More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
“And lightning comes from the sky, not my hands.” “Wonderful.” He laughs, the sound deep and…infuriating. “You just might wield the most devastating signet on the Continent, but you know nothing about it. Nothing about the energy fields that draw it. Instead of shooting your power like an arrow—precise and measured—you’re just heaving it around like boiling oil, hoping you hit something.
“And not only can you not aim, but you have no control,” he says without skipping a beat, like I didn’t almost torch us both. “I can cont—” “No.” He drops down to the pack at his feet and begins sorting through it. “That wasn’t a question, Sorrengail. That was a fact. How often does that happen?”
You wield pure power that takes the form of lightning because that’s what you’re most comfortable shaping it as. Apparently Carr never taught you that, either.” “Why wouldn’t he?” I look from the orb up to Felix as the first flakes of snow flutter down. “If I was the best weapon?” A corner of his mouth lifts into a wry smile. “Knowing Carr, I’d say he’s scared shitless of you. After all, you just took half of their cadets without even a plan. You brought down Basgiath on a fucking whim, no less.”
“He hunted riderless wyvern, deposited them on Melgren’s front door, and exposed Navarre’s greatest secret to the border outposts before noon,” Felix agrees. “But you were the one who demanded he give the cadets a choice. In that moment, you wielded him, our unyielding, uncompromising, headstrong heir apparent.”
He did it for the sake of the other cadets.” “He did it for you,” Felix says softly. “The wyvern, the exposure, breaching Basgiath, stealing half its riders. All for you. Why do you think the Assembly wanted to lock you away in July? They saw what you were. In that way, I suppose you’re just as much a danger to Aretia as you are to Basgiath, aren’t you? Power isn’t only found in our signets.”
He’s right. I’m a light show with deadly consequences, and the amount of times I’ve unleashed while close to my friends, close to Xaden… My throat tightens. I’m the menace everyone thinks Xaden is.
A figure dressed entirely in black. His jaw flexes, his hands curl at his sides, and his beautiful face… Well, he hasn’t looked at me with that much anger since discovering my last name at Parapet, back when he wanted to kill me. Guess I should be careful what I ask for, because I’m so fucked. “You aren’t where I left you, Violence.”
My niece will see you properly attired, won’t you, Cat?” he calls back over his shoulder. My stomach hits the sparkly marble floor. You have to be fucking kidding me.
Suddenly, I understand exactly why Xaden’s been here too many times to keep count.
“You never would have pulled this bullshit last year. You never held me back, never caged me in the name of protecting me. You were the one telling me to find another way on the Gauntlet, watching me fight off other cadets at Threshing—”
“Reasonable?” His voice drops to that icy-calm timbre. “For looking for another way before serving you up to Tecarus? Let’s get one thing straight. If I ever see a way to keep you safe? I’ll take it.” The fuck he will. “Do you know who you sound like right now?” “Please, enlighten me.” He folds his arms across his chest. “Dain.” I shut the door in his face.
Good
“And are you capable of having a discussion that doesn’t revolve around him?”
“I have no remorse for winning battles.” Mira sheathes the next dagger at her waist in plain sight. “And if you’re Syrena Cordella, then your reputation reaches across the border as well.”
“Dining amid hundreds of fliers that root for your death, and you choose to wear a gown?” Syrena arches a brow. “Where is the shrewd judgment I’ve heard so much about?” “I can kill just as easily in a gown as leathers. Want to see?” Only a fool would call Mira’s expression a smile.
“You win,” Xaden whispers. Shadows fall away as quickly as they appeared as he lifts his head, locking his eyes with mine. “I haven’t even started fighting with you.”
“Fine. We can fight as much as you want later tonight. Just know that you’ve already won. I heard what you were saying.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you. Sorry that I’ve been overreacting since pulling you out of that interrogation chamber—hell, since Resson. When Sgaeyl told me they were torturing you, and I couldn’t get to you…” His eyes close for a second, and when they open, the fear I spotted earlier is front and center. “I can’t fucking breathe when you’re in danger, but that’s not your fault. I should have brought you here when you asked me to.”
“Now it’s your turn. Can you admit that you should have waited for me to bring you so we could have formulated a plan?” His fingers trail deliciously up my bare back. “No.” I shiver at the touch. “I’m sorry for not telling you but not sorry for coming. We need that luminary now.”
“Which Sage? I promise, you’ll wish—” he starts, raising his arms. “For death?” I interrupt. “Already heard it. I killed that messenger, too.”
“What the fuck are you doing, Violence?” Xaden demands. “Shh. I’m concentrating.” I slam my shields up, blocking him out as the venin pivots.
Xaden crouches down. “If you ever want to have words about why I severed that alliance, then you come for me. Violet is beyond your reach. If you so much as look her direction with anything but the utmost kindness and respect, I’ll kill you without a second thought and let Syrena take her place as your heir. Do you understand me?” His voice has that icy softness that sends chills up my spine. Tecarus nods. “Apologize.”
“Take one step toward Violet, and I’ll throw you off this fucking cliff myself,” Dain warns, his voice low and menacing. “Unlike Riorson, I don’t give a shit who your uncle is.” “I’ll do it just for fun,” Sloane adds.
The mist parts like a scene from a nightmare, and gray, gaping jaws fill my vision, opening wide to reveal dripping teeth that snap closed around Cibbe’s neck, snatching the gryphon from the ledge before falling back into the mist. My heart stops. “What the fuck—” Sloane whispers. “Wyvern,” I manage to whisper,
“Aren’t you going to tell me how brilliant that idea was?” Tairn scoffs. “I chose you last year for that brilliance, and now you’d like to be congratulated like it’s something new? How odd.” “You’re impossible to impress.”
Maybe it’s Sliseag moving closer on her right, but there’s a reddish sheen to Andarna’s scales, and I can’t help but wonder when that shimmer will dull to a shade more like Tairn.
“Runes,” Professor Trissa confirms. “Runes aren’t just decorative. They’re strands of magic pulled from our power, woven into geometric patterns for specific uses, then placed into an object, either for immediate work or usage at a later date. We call the process ‘tempering.’”
Not sure I’m anything to brag about, considering I barely passed the history quiz this morning. At least I’m solid in math, but then again, math doesn’t change overnight.
Same girl
Get good enough at runes, and you can compete with a fair amount of signets.”
This is why Xaden had me practicing runes with fabric. Is that man ever going to learn to just tell me things outright? Or am I always going to have to dig information out of him?
I’ll answer any question you ask,’” I mock under my breath. It’s hard to ask questions I don’t even know exist.
“You put an unlocking rune into my dagger, didn’t you?” I ask, sliding all the disks besides the one I just finished into my pack, ignoring Warrick’s journal, which mocks me from the edge of the desk. “That’s how we got out of the interrogation chamber.”
but if the dagger’s on your body and picks up on the need for a door to unlock, it will.
And the second they were…” His shoulders rise as he takes a deep breath. “…burned, heat raced up my arm. The next time I felt anything like that was after Threshing.” My eyes widen, and I close my hand over his. “The rebellion relics?” That must be why the swirling marks always start on the marked ones’ arms.
She comes at me with a combination of punches that I block with my forearms, shifting my body so the blows glance off without their full impact. It’s…easy, like I know the choreography. Like it’s muscle memory. Her stance adjusts, and I jump back a second before she kicks out. Connecting only with air, her balance falters as I land, and she stumbles sideways. Holy shit. She fights like Xaden. He trained both of us.
“You know what bothers me?” I ask as she bounces back on her toes, cursing when the back of her hand swipes at her cheek and comes away bloody. “That you’re obsessed with fighting over a man.”
Egg-sact-lyyyyyy
and I gasp, filling my lungs before hurtling my body after hers, rising onto my knees and slamming my fist into the side of her face with a satisfying thud before she can recover. Now she has my mark on both sides.
But I’m sure as hell not fighting you over a man’s affections. I’m going to war with you for a crown.
I’m going to fucking kill her. How dare she come after me, like I had a choice in Luella’s fall? Like I had anything to do with Xaden’s choice to leave her? Fuck that. How dare she come after what’s mine. He isn’t a crown. He isn’t a stepping stool for power. He isn’t a tool to elevate her standing. He’s everything.
And I love him more than I hate her.
need her knowing what I can be for her—anything and everything she needs.
“Would that have been unforgivable to you?” He finishes tying my boot, then lets go of my foot. “Nothing you could ever do would be unforgivable to me.”
“And to answer the question, I’d feel jealous, which is something you have a unique ability to bring out in me. And then I’d kick his ass, partially because that’s what I do when someone challenges me, and more importantly for implying there’s any other future besides the one where you and I are endgame.”
No way he just used the term "endgame" I cantttt
“Sorry to inconvenience you, but this year the role of Violet Sorrengail”—he points to me—“will be played by Xaden Riorson”—he taps his chest—“who will drag her, kicking and screaming if he has to, into a real relationship with real discussions, because he refuses to lose her again. If I have to evolve, you do, too.” He folds his arms across his chest.
Pfftttt
“I need your help.” “All right.” He nods without waiting for an explanation. And just like that, I remember why he used to be one of my favorite people on the Continent.
“What’s it like to go through life so self-assured?” “It’s…life.”
“I know chocolate cake isn’t going to fix this,
NOW STEALING FOURTRIS' THING?!?! Oh nawwww
“Maybe more if you’re good.” A corner of his mouth lifts as he cuts into the cake with the fork. “You’re making dick jokes?” I brace my hands on the top edge of the wall. “You’re talking about the weather.” He takes a bite, then cuts another one and hands me the fork.
We already know that one of the symbols I translated originally was incorrect. Rain isn’t rain. It’s flame.
How do you mix up rain and flame -_- literally complete opposites
that must be the answer tho since it's the title of the book
“She called it because I was with them, and she wouldn’t risk you.”
I realized she treated me like every marked one has treated you since Threshing. Like you’re just a vulnerable extension of me.”
