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There’s no response from Andarna, but I can feel the shimmering bond between us, though it’s no longer golden like her scales.
He looks good, even with bruises marring the tawny-brown skin under his eyes from lack of sleep. The high slopes of his cheeks, the dark eyes that usually soften whenever they meet mine, the scar that bisects his brow and ends beneath his eye, the swirling, shimmering relic that ends at his jaw, and the carved lines of the mouth I know as well as my own all add up to make him physically fucking perfect to me, and that’s just his face. His body? Somehow even better, and the way he uses it when he has me in his arms—
she's downbad
glance left and right to be sure no one sees us as Xaden opens Liam’s door. He motions at me, and I slip under his arm and into the room, triggering the mage light overhead.
I check his wardrobe, the dresser, and the chest at the foot of his bed, coming up empty-handed.
I lift the corner of the heavy mattress and sigh with relief, snatching the twine-bound stack of letters before letting the bedding fall back into place. “Got them.” I will not cry. Not when I still have to hide them in my room. But what will happen if they come to burn my things next?
“No,” Rhiannon whispers, but I know she’s not denying me the favor. “Not Liam. No.”
“I’ve known about Brennan since his death.” My lips part and something heavy shifts, easing a weight in my chest that’s been there since Resson. “What?” “You didn’t dodge the question.” Have to admit, I’m a little surprised.
“If the last few weeks have shown you anything, it should be that I don’t run from truth, no matter how hard it is or what it costs.” “Yeah, well, it cost me you
“That’s what you promised in your bedroom.” He is not doing this to me. “‘Anything you want to know and everything you don’t.’ Those were your words.” “Everything about me
“Look, I will answer any question you want to ask about me. Gods, I want you to ask, to know me well enough to trust me even when I can’t tell you everything.”
“Because you didn’t fall for an ordinary rider. You fell for the leader of a revolution,” he whispers, the sound so soft it barely carries to my ears. “To some degree, I’m always going to have secrets.”
She wasn’t in on Aetos’s plan. I know it with every fiber of my being.
“You sent us into combat, and you’re going to report us for desertion?” Xaden doesn’t need to shout for his voice to carry across the formation.
“I have no idea,” Aetos grinds out. “I was directed to take a squad beyond the wards to Athebyne and form the headquarters for Fourth Wing’s War Games, and I did so. We stopped to rest our riot at the nearest lake past the wards, and we were attacked by gryphons.”
“It was a surprise attack, and they caught Deigh and Fuil unaware.” Xaden pivots slightly, as though he’s telling the wings and not leadership. “They were dead before they ever had a chance.”
“We lost Liam Mairi and Soleil Telery,” Xaden adds, then looks over his shoulder at me. “And we almost lost Sorrengail.”
The general pivots and, for a second, looks down at me like she’s not just my commanding officer, with worry and a touch of horror in her eyes. She looks at me like she’s just…Mom.
“But surely if you don’t believe me, then General Sorrengail can discern the truth from her own daughter.” That’s my cue.
“It’s true.” “Lies!” Aetos shouts. “There’s no way two dragons were brought down by a drift of gryphons. Impossible. We should separate them and interrogate them individually.”
“And I would reconsider your insinuation that a Sorrengail isn’t truthful.”
“Tell me what happened, Cadet Sorrengail.” Mom cocks her head to the side and gives me the look—the one she used all throughout my childhood to unravel the truth when Brennan, Mira, and I would join ranks to hide any mischief.
I only saw two of the gryphons appear with their riders, but everything happened so damned fast. Before I could even get a grasp on what was happening…” Hold it together.
I brush my hand over my pocket, feeling the ridges of the little carving of Andarna Liam had been working on before he died. “Soleil’s dragon was killed, and Deigh was gutted.” My eyes water, but I blink until my vision clears. Mom only responds to strength. If I show any sign of weakness, she’ll dismiss my account as hysterics. “We didn’t stand a chance beyond the wards, General.”
“Then I held Liam as he died,” I state, quick to hide the quiver in my chin. “There was nothing we could do for him once Deigh passed.”
“And before his body was even cold, I was stabbed with a poison-tipped blade.”
“But when we sought help in Athebyne, we found the entire outpost deserted and a note that Wingleader Riorson could choose to keep watch over a nearby village or race to Eltuval.”
“This is your handwriting. You emptied a strategically invaluable outpost beyond the wards for War Games?” “It was only for a few days.” He has the good sense to retreat a step. “You told me the games were at my discretion this year.”
“And clearly your discretion lacks common fucking sense,”
“You survived a knife wound after being thrown into combat as a first-year,” she says to me. “I did.” She nods, a satisfied half smile curving her mouth for all of a heartbeat. “Maybe you’re more like me than I gave you credit for.”
“Surely, if you think there’s another threat out there, you’d want to share that information with the rest of the quadrant so we could adequately train to face it.”
“But personally, I think this is all easily solved by a missive to General Melgren. Surely he saw the outcome of our battle with the gryphons.” Satisfaction courses through me at the way the colonel’s features slacken.
“Touch me and I swear to the gods, I’ll cut your fucking hands off and let the quadrant sort you out in the next round of challenges, Dain Aetos.”
“Violence, indeed.” The hint of amusement in Xaden’s tone doesn’t reach his face. “What?” Dain stops dead in his tracks, his eyebrows shooting up into his hairline. “You don’t mean that, Vi.” “I do.” I
“But in case it’s not, every time you think of reaching for her face, I want you to remember one word.” “And what is that?” Dain seethes. “Athebyne.”
Liam was the strongest of our year, and that didn’t save him.
“Soleil Telery. Liam Mairi,” Captain Fitzgibbons calls out. I struggle to force air through my lungs and fight the sting in my eyes as the rest of the names blur together until the scribe finishes the roll, commending their souls to Malek.
“Aura Beinhaven,” Rhiannon answers. “She was instrumental in Second Wing’s win for War Games, but Aetos didn’t do too badly filling in for Riorson, either.”
“Xaden Riorson,” the commandant calls out, and my pulse leaps as Xaden strides forward to take his orders, the last third-year in formation.
“I’ll find you before I go.” Xaden’s voice cuts through my shield and spiraling thoughts, then fades as he walks out of the courtyard and into the dormitory.
A resounding cheer goes up in the courtyard, and I’m grabbed into a hug by Ridoc, then Sawyer, then Rhiannon, and even Nadine. We made it. We’re officially second-years. Out of the eleven first-years who came through our squad during the year, both before and after Threshing, the five of us are the only ones left standing.
“It’s been way too long since I’ve been able to talk to my family.” We share a small smile, neither of us mentioning that we snuck out of Montserrat to see her family a few months ago.
beneath my skin as I remember the angry red veins beside that dark wielder’s eyes as she came for me on Tairn’s back, the look in Liam’s when he realized Deigh wasn’t going to make it. “It’s natural to wonder,” Tairn reminds me. “Especially when your experience could prepare them for battle in their eyes.” “They should mind their own business,”
“You want the truth? If it wasn’t for Riorson and Sorrengail, we’d all be
dead.”
“And as much as I wish none of it had happened, at least those of us who were there truly know the horror of what we’re up against.”
“Don’t get too close to the first-years, especially not until Threshing tells you how many of them might actually be worth getting to know.” She grimaces. “Just trust me.”
“I’ll earn your trust as soon as you realize you don’t need full disclosure. You only have to have the guts to start asking the questions you actually want answers to. Don’t worry about the bed. We’ll get back there. The anticipation is good for us.” He smiles—really fucking smiles—and it almost
“I tell you we’re not together because you won’t give me the one thing I need—honesty—and you counter with ‘it’s good for us’?”
“I’d say I’ll be back before you can miss me,” Xaden replies, his hands loose at his sides, “but word has it you pissed off General Sorrengail enough to be reassigned to a coastal outpost.”
“Violet, this is your new vice commandant, Major Varrish. He’s here to tighten the ship, as they say. We seem to have gotten a little lax with what we allow around here. Naturally the quadrant’s current executive commandant will still see to operations, but Varrish’s new position only answers to Panchek.”
