Dragon Gods: Signed Edition (Paperback)

The air in the rainforest used to be thick with humidity even in the dry season, but that was before the Dereyans massacred the dragons. Now, underneath the shadowy canopy of trees and ferns, the plants on the forest floor were dry and brittle, burned brown along the edges. They crunched softly beneath Sofia’s feet as she moved, an insignificant shadow among the towering trunks.

It took all her energy to ignore the growing number of dead trees along her route. Those that hadn’t dried out in the nearly nonexistent rainy season last cycle had suffered frostbite in the bone-chilling temperatures of the cold season. There had been a few weeks where the morning frost never melted, the sun unable to warm the frigid air. Her ancestors hadn’t even had a cold season, but the weather was only growing worse with each passing cycle. The disappearance of the dragons had been the start of the world’s end. Wueco was dying.

Sofia wasn’t even supposed to be out in the rainforest, especially not alone and armed with illegal weapons. No one was allowed outside the city wall, except for the men of the king’s army. And her people hadn’t been allowed to carry weapons for over a hundred sun cycles, since the first rebellion had failed. But every Dragonborn knew that you didn’t walk beyond the city walls without protection. Even the king’s men who refused to believe in the so-called dragon-filth myths knew not to wander too far into the wilds. As if some innate instinct told them of the dangers that lurked in the shadows.

She heard the small rabbit before she saw it, rustling around against the dried leaves and trying to free itself. With the racket it was making, it didn’t take long to find the creature, its back leg tangled in the snare she’d set a few days before, pulling tighter with every jerky move. It had been trapped just long enough to begin to panic.

It was a small thing, eyes wide and tawny ears pulled back tight against its head. She set her pack aside, pulling out the sharp dagger from her belt. A quick death was a kindness.

But when she reached forward to grab the rabbit by its neck, it twisted, back legs kicking as it bit down on her finger with more aggression than she expected from the little creature.

She hissed and pulled back her hand, giving a small laugh at the blood its sharp teeth had drawn. The rabbit was no longer struggling, but facing her, body taut and posed to attack again.

“You’re a feisty one,” she said, watching its nose twitching. It blinked and she almost thought it might have understood her. Not that magical rabbits existed, as far as she’d ever read.

Her hand twitched forward once more and it lunged, teeth bared. Another might have found the creature pathetic, struggling against its inevitable death, too weak to change its fate. But Sofia knew what it was to be small and hopeless and still keep fighting. Maybe that’s why the third time she reached forward, she only held it down as it lashed about before gently unhooking the cord from its leg.

The moment she let go of the rabbit, it disappeared into the underbrush, its tawny fur the same color of the dead leaves. She’d find more food elsewhere; there were plenty more snares to check and it wasn’t the purpose of her mission anyway.

She reset the snare and continued on, keeping her own footsteps as silent as she could on the dying land. Despite how often she dreamed of it, Sofia hadn’t been alive when the dragons disappeared. Her great-great-great-grandmother hadn’t even been born yet. But she had memorized every story she’d ever been told or read in secret. She absorbed the words like water in soil, storing them away to feed her hope in the darker moments.