I twist against the straps that hold me captive, but their buckles hold strong. “Stay calm,” Liam whispers, like any of them can hear him.
“We had a breach of security this week, and classified documents were stolen. We caught the perpetrator and prevented the loss of intelligence, but the prisoner…” There’s a dramatic pause. “It’s blatantly obvious by connection that this rider is working with what we suspect to be a second rebellion, intent on destroying Navarre. For the safety of every civilian within our wards, I need this prisoner’s memories, wingleader. You must extract the truth, or our very way of life will be compromised.”
Well, when he puts it that way.I pull against my bonds again, sending ricochets of agony through my nervous system. I have no shields. No way to block him out.
Everyone in Aretia is going to die, and it will be my fault.
“I’m going to warn you,” Varrish says gently. “The prisoner’s identity may come as a shock.” The door swings open before I can fully prepare myself.
Varrish walks in, leaving Dain standing in the doorway, his eyes wide as his gaze sweeps over me, lingering on my swollen, purple-splotched hands, bound to the arms of the chair, and the face I’m sure matches them. He can’t even see the worst of it under my uniform, the broken bones and contusions.
“Violet?”
“Please help me,” I whisper, even knowing I’m begging a Dain that no longer exists, the one I knew before he crossed the parapet, and not the hardened third-year in front of me.
“You’ve been torturing her for five days?” Dain accuses Varrish.
Five days? It’s only Thursday?
“Since she stole Lyra’s journal from the king’s private library?” Varrish sounds bored. “Absolutely. She might have been a childhood friend, Aetos, but we both know where her loyalties now lie—with Riorson and the war he’s planning against us. She wants to bring down the wards.”
“That’s not true!” I mean to shout but it comes out more as a whimper, my voice hoarse from days of screaming. Varrish has twisted everything. “I would never hurt civilians. Dain, you know—”
“I don’t know shit about you anymore,” Dain counters, his face twisting in anger.
“There’s a war out there,” I tell him, desperate to break through before he breaks me. “Poromish civilians are dying, and we’re not doing anything to help. We’re just watching it happen, Dain.”
“You think we should involve ourselves in their civil war?” Dain argues.
My shoulders slump. “I think you’ve been lied to for so long that you won’t recognize the truth even when it hits you in the face.”
“I could say the same for you.” Dain looks toward Varrish. “You’re sure she was trying to take down the wards?”
“I’ve had the journal sent back to the Archives for safekeeping, but yes. The book she stole gave detailed instructions on how the wards were built and could be used as a map to unravel them.” Varrish clasps Dain’s shoulder. “I know this is hard to hear, but people aren’t always who we want them to be.”
Liam pushes off the wall and walks around the pair, coming to my side and crouching down. “I don’t think you’re going to be able to stop this.”
Me either.
“Try not to be angry with her,” Varrish tells Dain, his expression shifting to sympathetic. “We can’t always help who we fall in love with, can we?”
Dain stiffens.
“Riorson pulled her into something she couldn’t possibly understand. You know that. You saw it happen last year.” He sighs. “I didn’t want to have to show you this, but”—he pulls my alloy-imbedded dagger from his own sheath—“she was carrying this, too. That metal you see is what powers the wards. We think they’ve been smuggling them out to wherever they’re planning to stage this war from, weakening our wards little by little.”
“Is that true?” Dain’s gaze flies to mine.
I spot Nora leaning against the doorjamb and shudder. “I can explain. It’s not how he’s portraying it—”
“I don’t need you to explain,” Dain snarls. “I’ve been asking you to talk to me for months, and now I see why you won’t. Why you’re adamant I never touch you. You’re scared I’ll see what you’ve been hiding.” He stalks forward, and I shrink back in the chair.
Xaden, forgive me.
“Remember your ethics, Cadet,” Varrish instructs. “Especially given your attachment to Cadet Sorrengail. Search like you’ve been practicing but focus on the word ward.”
“Lieutenant Nora,” a voice calls from the antechamber. “All leadership is being ordered to assemble. There have been…incidents at the border.”
“By whose order?” Nora demands.
“General Sorrengail’s.”
“We’ll be there shortly,” Nora replies, waving him off.
“We might already be too late,” Varrish says, shaking his head. “Riorson deserted days ago, according to the reports we received this morning. We’re gathering the marked ones now.”
My breath seizes. He deserted. He could be safe in Aretia right now, raising the wards. But Imogen? Bodhi? Sloane? They’re the ones leadership is gathering.
Liam’s hand settles on my shoulder, steadying me. They’ll kill them all, and once they know about Aretia, they’ll hunt the rest. “He can search your memory,” Liam tells me. “But logic says he’ll have to muddle through what you’re thinking first.”
“What have you done, Violet?” Varrish asks. “Orchestrated another attack on an outpost? Find out what you can, Aetos. The safety of our kingdom depends on it. Time is of the essence.”
Dain’s eyes flare, and he lifts his hands.
“You killed Liam,” I blurt.
He pauses. “So you keep saying. But I only searched your memory to prove my father wrong, Violet, and all you did was prove him right. If the marked ones died betraying our kingdom, then they deserved what they got.”
“I hate you,” I whisper, the sound strangled as my eyes prickle and burn.
“She’s stalling,” Varrish snips. “Do it now. And if you see something you don’t understand, I’ll explain it once we know where their army is hiding. Just trust me that we are acting in the best interest of every citizen of Navarre. Our only goal is keeping them safe.”
Dain nods and reaches for me, hesitating at the last second. “She’s bruised everywhere.”
“Show him what you want him to see,” Liam urges.
“She’s nothing more than a traitor,” Varrish retorts.
“Right.” Dain nods, and I close my eyes the second his fingers push in on my tender, aching temples.
They may have blocked me from my power, but that stems from Tairn. The control over my mind? That’s mine, and it’s all I have left.
Unlike last year, I feel Dain’s presence at the edge of my mind this time, right where my shields should be, and instead of recoiling from the assault, I grab hold of that presence and throw myself into the memory, dragging Dain with me.
“Do we have a riot nearby?” Liam asks.
Gravity shifts as I realize my worst nightmare is indeed a living, breathing monster.
Two legs. Not four. Wyvern.
They’d sent us here to die.
Venin with red veins distending from their eyes, killing helpless people.
Blue fire. Desiccated land. Soleil and Fuil falling.
We’ll never be able to smuggle enough weaponry out to make a difference.
They’ve kept us in the dark, erased our very history to avoid conflict, to keep us safe while innocent people die.
Liam— Gods…Liam. I dig my mental fingernails into Dain and hold him there, making him feel it with me again, the helplessness. The chest-crushing sorrow. The eye-blurring rage.
It’s been my honor.Liam’s last words to me.
My vengeance in the sky, fighting along Tairn’s back, armed with the only weapon that will kill the dark wielder doing her best to slay my dragon and end me.
The moment the dagger slides into my side, I stop pulling Dain and start shoving, screaming both physically and mentally, filling my head with every ounce of pain that’s been inflicted upon me in the last four days.
Dain gasps, and his hands fall from my temples.
I throw my eyes open, the sound of my scream still echoing in my ears as he draws back, horror etched on every line of his face.
“I’m here,” Liam promises. “And I still don’t regret it, Vi. Not one second.” Wetness tracks down my cheeks.
“Did you get what you wanted?” I manage to ask through my shredded vocal cords.
“You’re smuggling weapons,” Dain says slowly, searching my eyes. “Stealing our weapons to aid another kingdom?”
My stomach sinks at my complete, absolute failure.
Out of everything I showed him, that’s what he took?
I wrench my gaze from his to look at Liam, memorizing the lines of his face and those trademark blue eyes. “I’m so sorry I failed you.”
“You never failed me. Not once,” he whispers, shaking his head. “We pulled you into our war. If anyone’s sorry, it’s me.”
“As you should be.” Varrish sneers.
If Dain has conquered my memory, seen the weapons runs I’ve helped with, then he knows it all. A wave of hopelessness rolls over, stealing my resolve, my determination not to break. All I have left inside of me is pain, and that isn’t worth fighting for, not if I’ve just given up everything—everyone—that means anything to me.
“They want us now!” the man shouts from the antechamber.
“Varrish,” Nora prompts. “It’s a summons for all leadership.”
“What did you find?” Varrish turns to Dain, losing his composure. “Where are they staging from?”
“Give me that knife,” Dain demands, holding out his hand. “I want to compare it to the one I saw in the memory. The ones they’re stealing from us.”
“Just don’t kill her. We need to find and question Riorson first, use her as leverage.” Varrish hands my dagger over to Dain.
He glances over the weapon and nods. “This is the one. They’re taking them out by the dozen, arming the enemy. I saw everything.” Brown eyes meet mine. “There’s at least one drift involved.”
My heart plummets. He knows. He saw despite my best efforts.
They’ll question me again—keep me prisoner to lure Xaden, even—but they’ll never let me leave here alive. This place I called home, the halls I walked with my father, the Archives I worshipped alongside the gods, the field where I flew with Tairn and Andarna, the halls where I laughed with my friends, and the rooms where Xaden held me will be my tomb.
And the boy I used to climb trees with along its river will be my demise.
I sag, the last of the fight draining out of me in defeat.
“Good. Good. Now tell me where they are,” Varrish orders.
Dain grips the dagger in his left hand, spinning it so the blade runs parallel to his forearm as he brings it to my throat. “You should have trusted me, Violet.”
I don’t dare to even swallow as I hold the asshole’s gaze. I won’t die afraid.
“None of this would have happened if you’d just trusted me.” The hurt in his eyes only feeds my rage. How dare he look wounded. “And now, it’s too late.”
“Varrish!” Nora yells as shouts fill the antechamber.
Varrish turns toward her, and I feel the knife slip against my skin.
Dain is going to kill me.
“You’re all right.” Liam steadies my shoulder. “I’ll be right here. I’m not going to leave you.”
Tairn. Andarna.Gods, I hope they survive it. Xaden has to live. He just has to.
I love him.
I should have told him every day, been honest about my feelings even through the fights and the doubt.
Now instead of giving those feelings back to Xaden, they’ll die with me. My vision blurs, and tears streak down my cheeks, but I lift my chin.
Dain whips his arm back, and I wait for the forward surge, the cut, the pain, the flow of blood.
It doesn’t come.
Varrish staggers backward, holding his side, his eyes bulging as a roaring sound fills my ears. Dain brings the bloodied knife to the straps at my wrists, cutting one free, then the other. “I don’t know if we can fight our way out of here,” he says quickly, dropping down to cut my ankles free. “Can you move?”
What the fuck is happening?
“Aetos!” Varrish snarls, falling back against the wall, then sliding down the stone. He leaves behind a fresh trail of red.
“Violet!” Dain shouts, forcing something into my hand. “You have to move or we’re dead!”
I wrap the fingers of my unbroken hand around the familiar hilt as Dain draws the sword at his side, holding it at Nora’s throat when she lunges into the cell. “Let us pass, and you’ll live.”
He holds the blade steady and hooks his other arm behind my back as I try to stand, holding me upright when my legs try to fail. They’re not newly broken since Nolon’s last visit, that I can remember, but I whimper at the pressure against my cracked ribs and the nausea as the room seems to spin.
“I make no such promises.” The low, menacing threat weakens my knees a second before a hand with a dagger reaches around Nora’s throat, slicing without hesitation.
She falls, a torrent of blood flowing from the gaping wound in her neck.
I look up into the wrath of Dunne in the form of gold-flecked onyx eyes.