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“What’s the plan if we don’t get all of our allies rallied in time?” he asked.

“Then I murder as many Dereyans as I can on my way out of here until I’m across the wall or dead.”

Vato’s eyebrows rose only slightly, ever the good soldier trained to hide his emotions.

Flor gave a small huff from the cell beside her. “Let’s hope that doesn’t happen,” she said. “But either way, if you can smuggle us weapons, we’ll have more of a fighting chance of breaking out.”

“I can get as many weapons to you as possible,” Vato said, addressing Flor. “Inventory is taken weekly, so we’d have a maximum seven days to collect enough for everyone.”

“Do it.” Micael’s voice was strong, despite how he leaned against the wall, still bleeding from his interrogation. “Sofia’s right; we either die on our knees or we die fighting. I’d rather die fighting.”

“I’d rather escape and live,” Flor said, voice falsely bright. “Just as a heads up. So if we could focus on that plan first.”

Vato’s lips gave the smallest hint of a smile at this. “Very well. I’ll start smuggling you weapons after the next inventory count. Until then, stay alive.”

After he left, Micael and the others started whispering plans back and forth—paths out of the city, strategies for fighting without armor. Sofia half-listened, her mind still caught between planning their breakout and praying that Fox followed through.

What did it mean after everything that she was still hoping he could help them? His father was the reason her back was a twisted knot of scars and scabs.Hewas the reason Javi’s blood-mother was dead and all of them were thrown in prison. He’d told her himself that he still wanted revenge for the murder of his brother. He’d watched her as she was tortured.

Still, he’d been the one to offer help. He’d been the one to say he was wrong and wanted to make things right. She wanted to trust him, even if only because she still remembered the feeling of his fingers in her hair and his lips on her skin.

Sofia pressed the palm of her hands into her eyes until she saw stars, pushing the thoughts from her mind. And then she turned back to the others, ready to make plans. She’d told herself the chief commander would never make her feel helpless again, and as she looked across the barred cells at the friends and allies she had, she knew she wasn’t. Because no matter if Fox came through or not, Sofia wasn’t alone.

CHAPTERFORTY-FOUR

FOX

The day after the fight with his father, Fox woke up hungover and exhausted. He didn’t pull out the Dragonborn book. Not yet. He told himself he’d say the prayer the next day. Five days later, he still hadn’t. He didn’t want to believe it had anything to do with his father’s accusations of him being a traitor. His father didn’t have that influence over him anymore. He’d simply been busy.

Fox knew he was only fooling himself.

He’d moved back into the barracks the day after his hangover, suddenly happy to get back to his job if it meant getting away from his father’s looks of disgust. The job itself left him exhausted. Every night after dinner, he flung himself across the bed in his new private room without even changing. He was in charge of two of the dozens of raiding parties that were sweeping through the city, hunting down the last remnants of the resistance.

He knew, deep down, where the information for their raids was coming from. Whether it was from Sofia’s bleeding lips or one of her friends, he didn’t know, but he knew the information was being paid for in Dragonborn blood. He tried to ignore this fact as they stormed homes and dragged out parents and children, tearing down walls in search of hidden rooms and resistance paraphernalia.

And for small incremental moments, he could pretend that he was the person he was last cycle. Last blink. When things were simple and he didn’t see Sofia’s face in every Dragonborn he dragged to prison. The mother of three who had her moss green eyes. The single man who had her freckles. The small child born into the wrong family who had her same heart-shaped face and curly hair as he was dragged away with the rest of his family for the hunting bow behind the icebox and the illegal meat inside.

The children still looked too skinny, even with the stolen rations.

Trying not to think too hard, he left his shift that day and went straight to the prison, handing the guards his own dinner rations and asking them to give it to the three children and their parents. The older solider blinked at the request, but didn’t question it and Fox walked away before he could second-guess his own command.

He returned to his parents’ home, walking in without knocking and gave a brief hug to his mother, telling her he wanted to spend one last night on his good mattress before returning to work full-time. She didn’t question him, sending him off with a soft kiss on his forehead.

His father wasn’t home, but he still crept through the house as quietly as he could, closing the bedroom door softly behind him. He collected a few items before ducking into the large walk-in closet. The room went black for a second before the spark of the match flared and he lit the candle in his hand.

His mind was blank as he went about making his impromptu altar to the gods he had never believed in. But something in him had broken that afternoon. He didn’t have it in him to go to sleep that night without finally following through on his promise to Sofia, even with alcohol buzzing in his blood and softening his thoughts. He had to do this.

He didn’t have the ceremonial dish or dagger, but he set a small copper bowl he’d stolen from the kitchens on the ground next to the candle. He pulled the feather out from behind the panel along with the book, only briefly noting he’d put the panel on crooked in his rush to greet his mother before. It had been a stupid move that he couldn’t make again.

He should burn the book anyway. After all these cycles, it would go from a souvenir of grief and guilt to proof that he was a traitor. He shook off his thoughts and flipped through the pages until he found what he needed.

The text was faded, old ink on older parchment. But it was clear enough. He couldn’t read Dragonborn very well, but the words were familiar from hearing the child in the cenote speak them, and it only took a few times reciting them before he was confident he was saying at least a semblance of the prayer. He didn’t understand the words and he hoped that didn’t matter.

He set it all up neatly before unsheathing his dagger and placing the blade against his hand. It was only then that he stopped, suddenly conscious of what he was about to do and what itmeant. And in all the irony possible, he sent up a prayer to the old kings asking for forgiveness.

He hissed as the dagger bit into the soft flesh between his finger and thumb and blood welled immediately. The candle flickered as he rushed to move his hand over the bowl and let the blood drip. And then he prayed. If one could consider chanting the words in a language he didn’t know a prayer. The air seemed to press in around him as he tried to infuse the words with all the piety he’d never even felt for the kings.

One moment he had his eyes closed and the next his arm was being wrenched back, the dagger clattering to the floor as his wrist was twisted. His eyes flashed open. The candle had been knocked over, the flame sputtered out, but the closet was lit from the gas lamps of his room.