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“If I wallow in every loss, that’s all I’ll ever have time for.”
“Even you don’t get a say in which parts of us are taken first, Riorson.”
Xaden is mine. My heart, my soul, my everything.
“Dying today would be inconvenient,”
The loss of constant connection sucks, but he doesn’t trust himself—or what he thinks he’ll become—to keep it open yet.
“Meaning, will I support the myriad of ways you plan to court death in the name of curing one who is beyond redemption?” He swivels his head in my direction again.
I’m not running from him. Even in the moments he’s lost control, he’s never hurt me. He never will.”
“Pain isn’t a competition,” I assure him. “There’s always enough to go around.”
“Pay attention to the present, not the past,”
“I’m fine. He’s fine. All fine.”
“I could reach the rank of Maven, lead armies of dark wielders against everyone we care for, and watch every vein in my body turn red as I channel all the power in the Continent, and I would still love you. What I did doesn’t change that. I’m not sure anything can.”
“Telling me you’re capable of horrible things while still loving me is pretty much your idea of foreplay.”
Sometimes I worry about Violet. She has your sharp wit, quick mind, and steadfast heart paired with my bullheaded tenacity. When she finally and truly gives that heart, I fear it will overrule the other gifts you’ve given her and logic will cede its voice to love. And if her first two liaisons are any indication of what we might expect… Gods help her, my love, I’m afraid our daughter has atrocious taste in men.
“Scared of you?” I shake my head. “Never.” “You will be,” he whispers, looking over my features like he needs to memorize them.
I spot the closed book on my nightstand, my page marked by one of Xaden’s daggers.
“Mine,” he growls against my skin, and his hand skims the hemline of my nightdress before dragging it up my thigh. “Mine,” I counter, tightening my grip in his hair.
“I love you so much it hurts.”
He can’t unite what he broke.
Rebel’ is so…outdated. We prefer the term ‘revolutionary,’”
“You see, Dain’s too honorable to wield in a challenge, but you’ll find that my sense of morality has learned to…waver.”
“Shh, it’s more fun when she blows shit up,”
We don’t have to like each other, but we do have to trust each other, and we can’t keep doing this, can’t keep accepting needless casualties in the quadrant in the name of strengthening the wing, not when every single one of us is needed in this war.”
“The riders who came before us failed to protect the innocent just because they were on the other side of our border,”
you must decide if you’d rather die fighting each other or facing our shared enemy.”
The last time a shadow and lightning wielder fought side by side, they managed to drive the venin back into the Barrens for a few hundred years. We’ll figure out how to do it again.” I fumble the conduit and nearly drop it. Xaden and I are the first of our signets to live simultaneously since the Great War?
Our eyes meet, and for a second, it hits me how different things might have been if he’d shown the same faith in me during my first year as he did today.
It’s impossible not to be proud of him, not to love him.
So we’re begging forgiveness instead of asking permission. Understood.
“I’m not even sure if I miss her,” I admit in a broken whisper, “or the chance we had at eventually…being something. Maybe not what you and your mom have, but something.” “You can feel both.”
We’re not playing games anymore; we’re preparing you for war.”
“Someone once told me the right way isn’t the only way.”
“Tell me you didn’t do this for me.” Xaden’s chair creaks against the stone floor. “I thought we promised never to lie to each other.” “You endangered yourself—” His tone tightens. “And I have no regrets.”
“I’ve never seen him like that.” Garrick shoots a worried look my way. “Ever. I don’t even want to think about what he would have done if he’d been out here beyond the wards, because I thought he was going to rip the stones from the wall. He’s always prided himself on control—he has to when he wields that much power—and I’m telling you, he lost it when he heard you were crossing the border, Violet. He’s…not himself.”
“Now tell me, which chose you first? The one who gifted you the power of the sky? Or the irid?”
You might be angry when you realize I didn’t wake you to say goodbye. But it’s only because I no longer fully trust my ability to walk away. —Recovered Correspondence of His Grace, Lieutenant Xaden Riorson, Sixteenth Duke of Tyrrendor, to Cadet Violet Sorrengail
It’s as carnal as sex and as intimate as waking in his arms.
before. It was hotter than rage, and sharper than fear, and cut deeper than helplessness, all because I couldn’t get to you.”
“If I’d been there, beyond the wards, I would have drained the very earth to its core to keep you safe.”
But something is broken between here”—he taps the side of his head—“and here”—he repeats the motion above his heart. “And I can’t control it.
“You want me the same way that I want you. Wholly. Completely. With nothing but skin between us. Heart, mind, and body.”
“All I want is to lose myself in you, and I can’t. You are the only person in the world with the power to strip me of every ounce of my control, and the only person I can’t fathom losing that control with.” He lifts his head. “And yet here I am, unable to keep three fucking feet away from you.”
“I won’t lose you, not even to yourself.”
“Agreed,” Ridoc says. “And it’s always the same fight.” He lifts his hand to his chest. “I’ll trust you if you stop keeping secrets!” He drops the hand and scowls. “It’s my secretive nature that attracted you, and why can’t you just stay out of harm’s way for five fucking minutes?”
Love and wisdom hadn’t exactly shown up when I’d needed them to.
The scent of parchment and ink hits my lungs, welcoming me home. I stare down the stacks that line the right side of the cavernous space like my father might walk out at any second.
“He left Navarre, not his father, and believe me when I tell you there’s a difference.”
“I mean it. Whiners don’t wear black,”
“But death is no longer an acceptable outcome when you face your classmates. The days of settling your scores on the mat are over. We need each and every one of you to survive to graduation.”
“I am yours and you are mine, and there’s no law or rule in this world or the next that will change that.”
“Because you’re the only one capable of killing me.”
