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“I thought you were with the chief commander,” Fox said, fumbling over the words. His father’s eyes didn’t leave the desk.

“I was. We had a very interesting conversation about you and a potential opening in the junior scouts. I am to find you to tell you about it.”

Fox straightened his shoulders, trying to catch his father’s eyes. “I would be glad to talk?—”

“Tell me who is responsible for this mess.”

Fox bit back the immediate response that the three drops of tea across the desk were hardly a mess, but he knew it would do no good. His father was a meticulous man who expected others to hold the same standards. The pens on the desk always perfectly arranged, his papers never out of order or crooked.

His father, with a look of distaste, picked up the book he had been reading, turning it to look at the cover.

“Is this what you were yelling at the maid about?”

“Yes.”

“She was reading?”

Fox looked at the girl whose face had gone gray at the accusation. It was illegal for Dragonborn to read. She likely didn’t know how to. Still, she didn’t even open her mouth to argue, eyes pleading with Fox’s own without words.

“Yes,” he said, the words bitter on his tongue. “Though she was just flipping through the pages. I doubt she truly understood the words. She spilled the tea when I came in and found her.”

It was a ridiculous story, but his father didn’t question it. Perhaps they both wanted to convince themselves the lie was true.

“Well then,” his father said, carefully taking the book and papers and dropping them into the trash, “I expect you to punish her.”

Fox kept his eyes focused on his father, not wishing to see those of the maid. “I was going to fire her, sir.”

“You catch her engaged in treasonous activities, but you think firing her is the correct punishment?”

He thought he might have heard the sharp intake of breath from the maid, or perhaps it was his own. The room felt too hot and he had to fist his hand in his tunic to stop himself from pulling at his collar.

“As I said, I could tell she was only looking through the pages. I believe firing her and informing future employers of her laziness and clumsiness in her duties will be a fitting punishment. She’ll likely struggle to find employment in this quarter again.”

The silence stretched before his father finally nodded, a small smile stretching across his face. “I expect her to be marked for treason before you release her. Have her taken to the prison and then meet me in my office so we can discuss your promotion.”

Fox didn’t breathe again until the snap of his father’s footsteps faded into the distance. The maid was still standing, the only evidence that she understood what had happened in the shake of her hand as she held her rag with white knuckles. He focused on her hands, the red, dry skin along her knuckles and small enflamed cuts across her hands from cleaning. He did not look her in the eyes.

“Go downstairs and collect your last wages from Maria. If I see you again, I’ll send you to the prison for that brand.”

She turned, her hands no longer visible to him and rushed from the room before he could say more. He was relieved. He had nothing else he could say.

CHAPTERELEVEN

FOX

He moved the opposite direction this time, away from the entry and the light, one hand dragging silently along the rough wall, keeping his direction in the dark. With every step, he was amazed at how far the tunnel went on. He was excited when the feel of the darkness changed and the wall on his left gave way to air. There was another tunnel here.

He stepped forward only to immediately regret the decision. The floor slanted downward and icy water closed over his boot. His toes went numb almost instantly even protected as they were, and he let out a curse that echoed in the darkness.

He didn’t bother with a second step, stumbling back quickly to resume his journey down a different path. He turned down three more tunnels, all with the same problem before he finally found a dry one. It didn’t solve the problem of his numb and aching toes, but he was all too glad for a change in his luck. He was still slow as he moved, all too aware the ground could slope at any moment, but he gained confidence with each dry step.

If anything, this path was slanting ever so slightly upward. After what felt like hours stumbling around in the blackness, he’d finally found what had to be a tunnel out. There were no doors along the wall that he could feel and the silence here was even more oppressive than the other halls, as if nothing but the worms had breathed this air in cycles. It had to lead somewhere and it was far from the rebels who wanted him dead.

He just needed to find the end before they noticed he was gone and came after him. His feet sped up automatically at the thought, the adrenaline of the last day pushing him through his exhaustion and hunger. His shoes had dried, but his toes still ached from the cold and his throat burned from lack of water. The thirst had only worsened when he’d tried some of the water back at the sunken tunnels. He’d spit it out, but not before the salty taste had dried his mouth out further. They had to have fresh water somewhere in the base, but he hadn’t had time to search it out. It would be his first task once he came out of the tunnels.

He knew there had to be fresh water in the rainforest, even if it was rare. The land here didn’t allow for rivers above ground, the greedy soil soaking up every rare drop of rain that fell from the sky. But the fresh water gathered into underground rivers and lakes. It was how the Dragonborn had survived before the king had created the filtration systems a couple centuries back. One of the bits of technology they’d brought to the Dragonborn who spit on them and called them evil in response for not cowing down to monsters.

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