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And Fox had stayed behind.

Her fingers traced across her lips. She could still taste him.

She shook the thought off. There were more important things to think about now. There was a fight to win.

A humming awareness moved through her mind, and she sensed more than heard the dragon beneath her. They were headed back to the cenote where she and Fox had found the original feather.

“He worries. Protect you. Protect many.”

The words were choppy in her mind.

“I haven’t spoken to many humans, or any,”the dragon thought. She’d heard Sofia’s thoughts.

“Yes. You think very loud.”

Sofia laughed and Flor glanced over her shoulder, giving her a quizzical look that Sofia ignored.

“We’re going back to the cenote where I first prayed. Was that your feather?”she asked.

“No.”

Sofia waited, feeling the dragon’s hesitation.

“My mother’s feather. She not come, though. “

“Your mother. There are more dragons.”

More silence.

“No.”

The lie was so obvious, Sofia didn’t know how to respond, but she felt the dragon’s ire even as she thought that.

“My name is Chalia,”the dragon said, clearly frustrated with being called “the dragon”.

“Chalia,”Sofia repeated in her mind. “Thank you for coming for us. We won’t hurt you.”

“I know, but others of my kind don’t think like me. My father speaks of the before times and warns of the dragon killers.”

Sofia’s chest swelled with hope.The others of her kind.How many more had survived?

“None,” Chalia thought again. “None none none none.”

“Okay, okay,”Sofia said feeling the dragon’s body twitching beneath her, clearly distressed. Javi let out a series of curses behind her and a few others screamed. “There are no other dragons.”

Chalia seemed to calm, her wing beats evening out.

This was clearly a conversation that Sofia had to have with Chalia alone and on the ground. She stopped her thoughts from wandering, finding herself focused on Fox once more. She didn’t like this any better, but Chalia practically crooned in her mind when she pictured his face. Gods, the man had charmed a damn dragon without even trying.

Her chest tightened and she wiped her thoughts once more, focusing her eyes on the horizon. The forest and the mountains spread out before them, a nature untouched by humans. She was leaving Suvi behind, yet for once that thought wasn’t a comfort. It felt like giving up—running away.

But Sofia had to remind herself that they weren’t running. They weren’t giving up. This was a temporary break to heal their wounds and reassemble their allies. And then they’d be back. This time with an army—of humans, of shifters, of dragons. This time she’d get what she’d been waiting for. She would kill the chief commander and avenge Mina’s death.

She wrapped her arms around Flor’s waist and pressed a cheek into her warm shoulder, happy to smell her familiar scent—petrichor and moss. Javi shifted behind them, his arms coming to wrap around them both, as best he could. Sofia could feel his heart beat against her back and she closed her eyes, enveloped by the family that the chief commander couldn’t take away.

They would finally get what they were waiting for. They’d avenge the death of every Dragonborn crushed under the chief commander’s boot. Together. And nothing was going to get in their way.

EPILOGUE