“It will be different.”
“No!”The words screamed through her mind, and she felt her body crumpling. “They didn’t listen. They won’t listen. I won’t beg for them to believe us just to have them turn us away again.”
She stood up suddenly, knocking Fox’s hand off her leg and bumping Javi’s shoulder. She hadn’t even realized how closely she’d been pressed between them.
“I need some air.”
She slipped on her boots, pushing past the others and out into the night air beyond. She didn’t stop until she was down the slope, the light of the cave gone dark behind her.
The snow was cold, and her boots were damp, but she didn’t care. She wrapped her arms around her body as tight as they’d go and rocked. She didn’t know if it was helping, but she couldn’t stop the movement. Her eyes burned with tears, but she didn’t let them fall. There wasn’t time to cry. She needed to think. She needed a plan. It was clear she couldn’t just fly back and slice Harlow open. He had her father—if he’d kept him alive. He had Fox’s mother.
She clenched her fists, nails biting into flesh. She focused on her pain, breathing out sharply into the night air.
The crunch of snow in the silence made her back straighten. Even without looking, she knew it was him. Fox sat beside her, wrapping his arms around her.
“I know you said you needed air, but…”
But I didn’t trust you not to fly off on Chalia.The words remained unspoken.
“I already grieved them,” she said. “I grieved for them when you sent the message that you hadn’t found them. So why does it still hurt?”
“Of course it hurts. There is no love without grief or pain.” He let out a long breath, and she saw his eyes shining with unshed tears. “I’m so sorry I didn’t find them. I failed. You asked one thing of me, and I couldn’t even do that.”
She let a single tear fall, hot against her icy skin. “Everyone’s sorry,” she said, and she knew her words were acidic, but she couldn’t softenthem. Everyone was so sorry. “It doesn’t change the fact that she’s dead. Everyone keeps dying no matter what I do.”
“Sofia—”
“Stop, just stop,” she yelled the words. Chanted. Stop stop stop. She gripped her head in her hands, squeezing as if she might be able to stop her brain from spiraling. As if she might be able to pluck out the thoughts that screamed at her.
Fox didn’t move from her side, but he didn’t speak. And she let herself rock, the tears burned away by her anger until she was only a singular vessel for her rage.
Fox sat beside her, his hand wrapped around hers.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
FOX
Sofia finally fell asleep sometime after the moons had disappeared beneath the horizon. He’d convinced her to let him carry her inside when her skin had turned red from the cold and her body wouldn’t stop shaking. He laid her as close to the fire as was safe and sat by her until she fell into a fitful sleep.
Fox spent the night sitting vigil beside her, his own chest aching and his thoughts spinning. He had been trying his best not to think of his mother, but in the quiet, the thoughts came unbidden. Just yesterday he would have trusted Harlow not to hurt her. They’d been friends since she was a teenager, growing up in the military district together. But he no longer trusted the man he had just seen. Yes, he was fueled by his fears, but they had turned him cruel and hateful, burning away any compassion. And there was nothing a scared man wouldn’t do.
“Pale Scales, we have visitors,”Chalia said. The words sent ice down his spine, but she quickly sent him an image of the small white dragon with the truncated tail—Jobin—sweeping down from the sky. His heart rate spiked when he realized Jobin wasn’t alone. A much larger dragon, with scales the color of the midday sky glided behind him—Aurelia—Chalia’smother.
He stood on shaky legs. Sofia went rigid beside him, her body poised for a fight.
“Chalia’s mother is here,” he said, voice soft. He was unsure he wanted everyone else to know the apparent leader of the dragons was approaching their cave. The rage simmered in Sofia’s eyes as she registered his words. She nodded and pushed herself up. She was as unsteady as he was, despite her sleep. He had no doubt her mind hadn’t let her truly rest, conjuring up horrific images of the last day.
“What’s going on?” Javi asked as Sofia and Fox made their way over.
Micael stood next to him, face twisted into his usual untrusting scowl.
“We have visitors,” Fox said, moving past him.
The snow outside was blinding in the late morning light. The wind had settled down, and it was a strange sensation to feel the heat of the sun despite the ice glittering in the air.
They didn’t need to walk around the outcrop of rocks north of them to see Aurelia’s deep blue tail rising into the sky. There was a silent animosity in the air as they rounded the corner, Chalia’s mother imperiously leaning over her as she stared back defiantly.
“What are you doing here?” Sofia said as the two dragons came into view, her voice a low growl. “You have already made your choices known. And now you come here? For what?”