I nod.
“We have to move,” Garrick calls out.
“Clear the staircase!” Xaden orders. “And tell Bodhi to track down whatever antidote she and the rest of her squad need.”
“On it,” Garrick says.
“My squad?”
Xaden looks back at me. “They’re fine, but they were put under guard in the interrogation classroom after they tried to mount a rescue mission yesterday. Can you walk out of here?”
“I don’t know,” I answer truthfully. “I lost track of what’s broken and what Nolon mended. I know my left arm is fractured, plus at least three of my ribs on my right side. My hip feels like it’s not entirely where it’s supposed to be, either.”
“He’ll die for his part.” He pivots and walks us out of the cell, past Nora’s body and into a fucking bloodbath. There are at least half a dozen bodies between us and the stairwell. He makes quick work of sheathing all my daggers where they belong but doesn’t take the one I still have clutched in my hand.
Dain passes him supplies from a nearby locker, and Xaden splints my arm as quickly as possible. I bite down on my torn lip to keep from crying out, and he wraps my ribs over my armor.
“Xaden!” Garrick calls out from the stairwell. “We have a problem!”
“Fuck,” Xaden mutters, glancing between the swords leaned against the wall and me.
“I can carry her,” Dain offers.
Xaden shoots him a look that promises a slow, painful death. “I haven’t decided whether or not to let you live yet. You can bet your ass I’m not trusting you with her.”
“I can walk. I think.” But the second I try, the room tilts. And for the first time in my life, I feel weak. That’s what that monster did to me in this room. He took my strength.
“But he didn’t break you, Violet,” Liam says softly from the corner of the room, and my chest squeezes tight as he takes a step back toward the shadows. Then another.
“How about this—I promise the next time I’m beaten for five days straight, I’ll let you carry me out of the prison,” Xaden says, sheathing his swords behind his back.
“Thank you,” I say—to both men.
Xaden lifts me into his arms, tucking me tight against his chest without putting pressure on my ribs. “Follow me or die. It’s your choice, but make it now,” he tells Dain as shadows surround us, forming a circle of blades as Xaden moves, carrying me up the mage-lit staircase.
My head falls onto his shoulder and I wince, but what does the pain matter if we’re leaving? If we’re both alive? He came.
“What kind of problem, Garrick?” Xaden asks as we round the corner of the staircase.
“A general-size one,” Garrick answers, his hands in the air.
My mother’s blade is at his throat.
Oh shit.
I lift my head, and Xaden stops cold, his body tensing against mine.
Her eyes meet mine from where she stands on the step above Garrick, the lines of her face strained with…wait, is that worry? “Violet.”
“Mom.” I blink. It’s the first time she’s said my name since before Parapet.
“Who did you kill?” She directs the question at Xaden.
“Everyone,” he responds unapologetically.
She nods, then drops her blade.
Garrick breathes in deeply, moving away from her and putting his back to the wall.
“Here.” She reaches into the rib pocket of her uniform and draws out a vial of clear liquid. “It’s the antidote for the serum.”
I stare at the vial, and my heart speeds from a dull thud to a gallop. How do I know that’s what’s actually in there?
“I would have come sooner if I’d known,” my mother says, her voice softening along with her eyes. “I didn’t know, Violet. I swear it. I’ve been in Calldyr for the last week.”
“So your return is just what? Coincidence?” I ask.
Her mouth purses, and her fingers curl around the vial. “I’d like a moment alone with my daughter.”
“That’s not happening,” Xaden counters.
Her eyes harden when she looks at him. “You of all people know the lengths I’ll go to in order to protect her. And since I’m pretty sure you’re the reason we’re getting reports of dragons dropping wyvern carcasses at every outpost we have along our border, the reason this college is emptying itself of most of the leadership in a rush to contain the problem, the least you can do is give me a chance to say goodbye to her.”
“You what?” My gaze swings to Xaden’s, but he keeps his locked on my mother.
“Would have done it sooner, but it took a couple of days to hunt them down and kill them,” Xaden replies to her.
“You’ve threatened our entire kingdom.” Her eyes narrow.
“Good. You allowed her to be tortured for days. I don’t give a shit whether it was by your absence or your negligence. It happened on your watch.”
“Three minutes,” she orders. “Now.”
“Three minutes,” I agree.
Xaden’s gaze flies to mine. “She’s a fucking monster.” His voice is soft, but it carries.
“She’s my mother.”
He looks like he might fight me for a second, but then he slowly lowers me to stand and braces me against the wall. “Three minutes,” he whispers. “And I’ll be at the top of this staircase.” That warning is given to my mother as he starts up the steps with Garrick leading the way. “Aetos, did you decide to follow?”
“Apparently,” Dain says, waiting a few steps beneath me.
“Then fucking follow,” Xaden orders.
Dain grumbles, but he marches up the steps, leaving my mother alone with me.
She’s the picture of composure, her posture straight, her face expressionless as she holds out the vial. “Take it.”
“You’ve known what’s happening out there for all these years.” I white-knuckle my weapon.
She steps forward, her gaze jumping from the dagger in one of my hands to the splint on the other, then selects a pocket in my uniform top and slides the vial in. “When you have children, we can discuss the risks you’ll take, the lies you’ll be willing to tell in order to keep them safe.”
“What about their children?” My voice rises.
“Again.” She hooks her arm around my upper back, sliding her hand under my shoulder, and hauls me against her side. “When you are a mother, talk to me about who you’re willing to sacrifice so your child lives. Now walk.”
I grit my teeth and put one foot in front of the other, fighting the dizziness, the exhaustion, and the waves of pain to climb the stairs. “It’s not right to let them die defenseless.”
“I never said it was.” We take the first turn, climbing slowly. “And I knew you’d never see it our way. Never agree with our stance on self-preservation. Markham saw you as his protégé, the next head of the scribes, the only applicant he thought smart enough, clever enough to continue weaving the complicated blindfold chosen for us hundreds of years ago.” She scoffs. “He made the mistake of thinking you’d be easy to control, but I know my daughter.”
“I’m sure you think that.” Each step is a battle, jarring my bones and testing my joints. Everything feels abominably loose yet so tight I might split open from the pressure.
“I might be a stranger to you, Violet, but you are far from a stranger to me. Eventually, you’d discover the truth. Maybe not while in the Scribe Quadrant, but certainly by the time you made captain or major, when Markham would start bringing you into the fold, as we do with most at those ranks, and then you would unravel everything in the name of mercy or whatever emotion you’d blame, and they would kill you for it. I’d already lost one child keeping our borders safe, and I wasn’t willing to lose another. Why did you think I forced you into the Riders Quadrant?”
“Because you think less of the scribes,” I answer.
“Bullshit. The love of my life was a scribe.” Steadily, we climb, twisting along the staircase. “I put you into the Riders Quadrant so you’d have a shot at surviving, and then I called in the favor Riorson owed me for putting the marked ones into the quadrant.”
I stop as the door at the Archives level comes into view. “You did what?” She didn’t just say what I think she did.
She tilts her head to look me in the eye. “It was a simple transaction. He wanted the marked ones to have a chance. I gave him the quadrant—as long as he took responsibility for them—in return for a favor to be named at a later date. You were that favor. If you survived Parapet on your own, all he had to do was see that no one killed you outside of challenges or your own naivete your first year, which he did. Quite a miracle, considering what Colonel Aetos put you through during War Games.”
“You knew?” I’m going to be sick.
“I discovered it after the fact, but yes. Don’t give me that look,” she chastises, pulling me up another step. “It worked. You’re alive, aren’t you? Though I’ll admit I didn’t foresee the mated dragons or whatever emotional entanglement you’ve involved yourself in. That was disappointing.”
It all clicks into place. That night at the tree last year when he should have killed me for catching the meeting of the marked ones. The challenge where he had every opportunity to exact his revenge on my mother by ending me—and instructed me instead. Nearly intervening at Threshing…
My ribs feel like they’re cracking all over again. He’s never had a choice when it came to me. His life—the lives of those he holds dearest—has always been tied to mine. And suddenly, I have to know. “Are those your knife marks on his back?”
“Yes.” Her tone is bland. “It’s a Tyrrish cust—”
“Stop talking.” I don’t want to hear a single explanation for such an unforgivable act.
But of course she doesn’t listen. “It seems that by putting you into the Riders Quadrant, all I did was hasten our own end,” she remarks as we climb the last four steps, coming out in the tunnel by the Archives.
Xaden reaches for me, and my mother’s arm falls away.
“I trust you’ll use the chaos to get her out?” she asks him, but we both know it’s an order.
“Planning on it.” He tucks me in against his side.
“Good. Don’t tell me where. I don’t want to know. Markham is still in Calldyr with the king. Do with that information what you will.” She looks at Dain, who waits off to the side with Garrick, his face ashen. “Have you made your choice now that you know?”
“I have.” He squares his shoulders as a group of scribe cadets runs by, their hoods in disarray, panic written on their faces.
“Hmm.” She dismisses Dain with a single sound, then looks at Xaden. “And so the war of the father becomes that of the son. It is you, right? Stealing the weaponry? Arming the very enemy trying to rip us apart?”
“Regret letting me into the quadrant yet?” He keeps his voice deceptively calm, but there are shadows rising along the tunnel walls.
“No.” Her gaze drops to me. “Stay alive, or this all will have been for nothing.” She skims the backs of her fingers along my swollen face. “I’d tell you to take arnica and see a healer, but you already know that. Your father made sure you’d know everything you needed or where to find it. You’re all that’s left of him, you know.”
But I’m not. Mira has his laugh, his warmth, and Brennan…
She doesn’t know about Brennan, and in this moment, I have no regrets about keeping that secret.
The smile she gives me is tight and so full of sadness that I wonder if I’m hallucinating. It falls as quickly as it appeared, and she turns away from us, headed back to the stairwell that will carry her up to the main campus. “Oh, and Violet,” she calls back over her shoulder. “Sorrengails walk or fly off the battlefield, but they’re never carried.”
Unbelievable.I watch until she disappears up the stairwell.
“No wonder you’re so warm and fuzzy, Violet,” Garrick mutters.
“We’re leaving,” Xaden announces. “Gather the marked ones and meet us at the flight field—”
“No.” I shake my head.
Xaden looks at me like I’ve sprouted a few more limbs. “We just talked about this. We can’t stay here, and I won’t leave you.”
“Not just the marked ones,” I clarify. “If Markham is gone and most of the leadership is flying for the border, then it’s our only chance.”
“To leave?” Xaden lifts his brows. “Good, then we’re in agreement.”
“To give everyone a choice.” I glance at the empty tunnel. “They’re going to lock this place down once the cadre returns, once they know they can’t stop the spread of information, and our friends…” My head shakes. “We have to give them a choice, Xaden, or we’re no better than leadership.”
Xaden narrows his eyes.
“Dragons will vouch for the ones who want to leave for the right reasons,” I whisper.
He grits his teeth but nods. “Fine.”
“It won’t be safe here for you. Not after what you just did.” I look to Dain and lift my brows. It’s one thing to protect me in private, or to face down my mother, whom he’s known his entire life. It’s another to be known as the rider who ripped this place apart.
“Not that it will be safe for him where we’re going.” Garrick glances between Dain and Xaden. “You can’t be serious. We’re going to trust this guy?”
“If he wants our trust, he’ll earn it,” Xaden says.
A muscle in Dain’s jaw flexes, but he nods. “Guess my last official act as wingleader will be to call a formation.”
“That’s where the leadership is now! Trying to hide the bodies of over a dozen dead wyvern!” Dain finishes, his voice carrying over the courtyard a half hour later as we stand on the dais in front of formation, the other wingleaders to his right. The sun has fallen beneath the peaks behind us, but there’s more than enough light for me to see the shock, the disbelief on the face of almost every rider.
It’s only the marked ones and my squad who don’t begin to argue amongst themselves, some quiet, some outright yelling.
“Was this what you had in mind?” Xaden asks me, his gaze swinging over the crowd.
“Not exactly,” I admit, leaning heavily on him but managing to stay on my feet. My uniform is clean, my rucksack packed, and I’m wrapped and braced from ankle to broken arm, but more than one cadet is staring at my face. After a quick look in the mirror, I understand why.
Nolon must have only mended the most severe of my injuries, because my face is a collage of new, purple-black bruises and older, greenish ones, and that pattern only continues beneath the cover of my uniform.
Xaden damn near shook the entire time it took for me to change.
“If you don’t believe me, ask your dragons!” Dain shouts.
“If their dragons agree to tell them,” Tairn says, on his way back from the Vale. I’d finally trusted my mother enough to drink the antidote about ten minutes ago—which Tairn had claimed was the only logical move, and he bonded me for my intelligence, after all.
“What has the Empyrean decided?”We aren’t the only ones making choices tonight.
“It will be up to the individual dragon. They will not interfere, nor will they punish those who choose to leave and take their clutches and hatchlings with them.”
It’s better than the alternative, which was full-scale slaughter of the dragons choosing to fight. “Are you really okay?” I ask him again. The bond between us feels strange, like he’s holding back more than usual.
“I lost Solas in a network of caves while I was hunting him, so I was unable to kill him and Varrish myself for their actions. When I do find him, I will prolong his suffering before death.”
I understand the feeling. “And Andarna?”