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He takes another step backward. “If I’d been there, beyond the wards, I would have drained the very earth to its core to keep you safe.”
I bite back my smile. “I’m never scared of him.” Xaden’s eyes find mine, and my pulse skips. “And he’s not my boyfriend.” Rhi snorts and Ridoc offers me a sarcastic thumbs-up. “Agreed,” Xaden says. “That’s far too casual a term for what we are.”
“It wasn’t a response, it was… It simply was.” Xaden crouches behind me as Halden pushes himself to sit upright. “Let’s get three things straight, Your Highness. First, I have remarkable hearing thanks to the shadows at your very feet. Second, I don’t control Violet. Never have. Never will. But third, and most importantly—” He lowers his voice. “She really, honestly hasn’t thought about you. At least not since the second she set eyes on me.” I’m going to fucking kill him.
“What happens to me if you turn?” My hands curl at my sides. “What happens to Tairn and Sgaeyl if you give in?” Xaden’s jaw flexes. “Do venin get once-a-week visits?” I take a step closer and lift my chin. “Does their bond survive you turning? Does ours? You and I are tethered for life, Xaden Riorson. Am I expected to turn with you? Is that the only way to keep our dragons alive if you give up?”
Her gaze assesses me in two seconds, then lingers on the silver half of my braid. “Do you use lye and the juice of the Manwasa flower on your hair as we do?”
Heretic? My gaze darts between the two women as my mind races in time with my heartbeat. The faded forehead tattoo. Theophanie was a priestess of Dunne. Her silver hair matches the attendants’ on Unnbriel…matches mine—
“It seemed necessary to fire your wardstone,” Leothan says.
Asher returned today. Gods help us if anyone finds out. I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive him for what he’s done to her. —Journal of Captain Lilith Sorrengail
“She’s gone,” I whisper to Rhi, then crumple under the weight of the unbearable truth. Xaden catches me, tugging my shoulder against his chest, and his brow furrows as our gazes collide. “Andarna’s gone.”
He strips me out of my clothes, and I get into the tub. Warm water rushes over me as I lean back, and I start pulling apart the strands of my braid. Kneeling beside me, he lathers soap on a small cloth and begins to wash me, starting at my feet.
I’m a master of pain, and Andarna’s loss is the deepest I’ve ever had to mask in order to survive. But I don’t have to pretend with Xaden.
“What did she say?” Brennan asks Mira. “What were the priestess’s exact words?” Mira twists the bracelet, then looks me straight in the eye. “She said the heart that beat for you—or within you—would do the wrong thing for the right reason, reach for unspeakable power, and turn dark.”
“My heart beats for her,” he tells Mira without so much as flinching. “I reached for unspeakable power. I turned. I’m the dark wielder she warned your father about, not Violet. Stop treating her like she’s a liability. I’m already the problem.”
The bond between Berwyn and me is the kind that should never exist, and now that my Sage has another sibling he can use against me…I’m screwed.
My left arm is splinted, and a beautiful gold ring with an emerald the size of my thumbnail sits on my hand. Oh gods, I know that stone. It matches the others from the Blade of Aretia upstairs on Xaden’s nightstand.
“It’s an official blessing of your legal, binding marriage,” Brennan whispers, stunned, then quickly rolls the parchment. “By the head priestess of Dunne’s temple.”
I flip the missive over to see two sentences written in Xaden’s handwriting. Don’t look for me. It’s yours now.
“Twelve hours,” Brennan answers. “What did you do?” My head snaps toward Imogen, and a deep sense of foreboding takes root in my chest. She slowly lifts her gaze to mine. “What you asked me to.”
