping forward.
“I think,” Fox said.
“What did they look like? Who were they?”
“Javi,” Sofia interjected, placing a hand on the young man’s shoulder, but he was still looking at Fox.
“I don’t know their names.” Fox stopped himself because that was a lie. He knew the name of one of them. The one that had escaped. “I saw two middle-aged women, both dark brown hair, curls. Younger than Clarita.”
“One woman,” Sofia said, voicesoft.
“What?”
“He has only one woman. I—he—he killed the other one while I was there.” Her face took on a shade of gray in the firelight, preventing Fox from following up with questions.
“One woman, then,” he said. “He had a girl, too. She was eighteen at the most.”
“The girl,” Javi stepped closer, grabbing him by the collar before he could step back.
Fox raised his hands. He didn’t want to start a fight, but he felt his heart rate spiking, his body going rigid.
“What did she look like?” the man said. “What happened to her? You said had, past tense.”
Fox looked at him—truly looked at him—with his tight brown curls and the dusting of freckles barely visible across his nose. He had her same eyes. “You’re her brother. Dia?”
The first punch was unexpected, but then the man had him on the ground, and instead of fighting back as every instinct in his body told him to, he let the punches rain over him again and again. A small voice in the back of his mind told him he deserved this.
He didn’t immediately register when the blows stopped, but then Sofia was over him, touching his face and saying something he couldn’t quite hear. He smiled dumbly up at her, noticing the way the firelight flickered in her eyes, bringing out the green in their depths.
“I missed your face. And your eyes. And your li?—”
A sharp pinch to his already-swelling cheek brought a yelp from his lips, and his eyes sharpened on Sofia, who was now smirking.
“He’ll be fine,” she said, pushing back from him.
“Dia’s alive?” A feminine voice broke through the din, and Fox saw another woman standing over him and Javi, her face shadowed and drawn.
“What did you do to her?” Javi asked, again, not quite pushing Sofia away. “Did you kill her? Did Harlow?”
“Javi, please,” the woman said, voice cracking. “Let him answer.”
Javi glared at Fox, and Fox knew he would have his head ripped off by now if it didn’t interfere with their questioning.
“She’s not in the cells anymore,” Fox said throughswollen lips. “I—she escaped into the upper city. She said she knew where she was going, but I don’t know if she made it to safety.”
Something like pain crossed Sofia’s face. “The city’s under such tight lockdown.”