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The uprising suddenly failed overnight on December 13, 433 AU, in what has been called the Midnight Massacre. The foreign troops disappeared, and the rebels were killed in their beds by Poromish forces. It is not their disappearance that strikes this scholar as particularly vicious but their obvious betrayal. There is a saying in Deverelli: The word is the blood. When they make a trade, broker a deal, it is considered law. I cannot help but wonder what part of the deal the Krovlan rebels did not uphold. —Subjugated: The Second Uprising of the Krovlan People by Lieutenant Colonel Asher
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“Fire-bringers!” the man accuses in the common tongue, then slams the door shut, rattling the glass. “Rude.” Ridoc adjusts in his saddle. “And wrong,” Cat mutters. “Some of us just want to fuck with your feelings, not burn your house to the ground.”
Ridoc dusts off his summer-weight uniform and gathers the reins. “I’ll be nearby.” “I know,” I reply. The reassuring way he said it makes my brow furrow.
She flourishes her hand. “Alchemy. Two substances combined to make something entirely new, not unlike what’s between the two of you.” She glances between Xaden and me and sets her hand on her chest.
My jaw slackens. Oh, Malek, Courtlyn has killed Halden’s personal guard…and is serving her to his cat. I’m going to be sick.
Something falls from his hand, hitting his abandoned sword with a metallic clink. I grab the small object on impulse and close my fingers around the pebble-size piece of alloy from my conduit. Agony cracks my soul clean open, as if I can give Xaden some of what he’s just lost as I register the alloy’s chill, its complete and total lack of energy before shoving it in my front pocket. “They hurt you,” he whispers without apology. “They were going to kill you.”
“So we fuck the rules.” I raise my voice, and everyone quiets. Cat throws a practice disk onto the map, and I recognize the sound-shield rune she’s tempered into it. I glance her way thankfully, then look to the others. “We supply and we go. We leave for Unnbriel as planned, but then we…disobey direct orders. We don’t fly back between isles. We don’t report or return until we find her kind.”
Ridoc walks out of the fog from my left, takes one look at Halden and Xaden, and makes a beeline for my side. “Kind of feels like Threshing, doesn’t it? Exciting. Terrifying. We know we have to go, but there’s every chance we’re about to have our asses handed to us.”
Blue-robed attendants rise on the temple steps, and my footsteps falter. Every single one of them has silver hair. Not gray. Not white. Silver.
Never in my twenty-one years have I seen anyone with hair like mine. Does hers always end in silver no matter how short she cuts it? Do her joints fail her? Do her bones break? I need to know. I have to know.
“The same thing everyone in the isles craves.” She pauses and looks back over her shoulder. “Dragons.”
“Oh, shit.” Garrick’s face drains of color. “Xaden?” Talia whispers, lifting her hand, then quickly dropping it. “Is it really you?” My eyebrows hit my fucking hairline. Xaden reaches across me and wraps his hand over my hip like I need protection. “Mom.”
“And don’t think that has anything to do with this.” He points to his eye. “I’m aware in the moments I lack emotion. You and Garrick don’t need to share little oh no glances. I already feel it. It’s like sliding over a frozen lake while a shrinking part of me screams that I’m supposed to be swimming in those pieces I’ve bartered away, and those feelings are right beneath the surface, but fuck is skating faster and a hell of a lot less messy. This shit?” He swings his finger back toward the house. “It’s messy and painful and infuriating, and if I could choose to give this portion of myself
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“You did nothing wrong.” He steps out of my arms, and it feels frighteningly poignant as he slips away. “This feeling is one I would gladly exchange.” It’s not just the power that’s addicting; it’s the freedom to not feel this. His words play back in my head, and a new fear takes root,
“Stay there,” I order in Hedotic, then turn back toward Ridoc. Air gushes from my lungs as Ridoc looks down. The cook’s knife is lodged in his side.
“We’re fighting a war for the future of our world. This shouldn’t be a competition. Logic and wisdom dictate that you assist us so you don’t become us.”
My heart starts to race as his words pierce a shield of denial I wasn’t even aware I’d been hiding behind, exposing a truth so blatantly obvious I feel foolish for not having seen it before. Tairn will always lead, and I will always be his rider. Codagh speaks through Melgren, not the other way around.
“There is no cure for me.” He presses a kiss to my forehead. “That’s why you have to become better than me. There’s only you.”
“Her name is Broccoli, not that,” he mutters. She looks at him like he’s sprouted whiskers. “You named a kitten Broccoli?” “No one really wants broccoli, but it’s good for you, so seems fitting to me.” He shrugs.
“He’s getting me back because I won the last round.” He flashes a grin. “I bought enough itching powder to fill a bucket, then dropped it between his scales on the back of his neck right after flight maneuvers a few weeks ago. He had to submerge his entire body in the river to avoid everyone in the Vale knowing I’d gotten the best of him.” “You guys are weird.” I am suddenly very content with having bonded a grumpy old man, though I can’t say what Andarna will be like in twenty years.
Six dragons of varying scale tones fill the beach, and all of them rival the size of Sgaeyl. Their massive claws dig into the sand as they lower their heads one by one. My breath falters. We didn’t find the irids; they found us. We did it. They’re here. Steam gusts across my face, and my stomach clenches. They’re here and really close with really big teeth.
“Yet you choose black as your resting color?” the female asks Andarna from the right. “It is acceptable in my ho—” She breathes out in a huff. “In Navarre.” The one diagonally to my left lifts their head. “She is the criterion.”
“And dragonkind has not learned their lesson, either. While you”—the male in the center’s gaze jumps to Aotrom—“gifted your human with ice”—he dares to shift his focus to Tairn—“you armed yours with lightning.” “That’s not how signets work,” Ridoc argues. “And you”—the male lowers his gaze to Andarna—“our very hope, have handed this human something far more dangerous to wield, haven’t you?”
“Do you not care that people will die?” Andarna curls her tail high above her back. “Perhaps they should.” The tallest male blinks. “Perhaps the corrupted ones should devour the land in its entirety. Only when they’re faced with starvation will they confront the evil they’ve become. Either they’ll die off and the land will regenerate, or they’ll confront the abominations they’ve become and change.” Change. My heart launches into my throat.
“Ridoc—” Xaden starts. “Not a single word from you, dark wielder,” Ridoc grits out, his eyes locked on mine. “Vi, you’ve got one chance to come clean and tell me what the actual fuck is going on.”
Let’s say he’s still eighty percent Xaden.” “Ninety,” I counter. “Ehh.” He shrugs. “There are four ranks to dark wielders, and your man’s already channeled three times. I think eighty percent is mathematically generous, but sure, we’ll live in your delusion for the purpose of the hypothetical. How long do we have until he’s an asim? Until he’s physically unable to deny the call of a Sage?”
His hands fall away, and we start back toward camp. “Stop keeping shit to yourself,” he demands. “I don’t want to have this fight again. The four of us are stronger together than we are apart. Don’t fuck with that, even for Riorson. If you’re too afraid to tell Rhi, Sawyer, or me about something you’re doing because you know we’re going to lose our shit, then either you shouldn’t be doing it or you deserve to have shit lost on you.”
I am the worst possible thing for this mission, for my province, and for you.”
“Queen Maraya is dead.”
And I’m not. I’m distracted the rest of the hour, thinking of different tactics I could use to even the playing field between Theophanie and me and coming up empty-handed, with the exception of one fact. She wants me alive.
It was just a damned dream. A very visceral one, but a dream nonetheless.
“I love you,” I whisper down the bond, then lean forward and rest my forehead against the cold glass, using the sensation to solidify my certainty that the nightmare has ended. “I need you. Quit brooding.” Maybe it’s time I try one of his own techniques.
“But I’m only going to get worse. You really should run.” Not done brooding. Message received. “Come find me when you’re ready to accept the fact that I won’t.” I back away slowly. “That I never will.”
“I don’t understand. You’re our generation’s shadow wielder.” “Not anymore. Magic knows.” Xaden’s shoulders dip as he turns slowly to face me, his brow scrunching in apology before he schools his features. “He’s the balance.” A chill runs down my spine.
“You have to accept what I already have,” Xaden says to me. “The man you love no longer fully belongs to himself.” He walks past Lewellen into the great hall, taking my heart with him.
“By balance, you mean Tyrrendor comes first, Xaden second, our relationship fights for third, and my personal needs are a matter of convenience.” Saying it aloud puts it all in harsh perspective. “Something like that.” Sadness pulls at the corners of his mouth.
But Xaden isn’t in power. He is power. And he’s slipping. “Let me know if he leaves,” I tell Tairn, and then I head to class. Xaden flies out two hours later.
A dragon determines its last flight, and its rider’s. —Article One, Section Two The Dragon Rider’s Codex
“What’s wrong?” Brennan’s face falls, and he stares at the ground. “I can’t mend him.” “I have no idea who you’re talking about.” I lift my brows in utter confusion. “We’re all healthy. No one was hurt on the way here.” He looks up, and the sorrow in his eyes sends me staggering backward. “Xaden. I can’t mend him, Vi. I tried every day that he was here last week.”
“I’m not ignoring my fate. I know there will come a point in time where I’ll become more it than me.” He swallows. “But as dangerous as hope is, you’re right—I have to fight for this. I think I’m stable for now, and I know it’s only day seventy—” “What is this magical number you have?” Gods help me if we’re looking at triple digits. He tucks my hair behind my ears. “Seventy-six. It’s twice Barlowe’s longest stretch without draining after his first significant channeling—the cliff incident. I didn’t want to get your hopes up, but I figure that making it seventy-six days will indicate that I can
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“Even when I’m not entirely…me, whatever I am still craves you, needs you, only wants you.
He hooks a hand around the back of my thigh, then lifts. The world spins, and I find the wall at my back as he raises his head. “If I loved you in the way you deserve to be loved, I’d ignore that you’re the only form of peace I’ve ever known and put a thousand miles between us because stable still isn’t whole.” His gaze drops to my mouth. “Instead, I’m here plotting, thinking of every possible way to mitigate the threat I pose so I can tear this very translucent silk from your incredible body and bury myself inside you.”
“My control when it comes to you is an illusion. You are the temple where I worship. I live for the clench of your thighs, your breathy little cries, the feel of you coming around my cock, and above all else, the sound of my favorite three words from this mouth.” His thumb skims my lips before he cradles the back of my head and looks into my eyes. “Keeping my hands off you has been the feat of my life, and you have the power to shred my discipline with a single fucking touch.”
“Our door,” I correct him. “I choose you. I choose whatever risk this brings. I see every part of you, Xaden: The good. The bad. The unforgivable. That’s what you promised, and that’s what I want—all of you. I can handle myself, even against you if I have to.”
I flex my fingers in the wet grass, splaying my fingers wide. My hand…it doesn’t look like mine— There it is. Power courses through the earth beneath me, ready and willing to annihilate their forces if I have the courage to let go of the impossible dreams I’ve clung to and accept the fate Zihnal has dealt me.
He tenses. “You’re sure it’s the Sage?” I nod. “He held the Sword of Tyrrendor to my throat after demanding I bring him something. It’s like my subconscious is trying to warn me that they’re going to use you against me.”
“When he dropped me, I had this second where I thought about channeling from the earth, and when I looked down…” My gaze slides to his relic. “I had a relic on my left wrist, right where yours all start. And my hand didn’t look like mine. Now that I’m thinking about it, it looked like…yours. Who knows. What was yours about?” He stares at me silently, and worry creeps up my spine. “Why are you looking at me like that?” “Because it’s my hand.” My fingers slip off his neck. “I just said that.” He sits up and I mirror the motion, holding the sheet to my chest. “It’s my hand,” he repeats. “You were
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“I’ve had them at least once a week since Resson, and more frequently since Basgiath, but I almost never realize they’re nightmares when I’m in them. When I do, I wake up feeling like someone was there with me, watching.” He looks over at me and pauses his steps. “Like tonight.” “That doesn’t make sense.” I tug the blanket closer. “I’ve had the dream on nights you aren’t with me. Nights you were hours away.”
“There is if you’re a dream-walker.” He nods thoughtfully, and my heart pounds as I guess what he’s about to say. “It must be your second signet—the one being bonded to Andarna gives you.
My back stiffens. “There’s no such thing as dream-walking, and the irids told her that she gave me something more dangerous than lightning. It was one of the reasons they were so angry with her.” “There is such a thing.” Xaden’s voice drops. “It’s absolutely more dangerous than lightning. It’s a form of inntinnsic,” he ends on a whisper.
