Chapter 1: Awakenings
Chapter Text
Violet
I know I’m dreaming of the past when driving my dagger through my opponent’s throat nearly makes me vomit.
The scene is familiar. I’m in the protocol’s windowless sparring gym, three stories underground, and my survival hinges on whether I can move fast enough to evade the two other trainees still standing and out for my blood. Out for the points my death will give them.
A blonde girl, wearing the black sparring suit we all wear, flings herself at me with a battle cry.
Go for her stomach! I scream at my younger self, but I know it’s no use. I know what will happen next.
Dream Violet lets out a scream as the blonde girl’s dagger sinks into her upper arm, and I cringe. I was so naïve back then.
I’m a very different person now.
I relive the painful moments that follow, as I always do: with pity, and a vague feeling of loss as I find myself missing the humanity I used to have.
I know something is wrong as soon as I wake up.
It’s 4:30am – thirty minutes before my usual waking time – but it’s not my alarm that wakes me up. No, it’s the incessant ringing of my work phone.
I throw my legs over the edge of the bed I crammed in the corner of the shitty studio apartment I rent and reach for the phone, bleary eyed. The sky isn’t yet light, and the yellow glow of the aging streetlamp outside casts stripes on my floor through the blinds. I hear a dog bark in the distance as I put the phone to my ear.
“What is it?” My first words of the day are rough from sleep.
“The colonel wants you at headquarters ASAP.” It’s Ridoc’s voice on the other end of the line. One of us is always on call, and tonight, it was him – Rhiannon and Sawyer are in the field, and with me on deck for a mission myself, that left him with the chore. “Your mission has been moved up.”
I swear and groan as I pull myself to my feet, my joints screaming in protest as my weight settles on them. My body will have to get over it, as always.
I pinch the phone between my cheek and my shoulder as I pad over to the closet I created in a nook out of a shower curtain and a cheap clothes rack from a thrift store. There was no point in buying anything better – I’m barely home anyways, and I own exactly six outfits, all of which are some variation of the Navarrian Intelligence Agency’s black mission suit. Who needs other clothes when I’m working all the time?
Rhiannon tells me I need a life and Ridoc tells me I take it all too seriously, but if I have time to fuck around, then I have time to look for answers to the questions that have plagued me since Dad disappeared.
So what if that means I have a shitty clothes rack and all-black outfits?
“Why?” I ask as I unzip the front zipper of one of my suits. Its high necked and completely form-fitting – better for movement, according to the agency. I’m sure they don’t particularly like my modifications, but I could commit cold-blooded murder in the atrium of headquarters, and I doubt anyone would say a word.
Currency talks, and the most valuable kind at the NIA is results, which I have in spades.
“No clue.” I can hear Ridoc crack a yawn over the receiver. I sympathize – being on overnight duty is painfully boring. “Hurry up and get over here. I think Aetos is going to shit a brick.”
I grin. “Which one?” My money is on Dain. Lately, he’s always looking like he’s dealing with painful constipation. He’s changed so much since we were kids, and I find my smile melting into a scowl at the thought.
“Dain, obviously,” Ridoc snorts. The crunching on the other end of the line tells me he’s snacking. I can picture him in my head – black combat boots propped up on whatever desk he’s commandeered in the NIA’s operations center, stabbing pieces of an apple on one of the daggers he carries around.
“I’m guessing the timeline moving up means I’m not going to have any backup this time around either?” I’ve ditched the ratty t-shirt I’ve taken to sleeping in, dropping it unceremoniously on the floor, and stick my legs through the compressive material of my mission suit and pull it up my body.
I hear clacking; Ridoc must be looking up Rhiannon’s and Sawyer’s status. His huff tells me all I need to know.
“Rhiannon and Sawyer are still out in the field. They’ve been told to stay out of contact until this afternoon.” I already know what Ridoc is going to ask next. My entire squad hates it when I go out by myself. I think the memories of my numerous near-death experiences during out first year in the training academy traumatized them more than they did me. “I could ask one of the others to finish up my on-call duty, or—”
“Don’t worry about it,” I interrupt. I put my arms through the arm holes – I tore the sleeves off as soon as it was issued to me – but I leave the front unzipped as I rummage around for a pair of socks in the pile of clothes next to my ‘closet.’ I’m pretty sure the pair I come up with have been worn once or twice, but I don’t bother looking for a clean set. “It’s better if this is a one-person job anyways. I’m less likely to be noticed that way.”
I leave out how I don’t want him to join the ranks of the many people I’ve failed to save since setting down this path. The missions I’m assigned these days are becoming bloodier and deadlier compared to the ones undertaken by the rest of my cohort, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d say the NIA wanted me dead. Sometimes results talk a little too well.
I go back to sit on my bed, boots in one hand, phone in the other. I tug one boot on, then the other, before reaching down and zipping up the front of my suit. I catch a look at myself in the mirror perched on the bedside table and scrunch up my nose. I’d fallen into bed the night before, exhausted, and hoped that my braid crown would keep so I wouldn’t have to redo it. No such luck.
I yank the pins out of my hair as Ridoc begins to lodge the usual protest. “I know that you can handle yourself, Violet – I’m still recovering emotionally from my bout with you last week,” he says with a laugh, and I grin. “But Rhiannon would actually kill me if I didn’t at least pretend to try to get you to let me come with you. This isn’t just reconnaissance, y’know.”
I keep myself from laughing – I don’t even remember the last time I was sent on a simple reconnaissance mission. It’s just a sign of the differences between me and the others I trained with. We may all be deadly weapons honed by our nation to be capable of killing and defending against Navarre’s enemies, but our degrees of lethality are vastly different.
I lost the shreds of humanity that Rhiannon and my other friends have still managed to cling to a long time ago so I could survive BASGIATH. Now, after eliminating all the ones who came after me, Navarre only sees me as a tool of espionage and assassination.
I’m fine with that. I use it to my advantage.
I need every advantage I can get.
Ridoc and the others could never understand that, and frankly, I don’t want them to. If I can protect them from having to become like me, I will.
I don’t say any of that to him, though. “I can handle myself, Ridoc. Don’t worry about me,” is all I say instead.
His scoff at the other end of the line tells me there’s no chance of that.
When I arrive at NIA Headquarters, the sun has begun to peek its head above the mountains I can see in the distance from the edge of Calldyr City.
Dain, predictably, is waiting in the cavernous atrium, pacing back and forth. Ridoc was right , I muse. He does look like he’s about to shit a brick. When his eyes catch on me, he freezes momentarily, before marching over to me.
“Where the hell were you?” He asks sharply. I don’t bother pausing, instead forcing him to catch up to me as I approach the security checkpoint.
“Asleep,” I retort, shrugging off the black leather jacket I wore to ward off the early morning chill and placing it in the bin to be scanned. I begin withdrawing the dozen daggers I keep in sheathes strapped all over my body and dropping them into the bin as well. The security guard only watches on with a vaguely bored look.
My flippancy is clearly not winning me any points with my ex-boyfriend, however. “My father called for you almost an hour ago. This doesn’t reflect well on either of us.”
“Honestly, I don’t care how my reactions reflect on you, Dain. You’re the least of my concerns,” I say with a wave of my hand as I step through the metal detector. I curse when it goes off – I forgot the dagger in my boot again. I step back through and tug it out, dropping it in the bin with the others with an apologetic look. The guard doesn’t even spare me a second-glance. I look back at Dain. “And as for how it reflects on me, you just let me worry about that.”
I don’t worry about it. At all. We all know nobody cares what I do so long as I complete my mission objectives. Dain’s father might whine about military precision, but this isn’t the military. I do things my own way, as does everyone else who went through the BASGIATH protocol.
Not for the first time, I wonder which bigwig thought it was a good idea to put military personnel like Aetos One and Aetos Two in charge of the clandestine ops squads. We mix like oil and water. Dain is still on me about the ripped sleeves of my mission suits.
He never would have survived BASGIATH – the training protocol every clandestine operative goes through. The brutality of it, the bending of the rules required to survive, would have someone as straitlaced as Dain from the start. I still remember the look of horror on his face when I told him, casually, how we’d had to score points to graduate by injuring or killing our own classmates.
Is that a joke? He’d asked with a tight laugh.
Are you asking me to demonstrate what I learned on you? I’d replied. His eyes had widened to the size of saucers when he realized I was deadly serious.
I guess I probably had the same look on my face when I entered the protocol too. I got over it quick. Nearly dying a dozen times does that, and I knew I had to survive, no matter what.
“I’m just trying to look out for you, Vi,” Dain says tightly. He has that concerned look on his face that used to make me swoon, but now, it only generates a twinge of annoyance.
I hold back a scathing remark as I collect my belongings on the other end of the checkpoint. Getting into a pissing match with Dain does me no good, not when I’m already sleep deprived.
Dain trots after me like a damned puppy as I make my way through the twisting halls of the NIA, until we reach the clandestine division. It’s heavily secured – for obvious reasons – and two familiar faces stand guard at the entrance.
“Gwen, Calvin,” I nod in their direction. Cohen’s nose just wrinkles in barely disguised dislike, while Gwen nods shyly. I try not to roll my eyes as I step up to the retina scanner. Both of them washed out of the preliminary testing for BASGIATH, and were put on a… less demanding career track. It probably saved their lives, but Calvin has a certain resentment for clandestine operatives as a result. Gwen barely talks, so I’m not sure where she stands.
I let the scanner do its job, and the four foot thick steel doors rumble open a moment later, revealing the heart of the division I’ve called my home since I graduated from the protocol a year and a half ago.
The wider world operates on smartphones and laptops. We use holographs and AI – technology the general population could only dream of. Top secret clearance definitely has its perks.
I immediately spot Ridoc at his preferred desk, awash in the blue glow of a nearby projection of a map of the Continent. Before I can even take a step in his direction, however, Dain’s father fills my vision.
“Violet! I was wondering when you’d arrive. We have much to discuss,” he says warmly. I catch Ridoc’s eye as Colonel Aetos ushers me away towards an empty briefing room, and he merely shrugs.
“I’m sure you’ve been curious about the nature of this mission, yes?” Aetos asks after shutting the door behind us. He begins fiddling with the console in the center of the room, which begins to project a hologram rendering of the larger topographical map in the operations center.
“You could say that,” I reply, settling into a desk chair and propping my foot up on the edge as I peer over the map. If I’m correct, we’re looking at Draithus, a city in our neighboring nation of Poromiel. “I’m not used to not being read in from the start.”
I’ve been sent on assassinations and destabilization missions pretty much from the day I graduated, but I’ve always been read into the mission in advance. This one has been different, however, with a degree of secrecy I’m not used to.
“That would be because of the nature of the target,” Aetos sighs, and I suppress a gasp at the photo that illuminates over the map. There’s no fucking way.
“Seriously? She’s the target?” I ask incredulously. “There has to be a mistake.”
“Unfortunately, there’s not,” Aetos says, his voice tinged with disappointment. “She stole top secret data and fled the country five days ago. We’ve tracked her as far as Draithus. You need to go in, track her down, and eliminate anything that can be tracked back to Navarre. I know you were familiar with her at one point – will this be a problem?”
I swallow, hard. Shit just got real.
I take a deep breath. “No. I don’t have personal relationships with traitors.” I take a deep breath. “I’ll complete the mission.”
After filling me in on more of the specifics of the mission, the colonel leaves the briefing room with his son, and I’m left alone. This can’t be a coincidence. What are the odds that I receive a cryptic message from the same woman – a message vaguely mentioning my father’s disappearance – that I’m now being sent to kill?
I don’t believe in coincidences. The two are related. Which means I might be on track to finally learn more about what happened to Dad. Unfortunately, it looks like that might require some slight treason on my part too.
The prospect bothers me less than it should.
I finally manage to regain my composure enough to stop my hands from trembling, and rise from where I’m seated. A sense of dread has overtaken my shock as I stare at the portrait of the woman I’m being sent to kill, where it hovers over the map of Draithus.
Ridoc is waiting for me outside the briefing room.
“So, did they finally read you in?” He falls into step beside me as I make my way towards the sliding doors that will lead me down to the armory below.
I shrug. “Something like that.”
“Right. Are we doing the ‘I’m not going to tell you anything because I don’t want you or anyone else to follow me and get hurt’ thing again?”
“It’s not like that.” I shoot my squadmate a glare. It’s exactly like that. If I didn’t want them involved before, I want them as far away as possible now that I know who I’m being sent after.
My squad is my family. We looked after each other in the protocol. I wouldn’t have survived my first year if it wasn’t for them. But even they don’t know why I decided to bear the risks of becoming a clandestine operative instead of going the analysis route that I’d been trained for my entire life. I want to keep it that way, for their own safety.
I’m fine with risking my own life, but I won’t let my pursuit of answers endanger the only people who have acted like they give two shits about me, not including Mira, since Brennan died.
“Sure it’s not.” Ridoc lays on the sarcasm thick.
We tramp down the stairs, our footsteps echoing against the metal walls. I’ve always thought this part of headquarters feels like a metal coffin. We pass through two more sets of sliding doors before we enter the armory.
Calling it an armory might be selling it a bit short -- it’s a cavernous space, filled, yes, with weapons, but also a variety of vehicles used by operatives on their missions. They range from motorbikes to full on armored assault vehicles. One corner is illuminated by the bluish light of hologram projections of what looks to be an electrical circuit. I hear cussing from that direction and fight a grin as I walk in that direction.
Mazzie, with her shock of curly auburn hair, stands over a workbench, a hammer in hand as she pulverizes whatever gizmo she was trying to make work. Ridoc whistles low as he watches.
“Mazzie’s in good form today,” he whispers to me as we approach. “For the record, you’re my shield if she decides she’s in a throwing mood.”
I snort, before turning my attention back to the engineer, who is now picking her way through her own destruction.
“Mazzie,” I call out, and her head shoots up, her curls bouncing with the movement. For a second, I think she actually is going to throw that hammer at me, but she relaxes when she realizes who I am.
“Violet!” She calls out, coming around from the workbench. “What brings you down to my lair?”
Mazzie is, for lack of a better description, a genius when it comes to tech. Half equipment operatives use was invented by her, and the other half has been modified tenfold. She’s the very definition of an inventor. If my suspicion is right, the little device she just finished pummeling is a new portable hologram console that she’s been trying to get to work for the better part of a month.
“Mission,” I say simply. “I broke my earpiece last time I went out. Can I get a new one?”
I leave out the fact that I crushed it under my boot because Aetos kept asking me for updates when I was trying to focus on not getting killed.
Mazzie nods, moving towards the long stretch of drawers and cabinets that lines her workspace. She hums as a holoscreen illuminates on her approach, and she scrolls through the options before tapping a button. I hear a hiss as one of the drawers opens. She retrieves a black earpiece, and I set it in my ear. I frown at the unfamiliar feel.
“Did you modify this since I last got a new one?” I ask as my fingers brush the cool metal of the small device. Mazzie grins, bouncing on the balls of her boot-clad feet.
“Yep. I’m trying a new material. The metal is adaptive. Give it three or four hours, and it’ll change shape to fit your ear. It’s approximately 78% less likely to fall out during periods of vigorous movement,” she says proudly.
“Outdoing yourself again, Maz,” Ridoc drawls as he goes to poke the wreckage on the table. Mazzie hisses, smacking his hand away.
“Touch that, Ridoc, and your special field operative training won’t be able to save you,’ she threatens, her blue eyes narrowing on my squadmate. Ridoc’s arms go up in immediate surrender as he backs away, and Mazzie turns her attention back to me. “Do you need anything else, Violet? I just finish finetuning a new taser-knife that I’d love you to field test.”
I raise my brows in her direction. One can never know what Mazzie will create next. “Taser-knife? I’m a little scared to even ask.”
“I’m not,” Ridoc chirps, looking excited. “I want a taser-knife.”
Mazzie glares at him. “You don’t get one. Not after you destroyed the only portable holo device I’ve been able to get to work.”
“It was an accident!” Ridoc whines.
“Don’t care,” the inventor sniffs, before turning back to me. “So?”
“Not this time, Maz,” I sigh. “It’s not that kind of mission.”
Her face falls. She knows exactly what I mean. This isn’t the kind of mission where my target can walk away alive.
“I can’t believe they only send you on assassinations now, Violet,” she says glumly. “You’d think they were trying to get you killed.”
I keep my expression schooled, because I had a similar thought earlier. But I know it’s only because they know I’ll get the job done. “It’s not like that, Mazzie.”
This time, both Ridoc and Mazzie give me looks that practically scream doubt.
“Don’t worry about it,” I say with a huff.
“That’s our job, since you’re refusing backup again this time too.”
Mazzie’s eyes widen in alarm. “Are you serious? Violet! Why do you keep going in alone?” She chews her bottom lip as worry fills every line of her face. “It’s standard procedure to take someone with you.”
I push my bangs away from my face with a sigh. “You both know that command prefers me to go it alone anyways. If they really wanted me to go with someone, they would’ve been read in with me.”
The uneasy look Mazzie and Ridoc give each other tells me they know I’m right, but just don’t want to admit it.
It is strange how the agency treats me, but I don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Being alone gives me greater latitude, and it keeps the people I care about out of danger.
And in this particular case, it means I can find out more about Dad without anyone finding out.
“Where’s Jarrett?” I ask, changing the subject. “I need to get some normal daggers.”
In an agency that has holograms and ear-adapting headsets, it surprised me at first when I learned that the weapon of choice for most operatives was still something as simple as a knife. But after a while, it began to make sense. With guns, you have to police your rounds. You have to make sure you don’t leave any shells behind. They’re loud, which could draw attention. And bullets can be matched back to guns, which means it can be tracked back to an operative if they’re unlucky. Daggers can be just as deadly in the right hands, and they leave no mess to clean up.
Well, other than the blood. But guns and daggers draw blood regardless.
Mazzie scrunches her brows as she thinks. “I haven’t seen him this morning, but I doubt he’ll care if you help yourself.” She gestures in the direction of the door that leads to the secured room where I often find myself replacing my daggers.
“Thanks, Mazzie.” I shoot her a grin. “I’ll test those taser-knives for you when I get back.”
Her eyes light up with delight at my promise, and Ridoc and I make our way to the armory.
“Rhiannon is going to kill me for letting you go on your own,” Ridoc groans.
“Rhi will get over it,” I assure him. He doesn’t look convinced as he steps up to the retina scanner himself this time. The door swings open with a thunk , and we step into my favorite room in this whole godsforsaken complex.
The walls are covered in blades of all kinds, from tiny throwing daggers smaller than the palm of my hand to massive swords meant to be strapped on someone’s back.
Ridoc hangs back while I go and grab six of my preferred daggers. Frankly, the mass produced ones are still too heavy for me, but they’re better than nothing. I slip them into the empty sheathes hidden in my Kevlar vest and at my thighs, before turning back to face my friend.
“Will you at least tell me where you’re going?” He asks as I make my way back to the door. “Just so I can tell Rhiannon and Sawyer when they make contact.”
I pause, considering, before I decide giving him something to alleviate the likely verbal smackdown Rhi will give him when she returns is probably a good idea.
“Draithus,” I say, wrenching the door open and stepping back into the high-ceilinged room. “Not sure how long I’ll be gone. The person I’m tracking will be hard to find.”
She’ll know how to hide her tracks, that’s for damn sure. But I don’t think she’ll be hiding.
“I don’t like this, Violet.”
“You’ve made that abundantly clear,” I snort. I make my way over to the row of lockers that line one edge of the room and pull out my backpack that’s shoved with civilian clothes. “You’ll need to get over it. We all knew what we were getting into when we entered the protocol.”
Ridoc stays silent at that. We’ve all taken our fair share of lives. We wouldn’t be standing here if we hadn’t.
We remain in companionable silence until we’ve returned to the operations center. My mind is racing through the possibilities of how this mission could go. Once I arrive in Draithus, my first order of business will be sussing out where my target has holed herself up. If she was a normal deserter, she wouldn’t be easy to find, but if my suspicions are correct then it shouldn’t take me too long to track her down.
The real problem will come after I find her.
“Violet?”
I’m jolted out of my thoughts and return my attention to Ridoc, who has an uncharacteristically stoic look on his face.
“I have a really bad feeling about this.” He scratches the back of his head. “Promise me you’ll call if it goes south.”
I don’t deserve my squad. And that’s all the more reason that I can’t let him, or anyone else, near this mission. If things go wrong – if my slight treason turns into not-so-slight treason – then I don’t want to bring any of them down with me. I’d rather die than drag them into my problems. I let my mask slip for a moment, patting Ridoc’s arm reassuringly.
“I promise I’ll be careful.”
He rolls his eyes, but that mischievous spark returns to his eyes. “Bullshit. Danger is your middle name, Sorrengail.”
“Actually, it's Brigid,” I quip with a grin.
He punches me lightly in the arm. “Of course it is.”
RIdoc waits for me to change into my civvies and then we exit the secure area. We pass Gwen and Calvin as we move through the blast doors and return to the atrium. It’s fully light outside now, and the normal – the word seems foreign in my mind in relation to the NIA – day employees are making their way through the security checkpoint before they start their days.
“How are you getting to the airport?” Ridoc questions as we exit out into the chilly morning air, still damp with the morning dew.
I smirk. “Tairn, obviously.”
He hoots, rubbing his hands together to ward off the cold. “I can’t believe you’re still riding that thing. I wish I could’ve seen Lieutenant Rulebook’s face when you pulled up on that for the first time.”
We make our way over to my sport bike. I bought it used about a year ago – it’s not like I was doing much else with my money, and the shitty sedan Dad had bought for me when I was 16 had died a sad, slow, painful death. It’s a liberating feeling, flying down the highway late at night after a mission, with no one else around and the wind whipping through my hair. It’s the only freedom I feel like I even have these days.
I named it Tairn, after the old Tyrrish word for “thunder.” That’s partially because when I rev Tairn’s engine, it really does sound like a rumble of thunder, but also because of the sentimental attachment I have to the word.
Learning something new is like being struck by lightning, Violet, my dad told me once. Knowledge is powerful and all-encompassing. The people who have knowledge control the world.
I mount the bike in one smooth movement, settling back into the seat and pulling my black leather jacket on.
“See you in a few days, Violet. Don’t make us plan your funeral.”
I nod once in Ridoc's direction before revving Tairn’s engine and peeling out of the parking lot in the direction of the airport.
When I arrive in Draithus, it doesn’t take me long to find my target.
The plane lands just as the sky begins to turn brilliant hues of purple and gold with the setting sun, and I stoll out of the terminal with my backpack slung over my shoulder. I hail a taxi, and have them take me to the edge of the city.
This part of Draithus is seedy, but if something like that scared me off then I would have been killed in my first week in the protocol. This is nothing compared to that hell.
I turn down an alleyway – the street sign matching the cryptic message I received one week ago – and I’m not at all surprised by who I see step out of the shadows.
“Hello, Violet. I’m glad you found me,” Major Devera says with a smile, even though her hands are raised in clear surrender. “Before you kill me, I have a message from your father.”
Chapter 2: Kingdom Dance
Notes:
y'all I am so sick rn and I wasn't planning on finishing this chapter until later this weekend but then the kingdom dance x Eleanor Rigby x avengers x test drive mashup came on and when I say this inspiration struck like freaking lightning I'm not even kidding. This chapter has not been beta read so I may need to go back to fix things once I inevitably come across misspellings or mistakes lol
some trigger warnings in this chapter, for those that may be sensitive to these themes: loss of home due to fire; death of a child
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Seven Years Ago
“Dad?”
I poke my head into my father’s cluttered office in the basement, immediately catching sight of Dad, hunched over his computer. He glances up immediately and moves to close his screen before I can get a good look at what he was working on.
He raises an eyebrow in my direction as I come up from behind him, wrapping his shoulders in a hug. He chuckles, squeezing my arm in response.
“What’s got you in a good mood?” he asks, and I grin.
“I was able to book the cabin in the mountains that you like this weekend for your birthday,” I reply proudly. We used to go, all five of us, regularly.
Since Brennan’s death, we haven’t been back.
Dad has been acting strange recently. He barely leaves his office, and when he does, he disappears for days on end. Mom is barely home as it is.
David Sorrengail is an enigma to many, including myself. Since Mira left to enlist, it’s mostly been the two of us. Mom acts like I don’t exist, even when she is home. It’s gotten worse since Brennan died.
A troubled look crosses Dad’s face at the mention of the cabin. “I’m not sure now is a good time, Violet.”
I furrow my brow and pull away, brushing my hand along one of the many books littering the old wooden desk that’s been down here longer than I’ve been alive.
“What are you doing, Dad?” I ask quietly. He’s been training me to be like him – an intelligence analyst – since I started to read. I know he’s looking into something, and whatever he’s found is making him nervous. “Where have you been disappearing to? You’ve been acting strange for months now.”
He stiffens, clasping his hands in his lap like he always does when he’s trying to figure out what to say next. Whatever is about to come out of his mouth is going to be a lie, based on how he refuses to meet my eyes.
“It’s nothing. Just work stuff.” He sighs, one hand coming up to comb through his thinning hair. “We can go to the cabin, if that’s what you want.” He flashes me a weak smile. “You are leaving for college soon. I’m not going to have my baby girl around for much longer.”
I narrow my gaze on him but decide to let it slide. I’ll have plenty of time to interrogate him this weekend.
“Okay,” I say with a grin, turning on my heel. “I’m on my way to school. See you this afternoon.”
“Violet.” Dad’s voice rings out just as I’m about to leave the office. I turn back around and face my father – the one person who has been a constant my entire life.
“Be careful, sweetheart,” he says. A sense of distinct unease washes over me as I meet his gaze. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” I reply, and finally turn around to walk out.
Midway through the school day, I get a panicked call from my neighbor.
“Your house is on fire!” She cries over the phone. “The entire place is in flames!”
I don’t even bother telling anyone where I’m going -- I rush home in my car. When I arrive, I know, intuitively, that everything is lost. I can feel the heat from the fire from hundreds of feet away, the flames licking the sky so high that I have to crane my neck.
A crowd is being held back by police as firefighters battle the blaze. One of my neighbors rushes up to me, jabbering on about how the fire started not long ago, but I’m barely paying attention. I can’t hear anything around me. The only thing I see, hear, is the roar of the fire eating up the only home I’ve ever known.
Oh gods. Where is Dad? I look around in a panic, that feeling of dread that’s followed me all day today intensifying tenfold for every second I don’t see him. Sickening clarity takes root in my mind as I realize he isn’t here.
I fumble for my cellphone. I call, then I call again. Every time, it’s straight to voicemail.
It takes the firefighters hours to get the fire under control, and by the time they do, my home is nothing more than a charred husk.
Three hours after the fire is extinguished, an officer approaches me. It’s the one I went up to, begging them to send someone inside in search of my father.
“We’ve done a thorough sweep. There was nobody inside the house.”
There’s no way. There’s nowhere else he could be, except for the NIA’s headquarters. But more searches of the house turn up nothing, and my frantic calls to my father’s coworkers tell me he never went into the office today.
Hours stretch into days, and days stretch into weeks. Nothing changes.
David Sorrengail has seemingly disappeared into thin air.
Four Years Ago
“Are you insane?”
Mira looks at me incredulously through the computer screen, as if I’d grown a second head.
“Hello to you too,” I reply, bemused.
“Don’t ‘hello’ me, Violet Sorrengail!” Mira is spitting mad, if her face is any indication. “What do you mean you’re dropping out of college?”
I sigh and lean up again the hard wood of my dormitory bed’s headboard. The sun is blazing today, and I’m relishing the ice-cold air conditioning my dorm offers. Classes will finish up in the next week, and I’ll be packing up, never to return.
I’m doing something monumentally stupid – I’m joining the NIA as a field agent, instead of going the analysis route like my father planned for me.
“I mean exactly what I said,” I say patiently. “It’s not for me.”
“Bullshit!” Mira cries. “You don’t go anywhere without your nose buried in a book. You’re an ancient languages major, for crying out loud – a literal nerd. If anything is ‘for you,’ it’s college.”
I keep my expression as neutral as I can because I know she’s right. But what I need to do is bigger than what I want for myself. And Mira has no idea what I’ve found.
One year ago, I got a letter. Mom was out of the house, as usual, when the letter fluttered in through the mail flap. It had no return address – no address at all, in fact – just my name. Violet.
The envelope contained one scrap of paper with a familiar address and a key. What I found at the old mountain cabin that we’d been set to visit before the fire tilted my world off its axis.
The first thing I noticed when I arrived, all those months ago, was that the place had been torched, just like our house in Calldyr. I almost went right back to my car when I realized that. After all, what good does a key to a shell of a house do?
Then I saw the safe.
It was strapped to the very top of the tree I used to climb with Brennan – well hidden, and clearly painted for camouflage. I had to climb the tree carefully. The last time I had, I was nine, and a branch snapped from under me. The resulting broken leg resulted in many tears and an ER visit that my father never let me forget.
It took me more time than I’m willing to admit, but when I finally reached the safe, it was clear that it had been up in that tree for a while. The camouflage paint had begun to peel, and rust had accumulated along the top. I almost wished that I was wrong – that the key that I stuck in the rusted-out lock mechanism wouldn’t work – but the door swung open nonetheless, revealing a manila folder filled with documents bearing my father’s messy handwriting.
Most of the documents were coded, but I was able to make out enough. My suspicions before his death had been spot on – he had been looking into something, and he was worried that he’d been discovered by people who didn’t want whatever it was to become widely known. Most of the notes he’d left behind were frustratingly vague – I couldn’t tell what exactly he’d discovered, or why he was looking into it in the first place.
The only meaningful lead I could glean was that it had something to do with the NIA’s clandestine operations division.
“Violet?”
Mira’s voice rockets me back to the present. I give her a noncommittal smile.
“Don’t worry about me, Mira. I’ve been thinking about doing this for a while. There’s no point in finishing college when the NIA wants me to start now.”
Mira lets out an exasperated sigh as she runs a hand through her short hair. “I get it, Vi, I do, but I hate seeing you throw your education away like this. It’s—” She pauses, before continuing. “It’s not what Dad would have wanted.”
My smile falls away. “You and I both don’t know what Dad would have wanted.”
“Don’t argue semantics with me, little sister.”
“I know you don’t approve, and I’m sorry that you feel that way, but you aren’t going to change my mind,” I huff. “I’ve already notified the school I’m withdrawing, and I’m set to join the next training class in a few months.”
Mira’s brows furrow. “I know you think you know what you’re getting into here, Vi, but I promise you – you don’t. I’m begging you to reconsider this.”
Except I don’t. And she was right – I had absolutely no idea what I had gotten myself into.
Present
The staticky TV in the corner is blaring headlines about a recent string of bombings throughout Poromiel, but I tune them out. It’s the kind of thing I’d normally log in the back of my head for future research, but right now, that’s the least of my problems.
I stare at Devera in silence as she sips the watery beer she ordered for herself. We’re sitting in a shadowy booth in a bar not far from the alleyway where I found her, and I haven’t spoken a word since we arrived. My mind is still reeling.
A message from my father? How is that even possible? I’ve found nothing about his whereabouts since I started searching, and Devera – the woman who trained me – has known something this whole time?
“I’m sure you have questions,” she says after a moment, setting her drink down on the rickety table and folding her hands in front of her.
“You think?” I cross my arms. “What the hell are you doing, Devera?”
Those sharp eyes of hers narrow on me. “Language, Sorrengail.”
I just barely keep myself from rolling my eyes. She committed treason bad enough to have the NIA send one of its most efficient assassins after her, and she’s telling me to watch my language? If I wasn’t already processing so much, I’d laugh at the absurdity of it all.
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Then don’t give me a reason to change the subject,” she says back calmly. “I trained you better than this.”
I glower, but stay silent. I wouldn’t be alive right now if it wasn’t for Devera’s help.
During my first year, I fought off murder attempts from all sides. I was weak – completely unprepared for the physicality the protocol would require to survive. My squadmates were godsends, yes, but even they couldn’t protect me from everything. I was an easy target for other trainees looking to rack up points. Two months in, I had become sickeningly certain that I wouldn’t even make it out of the protocol’s first year.
Then, I met Devera.
A captain in the military at the time, she was transferred as a liaison to the protocol to teach strategy and combat alongside Emetterio. During the first training match of mine she oversaw, she noticed immediately how I’d been poisoning my opponents. Instead of ratting me out for breaking the rules, she taught me how to use my small size to my advantage.
I would be dead if it wasn’t for her.
“Tell me about my dad.” It’s not a request. I still have a job to do, and if she isn’t going to tell me what I want to know, then I might as well wipe my hands of it all and complete my mission.
There’s a small part of me that protests at that logic, that tells me I shouldn’t just wipe my hands of someone who saved my life, but that tiny voice is the same one that nearly got me killed so many times when I first started down this path.
She sighs. “How much do you know about Brennan’s death?”
“What does Brennan have to do with this?” I frown.
“Everything.” Devera leans forward, lowering her voice. “How much do you know?”
I blink rapidly. “He was a military intelligence liaison. He discovered that Fen Riorson – an air force general – was planning to commit treason and leak top secret intelligence to the press, and then Riorson killed him for it.”
Saying the words out loud rekindles the familiar flicker of grief that I’m so used to feeling when I give too much thought to my older brother’s death. Gods, I miss him. He would’ve been horrified to see what I’ve become.
Devera traces a finger along the rim of her glass, her eyes staying on me. “You already know that your father was looking into something before the fire.”
I stiffen. “How do you know that?” I’ve never told anyone that.
“Just answer the question, Sorrengail.”
“Yes,” I huff, crossing my arms. I don’t even know why I’m telling her all of this. I run a finger along the hilt on one of my daggers. “He’d been acting weird. He disappeared for days sometimes.” I don’t mention the safe.
“What if I told you what you know about Brennan’s death isn’t the whole truth? That your father noticed something was off?”
“I’d tell you that you were crazy.” I’ve read the case file. It was one of the first things I did after I received my clearance.
“I’m not crazy. Your father didn’t disappear into thin air, Sorrengail. He was disappeared. He knew too much and paid the price.”
My blood runs cold. That’s impossible. My father served Navarre his entire life. What on earth could he have stumbled upon that would make the very organization he spent his entire career working for turn on him?”
Devera’s expression is blasé as she inspects me. “Your face tells me you don’t believe me yet. That’s fine.” She places something on the table – a thumb drive. “I think you’ll change your mind once you see what’s on here.”
I look back up at her. “Is this the data you stole five days ago?”
“You know better than to ask questions you already know the answer to, Sorrengail.”
I run my hand along my dagger again. I’m supposed to destroy this, and then destroy her.
But can I? Should I? Can I really destroy the only leads I have to my father?
“Debating whether you’re going to kill me or not?” Devera asks mildly. I shoot back up to meet her gaze, which is practically unreadable in the low light of the corner booth we’ve seated ourselves in.
“Something like that,” I mutter.
Devera moves to stand, and I tense, preparing to remove a dagger from its sheathe at a moment’s notice. Her mouth quirks up in a half grin before falling again.
“I know you Sorrengail – you won’t do anything to me, at least not today.” I bristle at how certain she sounds, yet I don’t move to prove her wrong. “If you decide to believe what I’ve told you, track down Fen’s son.”
I scrunch my eyebrows as I peer up at her. “Fen Riorson has a son?”
Devera laughs. “Oh yes. I think you’ll like him.”
I open my mouth to ask more, but Devera is already walking away. I don’t bother following her – I slipped a tracker in her pack when she picked up our drinks earlier. I have no doubt that she’ll find it soon, but at least it will give me an idea as to her direction when I inevitably decide to track her down again.
I turn my attention back to the small thumb drive resting on the table, my fingers tapping against the hardwood. I should destroy it. I should follow my orders. But I know I won’t. The entire reason I forced myself to stay alive against all odds was to find Dad. If this thumb drive can give me answers, or even set me on the right path to find them, then I don’t give a fuck what happens to me.
Slight treason it is.
Decision made, I reach for the device and tuck it in a hidden pocket at my side, nestled against my daggers. Then, I consider the still-full glass resting next to my arm. Normally, I wouldn’t go anywhere near alcohol when I’m on a mission, but today takes the cake on the What the Fuck? scale.
Oh, whatever. For the first time since she set the drink down in front of me, I take a swig of my beer. I almost gag.
Just like my life these days, its shit.
Just like the bar I spent my evening in, the hotel I settle on is seedy, with yellowing lights that remind me of a scene straight out of a horror movie and old, peeling wallpaper. I’m used to the less than luxurious accommodations – it’s not like I joined the NIA for its reputation for all-expenses-paid vacations – but the first time I went into the field with Ridoc and Sawyer, they both joked that we’d be dead via axe murder before we woke up the next morning.
It's close to 11 p.m. by the time I flop back onto the creaky bed. The air is slightly dank – this place clearly doesn’t have many guests coming through. I can feel the thumb drive pressing into my skin from where its remained in my pocket.
I spent the entire walk to this hotel debating what I should do with it. If Devera is telling the truth, it will have information that could lead me to my father. But if I go through the data, I’d be violating my orders. If there’s one thing I know about the NIA, it’s that they expect complete and total loyalty. Disregarding my orders could very well get me killed if I’m discovered.
But isn’t this why I joined the NIA in the first place? To find leads on my father, come hell or high water?
At that thought, I pull out my laptop, settling it on my lap where I sit cross legged on the bedspread. It’s not the one I was issued by the NIA – I don’t want to risk them being able to tell I accessed this data from my work laptop – it’s my old, barely functioning one from when I was still in college.
When I plug in the drive to the computer, I’m disappointed but not surprised when it turns out that it’s encrypted. I tap my chin as I run through the password possibilities. This isn’t a thumb drive that Devera took from the NIA. It’s likely one of her own, which means it wouldn’t be subject to the kind of multilayered encryption that NIA drives would be subject to.
My first few guesses – different variations of Devera’s birthday – gets me nowhere. I try a few different ideas, but none of them get me access to the drive. After 30 minutes, I’m about to chuck my laptop at the wall when a bolt of inspiration strikes me from the blue.
I almost laugh when the date of my father’s disappearance unlocks the drive, revealing row upon row of unencrypted NIA files.
I immediately dive in, homing in on one file that’s helpfully labelled “Message.” What I read takes my breath away.
Violet,
If you are reading this, then it is likely my investigation into your brother’s death has been discovered. I am leaving this message with someone I trust, who I’ve told to pass this along to you once the time is right.
The circumstances of Brennan’s death run far deeper than I ever could have imagined. He was involved in something that even I am unable to learn all that much about, but what I do know leads me to believe that Navarre is willing to go to any length to keep it a secret. Most importantly, I do not think Fen Riorson killed him.
I recently discovered something related to this. If I’m correct, then whatever Navarre is hiding could kill hundreds of thousands of people if it’s not stopped. I can’t risk telling you more than this. Remember what I taught you: nothing is as it seems upon first glance.
I love you.
Dad
I sit there stupefied as I try to process what I read, before diving back in. That can’t be all there is. I dive back into the files with a vigor, but I learn nothing. They’re all jumbles of letters and numbers – they’re coded, using a method I’m unfamiliar with, and I don’t have the cypher.
“Fuck!” I yell, slamming the laptop shut with more force than I intend. I’m physically shaking as the enormity of it all begins to hit me. Was Brennan’s death a cover up? What could he have possibly been involved in that required the NIA to lie about his death?
Then an even larger realization dawns on me. The real question isn’t what Brennan knew --what could Fen Riorson have known that led the NIA to frame him for Brennan’s death, if my father’s theory is to be believed?
I leap off my bed and begin pacing the length of my small hotel room, trying to parse through what I know. But now I’m doubting everything I know, so there isn’t much to sift through. Everything I thought I knew about my brother’s death has been turned on its head, and now I only have one lead.
Fen Riorson’s son.
No. I’m certain Devera knows more than she told me today. I need to find her first. I didn’t give her my all before – but once I track her down, I’ll be sure to wring every bit of information I can get from her.
I glance at the clock, and startle. It’s almost 2 a.m. – far later than I would normally be awake, although I doubt I’ll get much sleep tonight. Still, I resolve to get as much as I can.
Tonight, I rest. Tomorrow, I go out and find some fucking answers, whether Devera wants to give them or not. I’m not playing games anymore.
The next morning, I’m awoken to streams of light through the blinds and the sounds of construction.
At least, I thought it was construction, but when I pull back the blinds in a huff, I’m surprised to see the street below filled with people putting together what looks to be lines of stalls. Children run around, some kicking soccer balls, others helping the adults by carrying supplies. Laughter drifts through the glass.
I feel a pang deep in my chest as I look down on the smiling faces of the kids below. For as long as I can remember, by parents were preparing me for some role or another. My father had me spending hours in his windowless office, learning how to parse through dense information so I could be like him. My mother put me in grueling ballet classes, hoping the physical activity would strengthen my joints so I could be more perfect like Brennan and strong like Mira. When I finally grew to love dance, I was pulled out just as unceremoniously as I started to focus on my studies. Then Dad disappeared, and my time in spent learning with him in the office stopped too.
The classes and tutoring made me into what my parents wanted, sure, but the real lesson they taught was how to hide my pain. Emotional and physical.
I give myself a shake and draw away from the window. This is no time for these kinds of thoughts.
Right on cue, my stomach begins to growl. I glance at the bedside clock – it’s just past 9 a.m., far later than I normally wake up. Not surprising, considering I tossed and turned all night last night, my brain unable to leave what I learned from the thumb drive well enough alone. I resolve to find some sustenance before I go off in search of my errant professor.
It doesn’t take me long to ditch the plain black t-shirt I slept in for my black jeans, tank top, jacket and boots. I don’t bother redoing my braid crown, which I slept in, and opt to tuck the silver ends underneath a baseball cap, and then I’m wandering the streets below in search of coffee.
The noise is even more overwhelming up close, and I fight the urge to retreat into the nearest shadow. Still, the cool morning breeze feels good on my cheeks, even if the air is rapidly warming with the rising sun.
After a few minutes of walking and dodging the locals bustling around, the sharp smell of black coffee pierces my nose as I enter a large square with a clocktower in its center. Finally.
I locate the source of the smell – it’s coming from one of the many stands that’s seemingly been erected overnight. A kindly looking woman greets me as I approach.
“Morning, friend! What can I get for you?” She asks with a smile. I try not to startle at her Deverelli accent. Navarre hasn’t had relations with the Deverelli Isles in decades, and as a result, I’ve only met people from there on occasion, and they normally haven’t survived those interactions long enough for me to become used to the way they sound.
“Black coffee,” I say. “Please,” I add.
She beams up at me. “Coming right up!”
I stand there as I wait for my drink, taking in the sights and sounds of this street festival. Navarre doesn’t often have stuff like this – or rather, I’ve never been to them if they do. Sorrengails always seem to have better things to do than live their lives.
The bitter thoughts of my childhood disappear when I feel something – or someone – tug on my pantleg. I look down, and a small girl – no older than five or six, I imagine – is looking up at me expectantly.
“Hi! My name is Valerie,” she says in introduction. Her smile is prominently missing one tooth, and I can’t help my smile as I lower myself down on my haunches to meet her at eye level.
“Hi there, Valerie,” I reply with a grin. “My name is Violet. Can I help you?”
She nods vigorously, and points at a group of musicians setting up in front of the fountain at the center of the square. “My daddy is about to start playing, and he told me I should get people to dance with me!” She cocks her head to the side adorably, the pigtails of her dark brown hair bounding. “Will you dance with me?”
Normally, I’d politely decline, take my coffee, and bolt, but gods if there isn’t something about this kid’s child-like innocence that has me throwing all my common sense out the window and nodding my head in agreement.
Before Valerie can drag me off towards the center of the square, the woman returns with my coffee, giving the girl next to me a sharp look as she hands me the piping hot to-go cup.
“Valerie! What I have I told you about bothering people?” She asks with a huff.
Valerie just grins, and I know that this is a kid that has not known a day without the unconditional love of her family. I shouldn’t feel jealous of a six-year-old, yet here I am.
“It’s ok, Mom! I’m not bothering Violet; she’s going to dance with me!”
I raise my brows in amusement. Way to pass the buck, kid.
“I’m so sorry about my daughter,” The woman says to me, worry lining her face.
“Don’t worry about it,” I reply as Valerie grabs my hand to drag me towards the street band, which has begun to play. I find myself meaning every word.
People young and old have begun congregating in the center of the square, dancing to the tunes of the small quartet. Valerie grabs my hands and I laugh – it’s a joyful sound that I’m not used to hearing coming from me – as we match the tempo of the people dancing around us.
All of a sudden, the pace picks up and Valerie squeals as the crowd begins to spin, partners switching and people clapping to the beat. I stay with her, however, not wanting such a small kid to accidentally get trampled.
After a few minutes, I’m trying to catch my breath at one of the benches lining the square when I become acutely aware that someone is watching me. I scan the crowd cautiously. Valerie has returned to her mother’s coffee stand, where I can see her chattering away with some other customers. I shift my eyes to the alley just to the left, and my gaze immediately narrows.
Two men stand there, both with dark hair and tawny skin. Like me, they’re clothed in all black. I’m too far to get a good look at their faces, which are wreathed in shadows, but they are tall, and built like soldiers – clearly trained as well, I realize.
I tense. One of them – the taller one – is staring right at me.
Feeling exposed, I fight the urge to draw the dagger I have stashed in my boot, which is propped up on the edge of the bench I’m resting on. I know I shouldn’t – it would only draw unwanted attention, so instead I adjust my baseball cap as I feign watching the ever-growing crowd which churns and spins to the tune being played by the musicians at the base of the clocktower.
“What is the festival today for?” I ask Valerie when she returns with a cup of water for me. I continue to watch the two men out of the corner of my eye as I take a sip.
“It’s the Festival of Zihnal!” She says, and a childish thrill passes through me. I remember reading about Poromish worship customs when I was in college, and I’d wanted to take a trip to see them in-person. Praying to the old gods is still common in Navarre, but this kind of outward worship has long become uncommon. That’s partially because there are barely any temples left in my country to facilitate them.
“The god of luck?” I ask indulgently, and she nods enthusiastically. I grin in response. “How fun. We don’t have this where I’m from.”
“Where are you from?”
“Somewhere far, far away from here,” I reply, not revealing more. It’s for the best that I don’t mention I’m from Navarre. Poromiel and Navarre have always been on uneasy terms, but in recent years it has gotten far worse.
“Why are you here then? Doesn’t your family miss you?” Her head is tilted to the side again, and I’m again struck by how innocent this child is. I hope it lasts a long time.
“I have a sister who loves me very much,” I say with a forced smile.
Valerie beams. “I have a sister too! Her name is Emma, and she—”
I whip my head towards the clock tower as an ear-piercing scream rends the air. I tug Valerie behind me with one hand, the other coming to the hidden sheathe in my jacket where I know I have a dagger hidden.
It’s like my senses have gone into overdrive as I catalog every detail.
I glance back towards the alleyway. The two men are gone. The crowd is in turmoil as voices shout over each other. Something is very, very wrong here.
“Up there!” Someone screams, and my blood turns to ice as I see a man – different from the ones I saw in the alleyway – standing on the ledge of the clocktower’s balcony. He’s holding something in his hand that I immediately recognize.
Shit, shit, shit.
It’s a trigger.
He has a bomb.
I lunge forward before I can let my mind convince me to do anything other than try to save these people gathered here, ripping the dagger from my jacket as I try to get to the door at the base of the tower. Each of my heartbeats feels like it’s coming too fast and after an eon at the same time. My eyes stay glued on the man above me, and I swear I see him smile. I ignore it. I have to do something. If I could just reach him, I can—
The explosion knocks me off my feet, sending me flying backwards.
My head hits something solid, and I’m out cold, the sounds of people screaming the last thing I hear before oblivion takes me.
I don’t know how long I’m out, but it couldn’t have been long because when I come to, smoke and dust is still thick in the air, blocking out the sunlight. I cough as I haul myself to my feet. Miraculously, my baseball cap has remained in place, but I feel a trickle of wetness track down my neck. I touch the back of my head where the edge of my cap gives way to my hair and wince when it comes away covered in blood. That’ll probably need stitches.
I realize with horrible clarity that it’s too fucking quiet. The clocktower at the center of the square is demolished; a pile of stone is all that remains of the historic structure.
I’ve been the harbinger of death for many of Navarre’s enemies, but that’s what they were – enemies. People who I had to kill, for the safety of my country. Or so I’ve been told. I don’t know what to believe now, not after learning that Navarre might have been lying to me about my own brother’s death.
Either way, nothing could prepare me to see the dead bodies of people celebrating the god of luck.
Gods, what kind of cruel irony is this?
My vision swims as I move towards where the coffee stand was. I’m almost definitely concussed.
I’m about twenty feet away from where I started when I freeze.
No.
No, no, no, no, no, NO—
I drop to my knees next to Valerie’s unmoving body.
She isn’t breathing, and I know that she’s too far gone for me to try to save.
I want to scream, but I can’t get the air into my lungs. This isn’t fair. If Malek had to take anyone, he should have taken me. Not this innocent child. Not these people celebrating their gods. Me. A murderer. Someone who so long ago lost my humanity that I barely even remember what it felt like to be human.
A passage from Dad’s notes returns to me with a clarity that surprises me: Whatever Navarre is hiding could kill hundreds of thousands of people if it’s not stopped.
Oh gods. Was this why Devera came to Draithus? Had she known something would happen; is that why she led me here? Or was this all a coincidence?
No. I have to believe if Devera knew about this, she would have done something to stop it.
My head hurts— no, my entire body hurts. My soul hurts.
I think I hear someone calling out, but my eyes are dragging shut again as I slump.
I feel someone grab me as I fall backwards, and the last thing I remember are eyes of gold, and then my world goes black once again.
Notes:
...this is what happens when inspiration strikes after I've been sick all day. Draithus has been bombed! What is Navarre hiding about Fen and Brennan? What happened to Papa Sorrengail? What more (if anything) does Devera know? And who was it that Violet saw before the bomb went off? 👀
As always, you can follow me on Tumblr (same as my AO3 user) where I post frequently about my writing progress, including lil blurbs as I write. Stay tuned :)
Chapter 3: Fire and Brimstone
Notes:
It's the moment we've all been waiting for... the Xaden pov, all 8.7k words of it. Enjoy, you crazy hooligans!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Xaden
Five Years Ago
The three loud knocks on my door jar me from my fitful attempts at sleep. I shoot up from my tangled sheets, eyeing the door with suspicion. Only three people know the address of the apartment I moved into after I aged out of foster care, and all three of them should be asleep at - I glance at my bedside table's clock - 3 a.m. in the morning.
I silently leave my bed, the pocket knife my father gave me clenched in one fist as I move towards the door. I don't bother grabbing a shirt. I look cautiously through the peephole, but no one is there.
My suspicion grows. Those knocks hadn't come from nowhere. They were purposeful; confident. Someone wanted to wake me up, and now they were gone. Against my better judgement, I crack the door open and peer out into the hallway. Still, I see no one, but a manila envelope that certainly wasn't there before catches my eye where it rests on the plain black mat I set out into front of my door.
I use my foot to drag it into my apartment and shut the door securely behind me before I lean down to pick it up. There's no address on it, which only solidifies my belief that someone was just there. There is no writing at all, except for one word. My first name: Xaden.
My breath catches in my throat. I know that handwriting. It's been five years since Dad died; five years since he was labelled a traitor by the country he gave everything for; five years since I had to burn almost everything I had left of him.
It's been five years, but I'd recognize that handwriting anywhere.
I tear open the envelope without a second thought. There isn't much inside, just a folded piece of paper and a key. I set the key aside and open the paper with trembling hands, setting myself back down on my bed with my elbows propped on my knees.
My son,
If you are reading this, then I have failed. I don't know what Navarre will say about my death - about the deaths of my unit - but you can be certain it isn't true. Not a word. I didn't kill Brennan Sorrengail. I couldn't even if I tried - he's too damn smart.
I spent my life in service of our home. Tyrrendor may be independent in name, but we rely on Navarre's military to protect us. I joined it, hoping to protect our home, but as a result I have become complicit in sins I will never be able to atone for.
Navarre will kill us to cover up what I have found. They will kill anyone who they think knows, which is why I will not risk putting what I know into words in case this message is intercepted.
You are everything I wish I could have been, Xaden. I trust you to do the right thing for our home, for our family, and for yourself.
No matter what happens, remember that you are a Riorson. You are my son. You can move mountains, should you so choose.
I love you.
Dad
I feel the tears on my cheeks, but I make no move to wipe them. I was 16 when he died, and I still remember the day the news reached me in Aretia. When he'd been accused of attempting to leak classified information and then killing another general's son to cover it up, he'd been home with me. Instead of getting angry or insisting it wasn't true, he just looked... resigned as he stared at the headlines blaring across the TV. He'd gathered his close advisors in his office, where they talked for hours, before emerging and telling me he was returning to Navarre to turn himself in.
He gave me a tight hug and told me he loved me.
His plane barely made it off the ground before exploding, killing everyone on board.
It was like a scene out of a poorly written military film, when the officers came to the house to inform me of my dad's death. They could barely hide their disgust as they read the script telling me that Dad had died in service of his country - we all knew no one believed that now.
I spent two years in foster care, angry at the world. In the span of 48 hours, my father's name had been dragged through the mud, before he died in circumstances that only an idiot wouldn’t see as suspicious. When I finally aged out, I felt lost. I knew that my father couldn't have murdered anyone. But I also knew no one would believe me.
I kept my head low, passing the days in monotony as I managed my family's businesses and looked out for the children of the Tyrrish officers who, like my father, were killed on that airplane. I haven't slept well since.
And now, this.
I flip the paper over, and I notice coordinates sprawled in one corner. They're written in a different ink color, and it’s definitely not my father's handwriting.
I consider for a moment what I should do. My dad clearly got caught up in something - something that got him framed for murder and then killed. He wouldn't have gone to the effort of writing this letter to me if he didn't want me to do something about it. But it's not just me I have to consider - there are dozens of kids without parents now that I look out for and support. One wrong move, and I could drag all of them down with me.
But I also know that each and every one of them would want to know the truth behind the deaths of their parents. Even if it kills us.
Mind made up, I strip off my cotton sleep pants and hurry about getting dressed. Twenty minutes later I'm racing down the highway, heading towards one place I never thought I'd visit again.
Four Months Later
"Riorson, Xaden!"
A hush comes across the room as General Augustine Melgren reads out my name from the graduation rolls. My eyes narrow from where I stand at attention at the front of the formation.
Fucking murderer.
The crowd remains eerily silent as I step forward, giving the man who ordered the killing of my father a crisp salute that I couldn't have meant less if I tried. Everyone here knows my name; knows who my father is. I don't give two shits. They may fear me, or hate me because of the lies Navarre has spread, but they can't do damn near anything about it. I've proven my mettle more than anyone else here.
Melgren's beady eyes focus on me. I don't let my hatred for him show. I keep that apathetic mask that I've come to master firmly in place.
"Congratulations, Lieutenant, on your graduation from officer's training," Melgren says from on high. I'm certain the words are empty. "What rating do you wish to pursue?"
I square my shoulders, looking him dead in the eyes. "Special operations, sir." I can feel the key that started me down this path pressing against my skin from the chain it hangs on alongside my dog tags.
I will ruin him, even if it kills me.
His eyebrows raise. No doubt he is thrilled that I'm choosing the one path where I'm most likely to die. Let him be happy. I'll make him regret it. "Very well, lieutenant."
And just like that, he moves on. But I don't. I'll never move on. Neither will my brothers and sisters who stand in formation behind me - Liam, Garrick, Bodhi, Imogen, and every other Tyrrish orphan who, like me, will do anything to expose Navarre's colossal fuck-up.
The graduation ceremony continues as Melgren reads names off before inquiring what path the graduating officer wishes to take. He's flanked on either side by other officers. I recognize one - Lilith Sorrengail, Brennan's mother. She hasn't even looked my way once since arriving.
The other officer - Devera, I think her name is - does the opposite. She's clearly evaluating me. I will be under her command soon enough - she trains everyone who chooses special ops.
The ceremony lasts another 45 minutes, and then we're dismissed. We all have five days of leave before we must report for specialized training, and I already know where I'm heading in the meantime.
Liam catches up with me as I stalk out of the hall.
"You good, brother?" He asks, matching my strides.
"Absolutely wonderful.”
Liam grimaces. "I know. I'm surprised Melgren came."
I'm not. No doubt he wanted to see the disgraced General Fen Riorson's son; the same one who smashed almost every record this stupid training academy had.
I don't reply to Liam, continuing with singular focus to the parking lot where my car has been left unused for the last two and a half months. Garrick and Bodhi catch up with us as well, but don't say anything. We're all dealing with the emotional turmoil of seeing the man who caused the deaths of our parents in silence.
My pack is already loaded in my car, but I pop the trunk to let the other three load their gear. I'm about to slam it closed when Imogen comes running up, tossing her bag in on top of the others and squeezing herself into my backseat, much to the vocal displeasure of Garrick.
"Take your own damn car, Im, there's no room back here," he growls as she elbows him out of the way of the seatbelt.
"I'm not the one that takes up the space of two people, Garrick," she hisses. "Stop bitching."
Liam snorts from the passenger seat as they continue to bicker, while Bodhi just looks like he'd rather be literally anywhere else. I say nothing as I throw the car into drive and smoothly pull out of the parking spot, setting us on the path for the highway.
We drive for four hours. The highway becomes backroads, and then backroads become barely-traversed dirt paths. I’ve made this trip only a few times since I received the letter, but I know the way like the back of my own hand.
My home city of Aretia is ancient, but it hasn’t always been where it is today. Old Aretia, almost an hour outside the bustling downtown of the modern-day city, has long since been abandoned and overtaken by thick woods and nature.
The ancient capital of Tyrrendor is our destination today.
We make the drive in silence. I’m still seething from coming face to face with Melgren. My friends know better than to bother me, and I have nothing to say to them. Anything that needs to be said can wait until I’m not in the mood to rip someone’s head off.
I know we’re nearing our destination when the high cliffs of the valley begin to rise around us. I pull the car into a shadowy alcove, hidden by trees and shrubs, and cut the engine.
“Let’s go.” It’s the first words I’ve spoken since we left the training facility.
It’s humid outside, and the sun is now blazing overhead. I strip myself down to my green fatigue pants and a black t-shirt, and the others follow suit.
“Everyone have what they need?” I ask after I’ve retrieved my pack from the trunk and slammed it closed behind me. At their simultaneous nods, I take the lead, and we venture further off the path, single file.
“Does he know we’re coming?” Garrick asks from directly behind me after about 10 minutes of walking.
“I mentioned it to him last time I was here.” I reply. “If he forgot, that’s on him.”
“Let’s just hope we don’t get caught in one of his booby traps this time,” I hear Imogen grumble from behind Garrick.
“I, for one, have faith that he also believes it’s in his best interest to not kill us. We’ll be fine.” Bodhi, this time.
I’m confident that we won’t be running into that problem again. The first time we’d gotten caught in one of the many traps defending the perimeter of this place, it had taken us way too much time to free ourselves, and no one wants a repeat of that. I’m certain that he’ll have taken precautions this time around.
We walk for another 20 minutes before the palatial ruins of Riorson House come into view. According to my dad, our family lived here for centuries before it fell to ruin along with the rest of the old city. It’s been completely overtaken by the surrounding forest – trees grow out of the roof, and the stone that comprises the walls is cracked and crumbling. The courtyard, likely made completely out of stone during its glory days, is almost completely covered by a layer of earth.
The sunlight trickles through the canopy above, speckling the ground with beams of light as we walk towards what remains of the main entrance to the house. The atrium is deathly silent, the only sound being our footsteps on the smooth stone.
I withdraw my pocketknife as I scan our surroundings. “Stay alert,” I mutter, just loud enough for the rest of them to hear, before making my way towards the back of the building.
I follow the now-familiar twists and turns of the building until we find our way into what used to be the throne room, back when Tyrrendor was its own country and before it was an autonomous territory of Navarre. The windows are yellowed with age and no longer provide a clear view of the outside, but enough light makes it in the room to see the spirals of dust dancing through the air.
There isn’t much left here, other than shattered wood from old tables and chairs. There is, however, a stone dais where the throne of Tyrrendor used to sit. A seat still stands upon it, but I’m certain it’s a replica – there’s no way the original was left here to rot. I stride towards it nonetheless, until I’m kneeling in the seat facing the back of the chair. I squint through the darkness, my fingers fumbling across the carved wood until I find what I’m looking for.
I pull the dog tags off from around my neck and take the key that was left to me all those months ago in my hand before shoving it in the small keyhole set directly in the center of the chair’s back.
I hear a thunk, and then feel a rumble as the concealed trap door behind the chair opens up.
“I’ll never get used to that,” Garrick says, stepping around the chair to peer down the now-revealed passage. “Way too fucking cool.”
I stand back up, tucking the key back under my shirt. “Save it for later. Let’s go see if we were expected.”
Liam passes out flashlights, and we descend into the inky darkness. It doesn’t take long for us to come to our destination.
The door is high-tech – a solid slab of steel – in stark contrast to the ancient building it’s hidden in. I place my hand on the scanner embedded into the wall.
The panel beeps as it begins scanning. “Welcome, Xaden Riorson,” it says after a moment, and the door rumbles open, revealing the hub for all the traitorous plans I’ve concocted over the last three months.
A familiar figure is hunched over a hologram projection of a map, and he looks up as the steel blast door shuts behind us. He trimmed his beard since the last time I saw him, and frankly, he could go get a little more time in the sunshine, but he still looks more or less like the same guy who’s picture I saw flash across the TV screen the day before my dad died.
“Took you long enough,” Brennan Sorrengail says, but his disapproval quickly gives way to a grin. “I’ve been getting lonely down here. There’s a lot we need to discuss.”
Present
“This was a horrible idea, Xaden,” Bodhi hisses to me.
“Did you have any better ones?” I reply.
My cousin sighs, pressing himself further into the shadows where we’re hidden. “Not really.”
“Then stay quiet.”
I peer out from behind the ledge I’ve hidden myself behind. Devera’s back is to me, and my former instructor is saying – something – to the woman who just interrupted us, but she’s too quiet to make out the words. The stranger is short – way shorter than most NIA operatives I’ve come across – but she’s too far away and obscured by shadows thanks to her baseball cap for me to get a good look at her face.
As always, Major Devera is a question mark. She trained me after I graduated from basic officer training. She taught me how to be even more lethal than I already was, how to blend in with a crowd. She treated me with a level of respect that no one else in the air force was willing to give me simply due to my family name.
Brennan thinks that she knows more about my dad’s death than most. After those of us who chose special ops finished our training, Devera left for another post – top secret, she informed me when I asked. Liam’s hacking told us it was an instructor position within the NIA’s many black ops programs, but the information about which one it was specifically was so highly classified that he couldn’t find out more. Based on what I know about the NIA’s clandestine operations; I got the feeling I wouldn’t want to know more anyways.
I hadn’t heard from her in four years. Then, last week, I received a coded message, telling me to meet in Draithus, where I’ve been on an undercover assignment. Imagine my surprise when it turned out it was my old instructor who wanted to meet.
Except, we hadn’t really gotten to the talking part, because of this little interruption.
My hand is gripping one of the daggers I’ve taken to carrying with me, ready to fling it in the stranger’s direction. Devera still has her hands raised in surrender, but I think she knows whoever it is that interrupted us. She’s too relaxed.
“I’m sure you have plenty of questions,” Devera says, a little louder now. “There’s a bar down the street. Let’s chat there.”
The stranger doesn’t speak, but after a moment she nods, stepping to the side and motioning for Devera to take the lead. The purple haired woman drops something to the ground as she walks away, but the girl in the baseball cap doesn’t seem to notice as they both leave the alleyway.
Bodhi and I stay motionless for one minute, then two.
“That scared the shit out of me.” Bodhi lets out a breath I didn’t realize he was holding, and steps out from behind me. “Devera is one strange woman. What could she have done to have an NIA agent trailing her?”
I shrug. “Well, she contacted us, for one. She knows something. If she wasn’t careful, then she might have tipped someone off in Navarre.”
I make my way over to where Devera was standing. In her place is a small thumb drive; the kind I could buy at the drugstore. I tuck it into my pocket before rising back to my full height.
“Should we follow them?” Bodhi looks tense as he jerks his head in the direction Devera and the other woman headed.
“No.” I replace my dagger into its sheathe at my thigh. “Let’s go update Brennan.”
“Brennan has informed me that he is not to be disturbed. He is working on a software patch for an issue with my language processor.” SGAEYL’s voice says in my ear.
I say voice as if SGAEYL is a living, breathing creature, but she’s not. She’s a marvel of technology that Brennan created – a super powerful AI created specifically for me. She can analyze strengths and weaknesses of the people I fight. She can tell me how long I should microwave my leftover soup so that it’s the perfect temperature.
Most importantly, she can interface with just about any existing tech and enables virtually untraceable communication between me and Brennan back at the bunker underneath Riorson House.
When Brennan unveiled the idea to me two years ago, I thought it was ridiculous. But I have to admit after having her for six months that she’s damn useful. At first, I could only communicate with SGAEYL out loud, and I could only hear her voice through a small earpiece that was linked to her master computer back at Brennan’s hideout, which meant I couldn’t use her when other people were around. Then, two months ago, Brennan was able to create a small implant, placed under the skin behind my ear, that allowed me to communicate with her without actually speaking out loud, vastly expanded SGAEYL’s functionality.
That being said, SGAEYL is still a work in progress. For one, she’s absolutely vicious with her words, and has the personality – if one could call it that – to match. Brennan insists that it’s a byproduct of the high degree of intelligence she requires to function, but I can’t help but wonder if there’s more to it. She definitely keeps me on my toes, that’s for sure.
Brennan hopes to eventually give all of us our own versions of SGAEYL, but right now, I’m the only one who has her while he works out the kinks with her programming.
“My programming is just fine,” SGAEYL snaps. “Focus on the problem at hand.” I mentally curse, and I make sure she hears it. That’s another downside to this newest upgrade in her hardware – she can hear most of what I think if I’m not careful. It can be helpful at times, but I haven’t gotten used to her butting into my thoughts quite yet.
“Can we use your laptop when we get back?” I ask Bodhi as we exit the alley and head back towards our accommodations.
“You want to see what’s on that storage drive?”
I nod, moving out of the way as someone bustles by. It’s nearly night now, and tomorrow will be a busy day marking the start of the Festival of Zihnal.
I don’t believe in gods, or luck, so needless to say it won’t exactly be my scene.
We traverse the distance to our hotel in silence. Our mission here – to protect the wife of some Navarrian official who insisted on visiting for the festival – will be over soon, and then we’ll be returning to where we’re stationed back in Navarre.
It’s been five years since I discovered how much Navarre has lied to the world about my father, and I haven’t made nearly enough progress. The bombings that have happened across Poromiel over the last few months are enough proof of that. They're making a damn statement, and they're far from done.
More people are going to die soon. It’s just a matter of where and when.
“Xaden?”
I’m jolted out of my thoughts, and I realize we’re standing outside the door to our shared room. I unlock it without another word, and follow Bodhi in before making sure to secure the door behind us.
“SGAEYL, do a sweep,” I command.
She is silent for a moment, before replying. “Scan complete. There is no evidence of digital surveillance in the room.”
“SGAEYL says we’re good,” I relay to Bodhi, and I see him physically relax before he flops back on his bed.
I sit down in the rickety desk chair that came with the room, and open Bodhi’s laptop, plugging the thumb drive in as I go.
“The drive is encrypted,” SGAEYL states, as if that wasn’t obvious from the blinking password prompt.
“Thank you for stating the obvious,” I reply dryly. She clearly doesn’t appreciate my attitude; I swear I hear her growl.
Normally, I’d just ask SGAEYL to decrypt the drive and not bother with guessing the password, but I have a hunch. I’m certain Devera knows more than she’s let on, and if meant for me to get this drive, then…
The drive unlocks after I type in the date of my father’s death.
I don’t know what I was expecting exactly, but I can’t help the rush of disappointment when I see there is only one file on the drive. I click on it, and my brows furrow as I look through it. It’s a jumbled mess of letters and numbers.
“It’s a cypher,” SGAEYL says helpfully. “But as I’m sure you know, it’s useless without the documents it was meant to decode. This was a waste of time.”
“Can you send this to Brennan?” Even if we have no use for it now, it’s better off in Brennan’s hands than on this drive.
“You underestimate me. I sent the file back to my main processor as soon as you unlocked it,” she sniffs. “Do not tell me how to do my job.”
I grin in response, taking the drive from the laptop, dropping it on the ground, and crushing it under my boot.
“What the hell, Xaden?” Bodhi leaps up from his bed, looking between me and the wrecked thumb drive slack-jawed.
I bring him up to speed, and he relaxes upon being informed that the drive’s contents have been backed up to SGAEYL’s server at Riorson House.
“Tomorrow’s a big day,” Bodhi remarks later as we pick through the food we had delivered to our room. “You think Syrena will show?”
“I think if she wants what we have, she will. They’re out of options now.”
Bodhi stays silent at that. Syrena Cordella is stubborn, but even her pride can only reach certain lengths.
“Why would Devera give us a cypher without giving us the documents its meant to decode?” Bodhi muses out loud after a few moments.
I stay silent. It’s better than admitting that I have absolutely no idea.
I don’t sleep well, but that’s not news. I swing my legs over the side of my bed as soon as the morning light begins filtering through the curtains around 7:30 a.m. Bodhi is still dead to the world, but the commotion outside will wake him up soon enough.
I opt not to wake him up. We’ve had plenty of late nights recently, and we’ll doubtless have another one tonight if our charge has anything to say about it. She’s taken to wandering the streets around here at night as if Draithus is her own personal playground. It’s been a nightmare from a security perspective.
I step outside and relish the chill morning air as I wander down the street in search of the strongest black coffee I can find. People are already about, setting up street stalls that will soon sell all manners of food, drinks, and trinkets. Children run around, and I have to be careful not to trip over one boy that darts out in front of me, waving a toy sword while being pursued by his laughing friends.
The sights are so mundane, so different from what I’ve come to be used to since joining the military. Their smiling faces remind me of the good times before my dad died. Even when it was just the two of us after Mom disappeared, life was good. I was happy.
It's amazing how much life can change in a day; in an hour, minute, or second.
Before I know it, I’m in the main square of this particular neighborhood. A historic clock tower looms overhead, casting its shadow across a stall whose owner I immediately recognize.
“Morning, Liz,” I greet, giving the woman a smile. Liz runs a coffee shop on the other side of town, near the hotel of the woman we’ve been guarding, and I’ve taken to patronizing it during my on-duty coffee runs.
“Good morning, Alex!” She replies, her Deverelli accent prominent when she uses the alias I’ve gone by since arriving. “Afraid I don’t have all my equipment here, so can’t give you anything fancy. What’ll it be this morning?”
I request my usual black coffee, along with something I’m sure Bodhi would like, and mill about while she pours them into to-go cups for me.
“Good morning, Mr. Alex!”
I look down and am greeted by the toothless grin of Liz’s daughter, Valerie. I drop down to meet her eyes, ruffling her hair.
“Good morning, Valerie. Keeping out of trouble?”
She shakes her head. “Nope! Daddy says my middle name is Trouble!” I laugh at that. I’ve only met Valerie a handful of times over the last week, but I’ve seen enough to know that she is a menace. A lovable menace, but a menace, nonetheless.
“So I’ve heard. What are your plans for today?” I mouth a silent thank you to Liz over her daughter’s head as she slides my coffee and Bodhi’s across the counter.
“Dancing!” she exclaims, before scrunching her face up in thought. “Maybe eating something yummy. I’ll need to make some new friends, too, since Mommy and Daddy are doing adult stuff today and can’t play with me.”
“Sounds like a busy day,” I remark, amusement lacing my tone as I straighten up to reach for my coffee. Bodhi should be up by now, and I need to get back so we can discuss our next move.
I bid Liz goodbye and ruffle Valerie’s hair one more time before heading back in the direction I came, sipping my coffee as I go.
“I do not understand why you indulge that child,” SGAEYL remarks in her first words to me today.
“It’s called manners, SGAEYL. Didn’t Brennan program you with those?”
“I consider them one of my more pointless features. It’s not like I communicate with anyone else.”
“Because gods forbid you’re actually polite to me,” I retort dryly.
98% of the time I’d be inclined to agree with her – I prefer being direct with someone instead of debating over manners and politeness and whatnot – but something about that kid just makes me act in ways I wouldn’t normally act. I blame the cute, toothless smile.
The air is beginning to warm by the time I’m opening the door to our shared room. I roll my eyes upon seeing that Bodhi is still asleep. Unlike me, he could sleep through a garbage truck driving through a nitroglycerin plant without so much as stirring.
I set both cups of coffee down on the TV stand, before picking up the half-finished glass of water I left on the nightstand last night and dumping it unceremoniously on my cousin’s head.
He bolts up, a string of swear words escaping his mouth as he gets his bearings.
“Fuck you man,” he grumbles once he’s made sense of the situation. “You could’ve just shaken me awake.”
“Let’s not lie to each other by pretending you wouldn’t have fallen right back asleep,” I shoot back, shoving his coffee into his hands. “Shower, then we need to talk.”
It takes Bodhi 20 minutes to shower and emerge from the bathroom dressed in all black, just like me. The tattoo he got alongside me and the others to commemorate our promise to reveal the truth about our parents’ deaths is on full display with the t-shirt he’s wearing. He’s still grumbling about having water dumped on him.
“And you just showered, so get over it,” I bite. I’m not in the mood right now. “We need to talk to Brennan before we’re on-duty.”
Bodhi straightens up at that. “And tell him what, exactly? ‘Yeah, we didn’t actually get to talk to the lady who trained us after she mysteriously asked to meet on enemy soil, but hey, she left us a cypher that’s completely useless because we don’t have the documents its meant to decode?’”
“Pretty much. Get him on the line.” I pause for a beat, thinking. “Let’s pull Liam and Garrick into this too.”
“No Imogen?”
“She’s on leave right now.” It’s her sister’s birthday, and she’s visiting her grave. This isn’t worth bothering her pulling her away from that.
Bodhi does as he’s told, pulling the small communicator out of the hidden pocket in his backpack. If Navarre caught us with this, we’d be fucked. A lot of this tech is based on stuff Brennan and my dad stole from the NIA, before everything went to shit, and I really don’t want to find out what they’d do to us if we were found with devices derived from top-secret NIA tech research.
The line crackles to life, Brennan being the first to speak. “Hey there. What’s the news?”
“Let’s make it quick. Garrick and I had to duck into a supply closet, and it will be really awkward if people see us leave together,” Liam whispers.
“I second that. It smells like ass in here. And not in the good way.” Garrick quips.
Bodhi snorts. Brennan just sighs.
I fill them in on our non-meeting with Devera, and then what we got off the thumb drive.
“And you’re certain there was nothing else on the drive?” Brennan asks.
“I do not appreciate this human doubting my abilities as if his intelligence exceeds mine,” SGAEYL snarls in my mind. “If I said there was nothing else, there was nothing else. I should short circuit his little lab.”
“Don’t you dare,” I warn, before returning my attention to the conversation. “I didn’t see anything, and SGAEYL is sure there wasn’t anything else hidden on the drive. The cypher was the only thing there.”
“Based on your description, this cypher isn’t anything standard that Navarre currently uses,” Liam remarks.
“What do you mean?” Bodhi asks from where he’s leaning against the TV stand.
“Well, a cypher is used to decode documents, right? They’re basically used for manual encryption and decryption,” Liam explains. “Navarre’s military has a set of encryption protocols that it typically uses. The same goes for the NIA, although they use a lot more variations. But even with their differences, they roughly boil down to the same structure, and they’re digitized, which adds an additional layer of complexity. What you have here is a kind of product cypher – basically, whatever this decrypts are encrypted on two levels.”
“Get to the point,” I huff. This kind of thing makes my brain hurt.
“Essentially, this is an antiquated, but extremely secure form of encryption that Navarre wouldn’t bother using now due to their technology. Whoever wrote this cypher is seriously old school.”
“That’s great, but it doesn’t exactly give us anything to go off of,” Bodhi says, mouth set in a tight line.
“Yes, actually, it does,” I say slowly, as I process what Liam just said. “How old school are we talking here, Liam?”
Liam stays silent for a moment before answering. “This is the kind of cryptology that the NIA would have been teaching its people decades ago, I think. Either way, I doubt there are any people younger than 50 to 60 that would know how to create one of these.”
“And Devera is nowhere near that old.” Bodhi’s eyes widen as he realizes what I’m thinking.
“You think Devera is working with someone?” Looks like Brennan is following my train of thought too.
“I have no idea,” I reply, crossing my arms. “But that might explain why she has a non-standard cypher that could only be created by someone older than her. There’s no way this is just an old Navarrian cypher that was lying around – the NIA isn’t that sloppy. They would have destroyed any copies of old cyphers.”
“He has a point,” Garrick chimes in.
We debate about the possible source of the cypher for a few minutes more, but we’re going in circles. I promise Brennan I’ll be in contact again soon, and privately resolve to track down Devera again. We need answers that only she can give.
“So, you want to go see if we can find Devera?” Bodhi asks after tucking away the communicator again. I merely raise an eyebrow in his direction, and he chuckles. “I’m not a mind reader, but I did grow up with you Xaden. I can tell this is bothering you more than you’re letting on.”
He’s right – this is bothering me. Something is off with this whole situation. And the idea that we could walk into a scenario that I can’t control because I don’t have the correct information has me on edge. But I don’t want to admit that to Bodhi, the closest thing to a blood-related brother I have.
“We’ll track her down, but that has to come later.” I reach for my discarded sheathes and begin strapping my daggers back onto my body. “Right now, let’s worry about the Cordella’s.”
Bodhi wrinkles his nose. “Ugh.”
My thoughts exactly.
If there is one thing I’ve learned about dealing with the Cordella’s, it’s to be on my guard at all fucking times.
That’s not just because Syrena is fully capable of giving me a run for my money through her sheer combat prowess. It’s also because Catriona Cordella is an instigating, power-hungry vulture that seems to specialize in bringing someone from mild annoyance to all-out rage in five seconds flat.
I’ve kept my fingers crossed that Syrena would come on her own today, but when Bodhi and I enter the alleyway just off the main square, I’m resigned to the fact that I have no such luck when she emerges from the shadows with Cat in tow.
Bodhi looks at me with apprehension as I cross my arms across my chest and lock my mask in place. I’m not here to play Catriona’s fucking mind games today, and I know she’ll be in top form given our previous interactions since I broke it off with her.
“Syrena,” I acknowledge, before my eyes slide over to Catriona. “Catriona.”
“Riorson,” Syrena dips her head in greeting. She looks exhausted. She’s the niece of a prominent Poromish politician, but she hasn’t lived her life in luxury.
No, she’s fighting against Navarre’s own mistakes, and she’s paying the price for it.
Catriona shoots me a flirty smile that I pointedly ignore as I remove my pack from my back and toss it to the ground.
“You’ll find 12 of what you need in there,” I say.
Syrena raises her brows. “That’s all?”
“It’s not my fault you didn’t want our help before,” I say with a shrug.
“And you’re ok with just letting Poromish citizens die?” Catriona bristles. Against my better judgement, I give her my attention, eyes narrowing as she takes a step forward. “We wouldn’t even be in this mess if it wasn’t for Navarre.”
“I could just not give you anything,” I respond, and my voice has a warning edge to it. “I don’t owe Poromiel shit. If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t even know what you’re up against.”
Catriona opens her mouth to respond, but Syrena cuts her off with a hand on her arm. “That’s enough, Cat.” She returns her gaze to mine, and I feel a twinge of guilt at the utter exhaustion I see there. “We’ll take whatever you can give us, Riorson. I’ll have what you asked for next time we meet.”
I keep my face neutral, but frustration bubbles up. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
“We agreed you’d give us the list today,” Bodhi argues, giving voice to my own annoyance.
“And you agreed you’d give us 24, yet here we are.”
Fair point.
“Fine. But she—” I point at Catriona. “—stays behind next time. I meant it when I said I didn’t want to see her again.”
Cat’s eyes bulge, and I’d laugh at her clear anger if it wasn’t for the fact that I’m pissed that she’s even here in the first place.
“Deal.” Syrena gives me a nod, and cuts her sister off with a sharp look before she can protest before bending down to pick up the pack. “I’ll see you soon, Riorson.”
“Stay alive,” I say in response.
Catriona sends a look my way that is equal parts desire and anger, and I return one of indifference. She turns away with a huff and follows her sister out the opposite end of the alley. I feel myself relax as soon as she’s out of sight.
After a moment of silence, Bodhi whistles low. “So I take it that things between you and Cat didn’t end well.”
“We weren’t compatible,” I reply curtly. I would rather not have this discussion right now.
“That’s the understatement of the century.”
I bark out a laugh because it’s true. Cat and I weren’t good apart, and we were downright toxic together. I broke it off with her three months ago, and I’ve relished the peace it’s brought my life ever since.
“Good riddance, man, honestly,” Bodhi continues. “Can you imagine if you actually married her? I think I’d have to disown you.” He shivers exaggeratedly. “She’s scary, and not in the good way. She’s power hungry to the nth degree.”
I nod absentmindedly, but I’m not really paying attention anymore. We’re at the entrance of the alley, and my eyes are caught on Valerie, who has clearly already begun making those new friends she told me about earlier.
Valerie’s new friend, as it turns out, doesn’t look that much younger than me. She’s small but carries herself gracefully as she dances to the beat with Valerie. Suddenly, the woman is swooping down and spinning the little girl around through the air. The unabashed grins on both faces are enough to make the corner of my mouth quirk upwards.
Valerie leads her companion back to a bench, before leaving her to skip back to Liz’s booth, chattering as she goes. My gaze goes back to the woman. She’s a little closer now, but I can’t quite make out her features, thanks to the shadow cast by her baseball cap. She tugs one leg up onto the bench and is fiddling with the laces of her boot when she tenses and begins scanning the crowd.
I know she’s noticed me the moment her eyes turn in my direction. Normally, I’d look away and move to blend in with the crowd, but I don’t turn away. I simply match her gaze. We stare at each other for one beat, then two, before the woman breaks away and adjusts her cap on her head before she returns her attention to the dancing crowd.
Valerie returns to her side a moment later, a cup of something clutched in her small hands. Bodhi pointedly clears his throat, recapturing my attention.
“What?” I glance back at him, where he’s looking at me with a raised brow.
“You’re staring.”
“Your cousin likes to state the obvious. Is he brain damaged?” SGAEYL asks snidely.
“Why don’t you ask him yourself?”
“Just observing the crowd,” I say to Bodhi.
“I’d rather not,” SGAEYL replies. “I don’t want my algorithms to incorporate his speech patterns.”
“Sure,” Bodhi replies dubiously.
I’m about to make a snide remark when my eyes snag on a figure stepping out on the ledge of the square’s clock tower, and I freeze.
Shit. They’re here. Of all fucking times.
“Bodhi,” I hiss, gesturing to the tower. His eyes trail up and widen when he sees what I see.
“Oh shit,” he whispers.
I’m moving before I can convince myself to do the smart thing and run away. I dart into the center of the crowd and take a deep breath. No going back.
“There’s a bomb!” I yell as loud as I can and point up to the tower. My voice is lost to the crowd, and the only person who seems to hear me is a woman to my side. She looks at me, confused, before looking up at the tower and paling. She screams, which cuts through the noise and hubbub, and all hell breaks loose.
I hope that my warning would prompt people to run away, but instead people are just chattering nervously, looking around to see where the threat is coming from.
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see the woman dragging Valerie behind her protectively.
I’m trying to herd people away from the square when someone finally notices the person who is about to blow this area to smithereens atop the tower. “Up there!” they cry out.
Time feels like its stretching out as panic begins to overtake the crowd, as they realize what’s coming next. I see the smile on the man’s face as he goes to detonate. The woman who was dancing with Valerie surges forward with speed that even I’d have a hard time keeping up with and— is that a knife? I barely have time to register that detail before I hear Bodhi’s panicked shout. My eyes swivel back to the tower, and I know we’re fucked. Even if we tried to intervene, we’d never reach him in time.
“Run!” I shout at Bodhi, and we both take off in a dead sprint. Bodhi grabs a kid that’s gotten separated from his mother, and I scoop up another one that’s in our path.
“Do not feel guilt over those you cannot save.”
“Not now, SGAEYL.”
My cousin and I barely make it to the edge of the square when the explosion knocks me off my feet, sending me and the kid I grabbed into a stack of wooden crates. I groan at the impact, but I manage to keep my head from hitting anything.
My ears are ringing, and I’m disoriented as I finally regain my feet. The kid is knocked out cold, but she’s breathing, so I lie her on the sidewalk. I see Bodhi struggling to get to his feet a few yards away. He’s alive. That’s all that matters.
Dust and smoke choke the air, and I rip the sleeve off my t-shirt to hold up to my nose. I scan the square. The clock tower is demolished.
It’s too quiet.
“Xaden, we have to go,” Bodhi chokes out from behind me before devolving into a fit of coughs. I ignore him. I need to find them.
I move slowly towards the bench I last saw Valerie at. My ears are still ringing, and smoke pierces my lungs.
Movement catches my eye, and I see a familiar figure struggling to their feet. The woman with the baseball cap. She’s injured – blood is trickling down from a gash on her head, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she had other injuries. She was much closer to the center of the blast than I was.
Suddenly, she drops to her knees, a wounded cry erupting from her lips. My eyes widen as I see the small figure she’s crouched next to.
No.
Valerie.
Grief threatens to overtake me, but I hold it in. She was too young. She didn’t deserve this.
I replace my grief with anger. Even if it takes me the rest of my fucking life, I will make sure Navarre is held accountable for the bloodshed and death it has wrought on these people.
“Shit!” I lunge forward without thinking when the woman collapses, wrapping one arm around her shoulders to keep her upright. She’s dead weight, but I can feel her pulse fluttering underneath my fingers when I check. She’s alive.
She’s a mess of blood and soot. It cakes her every visible inch of her. The only clean skin I can see are the paths tracked by the tears that are still leaking from her eyes. She’s even smaller up close. Despite her size, she’s strong – I can feel the definition of her muscles through her jacket. Who the hell is this woman, who threw herself at a bomber instead of running away?
“Xaden?” I hear Bodhi call out from behind me, before he stops short. “Is that—”
“Yeah.” My voice sounds rough and broken, and I don’t know if it’s from the unshed tears or the smoke. I glance in the direction of Liz’s coffee stand, and my heart breaks just a little more when I see its owner lying on the ground, unmoving, bleeding from a massive gash in her head.
“I have reported the situation to Brennan,” SGAEYL informs me. “He advises that you clear the area before Poromish authorities arrive.”
I debate leaving the woman here for someone else to find, but something about that doesn’t sit right with me, so I slip my other arm under her legs and lift her as I regain my feet. “Let’s go,” I say to Bodhi, and then take off without another word.
“Who…?” Bodhi trails off, but the question is clear.
“No clue,” I answer honestly. I begin to hear the sirens approaching and urge my feet to move faster. All I know is that I didn’t want to leave her there, mourning a child she’d only just met, all alone.
We make if four blocks before I need to set her down for a moment. We duck into an alleyway, and I set her gingerly against the brick of the buildings we’re sandwiched between. I glance at Bodhi, scanning him for injuries. He does the same for me.
“You look like shit,” Bodhi remarks. Like he’s one to talk. He’s covered from head to toe in dirt and grime. “Nothing broken?”
“Not that I can tell. You?”
“All good over here. What do you want to do with her?” He gestures at the woman I’ve been carrying. A bit of common sense begins to return to my brain, and I begin to think about all the reasons why I maybe shouldn’thave just grabbed a random woman off the street and carried her off.
“Let’s call an ambulance for her. That’s the best we can do right now,” I say with a sigh. I take a long look at her face, but I doubt I’d be able to recognize her even if we did meet again. The grime from the explosion obfuscates her features, and I can’t even tell what color her hair is.
Bodhi nods, and pulls out his cell phone wordlessly, dialing the emergency number and speaking in hushed tones to the dispatcher as I readjust the woman into a more comfortable position.
I’m about to pull away when her eyes fly open, and I’m immediately captivated. They’re a brilliant blend of amber and blue, and I can’t look away.
“Who—” she croaks, before coughing. I brace her shoulders to keep her from falling forwards. “Who are you? Where am I?”
She’s glaring at me with clear suspicion, not that I could blame her. I would do the same in her situation.
“We found you in the square after the explosion,” I explain slowly. I glance back at Bodhi, who’s still talking with the emergency dispatcher. “We brought you a few blocks away. You’re injured – my cousin is calling you an ambulance.”
Those beautiful eyes of hers flare wide. “I don’t need an ambulance.”
“That cut on the back of your head begs to differ.”
“Let me be the judge of that, pretty boy.”
I raise an eyebrow in her direction. “Pretty boy, huh?”
She rolls her eyes, before shoving at the hands that I just realized are still propping her up. I draw back as she eyes me warily.
“I saw you before the explosion. In the alley.”
“Did you?” I ask. It’s rhetorical. I know she saw me.
“I did.” She struggles to pull herself to her feet, and I fight my instinct to help her. I get the sense she wouldn’t appreciate it.
“You really should stay and get checked out by the paramedics,” I call out as she moves to walk past me.
She glances over her shoulder, those captivating eyes pinning mine. “I can take care of myself.” She pauses, considering me for a moment before opening her mouth again. “Thank you for trying to help me.”
She’s gone before I can get another word in.
Bodhi puts his hand over his phone’s microphone. “So does that mean we don’t need that ambulance?”
I sigh. What a fucking day.
Notes:
Syrena! Cat! Devera! Xaden got a letter and a key like Violet, and Brennan is still alive! Sgaeyl exists in this universe, just not in the form we're used to seeing her in! What did Xaden deliver to Syrena, and what is Poromiel fighting against? And what on earth is going on with these bombings? Stay tuned :)
Don't worry besties, we're still getting the plane meet-cute, it's just going to be a ~little~ different. In other news, I can't believe I cranked out this entire chapter in a day. I think this is a new record for me.
Chapter 4: Killer Reputation
Notes:
I feel like now if i want to get a chapter up quickly I should just say that it'll take a while bc every time I do that I inevitably end up writing the chapter at record-speed. Enjoy, you crazy hooligans! :)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Violet
Four Years Ago
I will not die today.
I chant the words in my head, over and over, as I try to convince myself that today will not be the day my soul is commended to Malek.
I will not die today.
Except no matter how much I want to believe it, the logical - statistical - part of my brain tells me otherwise. I should have fucking listened to Mira.
After I resolved to join the NIA early, as a field operative instead of an analyst, it didn't take them long to tell me to report for my training. This morning, I arrived at a non-descript warehouse on the outskirts of Calldyr. I didn't know what to expect, other than the vague stories I'd heard from Dad and the ominous warnings I'd continued to receive from my sister. Field operatives need to know how to fight, but that didn't bother me. Mira - and Brennan before her - made sure I knew how to defend myself. I'm proficient at knife wielding. I'm fast as hell. Certainly I could handle anything training could throw my way.
Gods, I was so naive, and that was only a few hours ago.
The girl I met during the normal orientation - Rhiannon, I think - has my back, as we're circled by two other trainees. After the tradition greetings and introductions, we were blindfolded and drugged. When we awoke, we were in an underground maze, with only one instruction: Kill, or be killed, until only 100 of us remain. We have 24 hours. If there are more than 100 left by that time, then those with the fewest kills will be eliminated. And not in the 'get sent home' kind of way.
That's when I began to realize how badly I fucked up.
Walls of dark metal surround us, reaching up to the ceiling, but I couldn't care less about finding my way out of here right now. I have far more immediate problems. I can hear the shouts and screams of the others that have been thrown into this hellhole with us in the distance, echoing against the cold steel.
"Any ideas?" Rhiannon mutters, so only I can hear. I withdraw one of my daggers from the sheathe sewn in the Kevlar vest Mira had made for me.
"How does not dying sound?" I reply, not taking my eyes off our opponents for even a heartbeat.
Before we were released into the maze, we were finally made privy to the cruel plot twist of the NIA's BASGIATH protocol, as if their version of orientation wasn't bad enough. It isn't enough to just do well in classes here. The NIA wants all of us to have practical experience by the time we're ready to take our places as full-fledged operatives. In order to graduate, we must accumulate a certain number of points, which can be earned through different means. Going to class and scoring well on your exams will earn you some, of course, but that will only get you so far.
No, if I really want to get points, then all I have to do is ruthlessly kill my fellow trainees. Easy peasy.
The blonde trainee appears in the corner of my vision, and a moment later lets out a battlecry as she breaks the stalemate and flings herself towards me.
"Die!" she screams, her dagger outstretched towards my heart. My stomach lurches, and I manage to move out of the way, but it's not fast enough. The trainee's dagger embeds itself in my upper arm, and I let out a bloodcurdling scream as white-hot pain overtakes every nerve.
"Violet!" Rhiannon calls out, but she's too busy defending herself from the advances of another trainee to be of much help to me.
I want to pull the knife out on instinct, but I know that leaving the blade where it is will keep the wound shut. I shove the pain into that mental box that has been tried and tested by years of dance-related injuries - I can worry about my discomfort later. The attack left the girl off-balance, and I jab the hilt of my dagger into her temple before she can make another attempt. She crumples, out cold.
Even if killing her would get me the points I need to graduate, the thought of ending her life makes me feel sick.
Rhiannon doesn't show her opponent the same mercy, driving her own dagger through the man's heart. I avert my eyes as he falls to the ground.
We're both quiet for a moment, processing what's just happened.
"This blows," Rhiannon says after a moment, shaking her head with a look of disbelief. I begin inspecting her for injuries as the wipes her dagger and returns it to the singular sheathe at her thigh.
"Yeah," I agree quietly. "This isn't what I was expecting."
She snorts. "No shit. When I recruited to become an agent, I thought 'Cool! I'll be infiltrating shit and working undercover and stuff like that!'" She shakes her head again, her voice softer. "Killing the people I'm training with just so I can graduate was definitely not what I had in mind."
Rhiannon gives me a once over, and her eyes catch on the blade that's still sticking out of my arm. Blood is trailing down my arm and dripping onto the floor in a steady stream. "So... what do you want to do about that?"
I grimace as the pain begins to make itself known again now that attention's been called to it. Panchek said we had to survive this maze for twenty-four hours, and by my estimation Rhiannon and I have been wandering around for roughly six. I won't make it the full day with a dagger stuck in me, not with the way its bleeding.
I brace my weight against the cool metal wall before sliding down into a sitting position, hissing when the movement jostles the blade. "Do you have anything we can use to stop the bleeding?"
I made the tactical decision to show up to orientation wearing tight fitting black clothing for ease of movement, but my current outfit choice is too thin to serve as an effective bandage. A lot of others weren't as prepared as I was. Many showed up wearing polo shirts and jeans, clearly believing this to be the run-of-the-mill orientation before the real training started. I spotted a few women in pencil skirts and heels, too. Those outfits are the armor of a desk job. They serve no purpose down here, and I have a sickening sense that many of the people who dressed according to normal-people standards won't make it to the end of today's orientation.
Rhiannon is wearing dress slacks and a white button-down that long ago was stained with spatters of crimson blood. Luckily for her, she opted for a pair of boots. The knife currently strapped to her thigh is one of the six I brought with me. For the millionth time, I thank Zihnal for allowing Mira to convince me to dress and arm myself as if I was heading into combat.
Rhiannon glances down at her shirt and wrinkles her nose. "Well, this shirt is ruined as it is," she mutters, mostly to herself, before pulling it over her head, leaving her only in a white tank top that stands out against her dark skin.
I breathe in through my nose, memorizing the tang of metal that permeates the air here, and out through my mouth as I try to regulate the pulsating pain. Rhiannon withdraws her - my - knife, and begins cutting her shirt into strips. I focus on the sound of ripping fabric as I battle the rising nausea. I will not vomit in front of someone I just met.
Today fucking sucks.
After the shirt has been well and fully ripped up, my new friend comes around to inspect the blade where it enters my arm.
"We'll have to be careful pulling this out," she informs me with a frown. "It's closer to your artery than I'd like, but we can't leave it in without risking it causing more damage."
I raise my eyebrows. "You seem to know your way around injuries," I observe.
She flashes me a grin before settling on her knees in front of me to get a better grip on the hilt.
"My twin sister is a nurse. I had to help her study for her NCLEX exam."
"I have a sister too," I reply before I can think better of it. Stupid, Violet. Why would she care about that?
Rhiannon' eyes meet mine as she takes the hilt gently, but securely, into her hand before handing me a small wad of fabric. "Bite down on this. I'm going to pull the knife out on the count of three, then we'll patch you up so you can see that sister of yours again."
There's a promise there, and I realize that she means it. It seems I've found a kindred spirit. I feel a lump in my throat blocking my words, so I merely nod.
"One, two-" She pulls it out before three, and I bite down on the fabric, hard, to stop myself from screaming. Rhiannon works quickly, wrapping the bandages securely around my arm, adding layer upon layer and pulling them till they're tight. The iron tang of blood overwhelms my senses, and I realize its because I bit my tongue.
I'm still catching my breath when she pulls back, her braids rustling.
"That's the best we can do for now." She offers me a hand, and I take it. She pulls me to my feet with a strength I envy. She turns her head in the direction of the girl I knocked out before. "Now, do you want the honors, or should I?"
I feel bile rising in my throat and blood trickling from the corner of my mouth. "Go ahead."
I don't watch, but I hear the moment the nameless trainee stops breathing, and I think a little piece of me dies along with her.
I spit the blood that's accumulated in my mouth onto the cold metal floor, but I don't turn around. If I do, I know her dead body will haunt me, and I don't need any more reminders of this day.
Rhiannon and I delve deeper into the maze, and I chant the five words that keep me going in my head, over and over, until I've deluded myself into thinking they might actually be true.
"She only would have come after us again," Rhiannon says after a few minutes, but her voice is trembling. I get the feeling she's soothing herself just as much as she is reassuring me.
"I know." The words feel heavy on my tongue. By killing her, whose name I'll probably never know, Rhiannon will get to live to see another sunrise.
I might not be so lucky.
I will not die today. I will not die today. I will not die today.
Present
My hands are trembling so violently I'm barely able to get the door of my hotel room open. As soon as I'm over the threshold, I fall in a heap on the floor.
My entire body feels like it's screaming at me. Every joint feels like it's had dull knives shoved in them, and my head pounds. I'm even more convinced that I'm concussed now than I was before.
Maybe I should've taken that ambulance, I think to myself as I try to drag myself into an upright position against the wall.
I decide on to call the next best thing, and pull out my cell phone.
The phone rings twice before Rhiannon's face fills my screen, and her greeting smile falls away immediately. Shit. I look worse than I thought.
"Violet!" Rhi shrieks, bolting up. "Sweet Dunne, what happened to you?"
"Bomb," I grunt, finally adjusting my body into a position that is slightly less uncomfortable. "Draithus."
Rhiannon turns to someone off-camera and tells them to turn the TV on, which means she's not at headquarters.
"Where are you?" I ask as her attention returns to me.
"Sawyer's. We only got back a few hours ago." I furrow my brows. They should have been back yesterday. I file that away to ask about later. "But where I am isn't important? Where the fuck are you? The TV says an entire square got blown up, and you look like you just came from ground zero."
Normally I'd try to alleviate my best friend's worries, but I barely have the energy to talk, much less reassure anyone. "I just made it back to my hotel. I think I'm concussed. Got a bad gash on the back of my head."
Rhiannon curses as Sawyer's head appears in the frame. "Damn, Violet. You look like shit."
"Why thank you, Sawyer" I lay on the sarcasm, but it's missing its usual bite. "Just what a lady wants to hear."
He snorts. "The day you're a lady is the day I become the King of Navarre."
Rhiannon swats at him, and he leaves the frame. "Ignore him, Vi. Men are stupid. What do you need?"
I shift to gingerly feel around the wound on my head, and hiss at the sharp pain that makes my eyes water. "Fuck- I need you to look at the gash and tell me if I need stitches." Getting to the mirror in my bathroom in my current state is a bit of a tall order.
"The fact that you're asking me to look means that you do," Rhiannon says, deadpan.
"Please?"
If there's one thing I know about Rhi, it's that she'll never say no to me, especially when I'm hurt. Do I try not to take advantage of this? Of course. Does that mean I never take advantage of that? Absolutely not.
Rhi rolls her eyes and orders me to navigate the phone so that it's pointed at the back of my head. Her muttered curse is all I need to hear, and I bring the phone back to my face.
"You need stitches. That looks bad, Vi. What the hell did you hit it on?"
I shrug. I'm pretty sure it was one of those stone plinths with the wrought iron lamp posts, but I'm not about to tell her that. She's already freaked out. The glare she levels me with tells me she knows that I'm not telling her something, and I don't give two shits.
"How many people?" I ask. Rhiannon furrows her brows, not understanding what I'm asking. "How many people died?"
She glances in the direction of what I assume is the TV, and her expression hardens. "I'm not sure you want to know."
"I'll find out eventually," I huff. "How. Many?"
How many did I fail to save because I took too long to notice the threat?
Rhi takes a deep breath, and her answer feels like a fresh stab wound. "150 confirmed dead. They don't have a number of those with injuries, but it's a lot higher. They're still counting."
"Sweet Malek," I whisper, letting my head fall back against the wall. I bathe myself in the sharp pain the movement brings - it's my punishment for getting complacent, for letting myself get distracted. Maybe, if I hadn't been dancing, I would've noticed something was off. Maybe I couldn't have saved everyone, but I could have saved that little girl.
"You're lucky you're alive," Rhi whispers, and her eyes shine with unshed tears. "Damn it, Vi - this is why I hate it when you go out alone."
"And what could Ridoc have done if he'd come with me?" I shoot back. "Nothing. There was nothing he could have done to prevent this, and he could have ended up as another casualty."
Her silence is an answer in and of itself.
"How is your mission going?" Sawyer pops his head back into the frame, and I seize on the subject change.
"Like shit," I admit, and his eyebrows shoot up. "Don't look so surprised."
Rhi aims a glare in his direction as he squeezes himself next to her on the too-small bright red loveseat he bought for $50 after we finished training. "Well, its not every day that the peerless Violet Sorrengail, pride of the clandestine division, admits that a mission isn't going perfectly according to plan."
"Oh please," Rhiannon snorts. "You just got your ass handed to you by Aetos not even two hours ago for not putting a period at the end of a sentence in a report. Violet could commit cold-blooded murder and get away with it. You don't deserve to even breathe the same air as her."
"Could? She has!" Sawyer leans back, taking a swig from a bottle of beer I didn't even notice he had. "I mean, what else would you call that whole thing with Jack?"
"To be fair, he didn't technically die," I remind him. One of my greatest regrets is that I didn't make sure that blonde bastard was so far gone that even Malek couldn't have given him back if he tried. "And if he had, I'd call it a regular day in the protocol."
"Technicality, schmechnicality."
"That doesn't change how Aetos damn near exploded earlier over your shitty report, Sawyer," Rhiannon drawls. Sawyer makes an outraged squawking noise when her hand darts out and nabs his beer before taking a long sip. "All 'rules and regs' this, and 'proper procedure' that."
"Which Aetos?" I ask.
"Dain," Rhi and Sawyer reply simultaneously, a look of mild annoyance on their faces - the kind I associate with realizing I stepped on a particularly gross wad of gum.
I snort. "I've got to hear what happened with this."
I smile despite myself as Rhiannon and Sawyer devolve into a good-natured argument about whose job it was to write the debrief report that Dain apparently tore to shreds before demanding it be rewritten. I love my squad - my family - more than I can put into words. For a moment, I debate telling them my suspicions about Brennan; about Devera. Then, just like every other fleeting moment I've considered coming clean to them about my motivations for entering the BASGIATH protocol, I keep my mouth shut.
Now, especially when I'm beginning to doubt everything Navarre has ever told me about my family, I can't risk getting my squad involved. If I go down, I won't take them with me.
"So what are you going to do about that injury?" Rhiannon returns her attention to me.
If I want to stay out of a hospital, I don't have many options, but the one I do have is unappealing, at best.
I sigh. "I think I'll have to brave the safe house."
Rhi's eyes flare and Sawyer tenses from where he's seated.
"No fucking way. He'll kill you as soon as you cross the door," he growls.
"He'll try." I sound a lot more confident than I feel. My friends look at each other with a look that tells me they don't believe a word that's coming out of my mouth, which is smart, on their parts. "And before you tell me it might be better to risk the hospital, it's not an option. So unless you have any other ideas, I'd rather just brave whatever is coming for me."
Rhiannon considers me for a moment before she stands from the couch, and I hear the jingle of her keys. "Fine. But if you don't check in every hour between now and when you leave that place, I'm getting on the first flight over there. Are we clear?"
"Yes ma'am," I reply with a grin. "Where are you going?"
She smirks, and I'm suddenly reminded of why exactly she was considered the second-deadliest of us while we were in training. Every line of her hums with lethal energy.
"The armory. If I have to kill Jack fucking Barlowe for killing you, I want to make sure I have the gear to make him stay dead."
I seriously debate turning back as I stand outside the safe house and steel myself for the inevitable confrontation with the one person alive who hates me more than just about anyone. Which is saying something.
The NIA maintains safe houses for its operatives in every major city on the Continent, including Draithus. Saying that it's actually located in the city, however, might be a bit of a stretch. It had taken me damn near two hours to make it out here, mostly due to traffic, and my Uber driver was not happy about it.
My entire body still hurts, and I know I'm in no shape for a fight, which is partially why I continue to hesitate on the doorstep of the dilapidated house. Jack has been stationed here for six months, but I doubt the time apart has dulled his desire to skewer me alive. If there isn't anyone else here right now, he might actually be able to do it, given out out of it I am.
I give myself a shake and knock on the door seven times - two short raps followed by three longer knocks, and then two more short ones. I hear a faint whirring, and the knocker flips around to reveal a retina scanner. I stare straight at it and a moment later, I hear the thunk of the door unlocking.
I stumble into the bare living room, which is covered in a layer of dust from disuse. I wrinkle my nose as I fight off a sneeze - would it kill Jack to clean up here? Probably, now that I think about it. I don't think he knows how to do anything other than be homicidal.
I move towards the lone bookshelf in the room. I have to sigh at how clichéd it is as I pull on the specific book that makes the bookshelf swing open. For an agency that boasts the most impressive tech in the world and an unrivaled budget, sometimes the NIA's methods are surprisingly primitive.
Dust swirls around me as I descend down the stairs the bookshelf revealed into the darkness below. I can hear the chatter of voices and I feel a trickle of relief - it'll be a lot harder for Jack to kill me with an audience. After reaching the bottom of the stairs I take a deep breath, inhaling the earthy smell of this basement and grounding myself, before reaching for the door handle and flinging it open.
Three sets of eyes swivel to me - all of which I'm familiar with. Shit. So much for more eyes equalling less of a chance of dying.
"Sorrengail," Jack hisses. "What are-"
"Down, boy," I growl. "I'm not in the mood for your shit right now. Where's the medic?"
Caroline Ashford's eyes dart between me and Jack, and I can see Tynan beginning to reach for a dagger. I shift my attention to my former squad mate.
"You pull that knife, Tynan, and I'll make sure it's the last thing you do." I say calmly. He freezes like a deer in headlights. There's a reason I put the fear of Malek into every trainee I graduated with, and I'm determined to use that reputation to my advantage to keep them from attacking me.
Unlike before, I won't hesitate to kill him now.
The room is crackling with nervous energy. No one moves as we all wait to see what the others will do. Then, it dissipates as a familiar voice cuts through the room.
"Violet?" I blink as Nolon steps into my line of vision, but my surprise quickly morphs into gratitude. No wonder Jack didn't attack me on sight - no one in their right mind would piss him off. He's just as good with poisons as he is with medicines. "By the gods, you look like you've had quite the day!"
"That's one way of putting it," I say with a grimace. "Can you take a look at my head?"
His gaze immediately narrows on my injury, and he lets out a sharp breath. "Let's get you to the back. I want to hear what happened."
Once I'm settled in the back office that doubles as Nolan's exam room, the elderly field medic begins peppering me with questions as he pokes and prods at my wound.
"I got caught up in the bombing that happened earlier today," I explain when he asks how I managed to gash my head open. His eyes widen in alarm for a moment before he returns his full attention to my head.
"Awful that that happened," he remarks, and his voice sounds strained. "I'm just glad you made it out relatively unharmed."
I have to laugh at that. Only at the NIA would we consider my litany of major and minor injuries relatively unharmed.
We fall into comfortable silence as Nolon first stitches up my head, and then diagnoses me with a minor concussion, as I'd suspected. He lectures me about taking it easy and hedges the idea of me returning to Navarre.
"You know I can't do that," I say with a shake of my head, which now feels much better now that I'm not profusely bleeding. "I still have a mission to complete."
Or at least, I need to figure out how to make it look like I completed my mission. I'm not sure I can let Devera die, now that I know she might know more about what happened to Dad.
Nolon looks resigned, but clears me to go on my way. Jack and his cronies are glaring daggers in my direction as I silently pass them on my way to the stairs.
"Be careful out there, Sorrengail," Jack calls out when my hand is on the doorknob. "The world isn't kind to fragile, breakable things, now is it?"
I don't bother turning around. I just flip him the bird.
The next day, I leave my hotel on a mission.
Literally.
I spent almost an hour in the shower after I returned to my room last night, scrubbing the blood and grime from my skin and hair until I felt red and raw, but at least I look like myself again as I step outside. It's blustery, the wind whipping the few strands of hair that escape my coronet braid as the sun beams down, but the streets lack all of the joyful energy that permeated them yesterday.
The quiet stillness is just one of many reminders of how a festival dedicated to the god of luck managed to mark a massacre.
I glance down at the small device I hold in my hand. To my surprise, the tracker I planted on Devera was still active when I checked it's location this morning.
That could only mean one of two things - she wants me to find her, or she's ditched it someone to lead me off her trail.
I make my way towards the nearby subway station - the tracker has her on the west side of town, and I'm on the east side. I can still smell the slight scent of smoke in the air as I walk, and it makes me feel sick.
I don't have to wait long before the train arrives, and 30 minutes later I'm stepping back out into Draithus' financial district. Unlike the area I've been staying in, this place is still bustling with activity. Men and women in well-pressed suits pass by me; chattering on the phone or talking in hushed tones to a companion. I look at the tracker again. She isn't far.
I pick up my pace as I round a corner onto the main thoroughfare. Before long I'm almost right on top of her, and I round another corner onto a tight, but deserted, side street.
No one is here.
I curse. She must have dropped the tracker, like I thought. I begin making my way down the street, eagle eyed as I try to find the device. After a few minutes of searching, a flash of white catches my eye in a planter.
My tracker isn't the only thing she left behind.
Written out on a scrap of paper is a cypher, and a yet another fucking note.
Violet,
I'm assuming you survived that little attack in the square yesterday. Something like that isn't capable of killing you. I'm sure you tried to track me down because you have questions, but I'm afraid I don't know much more than you do. Your father entrusted me with that letter before the NIA got their hands on him, and he told me where I could steal the rest of those documents.
Knowing you, you are questioning everything you have been told. Good. That will help keep you alive. Navarre has spies everywhere, and doubtless they have already reported your failure to eliminate me to the agency. They will come for you next. Be prepared, and do whatever it takes to survive.
Find Xaden Riorson. And try not to kill him, although I'm sure you'll be tempted. He certainly seems to have that effect on people. Together, I know the two of you will be able to figure out this mystery your families have gotten you mixed up in. I trained you for this. You have every tool you need.
Till we next meet,
Devera
A somewhat hysterical laugh rips from my throat before I can help myself. Devera is a dead end - she's in the wind, and it'll be impossible to track her down with my current resources. And from the sounds of it, even if I do track her and kill her now, Navarre is suspicious of me; of what I may know. I'll have to sleep with one eye open, for the rest of my likely-short life.
Fuck me.
I consider shoving the letter into my pocket, but I don't want to risk getting caught with it. That would definitely get me killed. I resolve to burn it when I return to my hotel to get my belongings. There's no point in staying in Draithus any longer.
Completing my mission doesn't matter now. A slow smile curves my lips as I reread each line of the letter. It leaves me with way more questions than answers, but at least I have a direction now. And a cypher I can try and use to decode some of those documents.
First, I return to Calldyr and do damage control.
Then, I track down Xaden Riorson.
Notes:
Hi besties, I did not anticipate being able to get this chapter done yet here we are lol. Can't stop won't stop.
Rhiannon! Sawyer! Squad dynamics! BASGIATH makes it first real appearance! JFB is a lil bitch! Devera is in the wind! Violet now knows Xaden's name! It was a bit of a slower chapter, but its setting us up for the things to come :) we're getting closer and closer to castles crumbling's version of the airport meeting that we all know and love from TFTAB. when we actually get to that point, those chapters will come out pretty quick, bc they will only require minor rewrites from what I already have (although I'm considering writing more of it from violet's pov, but I think it makes more sense to still have most of it from Xaden's pov, since he has more of a reason to doubt her motives than she does at this point)
as always STAY TUNED
(minor edit: I realized after I posted that I forgot to replace oren's name with Caroline ashford's, so that little error is now fixed. apologies to the like 40 of you that read this before the edit)
Chapter 5: Antithesis
Notes:
HOO BOY WE'RE BACK
Sorry for the longer head time between chapters. I got the idea for a one shot and had to write it while I still had the inspiration, but now we're back and Violet is ready to stab someone (she always is, to be fair).
Without further ado :)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Four Years Ago
I think I'm going to die today.
It's a thought I've had a thousand times in the three months since I arrived in the hellhole more commonly known as the BASGIATH protocol, but that doesn't make it any less true.
Three months in, marked by countless attempts on my life. I've been lucky so far, especially considering I'm easily the most-targeted out of everyone here. I've been able to wound, maim, and stab my way to safety without actually killing anyone. Rhiannon, Sawyer, and Ridoc are the only reason I'm still alive.
I'm the only one left in the protocol who hasn't offered a soul of to the gods since we were dropped in that maze.
Now, three months in, today may be the day Malek has decided to claim mine.
"You have nowhere to run," Oren Seifert croons. He and the five others he brought with him block my way to the door. "You didn't actually think you'd make it to graduation, did you?"
I was awoken from my sleep to a dagger sailing towards my midsection. If it wasn't for the fact that I'd taken to wearing the vest Mira gave me as I slept, I'd already be dead. But now I'm cornered, six against one, and no one is coming to help me this time.
I think I'm going to die today.
"I have a better chance than you." It's all bluster. I know it. He knows it. Everyone knows it.
I was doomed from the start.
Oren laughs, withdrawing another dagger from the many sheathes strapped to his body. "Not when its six against one, you don't."
"I didn't realize you fought Jack's battles for him, Oren," I mock, my own knife gripped tightly between white knuckles. The other one I had is lodged in the thigh of one of my assailants, who is whimpering on the ground as they try to staunch the bleeding. "You do errands for a coward now?"
"Jack has nothing to do with this," Oren hisses, and I can tell from the way he tenses that I've gotten under his skin. His inferiority complex when it comes to Jack is more than apparent. It doesn't matter though. All I'm doing is making my death more certain, at this rate. "All you're good for is your points!"
He lunges at me and I duck under the knife, the blade sailing harmlessly over my head, but before I can even think about fighting back, Oren has me in a neck lock. HIs dagger is precariously close to the soft skin of my neck, and I keep my breathing shallow to avoid pricking myself.
"You're... a coward... just like him," I huff, each breath more painful than the last thanks to the blow I took to my ribs. "You'd never come after me yourself, because you know you'd lose."
I'm playing with fire here. But I don't care. If I'm going to die, I might as well die pissing Oren off.
"You shut your damn mouth," Oren barks, the dagger pressing closer to my neck. He leans in, whispering in my ear. "You never should have come here Sorrengail. You're a failure. You're weak. You'd fail at everything you tried. You can't even kill anyone." He laughs. "You're a mistake. I'd kill you even if I didn't get points, simply to correct that."
His words manage to press at every insecurity I have, but instead of deflating me, all it does is kindle a type of rage I've never felt before.
Don't leave me an only child. Mira's final words come back to me with frightening clarity.
And Dad. I still don't know what happened to Dad.
Didn't I say I'd do anything to get answers? Anything to find my father?
Fuck. This. If I'm destined to die, then I'm bringing Oren with me.
"Fuck. You." I growl. Something snaps inside of me, and the rage I feel towards this entire fucking place that I've been holding back is unleashed. I will not just lie down and let them kill me. Before I can change my mind, I reverse my grip on my dagger and plunge it into Oren's thigh. He releases me with a shout, and I don't give him the chance to recover, spinning around and pressing the dagger to his own neck.
"I may be a failure, but let me correct you on one thing," I growl. Oren opens his mouth, but words don't leave them as I slash my dagger across his throat and crimson rain floods down. His eyes widen and a garbled sound escapes his throat as he collapses.
He's dead before he hits the floor. I should feel remorse. I don't.
All I feel is anger, hot and controlling. How dare they attack me in my sleep - the one time I'm supposed to be guaranteed safety? How dare they look down on me just because I'm small? How dare they assume I'm less than just because I'm not like them?
I turn back to the five remaining assailants in my room. They're frozen, looking at me like deer in headlights.
"Who wants to attack this mistake next?" I ask calmly. The girl closest to me unfreezes, and lets out a scream as she hurls herself towards me.
I have to sigh. She's fast, but she has no technique. It's nothing for me to dodge each blow, and then I sink my dagger, still slick with Oren's blood, into her stomach. She falls just as quickly.
I push my hair out of my face, and the blood that coats my hands smears on my cheek and forehead.
"You're all fucking dead," I whisper. Fuck them. Fuck BASGIATH. Fuck everyone who has underestimated me. I'm here for a reason. I can't fail. I'm on a mission, and I'll do whatever it takes to accomplish it.
Even murder.
The rest of them charge at me, but it seems that no one yet realizes that I've been holding myself back these last few months. I didn't want to kill anyone - I clung to some tattered notion that I could make it out of here with my humanity intact, having never taken a life.
I realize now how naive that was.
There is a small voice at the back of my head telling me I'm making a mistake; saying that I should stop. I ignore it.
This is about making a point. This is about sending a message. This is about survival.
It's embarrassingly easy to evade their blows with my speed. I pick up the dagger of one of the fallen, and send it sailing into the neck of another. My first dagger finds its home in the heart of someone who comes at me from the side. The last non-injured attacker manages to get behind me, but I let instinct take over, dropping my body weight and hurling them over my shoulder, before dropping to my knees and driving it into their side.
I'm covered from head to toe in blood, but I don't care. The only person in this room other than me still breathing is the trainee I injured in the beginning, my knife still buried in their leg. They're trembling, tears leaking down their face as I approach, my face a cold mask as I stare down at them.
"Please," they whisper. They don't need to say what they're asking for. I'm not giving it. That is not BASGIATH's way.
"You should have considered this possibility before breaking into my room," I say softly, dropping down to my haunches and looking them in the eye. I stab them through the chest before they have a chance to reply.
I watch as the life leaves their eyes, wait a beat, and then take a shuddering breath as I rise back to my feet. My adrenaline begins to fade, nausea rising to replace it as the enormity of what I've done begins to dawn on me. I look around the room, memorizing the faces of each person I just slaughtered.
It's deathly quiet.
I can't help it. I begin to laugh. It's a high pitched, insane sound, and I can't stop. I'm clutching my stomach, and tears leak out of my eyes. I don't know if its from the laughter or the horror at my own inhumanity.
Everything I did in these first three months has been rendered pointless now that there are six dead trainees on my floor. I should have known it would end up like this.
What was the point of my restraint, I wonder, if I was always going to reach this point?
Each face will haunt my dreams. I deserve it.
I'm a murderer now, just like the rest of them.
I hear a banging on my door, and rip it open to find Rhiannon. She startles, no doubt taken aback by my appearance. The blood of the intruders is smeared on my face, spattered on my hair, arms, legs - every inch of me. She leans to the left, looking over my shoulder, and her gaze hardens when it lands on the bodies at my back.
"It's over." My voice sounds tight, and I suddenly feel tired. So tired. "I took care of it."
I hope Malek forgives me for this. I know I won't.
Rhi remains silent, but she opens up her arms, and suddenly I'm being embraced. It takes all of five seconds for the tears to begin to flow for real this time, and then I'm sobbing hysterically. Rhiannon just runs her hand up and down my back, making soft soothing noises.
I cry harder.
I'd fought against it with everything I had, but the monster I feared I'd become is slowly but surely devouring every inch of the Violet that entered this place, leaving behind someone I don't recognize.
"It's going to be ok," Rhi soothes, but her voice is shaking. "We're going to be ok, Vi."
Three months in. Two years and nine months to go.
Present
I have never felt nervous walking into NIA headquarters before. I grew up there, playing in the empty offices of my father's coworkers and generally being a menace until I got too old and the security team told my father he couldn't bring me into secured areas anymore. Even still, I spent hours upon hours of my life in my father's home office in between school and ballet classes, learning how to see past the words on the paper and piece together the real story the data was telling.
The NIA, for all its brutality and secrets and flaws, has always been home; always been somewhere I felt safe, relatively speaking.
Today, I am practically shitting myself as I walk through the doors.
It's a feeling I am rapidly adjusting to. Since I found Devera's note in Draithus, my head has been on a swivel, checking every corner for an errant dagger or hidden foe. For the first time since I graduated, I, Violet Sorrengail, have failed a mission.
And the NIA doesn't take kindly to failure. It will take master level bullshitting to walk out of here unscathed.
The atrium is sunlit as my boots thump across the polished marble floors towards the security checkpoint. This time, Dain isn't here to greet me - a welcome development. I'm completely drained, and today could be the day his constant pessimism about my life and choices drive me to give him a first-hand experience of how deadly I became in the protocol if he pushes me.
I give a tired half smile that I'm sure comes across as a grimace to the security officer as I pass through the checkpoint. My flight home from Draithus didn't get in till past midnight, and it's only 7am now. Combined with the general lack of sleep I got while away, I want to drop. Unfortunately, the longer I put off this debrief, the more suspicious things will seem, and I need every chance I can get today.
I'm so lost in my thoughts that when Rhiannon appears at my side, I startle.
She gives me an alarmed look as she matches my stride. We veer towards the clandestine division. "Damn, Vi. You look like shit."
"You sound like Sawyer," I grumble, but I can't even deny it. I looked at myself in the mirror this morning and almost didn't recognize myself, between the bags under my eyes and the birds nest that is my coronet braid, which I haven't redone in days.
"Are you not going to fill me in on what happened?" Rhiannon gives me a knowing look as we round the corner and the blast door comes into view, flanked by Gwen and Calvin as usual. "All Ridoc was able to tell me was that you were in Draithus."
"You'll hear about it in debrief." It's a deflection and we both know it, judging by how Rhi's eyes narrow on me. I step up to the retina scanner, giving Gwen a cursory nod and staring into the apparatus until it beeps. "It's nothing to worry about."
Well, unless Aetos decides my failure is severe enough to punish me. I'm hoping my long-strings of success will keep that from happening.
"Right." My best friend's tone is equally disbelieving. "Well, once we're done with debrief, come with me to see Mazzie. I need to return some gear."
We step through the blast doors as they slide open with a groan.
"Did she try to get you to test those taser knives of hers?"
Rhi snorts. "You know she did. I won't lie and say that I'm interested, but I was more interested in weapons that would help me settle Barlowe into a permanent dirt bed." The casual way she says it is in wild contrast to the way that I know she is 100% serious.
"Don't let her hear you say that. She'll find a way to make them lethal within a week," I mutter.
The doors have barely shut behind us when Ridoc appears, swooping me into a tight hug before I can dodge his arms. I squawk in protest as he lifts me off my feet and twirls me around, before setting be down.
"Fuck, Ridoc," I hiss. "I'm bruised to shit right now."
"Sorry." He doesn't look the slightest bit apologetic. "Rhiannon told me you got caught in that explosion in Draithus, and then you wouldn't pick up your phone. Glad you're ok."
"Ok is a relative term," I reply.
He snorts. "Clearly. You're even grumpier than usual today."
Sawyer appears on his left, arms crossed and looking troubled.
"Aetos is looking for us," he says as he gives me a once over, likely checking for mortal wounds. "He didn't sound happy."
Rhi glances at me out of the corner of her eye before returning her attention to Sawyer. "He's never happy."
"He's more unhappy than usual," Sawyer amends. "He wants to see all of us in the debrief room." His gaze slides to me, and his mouth presses into a tense line. "Especially you, Violet. I don't know what happened out there, but you've finally managed to get on his bad side."
Shit.
I take a deep breath and steel myself. I'll either walk out of that room having dodged a bullet, or carried out in a body bag. Time to find out which one.
I've known Dain and his father for as long as I can remember. Before Colonel Aetos was transferred to oversee the NIA's clandestine teams, he was my mother's aide, and thus I saw the Aetoses constantly. Dain and I were best friends, climbing trees and playing spy in the backyard, and we were practically inseparable. When we started dating in high school, no one batted an eye. his father told me constantly that he saw me as his surrogate daughter, and even my mother - ever absent and barely interested in the comings and goings of my life - went out of her way to tell me that she approved.
Then Dad disappeared, and I blew up my own life.
At first, I was numb. I didn't put the puzzle pieces together, didn't realize - at least at first - how suspicious his death was, when even I noticed he was looking into something. I went through the motions; pretended everything was ok. Dain was the picture-perfect boyfriend, doing everything he could to cheer me up. He constantly reminded me that he was there for me; that I wasn't alone.
At the time, I appreciated his near constant presence.
Then, I began to suspect that everything wasn't as it seemed, and things changed.
The first time I confided in Dain that I thought there was something more going on with the fire and Dad's sudden disappearance off the face of the earth, he told me that it was natural to question things when grieving. He told me to give it time, and that those feelings and suspicions would go away as I came to terms with the tragedy that had engulfed my family. At first, I believed him - after all, who wants to believe that there might have been nefarious happenings that caused my home to go up in flames?
But time went on, and the suspicions only grew stronger. I knew he had been looking into something; knew that he was nervous about it. Before I'd left for school that day, he'd practically been vibrating with nervous energy, as if he expected something to happen.
I confided in Dain again.
I got a call from a campus therapist.
The argument that came after that was of epic proportions. I couldn't believe he'd go behind my back and have the campus counselor call me. He told me I was clearly struggling to accept what had happened, and that I needed to talk to someone who could help me.
I felt like I was going insane. And maybe, in certain ways, I was. I had already endured so much loss in my life - who could really blame me? I talked to the therapist. I tried to move on. Dain and I went back to normal - or as normal as could be when I suspected he thought I was unstable.
Then I got the letter and the key. I found the safe. And I knew I wasn't crazy.
I mulled it over for months. When I finally decided to act on the small lead I had - the one that pointed to the clandestine division as being involved in whatever it was that my father was looking into - by joining the NIA as an operative, Dain and I argued again. He was in the middle of officer training for the military and thriving. He begged me to reconsider. He told me my physical condition would only put me in danger. He said I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
I told him to fuck off.
I didn't talk to him again for three years. When I graduated from the protocol the top of my class, and he became the handler for our squad, I wasn't the sweet and smart Violet he dated.
No, that Violet had been crushed under a boot, only pulp and color remaining. The Violet that emerged from the protocol was hardened and brutal. She had muscles where there were none before. She commanded fear and respect when the Violet of old would barely be noticed in any room she walked into. She was willing to do anything and everything to accomplish her goals. She'd killed to prove it.
Dain still hasn't come to terms with the person I became, stubbornly stuck on the person I was. The person he wants me to be.
His father, on the other hand, has seemingly had no issues with the drastic changes I've undergone.
Your mother must be so proud, he told me at my graduation. I didn't bother to tell him that I hadn't spoken to her since the day I arrived for my training. I didn't bother telling him I was ashamed of myself, and that I secretly hoped my mother was to.
Aetos had no qualms sending me to assassinate dissidents and gang leaders; whistleblowers and foreign dignitaries. Every time I departed, he would send me off with a smile. When I returned, he greeted me with commendations and a fresh assignment.
If I didn't know any better, I'd think didn't even notice the differences between my former self and who I am today. He treats me exactly the same. He teasingly asked once when Dain and I would get back together. I told him it wouldn't be any time soon, and his disappointment was clear. And even with all of my changes, letting him down produced a twinge in my gut that I didn't particularly like.
But I'd take that disappointment from before over the barely concealed contempt I'm now facing down in the debrief room.
The four of us stand at attention in a line. We'd learned quickly after graduation that despite the NIA not being military, Colonel Aetos expected some vestiges of his organization to be reflected in the way we conducted outselves. Thus, we stand at attention like soldiers, despite being far more than that.
"Sorrengail." I straighten when Aetos' attention finally lands on me. His eyes hold none of that familiar warmth and friendliness. No, he looks like he'd murder me right now if he could.
Let him try. He'll find out fast how much of a mistake that would be.
"Yes, Colonel Aetos," I reply. The words taste like ash in my mouth. I'm physically fighting my own body to keep from shaking. There's an icy pit in my stomach that grows and grows with each passing minute. I cannot let my nerves get the better of me.
"Please explain to me what you most recent assignment was." There is something cold and violent in his eyes. It makes my stomach turn.
"I was sent to the Poromish city of Draithus to eliminate a defector who had stolen top secret data," I recite.
His eyes narrow on me. "And who was this defector?"
Shit. I didn't want the others to find out. But I have no choice now.
"Major Devera, sir."
Rhiannon doesn't so much as stir, but I hear the sharp intake of air she pulls in through her nose.
"Indeed." Aetos is pacing in front of us, arms clasped behind his back. His black military uniform is impeccable, his shoes shined so that I could see my own reflection in them. "So tell me, Sorrengail, why is it that Major Devera is still alive?"
The cold fury that emanates off of his body is impossible to miss. This is going poorly.
"Sir-" I start, but he holds up a hand to silence me. I see Ridoc bristle out of the corner of my eye, and I silently will him to stay still. Pissing off Aetos is not advisable for anyone.
"I asked you before you departed if your personal connection to Devera would pose any issues," he says softly, intruding on my personal space and leaning forward. "You told me no. Were you lying to me, Sorrengail?"
"No." It's not a lie, not technically. I would have had no issues taking Devera out, regardless of our personal ties, if she didn't have information I desperately need.
His eyes flash, and a smile I would have considered friendly were it not so menacing curves his lips. Is he enjoying this? "No...?"
I grit my teeth. "No, sir."
"Tell me, then, how you, supposedly the best operative in this division, failed to kill her?"
Some lies are best told as truths.
"Devera trained me," I shrug as nonchalantly as I can, and work to keep the grimace off my face when the movement irritates some of the worst of my bruising. "She knows every trick in my book. I was able to obtain and destroy the hard drive she stole before she disappeared, though, so the mission wasn't a total failure."
Aetos' eyes narrow on me. "You do not decide if a mission was a failure or not, Sorrengail. I do. And this mission was a failure."
Shit. If looks could kill, I'd be dead ten times over. My squad mates are shifting uncomfortably around me, clearly noticing that this is not going well.
"And tell me about the explosion you got caught in, if you would?" He asks the question casually, but there is an undercurrent to his tone that is setting me more on edge than I already am. I blink rapidly. Why does he want to know about that?
"Is there anything is particular you want to know?" I question. "Draithus isn't the first Poromish city that's been bombed recently."
I spent the entire plane ride home researching the string of bombings. They started in the far east - an area known as the Barrens due to its sparse population - and have slowly been making their way west. The blast I got caught in was by far the most deadly. Publicly, no one seems to know who is causing them, or why.
It's one of the many things I plan to interrogate Jesinia about later. But that will only happen if I make it out of here in one piece.
"Did you notice anything in particular?" Aetos asks. "Such as the perpetrator or the type of bomb they used?"
Something isn't right here.
"No." I shake my head. Something tells me it's a bad idea to tell him that I saw the bomber, even for a moment. It's the first real and true lie I've told today. "I was getting coffee before going out to search for Devera again. I heard screams, and then the bomb went off. I didn't see anything. I got injured, and had to spend the day getting treated by Nolon at the safe house."
"I see." His words remain icy, but he finally steps away from me, examining me like I'm a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of his shoe.
"Your reputation precedes you, Sorrengail," he continues. He moves towards the door. This meeting is clearly over. "You would do well to make sure a similar failure does not happen again. This is the first and only warning, for you and the rest of your squad."
Translation: I fuck up again, and I won't be the only one six feet under. They'll take my squad out too, just by virtue of our affiliation.
The door slams shut behind him, but the all-consuming dread I feel stays in the room, threatening to drag me under.
"The fuck was that about?"
Rhiannon didn't speak a word to me, all but hauling my ass down to the armory and locking us in the weapons room. Now she stands in front of the door, arms crossed. Ridoc pretends to inspect a simple short sword, while Sawyer leans up against the wall and watches in silence.
"Care to be more specific?" I know exactly what she's talking about. I just don't want to talk about it.
My best friend clearly doesn't pick up on that, eyes blazing. "You were assigned to kill Devera and didn't think to mention it to the rest of us?"
Ridoc glances up from the sword he's handling, but doesn't interject. Sawyer merely sighs.
"It wasn't worth mentioning at the time," I argue back. "What would you have done if I had told you? Because let's not forget that you weren't even in contact when I was sent out. The first time I'd even talked to you in a week was after the explosion. There wasn't exactly a good point for me to say, 'Oh hey! I'm here to kill the woman that made sure our asses didn't get murdered while we were in the protocol - what are your thoughts?'"
"Violet, I get that you're trying to look out for us - I do - but you can't keep doing shit like this." Rhiannon lets out a sharp sigh. "One of these days they're going to send you out on a mission and you're never going to come back and we won't even know where to look for your body because you refuse to loop us in!"
"That's if there's even a body to find," I mutter. Her eyes flare, and she's advancing on me like a damned predator.
"Exactly!" She yells, gesturing with her hands. "The company keeps sending you on these dangerous fucking missions that even long-time operatives would struggle with, and they're sending you alone. Do you know how scared I was when I saw you on the phone? You looked like you were halfway dead already and were acting like it was nothing!"
We're toe-to-toe now. Rhiannon is pissed, but I'm not budging. Ridoc keeps glancing between the two of us, and Sawyer pushes away from the wall and approaches us.
"Ok you two, that's enough." He comes between us, putting space between me and Rhi. "Violet, can you at least acknowledge that you're acting in a way that is really worrying for the rest of us?" He turns to Rhi. "And Rhiannon, can you at least acknowledge that there would have been nothing you could have done anyways had you known the specifics of Violet's mission?"
I huff. "Fine." I push up on my tip toes to see over Sawyers shoulder and meet Chi's eyes. "I know I'm acting in a way that worries you, and I'm sorry for that."
The sigh that leaves Rhiannon's mouth sounds like it was dragged from her soul. "I know there was nothing we could have done even if we had known more about your mission."
"Great!" Ridoc claps his hands together, sword all but abandoned. "Now that we're all friends again, can we please go eat something? I'm starving."
Rico's energy is infectious, and I can't help but grin. "You guys go ahead. I'm going to go talk to Jesinia."
"You sure?" Sawyer raises an eyebrow in my direction, and I respond by herding my squad mates to the door.
"Save me a pudding cup!" I call after their retreating backs, before turning and walking in the opposite direction.
There's an elevator at the far end of the armory. It descends deep into the earth, and I used to think I would ride it every day, back when I thought I'd be an analyst. Now, I only take it down to see Jesinia.
The elevator is silent as it goes deeper into the ground. I'm about to take a massive risk, but I also don't know who else I can turn to. I'm fairly certain that the note Devera left me in Draithus contains the cypher for at least one of the coded documents that were on that thumb drive, but I'm not entirely certain what kind of cypher it is, which makes it difficult for me to begin to solve.
Jesinia, on the other hand, will almost certainly be able to tell. The idea of telling anyone about the coded messages makes my skin crawl, but unless I know exactly what kind of decryption method I need to use, it could take me weeks or even months to figure out what the messages say. I don't have that kind of time, not with Aetos now breathing down my neck.
And I still need to find Xaden Riorson. That's another thing Jesinia can help me with.
The doors slide open with a ding, depositing me in the dark underground room that serves as the central hub for the NIA's intelligence analysts. The only light here is cast off by computers and the wall of screens displaying information that takes up one massive wall. All of the information that flows into the NIA comes through this room.
I spot Jesinia signing furiously to two others - her assistants, I think. The tense lines on her face tells me they've managed to annoy her.
"-expect this report to be fixed by the end of today," she signs quickly. Her eyes meet mine, and a smile bursts forth on my oldest friend's face. She dismisses the other two, and rushes up to me.
"Violet!" she signs, and I grin. It's been too long since I've seen her.
"It's good to see you," I reply. "Can I get your help with something?"
She leads me into an empty conference room, and I make sure to lock the door behind us, earning me a curious look.
"I need two favors," I start. No going back now. "First, can you look at this and tell me what kind of decryption this cypher is supposed to be used for?"
I pull out a piece of printer paper with the cypher I painstakingly copied onto it by hand this morning and set it in front of her. She frowns as she inspects it, brows furrowing.
"Where did you get this?" she asks after a moment, looking back at me.
"Classified." I reply instantly. She gives me a dirty look, but doesn't press, which I'm grateful for. "I just need to know how to use it."
"This is an old method," she signs slowly. "This would have been a standard code breaking method 20 or 30 years ago, I'd guess."
If these documents were written by my father, like the first note was, then that isn't surprising.
"Do you know how I can use it?" I press. She considers for a moment, before nodding.
"You need to assign each letter of the keyword a number, from closest to the start of the alphabet to the furthest," she explains. "Then you input the five-letter phrases in numeric order. Once you've done that, you pull them off by row and repeat with the second keyword. If done properly, you should be able to decrypt the message."
I frown. "But this only has one keyword."
"Yes. You'll need to find the second keyword before you'll be able to fully decrypt whatever it is you have."
Motherfucker. Devera couldn't make my job easy just once?
She draws an example for me on the other side of the paper, and I watch silently as she solves it. At least once I figure out the second keyword, I'll know how to solve it.
"Thank you," I sign.
"What's the other favor?"
"I need a file on someone, but I don't want anyone to know." Jesinia cocks an eyebrow in my direction. "Can you do that for me?"
It isn't lost on me that I've just asked Jesinia to break every rule and procedure we get taught as analysts. Always track the data.
She hesitates for just a moment before nodding. "Of course. Who's file?"
I take another deep breath.
"Xaden Riorson's."
That night, the rain comes down in droves and thunder shakes my cramped apartment. I pay it no mind. The sound of storms is comforting to me.
The file Jesinia gave me sits in front of me on my bed. I haven't so much as peeked at what's inside of it yet. I'm a little scared of what I'll find. I have no idea why Devera wanted me to find him, but he clearly knows something about my dad. I can't think of any other reason why Devera would insist I find him.
Jesinia was more than alarmed upon hearing the person I was looking into, more than aware of my family's history with the Riorsons.
Are you sure? she'd asked me wide-eyed. I wasn't. I'm not sure of anything these days. But there was nothing more I could do other than give her a tight smile and a nod.
Lightening flashes as I finally reach for the manila folder. It's thick - heftier than most files the NIA keeps on people.
Which means they're watching him. Or they have, in the past.
Thunder crashes when I open the folder. Clipped to the front is a photo, which I immediately yank free for closer inspection.
For the son of someone widely condemned as a murderer, he is beautiful.
The image is his official military photo, taken at the beginning of his training. It's clearly a few years old - there's still just the slightest bit of baby fat on his face. It was taken - I glance through the papers to find out when he joined up - four years ago.
I frown at the date. He joined up less than a month from when the letter and key arrived on my doorstep.
I dive back into the file. Xaden Riorson. Son of Fen and Riona Riorson, both deceased. Came from money, and his parents made even more of it. Fen was a general, while Riona's occupation is redacted. It's something to look into later, and I keep going. His birthday is March 6; he just turned 26 years old. After joining the military, he graduated top of his class from officer's school and chose to go into special operations.
I pause, my eyes scanning the summary of his advanced training.
No wonder Devera talked about him like he was familiar - she trained him too.
After he completed his training, he was assigned to the air force's Fourth Wing, and leads its squad of special ops commandos. He's trained for undercover insertions and is an extremely skilled liar.
I flip through his military records, but there isn't much of value, other than repeated observations that he is an effective leader and gifted soldier. The real treasure trove of information is at the back of the file - the notes and observations of whatever NIA operative had him under surveillance.
Below are my observations of the subject. Xaden Riorson is not only ruthless to a fault, he is dangerously unpredictable. He leads his squad with precision, but it is not lost on me that many members of his squad are fellow orphans from the Sorrengail Incident. This, combined with his frequent trips to Poromiel, lead me to believe further observation is warranted. He is extremely charismatic, and has been observed meeting with members of Poromiel's political elite. He acts with near impunity within the wing due to his reputation, and thus I believe more attention must be paid to his activities on- and off-duty to ensure he is not planning actions similar to that of his father.
Well. Sounds like this Xaden fellow isn't going to be an easy one to get alone with. My eye catches on the author of the report, and I freeze. Dain wrote this. Since when did he spy on military operatives - hell, since when did he spy on anyone at all?
As I try to settle down to sleep, my mind is racing. There is so much I don't know. My father was caught up in something, and it had gotten him into trouble, if Devera is to be believed. Xaden Riorson, the son of the man who allegedly killed my brother, is now the only person who can help me.
I settle further into my blankets. Tonight, I sleep. Tomorrow, I hunt down a charismatic and dangerously unpredictable undercover solider who, according to Devera, I'll likely want to stab.
My work phone once again goes off at 4:30 a.m.
I groan, shoving it up to my ear as I sit up and blink the sleep from my eyes.
"What?" I grumble.
"Aetos is calling you in." It's Sawyer's voice on the other end of the line.
For fucks sake. I can't even have a full night off.
"Why?" I push myself from my bed, making my way to my clothing rack to pull on my mission suit.
"You're being sent out again," he says, and I can hear the tension in his voice. "I asked to go with you, but-"
"It's fine, Sawyer."
"No, it's not." He drops his voice to a whisper. "Jack Barlowe is here. He's going with you."
Motherfucker.
Notes:
WE'RE GETTING CLOSE TO THE AIRPORT CHAPTERS BESTIES
as always, you can check out my Tumblr (same name at my AO3!) for previews of my writing. I post a lot on there about my progress!
Chapter 6: Tales from First Class
Notes:
y'all. it is TIME. TO THE AIRPORT.
a reminder that while a lot of these next few chapters will be very similar to TFTAB, the story is different and therefore there will be changes to fit with the story and pacing.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
I have a distinct sense of deja vu when I arrive at headquarters.
Dain is pacing circles into the floor when I step into the atrium, his head snapping up when he hears my approach.
"Vi-" he starts, but I cut him off.
"I'm not in the mood, Dain."
I march towards the security checkpoint. I go through the motions. Jacket off. Knives in bin. Step through metal detector. Step back through metal detector. Put dagger I forgot in my boot into bin. Step back through.
Dain is hot on my heels as I stalk towards the clandestine division.
"Damn it, Vi, please wait!"
Something about the tone in his voice gives me pause, and I slow just enough to allow him to catch up to me.
"What?" My voice is icy, but from annoyance at being awoken yet again and by how I'm even speaking with him in the first place. Our breakup was far from amicable.
"Jack Barlowe is here-"
"Well aware."
"Jack Barlowe is here and he's going with you on this mission, Vi." Dain looks - shit, he looks terrified. I haven't seen him like that since I told him I was going for field operative instead of analysis. "Do you even know what people are saying right now? They think you-"
I halt, and hold up a hand to shut him up. "I don't give a shit what people say about me, Dain. Now, do you have a point, or can I go find out what suicide mission they're sending me on this time?"
My ex-boyfriend looks stricken, and for half a second I feel guilt for constantly ripping into him. Then I remember how he treated me when I confided in him about my suspicions about Dad, and the guilt evaporates. Dain had his chance. He wasted it.
His hand moves to cup my face - an all-too-familiar motion that he did every day when we were still together.
"Don't touch me," I growl as I dance out of his reach. He clenches his fist as he lets his arm fall back to his side.
"Please just- please be careful, Violet," Dain says softly. "I already lost part of you once when you joined BASGIATH. I don't want to have more of you to mourn."
I turn my back on Dain. I laid my old self to rest a long time ago, but he is still there at the wake, trying to make sense of her demise.
"There isn't much of me left to mourn in the first place," I reply coldly. I don't turn to see if he follows as I walk away.
"Violet," Dain calls out. I keep walking. "You're going to be targeted. You know that, right?"
My stride stutters, but I don't stop. He knows something. He spied on Xaden Riorson for months - something that already has me deeply suspicious. Dain is not my ally, my friend, or anything beyond.
"I'll just have to take your word for it," I reply. I still don't turn around. I won't give him the satisfaction.
He doesn't follow.
Aetos - the one who apparently hates me now - is waiting for me when the blast doors slide open. He issues quick orders to meet him in the debrief room in 10 minutes, his voice containing none of the warmth it used to have, before disappearing through a door. Sawyer takes his place, looking at me with barely contained concern.
"When did Jack get here?" I ask quietly. We're both leaning against an empty wall just outside the debrief room. "I hadn't heard anything about him getting reassigned."
"Around midnight," Sawyer mutters. I follow his gaze, which lands on fucking Tynan. He's standing in the corner, talking in hushed tones with Caroline Ashford and a few others I recognize as being part of Jack's little group back at BASGIATH.
"Dain told me I'm being targeted," I admit.
Sawyer's head whips towards me, eyes wide with alarm. "What?"
Maybe I shouldn't have told him that, but my argument with Rhi yesterday has been bugging me. I wouldn't even be alive right now if it wasn't for them. I need to do better at alleviating their anxiety whenever I can. Being truthful with them isn't easy, and I'm already debating playing this off as a joke.
No. The truth. They deserve it.
"Just now, he told me I'm going to be targeted." I shrug, the material of my tight-fitting mission suit digging into my skin at the motion. "You saw how angry Aetos was during debrief yesterday. I'm only as valuable as the successes of my missions. I'm worthless otherwise."
"Fuck that," Sawyer hisses. "You've never had a failure before - you're better than all of us put together." He eyes me, and I don't like how knowing the look it. "You're hiding something, Violet. I wasn't sure before, but after yesterday, I'm positive."
I try my best not to tense up. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Yes you do." He crosses his arms. "You've been needlessly avoidant since- well, since I met you, but it's gotten worse over the last week, and that's not even addressing this shit with the colonel."
Shit. Shit shit shit.
"I'm not going to pry, Vi, but we'll find out eventually." Sawyer gives me a grin I don't deserve. "The truth always comes out."
As I'm already learning, thanks to this trail my father left me.
I open my mouth to respond; to try to throw him off my scent, but Aetos flings the door open, interrupting me.
"In. Now," he orders, before stalking back into the room. Sawyer merely raises his brows in my direction, and I sigh. Let's get this over with.
The holo projector embedded in the center of the room's conference table is already showing a familiar map of Poromiel when I enter the darkened room, Sawyer at my back. Aetos takes his place at the head of the table, and gestures for me to take a seat. I remain standing, however. Maybe its just the paranoia that years of training and death have given me, but I won't put myself in a position where I'd struggle to defend myself only minutes after his own son told me I'd be targeted over my failure to kill Devera.
Aetos narrows his eyes on me, but quickly returns his attention to the projection, gesturing with his hands so it zooms in on Cordyn, the Poromish capital.
"Your mission," he says smoothly, "Will be to rectify your mistakes."
My eyebrows shoot up, and I see Sawyer tense up out of the corner of my eye.
"You're sending me after Devera again." It's a statement, not a question.
He nods, the unmistakable glimmer of malice in his eyes sending a cold sensation skittering down my spine. "Correct. You finish the mission this time, or..." He trails off and shrugs with a nonchalance I wouldn't be able to manage if I was in his shoes. I know exactly what he isn't saying.
I'll be killed. And knowing the NIA, my squad will follow me.
From the way Sawyer shifts uncomfortably next to me, he's picking up on the subtext too.
"Now we don't want a repeat of your last mission, Violet, so this time we're going to send you with backup." Aetos' smile - the one that usually looked so reassuring and inviting to me - was deceptively kind, and unease that made me feel nauseous accompanied it despite knowing exactly who the colonel would introduce. With almost theatric timing, the door to the debrief room swung open once more, and Jack Barlowe and his familiar gang filed into the room. The smirk Jack shoots my way is downright murderous.
I do my best to portray a facade of calm. "Don't you think this is overkill?" I ask, crossing my arms and plastering a bored expression on my face. "I don't like that I failed either, but adding six people to my mission will only slow me down."
I'm grasping at straws. Even if Jack's orders really are just to help me, and not take me out, he'll still try to take my life. That's just who he is. Some grudges trump orders.
Aetos rounds about the table, stopping just in front of me and peering down his nose in what I'm sure is an attempt to intimidate me. I won't let him see how rattled I am, so I stare back defiantly into those eyes that used to be parental but now only remind me of a snake's.
The colonel's eyes narrow on me. "This isn't negotiable, Sorrengail."
I let out a cold laugh. "Everything is negotiable when you use the right tactics, colonel." My hand drifts to the dagger at my side for emphasis. "If you want this mission done, you don't send in an army. It'll attract too much attention, and I'm not in the business of letting my targets get away because I'm being dragged down by a bunch of inexperienced operatives who have no business being on an op like this."
I see Jack bristle at what I've implied, but Caroline Ashton's hand on his arm keeps him from speaking up, or worse, squaring up.
"Sir, with all due respect, Violet almost never goes into the field with others, much less six people," Sawyer says, stepping forward. "If you don't want her to fail this time around, why put her into a situation with which she isn't used to navigating? She'll be far more successful on her own or with only one or two other people."
Aetos' mouth curls back into a sneer as his attention swivels towards my squadmate, and I have to fight to stop myself from stepping in front of him and taking the brunt of Aetos' ire. Doing that would only make Sawyer look weak, however, and he wouldn't appreciate it the same as how I would be furious if he did the same.
"Mr. Brown, while your opinion is noted, I'm curious as to why you're even here." Aetos' voice is deadly calm as he clasps his hands behind his back. "Last I checked, you weren't assigned to this mission, nor do I intend to assign you. If you have time to be speaking out of turn, wouldn't that time be better spent preparing for your own assignment?"
I mask my own surprise, keeping my expression statue-like. Sawyer hadn't told me he was being sent out again. I shoot him a pointed look that says stand down, and though his mouth tenses, he gives our commanding officer a tight nod before pivoting on his heel and marching towards the door. It slams behind him with enough force to make once of Jack's buddies jump.
Aetos returns his attention to me, a polite smile on his face. He gestures again for the seats surrounding the table.
"Take a seat, Sorrengail." His tone belies no room for argument this time. "And let's get down to business."
Over the course of an hour, I learn about the mission I'm not sure how I'll complete. Devera was spotted in Cordyn less than 24 hours ago, in its seedy east side, and intelligence believes she might try to board a boat to the Deverelli isles within days. Navarre hasn't had diplomatic relations with the Deverelli in decades, which means once she leaves our soil, it will be that much harder to find her.
I can't decide if that's a good or bad thing.
On one hand, if I kill my former teacher this time around, I'll earn myself back into the good graces of the NIA. I could forget everything, and go back to what I know I'm good at. I wouldn't have to worry about a decision I make for myself hurting my squad. On the other, killing her would also kill the only remaining clue that I have about my father. I still have questions about the cyphers, and she might be the only one who has the answers I need.
My thoughts are going in frustrating circles as I consider, the debrief room long since emptied. My two courses of action happen to be the same ones I had before in Draithus. I made a decision then to spare Devera; to let her walk out of that bar. Can I afford to make the same decision now, when Rhiannon, Ridoc, and Sawyer could pay the price?
My head is in my hands, my fingers digging into the tight coronet braid wrapped around my head, when the door opens. I look up, steeling myself for Jack or Aetos, or maybe even Dain, but it's Jesinia. A bolt of relief strikes through me as I stand to greet her.
"You're being sent after Devera again?" Jesinia signs, and my eyebrows shoot up.
"How do you know about that?" I reply.
"That isn't important." Jesinia shakes her head, her dark hair rustling. She glances back at the door nervously, before taking another step closer, her signing growing more urgent. "Xaden Riorson is on your flight to Cordyn."
"What?" In my shock, I say the word out loud. I quickly sign the translation for my friend to understand. "Are you sure?"
She nods. "He's traveling under a false name, but I had set parameters to notify me if someone matching his description was going to fly to Poromiel. I got word not long after I heard you were being sent back out."
I don't want to know how she managed that - if it wasn't for the fact that I'm sure it would freak her out, I would hug her. Then a sobering thought crosses my mind, and I frown.
"Are you being careful?" I ask. "If someone finds out what you're looking into for me..."
"Don't worry." She gives me a tight grin. "I wouldn't do this if I didn't know how to not get caught."
I know Jesinia is more than capable of taking care of herself, yet my anxiety for her wellbeing isn't settled.
I sigh. "Give me what you have. Thank you, Jesinia." I take her hand and give it a squeeze. I don't deserve her friendship. I don't deserve how willing she is to take these risks for me.
As if she read my mind, Jesinia responds, "You're one of my oldest friends, Violet. There is very little I wouldn't do for you." She pulls a ream of paper out of the messenger bag hanging from her shoulder, and would you look at that - an Alex Smith is traveling on my flight, and based on the photo in the manifest, he is indeed Xaden Riorson.
I scan the document for other familiar names, but find none other than my own false name - Violet Baker - and those of Jack and his buddies. My eyes catch on the photos of two others - a Liam Flannery and Garrick Carrigan. I recognize them from Xaden's file - friends of his, I believe.
What are they doing, traveling to Cordyn?
My gaze shifts back to the Xaden's unsmiling photo. I had thought this before when looking at his enlistment photo, but the feeling is every stronger now, as I look at the more recent ID photo accompanying his fake name on the manifest - he looks extremely familiar, but I can't place where I've seen him before.
I look closer at the photo, and can't help but appreciate his chiseled good looks again. Actually, calling them good looks would be grossly understating it - Xaden Riorson might be the most attractive man I've ever seen, and I've never even met the man. His tawny skin and dark, well, everything are the very definition of a turn-on. Compared to Xaden, I can't believe I used to think Dain was attractive.
Gods have mercy on me when I actually meet the man.
If I survive long enough to meet him.
Ugh.
I tear my attention from the manifest and shove it into my own bag.
Jack Barlowe is waiting for me outside when I finally emerge from the conference room, much to my chagrin.
"You're on thin ice, Sorrengail," he croons as I stomp past him. I walk towards the stairs that will lead me down to the armory, hoping he'll catch the hint and leave me alone, but he's as clueless as ever as he rushes to catch up with me.
"The colonel is finally seeing what I've been saying about you from the start - you're nothing, Sorrengail. And if you think that-"
I whirl around and let one dagger fly, then another in rapid succession. I'm not about to have Jack fucking Barlowe get to me - it's high time I remind him of the pecking order. The daggers lodge themselves just below his crotch, embedded in the door that just shut behind him.
"Isn't this a familiar sight?" My voice is deceptively chipper. "Why is that- oh right! I did the same thing while we were in training, and you pissed yourself in front of the entire protocol!"
Jack's cheeks flush red - I've clearly pissed him off. I couldn't care less.
"This is your first and only warning, Jack," I hiss. "I don't give two shits what you think about me, but if you or your lackeys do anything that will compromise my mission, I will make it my own personal mission to kill you, and this time, I'll make sure you stay dead. Don't test me."
I don't bother to wait for his response, turning back over my shoulder and taking the steps two at a time to the armory. It's time to try out those taser-knives.
I spend the rest of the afternoon preparing, which, to Mazzie's delight, included me packing some of her brand-new taser knives into my checked luggage. It's near sunset when I finally settle in at my gate to wait for my flight at Calldyr International Airport. I nurse a weak convenience store coffee as I try to get comfortable in the faux leather seat while I pretend to read a magazine. Jack stares me down from the other side of the cavernous hall, murderous intent clear.
I doubt his mission is actually to help me get to Devera - no, I have no doubt that his real mission is to take me out. Dain, for all of his flaws, wouldn't have warned me the way he did if that wasn't the case. Too bad he won't be able to. Jack might have had the upper hand when we were in the quadrant, but I'm a different person now. Hell, I'm not even a person. Just a killing machine. And I'm very good at my job.
My eyes flit to the side, and I do a double take. Xaden Riorson is strolling down the concourse, accompanied by two equally massive men with matching black clothes and swirling tattoos that take up their entire arms. I can only assume they are Garrick Tavis and Liam Mairi, based on the research I've done into him. All three are lugging massive military-issued backpacks given to members of special ops teams, along with a hard case containing gods-know-what.
Xaden and Liam take a seat, while Garrick dumps his bags and meanders in the direction of the McDonalds a little ways further down.
Xaden's leg is bouncing with nervous energy - the reaction of someone who isn't entirely comfortable or at ease. I look back down at my magazine, trying to distract myself so I don't get caught ogling him.
"Miss Violet Baker, Miss Violet Baker - please report to the podium to speak with a gate agent." I look up from my magazine when I hear my false name over the speaker, glancing again in Xaden's direction before gathering my belongings. I need to figure out how to speak with him - preferably alone - but I have no idea where to even start. I still haven't even figured out what I'm going to do about Devera. "Miss Violet Baker - please report to the podium to speak with a gate agent."
How does one start a conversation about a conspiracy to cover up the deaths of multiple family members? I've read hundreds of books in my life, but never one that could guide me through this particular conversation.
I feel my scalp prickle in that way it does when I'm being watched - although, to be fair, it might just be the wig Ridoc insisted I wear when I FaceTimed him earlier - but I will myself not to turn around. I'm on edge, acutely aware of how Jack's beady eyes stay glued to me. If he gets me alone, it will be very difficult to explain the ensuring mess.
I step up to the podium - thanks to the added height from the boots I opted to wear, I can actually prop my elbows on it, albeit awkwardly - and give the agent my most personable smile. She barely pays me any attention, despite being the one to summon me. I place my boarding pass and fake drivers license on the counter. "I'm Violet Baker - is there a problem?"
The agent's eyes flit up from her computer screen, before looking back, the blue glow illuminating her skin. "You've been upgraded." I hear the whir of a printer and the tearing of paper, and she's shoving handing me a new boarding pass before I can blink. "Check the boarding pass for your new boarding group."
I thank the agent and turn around to walk back to my seat. Xaden is now joined by one other person - Garrick Tavis, I believe - and they appear to be discussing something animatedly between themselves. I see Garrick shrug as he digs into his Big Mac, before looking reasonably outraged when Liam Mairi manages to steal a fry.
I turn my attention back to where I'm going, which isn't back to my original seat, since someone seems to have taken mine. I choose one just next to the podium, settling down and pulling out my phone, opening up my secure chat with Jesinia.
I glance up at Jack, who is still staring at me, and finally make a decision. Jack is here to keep me in line, but if he so much as gets an inkling that Xaden might be related to Devera, he'll go after him too.
"Mr. Alex Smith, Mr. Alex Smith - please report to the podium to speak with a gate agent," the crackling voice over the PA says. "Mr. Alex Smith - please report to the podium to speak with a gate agent."
I glance to my right as Xaden stands - gods, he's tall - and makes his way towards the podium. He's far too relaxed - that nervous energy from before nowhere to be seen. Maybe I'd imagined it? Either way, he has no idea that NIA operatives are swarming this flight. I don't know what he's up to; I don't know what Dain saw in him that made him think he warranted more observation, but I do know one thing - he needs to be on his guard for both of our sakes.
"I need you to do me a favor, but only if you can do it undetected." I type.
"What do you need?" Jesinia replies immediately.
I take a deep breath. If I wasn't committing treason before, with Devera, I definitely am now.
"I need to get a message to Riorson or one of his companions. Could you facilitate that? It would need to be untraceable."
I glance up from my phone. Xaden is leaning against the podium, and the gate agent is stuttering as he hands her his documents, an easy smile on his face. Fake, my mind screams. Everything about that smile is fake, and the words from his file comes floating back into my mind. An extremely skilled liar.
Xaden Riorson is not only ruthless to a fault, he is dangerously unpredictable, Dain had written.
No sooner had that crossed my mind when Xaden shifted, and our eyes met.
Gods, his photos really hadn't done him justice. The flourescent lighting of the airport reflects off the gold flecks in his eyes, and his muscles ripple under the tight fitting black t-shirt he's wearing. His body has clearly been honed to perfection by years of military and combat training, and if I wasn't a consummate professional, I'd swear my mouth was watering.
My eyes catch on the tattoo that peeks out from the collar of his shirt, the black swirls and lines coming up to his jaw before disappearing into the sleeve and reappearing down the rest of his arm. I didn't realize that I had a thing for tattoos. Maybe I didn't before. Now? I definitely have a thing for them.
Just like before, the feeling that I've seen him - that I've met him - is intensifying. He looks so damned familiar.
I'm shamelessly ogling him at this point, and I don't even care. Ok, maybe I care a little. Xaden raises one brow - the scarred one - in a silent question, and I realize that I have not even been the least bit inconspicuous about my staring. I quickly turn away, but I can feel the flush working its way up my chest to my cheeks.
I'm not sure if it's because I'm embarrassed at being caught staring or because he is quite literally the hottest man I've ever laid eyes on. Probably both, if I'm being honest.
Dangerous. Xaden Riorson is dangerous. I know it in the marrow of my bones. And not just because he could probably snap my neck if he got in close enough.
My phone dings, and I glance back at the screen just as Xaden retrieves his documents from a suddenly all-too-attentive gate agent.
"Just connected your phone to Liam Mairi's laptop. It was the only one I could get into remotely."
"Thank you," I reply. I glance up for a moment, just as Xaden passes me without a glance in my direction. Good. As far as I can tell, he has absolutely no idea who I am, and I'd like to keep it that way, at least until we get to Cordyn. I don't want to borrow tomorrow's trouble, and Xaden Riorson has every reason to hate my guts for my last name alone. I'd prefer to have one less murderous asshole on this flight if possible.
I open the chat that Jesinia established between my phone and Liam's computer. I debate what to say; how much to reveal.
NIA agents on board. Proceed w/ caution.
Short and sweet. To the point. Hopefully, this will be enough to keep them from being ambushed or doing something stupid that could tip Jack off to whatever it is they're up to.
Just before I hit send, I pause, then go back and add one last thing - a signature.
NIA agents on board. Proceed w/ caution. -Tairneanach
The old Tyrrish word for lightning - powerful. Both silent and loud. Just what I need this message to be. I hit send before I can change my mind, and pray to the gods for the millionth time that I'm not making some monumental mistake.
I've made a monumental mistake.
When the gate agent told me that I was being upgraded, I'd secretly cheered at the knowledge that I wouldn't be stuck next to Jack for the entire flight. I shouldn't have counted lady fate out, because the alternative is so much worse.
That's because Xaden Riorson sits before me, scrolling through his phone without a care in the world, with his massive military-issued backpack in what is supposed to be my seat like a fucking territorial asshole.
I already hate him on principle. Kind of. It's hard to truly hate him with a face like that.
I clear my throat. "Excuse me?"
No reaction. He keep scrolling through Spotify.
This time I raise my voice, and my tone is clearly annoyed. "Can you move your bag?"
This time Xaden looks up, and I swear he does a double take. Now that we're close up, I know I've seen him somewhere before. It's like the answer is on the tip of my tongue, and it's driving me nuts.
Then the fucker smirks and gestures to the many empty seats left around us. "Plenty of seats around for you to sit in other than this one."
Devera was right - I want to throttle him.
"Well, this is the seat I was assigned. Either you move your bag or I will," I shoot back. It's not a threat - it's a promise. Just because I need his help doesn't mean I'm above bodily harm - he doesn't need an arm to talk, and I'm annoyed enough to break his if he keeps pushing me.
Xaden merely raises an eyebrow.
"I'm pretty sure my bag is heavier than you are, beautiful." That smirk is downright sinful, and I have to fight my body's urge to blush at the endearment. I honestly don't remember the last time anyone called me beautiful. "But be my guest - try not to fall over when you lift it up."
I am about one smart-ass comment from permanently damaging that pretty face of his, flattery or no. I mutter obscenities under my breath as I drop my bag in the seat behind me and move to hoist his bag into the overhead bin, but not before I shoot the nastiest glare I can muster in the soldier's direction.
I don't know what I find more infuriating - how Xaden has the gall to tell me to find a new seat, or that, other than that smirk, his expression has stayed mildly bored our entire conversation.
I haul the bag up, gritting my teeth as I do. I seriously underestimated the weight of this thing. As I tug the bag up onto my shoulder to get better leverage, I realize the error of my ways as I promptly lose my balance, gaining no help from the heeled boots I opted to wear for the flight.
"Oh shit," I exclaim as I begin to fall earthward along with the bag.
I have to admire Xaden for how quickly he moves. In a flash, he's out of his seat, grabbing that stupidly heavy bag with one hand and putting it in the bin. His other arm snakes around my waist, holding my upright at the cost of pulling my body flush with his.
Gods save me. Or kill me. I'll take whichever at this point.
He really is the most devastatingly handsome man I have ever seen. That fact is un-freaking-deniable. Especially now that we're only millimeters apart, at that. The things I'd do to this man if I had the time for things like hookups or flirting or whatever it is normal people do. It's been so long that I'm not even sure I remember the correct order of things anymore.
"I thought I told you not to fall over," he says quietly, his hand tightening on my waist ever-so-slightly. "You're not very good at following directions."
His voice is low and gruff and the exact kind that women would drop their panties for. Myself maybe included. He smells like mint, and leather, and bad ideas, and I am in dangerous, dangerous territory here.
The mission, I remind myself. Dad and Brennan.
"If I had my way, I'd stab you right now and take both seats for myself." I try to sound confident, deadly, threatening - all of which I am and more - but my voice only comes out mortifyingly breathy.
For the love of Malek, I wish I could be struck by lightning right about now.
"You're a violent little thing, aren't you?"
"Only to people who don't know when to look and not touch," I retort instantly. Xaden blinks once, twice, then his arm falls away from my waist and he steps back, glancing up at his bag before settling back into his seat without a word. I feel the distance acutely.
It's going to be a long fucking flight.
Notes:
WHEW. we are so fucking back. next chapter will be Xaden's pov (aka my favorite lol)
first of all, thank you to everyone for being so patient with me with getting this chapter written. my move ended up being a lot more stressful than anticipated, which made it way more difficult for me to find time (or desire) to write. I don't know when the next chapter will be up, but I'm hoping it will be soon! in part bc I have been writing this on very little sleep, there may be some typos or inconsistencies. I think I caught all of them during my read through, but if you notice something, please let me know. my brain is pretty much dead. it's definitely not my best writing, but we're just going with it.
anyone want to take a guess what the next chapter will be named?
Chapter 7: Tales from the Airport Bathroom
Notes:
it's the moment we've all been waiting for: TFTAB THE CHAPTER HAS ARRIVED!!!!!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Xaden
I hate airplanes.
I hate how my knees are always crammed up against the back of the seat in front of me. I hate how there never seems to be more than three inches separating me from the person next to me. I especially hate how it seems to be taboo to recline the seat I paid money for.
Does that make me an asshole? No. But mostly because I already was one.
And yet, despite my hatred, I still find myself sitting outside one of the many boarding gates inside Calldyr International Airport, waiting to board a metal death trap that will hurtle me through the air at 500 miles per hour towards Cordyn.
I don't hate flying itself - just the vehicle that enables it. I'm perfectly fine when parachuting through the air in the dead of night, or that one time I tried parasailing with Garrick while on leave.
No, I just hate planes.
My leg bounces nervously, earning me a sideways look from Liam. He doesn't say anything though, probably because he knows how the circumstances of my father's death haunts me still.
I close my eyes, and it's like seeing the explosion all over again. The can vividly feel the head, the shockwave from the force. I can smell the fuel, the smoke. I wasn't even there, yet I can visualize it perfectly.
Navarre it was an accident, but I'm no fool. He was meticulous about the maintenance of his aircraft. It was no coincidence that the plane exploded with all of his allies on board, right after he'd been accused of Brennan's murder.
I wonder what he'd say if he knew I was sitting in this airport, about to fly in service of my revenge mission, instead of being back in Aretia?
"Miss Violet Baker, Miss Violet Baker - please report to the podium to speak with a gate agent. Miss Violet Baker - please report to the podium to speak with a gate agent," a voice crackles over the PA system, drowning out the hum of chatter.
A flicker of movement in the corner of my vision draws my attention, and I turn my head.
I'm greeted with the sight of quite possibly the most beautiful woman I've ever seen.
A woman who looks unnervingly familiar.
The woman - Violet Baker, I'm assuming, since she's heading for the podium - is small, but has a practiced grace to her movements that suggest she's stronger than she looks. Her skin is paler than I've ever seen, and her hair is an unassuming brown, woven into a loose braid that falls down her back. She's dressed in all black, like me and Garrick and Liam, and her chosen outfit accentuating her curves in a way that is practically mouthwatering.
Something about her feels lethal in the most attractive way possible. There is absolutely nothing about her - physically, at least - that's possible for me to dislike. I feel a distinct heat coil in my gut.
I realize I must have been staring because I hear Liam snicker next to me. I tear my gaze off the tiny temptress and turn back to my foster brother with a glare.
"Humans," SGAEYL mutters in my head.
"Everything good over there, Xaden?" Liam barely manages to contain his laugh this time, his shoulders shaking. "I think you're drooling."
I punch him lightly in the arm, but that's about the extent of my frustration. I think it's impossible for anyone to stay upset at Liam - he's just too damn nice.
"I don't want to hear it," I grumble.
Liam's blue eyes turn towards the small woman, who is still speaking with the gate agent. If it wasn't for the chunky heeled boots she's wearing - also black - then she probably would have had to stand on her tip toes to see the other person's eyes. How can she walk in those things? They hardly look comfortable.
Before Liam can say anything, Garrick returns with a bag of McDonalds clutched in his hand, squeezing himself between the two of us. He glances between the two of us, before seeing the person we're both looking at. A devious grin that immediately makes me wary curls his mouth.
"She's cute," Garrick notes, his head tilting to the side a little before turning back to me.
"Careful Garrick - Xaden likes her." Liam's voice sounds downright gleeful, and I shoot him a look, but it's too late. Garrick's grin grows even bigger.
"Now that is a development. Want me to play wingman?" My best friend waggles his eyebrows at me.
I snort. That's the last thing I need - for so many reasons.
Even if I was interested - which I'm definitely not - I wouldn't need Garrick's help to start up a conversation with her, I'm more than confident enough to do that on my own. I just don't need a distraction when one wrong move could land me and everyone else who is helping me in a six foot hole in the ground, just like my father.
And that's exactly what Miss Violet Baker would be - a beautiful, tempting, hotter-than-sin, completely ruinous distraction. Of that, I am eerily certain, and I'm not about to question my gut on this one.
"Stop fucking around and focus on our job," I retort, forcing myself to relax in my seat. I am acutely aware of the hard cases rest next to our bags on the floor, filled with our latest shipment to Syrena. I can only pray it's enough, but I know it won't be. It never is. I can't get the desperate look on her face from when I saw in Draithus off my mind.
Garrick only shrugs, before tearing into his Big Mac. Liam steals one of his fries, earning him a strangled growl from Garrick as the larger man tries to keep the rest of his fries out of Liam's reach. The sight is so normal and mundane that it almost makes me forget why we're even about the board this plane in the first place.
Almost.
"Mr. Alex Smith, Mr. Alex Smith - please report to the podium to speak with a gate agent," the crackling voice over the PA says. "Mr. Alex Smith - please report to the podium to speak with a gate agent."
I sit there dumbly, too lost in my thoughts about our mission and not registering that I'm the Mr. Alex Smith the gate agent is calling for, until Garrick jabs me with his elbow in the ribs. I shoot up, taking long strides towards the gate podium.
The gate agent glances up from her computer as I approach, and I note the tinge of pink on her cheeks as she appraises me.
"Mr. Smith?" she inquires, and I nod. "Excellent. I just need to see your passport and boarding documents please. It's a random security check."
Just my luck. Hopefully the fake documents Brennan gave us for when we travel to Poromiel will hold up. I keep my expression schooled as I always do, handing her the requested documents with a polite smile. I prop my elbow on the hightop surface as the gate agent clacks away on her keyboard, and my gaze promptly falls back on the brunette from earlier because I just can't seem to help myself.
She's staring back at me.
I have to stop myself from startling, because now that I've seen her up close I know I've seen her before. Her eyes are a mixture of blue and amber, and every time I blink they seem to change color ever so slightly. I cock a single eyebrow in her direction and fight the sudden urge to scratch the tattoo that peeks out from the collar of my black t-shirt. Miss Violet Baker's eyes widen for a millisecond before she turns her head away. I'm close enough to see the pink on her pale cheeks, however, and I feel a strange kind of satisfaction to know that she may be as affected by me as I am by her.
"Here you go!" The gate agent chirps, breaking the spell I was under as she hands my passport and boarding pass back to me. I take them without another word, give a nod of thanks, and walk back to where Garrick and Liam wait, making a point not to look in the brunette woman's direction.
Liam and Garrick are wearing matching shit-eating grins, having no doubt just seen all of that, and I know in the marrow of my bones that they're going to be insufferable for the rest of the trip.
"I need you to explain to me how it is that you got upgraded, but Liam and I are still stuck in steerage," Garrick groans as we trudge down the jet bridge weighed down by our bags.
I smirk. "Having frequent flyer status has its perks. Deal with it."
"Bullshit," Garrick huffs. "You flirted with the gate agent didn't you? That's the only logical explanation."
I snort. I was too distracted by the brunette in all black to even pay attention to the gate agent, much less flirt with her, but I'm not about to say that out loud. Garrick can believe what he wants - although, he probably knows I didn't, given that he and Liam watched the entire interaction as if it was the Love Is Blind show they're obsessed with these days.
"Get a move on, assholes, we don't have all day," Liam says cheerfully from behind us. I rearrange my features into a neutral expression as we approach the aircraft door.
That nervous energy from earlier returns in full force, and I force myself to think of that hillside in Aretia that always helps me stay calm in stressful situations. I imagine how the breeze feels on my cheeks; how the grass smells after a long period of rain, and I feel myself regain some control over that anxiety. Control is everything, and I need to maintain it at all times for this mission.
The plane we're boarding is large, one of the ones with two aisles instead of one. I take a deep breath as I cross the threshold, maintaining that mental picture of my hillside to stay calm. Liam and Garrick split off to the right, the blonde clapping me on the shoulder. That's the extent of the acknowledgement Liam gives to my anxiety, and I prefer it that way.
I veer left into first class, and find my seat in the third row. I have a window seat, with plenty of room to stretch my legs in front of me. I'm not the praying type, but I still silently thank whatever god decided to smile down on me today that I'm not stuck in the rear with my knees pressed up against the back of the seat in front of me.
I plop my backpack into the seat next to me, not bothering to stow it above. There are 20 seats in first class, and only five of them, including mine, are occupied. I'd be shocked if I have a seat mate.
I set about my usual routine whenever I fly - I pull out my earbuds and eye mask, so I can hopefully get some sleep while we fly. As much as I hate airplanes, I love the sensation of flying. The only part of flying that I still enjoy is taking off; how it feels when I'm suddenly pressed into my seat as the plane sudden accelerates down the runway. Ironic, considering takeoff and landing are quite literally the two most dangerous points of air travel. Even more ironic considering my father died during takeoff. Once we're in the air, however, the eye mask will come down, and I'll try to shut out the world around me.
I've settled into my seat and I'm scrolling through my music when a female voice grabs my attention.
"Can you move your bag?"
I look up from my phone, and almost do a double take. I know where I've seen her. It's the woman from Draithus - the one who, inexplicably, ran towards the bomber. The one who tried to protect Valerie. The one who I've been wondering about in the few days since.
Violet looks annoyed as she stares at me expectantly. Even wearing boots that add a solid three to four inches of height, she's no taller than I am despite being seated.
"Plenty of seats around for you to sit in other than this one," I drawl, keeping my expression as neutral as possible while gesturing at the very empty seat behind her. I can't have her anywhere near me. I can't afford the distraction, and now that I know who she is, the distraction factor just ratcheted up by 10.
Something flashes in her gaze, and a secret thrill races down my spine, which just goes to prove my damn point - asking for trouble. Her eyes are fucking gorgeous, though - just as beautiful as they had been when I first saw them in that alleyway in Draithus - but especially now that I can see them up close again, without her being covered in dust and grime. My eyes flick down the black-clothed length of her, and yeah- there is absolutely nothing about her to dislike, and not just because I also dress in all black just about whenever. The small voice in the back of my head is screaming at me that this woman is dangerous. I want to ignore it. But I shouldn't.
I swear I hear SGAEYL laugh in my head.
"Well, this is the seat I was assigned. Either you move your bag or I will," she retorts. It sounds vaguely like a threat. Vicious, this one is. Somehow she reminds me of SGAEYL.
"I am insulted. I am far superior to any human," SGAEYL sniffs.
"Right," I reply drily.
I return my attention to Violet, and I could laugh, mostly at the implication that she would be able to get my bag into the overhead bin at all. I doubt she could get her own work tote up there, much less my massive military-issued backpack.
"I'm pretty sure my bag is heavier than you are, beautiful." The endearment is out of my mouth before I can think better of it, a smirk turning up my mouth. Shit. Am I... flirting?
"Do you really want an answer to that question?"
I ignore the AI before I make a smarts remark that could lead to her frying my phone.
I continue, to Violet: "But be my guest - try not to fall over when you lift it up."
I urge her to give up and claim one of the many empty seats around us in my head, but something about that look in her eyes makes me think she's a stubborn one. I think back to her refusal to go to a hospital back in Draithus, and I'm even more certain. Violet proves me right, muttering something that sounded a lot like "arrogant asshole," under her breath before dropping her tote in the empty seat behind her. She shoots me a glare that can only be described as vicious as she reaches for my backpack.
Fucking merciless. I like her.
Which is ridiculous. The only people I like are my fellow Tyrrish soldiers. I barely tolerate the others I encounter. Yet, as I see this short human incarnation of annoyance try to haul my backpack up, I can't find it within myself to deny that clear fact.
It definitely doesn't hurt that she is, hands-down, the most gorgeous woman I've ever met.
Then my common sense catches up with me, and I give myself a mental shake. Get it together, Xaden. I can't go getting all attracted to random women I meet on airplanes - much less ones like Miss Violet Baker.
"Too late for that."
"I don't want to hear it," I shoot back. "Don't you have anything better to do other than listen in on my conversations?"
"It's not my fault you think so loudly," SGAEYL replies. "Even if I did have other tasks assigned to me, you're far too distracting."
I don't know why I even bother arguing with SGAEYL.
"Oh shit," Violet gasps, and my attention snaps back to her. She's balanced the heavy pack on her shoulder, trying to use it to get leverage to shove it into the bin, but she's too short to get it all the way up and she's thrown herself off balance.
I'm out of my seat in an instant, grabbing the pack from her with one hand and slipping my other arm around her waist to steady her before I even realize what I'm doing. The smell of vanilla and something citrusy invades my nose.
"I thought I told you not to fall over," I murmur, easily placing the pack in the overhead bin one-handed. The narrow aisle has us pressed together, and it should scare me how right it feels. The things I could do - that I want to do - to this woman with a bit of time and space, and I don't even know her. "You're not very good at following directions."
I can see the pink working its way up Violet's pale cheeks, and her lips part slightly. I want to know what they would feel like against my own.
I wonder if she's having the same thoughts I am. That would be ruinous.
"If I had my way, I'd stab you right now and take both seats for myself," she whispers fiercely, but her voice is breathy. Fuck, since when was getting threatened so ridiculously hot?
"You're a violent little thing, aren't you?"
"Only to people who don't know when to look and not touch." Her hazel eyes look pointedly at my arm that is still wrapped around her waist, and I startle.
What the hell am I doing?
I pull away quickly, double checking that my bag is secure in the overhead bin before retreating back to my seat. Violet doesn't even bother trying to put her bag up top, instead shoving it unceremoniously underneath the seat in front of her. She looks uncomfortable as she leans back into her seat, one hand coming up to massage her shoulder.
Miss Violet Baker ignores me as the rest of the plane boards and the flight crew begins the safety demonstration, and I'm not complaining. I don't know what's came over me, but I need to get myself back under control. Yes, she's fucking beautiful. Yes, she may be the human embodiment of the phrase "turn on." Yes, she may threaten violence and actually mean it. But none of those immensely desirable traits can distract me when lives are on the line here. For all I know, she could be someone sent by General Melgren to finish off what I'm sure he started by killing my father. Just because she's pretty doesn't mean she's innocent.
Violent Violet, I think to myself, settling deeper into my seat as the plane pushes back from the gate. How fitting. So many alarm bells should be going off in my head where she's concerned. She's a complete stranger, for one. I should be scrambling to get away, straining to keep myself completely detached and emotionless. It was never a problem before - hell, I never had a problem remaining perfectly controlled when I fucked Catriona, even with her being an instigating, power-hungry vulture that seems to specialize in bringing someone from mild annoyance to all-out rage in five second flat. If I could handle that, I should be able to handle anyone. Yet all I can think about is that vanilla scent, and how badly I want to know is how long it would take to make Violet come on my tongue-
So much for controlling myself. I shift my left to hide my swiftly forming erection. I sigh, drawing a questioning glance from the woman next to me. It is going to be a really long flight.
I pull out my phone to text Liam.
"You think they'll have Love is Blind on the TVs here?"
Just when I think it can't get much worse, Miss Violet Baker decides to unbraid her hair and I realize I that what I'm experiencing goes far beyond mere attraction. My desire to bury my hand in that hair is primal.
This is going to be the longest fucking flight of my life.
I can't even bring myself to care.
We've been airborne for ten minutes, and I can't stop looking at Miss Violet Baker.
Correction - I can't stop looking at her hair.
There's something strange about her that I can't quite put my finger on, and its distracted me to the point that I haven't shoved my earbuds in and eye mask down the way I normally would have by this point in the flight. Violet's nose is buried in a thick book and she's paying me no mind, and I keep finding myself glancing at the long brown mass that tumbles down her back.
It feels like something is missing. What that thing is, however, is an absolutely mystery to me. Despite recognizing her from Draithus, I still feel like something is missing. There is a puzzle piece that isn't fitting, and I don't like it.
The screen embedded in the seat in front of me displays our current location, speed, the temperature outside of the plane - things that I quite frankly could not care less about. But every time Violet shifts in the seat next to me, I find my gaze shooting back to the screen, taking in the information like it is the most interesting thing I've ever read and praying that the woman next to me hasn't noticed that I've been looking at her like a crazy person for the better part of 20 minutes.
I should try to find a way to talk to her, instead of just looking at her like a weirdo. I've had plenty of experience chatting up women, if only to chase a short moment of pleasure just to feel something before moving on to more important matters. Yet, I can't seem to figure out how to strike up a conversation with the pint-sized apparent book worm next to me.
Emphasis on book worm. She's gone through more pages of that book in twenty minutes than I'd probably be able to get through in two hours. I glance at the title of the book printed across the top of the page she's reading and have to keep myself from wrinkling my nose. It's Navarre, An Unedited History. Which means Miss Violet Baker's reading a piece of revisionist bullshit that is most definitely not "unedited," and she probably doesn't even realize it. It's a whole bunch of glorifying Navarre's age of conquest and how it forced the assimilation of its provinces. How Tyrrendor is so much better off under Navarrian rule.
It, of course, fails to mention how poverty skyrocketed when Navarre took over. How Tyrrendor's culture heritage was looted, burned, and lost. How, even now, many Tyrrish struggle to get by due to the corruption of Navarre's bureaucracy.
My father tried to do something about it. He died before real progress could be made.
SGAEYL is quiet - something that is a regular occurrence when we fly. The altitude interferes with my connection to her central computer, which means I don't have access to her or her wonderful attitude when we're airborne.
My phone pings, and I glance down at the text I've received from Garrick.
"Are you asleep, watching Love is Blind, or still trying to figure out how to talk to the girl from the gate?"
I glower. How did he know? I glance over my shoulder, and I'm not surprised to see Liam and Garrick crowding the aisle near the door where we entered. Garrick flashes me a thumbs up, and Liam looks like he's trying not to laugh.
I'm going to beat the shit out of both of them.
I decide the biggest fuck you I can manage at the moment is to do exactly what I always do - take a nap and ignore the person sitting next to me. So nap I shall.
I finally shove in my headphones, and begin reclining my seat back so I can be more comfortable. Again, does that make me an asshole? In my opinion, no - I paid for the damn seat, reclining and all.
I'm about to pull my eye mask over my eyes, but then I notice Miss Violet Baker is no longer reading her book. No, she's looking at me, her nose crinkled up and she's pinning me with an affronted look.
I see the opportunity, and I take it. I can still beat Garrick up later.
"Problem?" I ask, popping one earbud out as I cock an eyebrow in her direction.
"Are you seriously one of those people?" she asks, annoyance lacing her tone. I have an inkling about what she's referring to, but I play dumb.
"What do you mean?"
Violet gestures at me vaguely. "You're reclining your seat," she says. I was right on the money. I force myself to maintain my mildly bored expression, fighting off my own laughter at the offense plastered all over her face.
"I paid for my seat," I reply, lacing my hands behind my head nonchalantly, because I'm certain it will just annoy her more. It does, and I relish the quick succession of emotions that flash across her face. "Pretty sure I can do whatever I want."
"You're such an asshole."
"And?"
Violet's eyebrows practically hit her hairline. I have to make a sizable effort to not look at her hair again. "Don't you care about invading other people's space?"
"Not particularly." I shrug.
My casual dismissal has clearly gotten under Miss Violet Baker's skin, and I'm loving it. I thought she was gorgeous before, but she's somehow even more eye-catching when she's mad.
"You're unbelievable," she says, shaking her head slightly.
"Actually, I'm Xaden," I say before I can think better of it. Shit. Dad jokes? Really? I can't believe myself, either. What has gotten into me?
Violet's hazel eyes narrow on me, and I know I've made a monumental mistake. "I thought your name was Alex?"
Double shit.
"Xaden is my middle name," I say, trying to recover. Somehow, it doesn't surprise me that that small detail hadn't escaped her. This woman seems way too smart for her own good.
"You're military," she says. It's not a question. I keep my expression neutral, like I always do, but I'm immediately on guard. She's almost too observant.
I'm missing something. Something isn't right here.
"I am," I acknowledge. No point in lying anymore than I have to. "How did you know?" It's not like I'm in uniform.
Those gorgeous eyes flick down the length of me and she bites her bottom lip, and yeah- I can think of at least 10 different ways I want this woman. Too bad I can't do anything about it.
Violet is silent for a moment, before pulling in a shuddering breath. "That backpack is standard issue for Air Force special ops," she says. "Not a stretch to assume."
Those alarm bells from earlier are back on in full-force. I can't think of anyone who isn't military that would know the specifics of the kinds of backpacks that get issued to different units. It's not like its classified material, but it's not the kind of thing a civilian would just know.
Which means I have to be extremely careful. I'm on board a plane to Cordyn, with someone who knows I'm affiliated with Navarre's military, on my way to commit treason.
What a fucking day I'm having.
"That's a good guess," I manage. "Now are you done shaming me for my reclining preferences, Violence?"
"My name is Violet," she hisses, but I don't miss how her eyes flit down to my mouth for one agonizing moment, before meeting my eyes again.
"I think my version suits you better."
For a moment, we just hold each other's gazes, and there is that undeniable, immistakeable crackle of sexual tension that is almost unbearable.
I want to kiss her. I want to know what she tastes like. I want to take her to the small bathroom at the front of this plane and learn what it would be like to join the Mile High Club, if she'd let me.
We're both leaning in, and I don't think I'm going to be able to stop myself once our mouths meet. We're so close, as-
"Hey there, brother!"
Violet jerks away and I swear. Garrick is standing there in the aisle, grinning down at me, and I know he knows exactly what he just interrupted.
I'm going to kill him.
"What do you want?" I snap. Violet's face has gone beet red, and she's staring back down at her book like the answers to all of life's mysteries are contained in the pages.
"Liam's getting motion sick," Garrick says, his brow raising slightly. It's a signal - Liam doesn't get motion sick. And there's something about the way he looks warily at Violet that has me on guard. "Do you have any dramamine in that industrial-grade first-aid kit of yours?"
I begin unbuckling my seatbelt, kicking my blanket and pillow to the floor. I like to be prepared - hence a robust first-aid kit - and Garrick gives me shit over it regularly. Violet follows suit, rising from her seat and making room for me in the aisle so I can pull my backpack down. I frown as I rifle through the bag's contents - I guess I don't have any dramamine, so I withdraw a bottle of ibuprofen instead. I hope Violet doesn't notice the difference.
One glance to the side tells me all I need to know - her eyebrow is cocked, and I'm certain she did, in fact, notice. Too damn observant.
"I'll be back in a few minutes," I say, as if I owe her an explanation for my absence, and then follow Garrick towards the back of the plane.
Night has fallen by now, and the back of the plane is lit intermittently by reading lights, but most passengers are asleep. I see Liam almost immediately, his face illuminated by the blue light of his computer screen. Garrick squeezes past him into his own seat by the window, while I crouch in the aisle. There are worry lines between Liam's brows as he looks up at me, and a sense of unease creeps its way up my spine.
"What's up?" I ask.
"I just got this message on an encrypted line." Liam points his screen towards me. The message I read sends a jolt of anxiety through me.
"NIA agent on board. Proceed w/ caution."
NIA. Navarrian Intelligence Agency.
Triple shit.
"Who sent this? Syrena?" I question. I didn't think it was possible for Liam to look any more worried, but he does and it doesn't make me feel any better.
"I don't think so - the message had a signature: Tairneanach. That isn't something she'd use as a signature. Plus, the encryption was different from what Syrena normally uses."
"Fuck," I curse. "SGAEYL?"
But it's pointless. She's still out of range. I'll need to deal with this myself.
My anxiety surges. Have we been sloppy? Does the NIA know about us, what we've been up to; or is this just a crazy coincidence? "Have you been able to narrow it down any?" I ask tersely.
I expect Liam to pull up a flight manifest or CCTV footage from the airport terminal - he may be an excellent fighter, but he's also an extremely skilled hacker. Instead, he opens the secure chatroom we maintain with Brennan, and my breath catches in my throat when he opens a very familiar picture - its one of Brennan and his two sisters.
One of which looks very familiar.
"Is that-" I don't even need to finish the question. Liam nods. Garrick curses.
It's no wonder I thought something was off about Miss Violet Baker earlier, and it was because she isn't Miss Violet Baker.
No, her real name is Miss Violet Sorrengail - the daughter of the woman who contributed to my father's death and the 'death' of her own son. The sister of one of my closest friends.
And perhaps one of the deadliest assassins in the NIA's arsenal, if the files I've managed to steal are accurate. Her list of confirmed kills is mind-boggling. She's ruthless; vicious. She's a killing machine - and she's the last person I want on my tail.
The attraction I felt before; the amusement - it sputters out. All that's left now is anxiety and suspicion.
And fear. Not for myself, but for Garrick and Liam.
Garrick whistles low. "I bet you're glad I stopped you from kissing her now, aren't you?"
Liam's eyes widen. "You're fucking kidding me. And I missed it?"
"That's not what happened." I shoot a glare at Garrick. He just grins shamelessly. "If you're done being a prick, can we focus on the problem at hand?" I turn my attention to Liam. "How did you figure it out?"
Liam snorts. "Not all of us zone out when Brennan talks about his family, Xaden. I realized it after I went back to my seat and saw the message."
I stop myself from flinching. He's not wrong though - I never paid much attention when Brennan talked about his sisters. I think a part of me was envious that he still had his sisters when my dad was never coming back. The other part of me didn't want to associate Brennan with the person I was certain his sister had become, if the rumors about her were true - someone who was a true instrument of Navarre's military intelligence, with no thought for how her own nation could be in the wrong.
He doesn't know what she's become. Brennan always talked about how she wanted to become an intelligence analyst, but when I'd discovered she was one of the most productive members of one of the NIA's most notorious black ops programs, I'd kept the truth from him. I didn't want him to lose the images he still had of his baby sister in his head. It felt like a mercy at the time. Now, I'm beginning to question if that was the best idea.
I had seen that photo before. I should have recognized her sooner. I should have recognized her that day in Draithus, covered in dirt or no.
I will do whatever is necessary for the good of the mission - for the good of my chosen brothers so that we make it home in one piece. If Violet Sorrengail is going to be a problem, then I'll take care of the problem. Brennan will just have to deal with it.
Garrick is eyeing me with a look I don't particularly like. "What're you thinking, Xaden? It's your call."
I take a breath. "It's not like I can just camp out back here until we land. I'll head back up and see what I can find out. Liam, try to find out who sent that message."
Hoping this is a coincidence will get us nowhere - I need to find out if we're compromised, and figure out what the chances are of us making it home alive. I'm all but certain that we're burned. Sorrengail's comments about my backpack are enough proof of that. My stomach drops when I remember that she knows my first name because of my earlier slip up. There is no way in hell a Sorrengail wouldn't know who I am - they think my father killed Brennan.
Those gorgeous narrowed eyes flash through my mind. She definitely knows.
I glance at Liam, and he nods. I don't even need to tell him what else needs to be done. While I try to learn more from Miss Violet Sorrengail, he's going to use those computer skills to see if he can dig up anything important that could clue us in to whether or not a Navarrian hit squad is going to be waiting for us when we land in Cordyn.
I harden my resolve. I'll kill Violet Sorrengail if she knows, if that's what it takes to make it home alive. I won't fucking hesitate if it comes down to sparing her life or saving Liam's and Garrick's.
The thought makes me want to throw up.
When I return to my seat at the front of the plane, Sorrengail is asleep, that godsforsaken book almost slipping out of her lap due to her slackened grip.
I fight an internal battle - I could wake her up so I can slip into my original seat, which would likely incur her wrath, if her previous behavior was any indication. I could also just sit in the empty seat opposite her and maintain some semblance of distance.
I choose distance. But my eyes have a very difficult time getting the message.
The plane is dark and silent, save for the hum of the engines. The advantage of Sorrengail being asleep means that I can fully inspect her, and I'm almost immediately kicking myself for not noticing her true identity sooner. She looks so similar to Brennan.
Upon closer inspection, I can see where the wig she put on has slipped at her hairline, revealing her lighter shade of brown under the darker brown of the wig. Her lips are parted slightly, and her brow is scrunched up.
I feel a deep seated rage bubble up inside me as I look down on the daughter of my enemy. It would be so easy to snap her neck like this, and make the Sorrengail matriarch suffer the same feeling of loss that I've felt in the years since my father was taken from me. There are many reasons why I don't - primarily because I'm not going to put my immediate revenge over the need to get our delivery to Syrena.
Violet Sorrengail may be beautiful; may be fun to banter with, but none of that matters now. She's just an obstacle. And I'll destroy any obstacle I can't overcome.
I return my eyes to my phone screen.
"Anything?" I type out in my text thread with Garrick and Liam.
"Yeah," Liam responds. "I managed to get through the encryption and trace the IP address of the message we got. It came from inside Navarre."
What the fuck?
"Are you sure?" I ask."It's not someone we already have contact with?" Liam replies affirmatively, and I take a deep breath.
The implications of that are... staggering. It means there may be yet another person within the NIA who wants to help us; who knows what we're up to. But right now, that isn't important. I shouldn't be focusing on the possibilities this opens up for our cause. I need to focus on the probabilities.
And the probability that the Sorrengail across from me is going to be the death of me is incredibly high. There is also a non-zero chance that the message is a trap, and that there isn't actually anyone on the inside that wants to help us.
Either way, neither of those possibilities change the fact that I'm stuck on an airplane with a woman who likely wants me dead. Who may even be here to kill me. Who I might have to kill.
Despite that sobering thought, I still find myself looking at her. It's like she exists, and I can't look away, no matter how much I want to. Even knowing her true identity, I still find her fascinating. I'm acting like an idiot and I don't know how to stop it.
I decide to try and get some sleep, but my thoughts are racing. I toss and turn for what is likely hours, but I keep circling back to the same worries and fears that have plagued me since my dad died. I wonder if I'll ever sleep well again.
A glance at my phone tells me that hours have indeed passed, and that we'll probably be landing soon. I decide to look up the name the mysterious messenger used: Tairneanach. It sounds like old Tyrrish. A search tells me it's the old word for "thunder."
"Xaden?" My eyes immediately dart back to the small woman that has been silent ever since I returned from the back of the plane, who is now blinking sleep out of her eyes and squinting in my direction. Violence's voice, heavy with sleep, sends a jolt of heat southward, and I try to shut that shit down with a quickness. I cannot let the daughter of General Sorrengail have this much of an effect on me. The consequences have the potential to ruin me in more ways than I know how to count, and I'm not going down that road. "How long have I been asleep?" She suddenly gasps, more alert and clearly realizing that I'm not sitting in my original seat, and begins to scramble with her seatbelt. "I'm so sorry. Why didn't you wake me up?"
The somewhat murderous thoughts I had been entertaining since ascertaining her true identity recede ever so slightly at the earnest look on her face, so clearly apologetic for falling asleep and not allowing me back into my own seat. I'd love to think the emotions so clearly on display were genuine; not an act. Maybe this is all a coinicidence after all? Gods, wouldn't that be a relief.
But I know better than to trust a Sorrengail, and I keep my guard up.
"Not too long," I reply, and I can't help but tease her a little. "Four hours at most. Don't worry about it."
She eyes me with an unreadable look on her face, before lifting herself out of her seat and gesturing at my now-accessible seat beside her. I hesitate for a moment - returning to my seat makes me vulnerable if she decides to take me out. Then I realize she'd be an idiot to try and kill me on a plane, so I give in and return to my original seat.
"How is your friend?" Sorrengail asks as we both settle back into our seats.
I shrug. "He's alive," I say.
Violence cocks an eyebrow in my direction, a knowing twinkle in her eye. "He wasn't really motion sick, was he?"
Damn it. She's too damn observant.
"He was feeling a bit queasy." Not a lie, exactly. At least, I'm pretty sure it's not. I think we were all feeling a bit ill upon reading the mysterious encrypted message.
"You're full of shit," Sorrengail says confidently. "What are you doing, flying to Cordyn anyways? Not exactly a destination for a bunch of special ops guys on leave now, is it?"
I do my best not to tense up, and try to portray a facade of calm. I hope to Zihnal its working. She's probing; probably to learn more about my motives, to catch me in a lie or a slip up. I'm right to be cautious, since my masks and shields seem far less impenetrable around her. "Just taking care of some family business stuff. What about you?"
"Work," she says, and leaves it at that.
"What do you do?" I push. I don't know why I do. I shouldn't. But I do. There is a thread of tension in the conversation now, and this clearly isn't just casual back-and-forth banter between strangers now. This feels dangerous.
Sorrengail's eyes narrow, and for the first time, I see her resemblance to her mother. I see the killer that I'd read about with cold dread. That icy expression makes my stomach curdle, and miraculously, I feel ill for the first time on this entire flight. It might be a new record.
"I don't like talking about work," she replies defensively. It's not hard to wonder why. "What kind of business does your family do?"
I lean back in my seat. "You're awfully curious about what I'm up to, but I don't know anything about you, Violet Baker."
"I work in information analytics," she says after a moment of consideration. "Look for industry trends, threats to a business, that kind of thing. It's my job to come up with how to take advantage of those trends and mitigate those threats."
Mitigating threats. What a corporate way to call herself a killer.
"Sounds intriguing," I say with a friendliness that is becoming more hollow by the second. "I bet you know all the behind-the-scenes stuff other people don't know."
Violence laughs, but it sounds forced. "Oh, I don't know about that. You military guys always tend to know all the dirty laundry that the powers-that-be don't want to see the light of day."
We meet each other's gaze, and despite my best judgement, I still find this dangerous, forbidden woman to be unbelievably beautiful. For the millionth time, I run through the facts I know about her in my head: She is the daughter of General Lilith Sorrengail, who had my father killed. She's Brennan's sister. She's a high-ranking NIA operative. She's probably been sent to do "information analytics" on me.
None of that makes me want her any less. Of course, she's also the one person I should be running far, far away from.
"Trust me, Violence," I say softly. "You don't want to know what I know."
It's the absolute truth.
Violet Sorrengail will ruin me, of this I am certain. Yet I also don't want her to have to suffer the fallout of discovering everything she knows about her mother, about her country, is a lie. I can imagine the look on her face when she discovers everything that's been hidden behind obfuscations, lies, and half-truths, and I hate it. Because even with her position in the NIA's black ops, there are secrets even she isn't privy to, and if she discovered how deep the deception runs...
She'll either become even more of a monster or fall apart. I don't want to see either.
Those hazel eyes study me, and it's like they can see straight through to whatever remains of my soul, whatever has survived the hell of the last few years.
She takes a deep breath, but those eyes don't leave mine. The amber is outshining the blue, and I can see so many emotions so clearly. Curiousity, attraction, anxiety, wariness, and, perhaps most prominently, anger. "Sometimes the painful truth is better than the blissful lie, Xaden."
I suck in a quick breath, but I can't look away, and not just because I love the way my name sounds when she says it. There's a haunted look in her eyes - one I'm all too familiar with. It's the look of someone who's had to do terrible things - the look of someone who's kept awake at night as a result.
A kindred spirit, I realize.
The air between us crackles, and is heavy with something I can't quite put my finger on. I open up my mouth to ask her what she means, what she knows. Before I can say anything, the PA system crackles to life, and the moment is broken.
"We are about to make our descent into Cordyn, folks. Please fasten your seatbelts and stow any loose items. Flight crew, please prepare for landing," the pilot says.
When I turn back to Violence, she has shoved earbuds in her ears. This conversation is clearly over, and I've learned nothing of value.
But I am certain of one thing - she knows exactly who I am. The anger in her eyes told me as much.
I send a prayer up to Malek - and I'm not the praying type - asking that if he intends to have my soul today, that he spares Garrick and Liam.
I'm one of the first people off the plane, but I have to wait until everyone else is off for Garrick and Liam.
Sorrengail didn't say another word to me after the loaded statement she dropped on me before we landed. She didn't even look in my direction. I, of course, couldn't stop looking at her, but that shouldn't be surprising considering I have been singularly incapable of not looking at her over the six hours I have known her.
Garrick and Liam emerge from the jet bridge almost dead-last, arguing about Love Is Blind as if we aren't about to commit treason and laden with the hard-cases containing the the only thing Syrena and her people can use to combat the threat Navarre has foolishly unleashed upon the Continent.
"Anything new?" I ask surreptitiously, interrupting their intense debate about who the bigger hot mess couple in Season 1 was and looking around in case anyone is eavesdropping. The terminal is nearly empty. Our flight was one of the last to arrive for the night.
Liam shakes his head. "No. I wasn't able to narrow down anything based on the IP address. I managed to get ahold of the flight manifest, and I have a program that's comparing ID photos to our list of known NIA agents, but so far there haven't been any hits other than Sorrengail."
I fight a sigh. Maybe if Syrena had brought the list of NIA operatives she'd compiled last time, we'd be able to identify any other NIA operative on board, but there's no point in wallowing. We have to get to the meet-up point with Syrena, and hopefully we'll be able to get there before Sorrengail decides to take us out.
"Let's move." I grab one of the hard cases from Liam and shoulder my own backpack.
The terminal is eerily quiet as the three of us make our way towards the exit, and a feeling of unease slides over me. The only sound that echoes in the cavernous area is our footsteps and the soft thunking of the hard cases.
Something is off.
I'm about to voice as much to Liam and Garrick when I see a flash of black and silver as someone slips into the men's bathroom ahead of us as we round a corner. That unease I felt is replaced by cool acceptance.
"Take this." I turn around and hand the hard case I'm carrying to Garrick. "Meet up with Syrena. I'll follow."
Garrick's eyes widen, but doesn't protest as he adds the case to his load. "I don't like this. You sure?"
Liam's eyes dart between me and the men's restroom at my back. "That's a bad idea, Xaden. She might not be alone."
I shrug, a humorless laugh escaping my lips before I can stop it. "We all know I was living on borrowed time anyways. If she manages to kill me, so be it. Make sure Syrena gets those weapons."
I'll die to give them time to get away; to finish the mission. Violet Sorrengail may be good, but I know I can give her a run for her money.
Liam opens his mouth like he wants to argue, but he freezes when he sees the almost imperceptible shake of Garrick's head.
"We'll take care of it." Garrick places one of the hard cases on the ground and claps me on the shoulder with his free hand. "You owe me a beer for carrying your weight like this, Riorson."
I read between the lines to what my chosen brother is really saying: I need to come back alive.
Unfortunately, that might not be an option, not with Sorrengail, who has the highest number of recorded kills out of anyone at the NIA just in the short time she's been there, but at least Liam and Garrick will make it back in one piece.
"Get going." I cross my arms, and watch as the two of them head towards the exit. I don't take my eyes off of them, even as I rummage through my pack for the knives I never go anywhere without. I'd never used them before training with Devera, but she showed me their true utility. I tuck one in my boot, before fastening the sheathes of the others.
Once they've rounded another corner and are out of sight, I stride towards the men's restroom. I can feel the knives I strapped on me digging in, a reminder of how I'm likely walking into a trap with absolutely no backup.
When I walk into the bathroom, I'm not at all surprised by who I see there. Violence is leaning against the frosted window that takes up the entire back wall of the bathroom, ankles and arms crossed. She's still wearing those chunky black boots, but she's changed into the standard black NIA mission suit, although she's made her own modifications -- it looks like she ripped the long sleeves off, and I think the vest she's wearing is Kevlar. I can see the glint of the knives she similarly has strapped on herself, and she's gotten rid of the wig, her silver-tipped hair now on full display despite being returned to its braid. I couldn't tear my eyes away from her even if I wanted to.
I suck in a quick breath. Lethal beauty looks good on Violence.
"Riorson," she says, dipping her head in greeting. She doesn't move from her leaning position against the window, and those hazel eyes of hers are locked on me. I wonder if they look more blue or amber right now - I'm too far away to tell.
"Sorrengail," I reply. "Here to finish me off? Take your revenge?"
She merely raises an eyebrow in my direction. "When did you figure out who I was? Not that I'm all that surprised that you did."
"You're the daughter of the woman who had my father killed." An oversimplification, but whatever. "I made it my business to know who you are," I say matter-of-factly. I'm leaving out how I wouldn't have noticed it was her at all if it wasn't for Brennan.
She stiffens, eyes blazing. "My mother did no such thing." But I see the doubt there. She isn't convinced. "You're not as slick as you think you are, Riorson. I could tell something was up as soon as Garrick Tavis came to get you."
"Neither are you," I toss back. "That wig of yours was shit. I could see your natural hair under it."
She wrinkles her nose, and mutters something under her breath that I don't catch before uncrossing her arms and pushing back against the wall, stretching up to her full, if short, height.
"You were trained by Devera just like I was," she says softly. Clearly she's done her homework, and I can't help but wonder just how much she knows, and just how much of it are lies. Her hand now has a dagger clutched in it. I let my own fall to my side, and I hope I'll be fast enough to draw my knife before she can close the distance between us. "So you should've been more careful. Some people in the NIA are already noticing something is off. They'll want you dead just because of your name."
"You're one of them, I'm guessing." It's not a guess. I know it like I know my own name.
She has the gall to laugh, and begins flipping the dagger through the air. "I won't deny it." I hear the door open behind me, and her hazel eyes slide to look at something over my shoulder. "Fortunately for you, you're currently the least of my worries."
I furrow my brow, but it doesn't take me long to figure out what she means. I glance over my shoulder, and I'm greeted with the sight of six people, all in black NIA mission suits. The leader of the group wears a nasty snarl, his beady blue eyes fixated on- not on me, I realize, but on Violence.
"Sorrengail," the blonde spits. "I was looking for you."
I look back at Violence, and I'm not comforted by how her expression has hardened. She's still tossing that dagger of hers end over end, catching it with ease by the tip.
"Oh Jack, you weren't the least bit subtle," Sorrengail says mockingly. "I guess Colonel Aetos really wanted someone who wouldn't get the job done."
I was right, I realize with a sinking feeling in my stomach. Violence - and her 'friends' - are here to kill me.
I'm caught in the middle of a glaring contest of epic proportions. Violet Sorrengail is winning, if the uneasy looks of the other five next to Barlowe are any indication.
"Are you going to let me kill you quickly, or do you want it drawn out?" Judging by the blonde's expression, he's really hoping I'll choose the second option. I narrow my eyes on him, and open my mouth to respond.
Violet beats me to it.
"Neither," she spits, and suddenly her knife flies through the air, embedding itself in the shoulder of the man next to Barlowe, who lets out a shout of pain.
"Tynan!" One of the others - a woman - lunge towards their injured companion, but Violet is faster. She flings herself past me - in those godsforsaken boots, for crying out loud - two daggers in hand, and skids to a stop in front of the injured operative.
"Tell Aetos I said hello when you see him in hell," she spits, and then plunges one of the daggers into Tynan's side. "I'll make sure he joins you soon enough."
What the fuck did I just walk into?
The man falls to the ground like a sack of bricks; blood pouring from his side. It was undoubtedly a killing blow. I don't have time to process the plot twist that I just found myself in before Violence spins on her heel, parrying the dagger of the woman who'd leapt to Tynan's aid, while Barlowe hangs back, a sadistic grin on his face. Sorrengail bobs and weaves around the blows of her assailant, and I'm about to move to help her against my better judgement. Before I can even take a step, I'm subjected to another one of her vicious glares.
"If you so much as take a step towards me, Riorson, you're dead," she growls.
I'm not in the habit of getting gutted by beautiful women, so I stay exactly where I'm told to. I'm not stupid.
Hell, she could tell me to do just about anything right now, and I'd probably do it. I didn't realize how hot it was to see a woman fling knives around. I'm so fucked.
Sorrengail's words clearly catch Barlowe's attention, and for the first time since he and his goons entered the bathroom, his attention is on me. "Riorson?" he questions, and then a beat later a sick smile has curved over his face. Something about it makes me as homicidal as Violence clearly already is. "Oh man, Sorrengail - is this why we were sent out here? Are you helping the traitor's son? You're making it too easy to find a reason to finally end your pathetic life."
Again, what the fuck?
"Dream on, Jack," She finally gets an opening, and buries the dagger in the stomach of the woman she's been trading blows with. Without missing a beat, Violence lets the other one sail, nailing another man who was coming up behind her in the throat. Both fall, the macabre thump of their bodies hitting the tiled floor echoing around me. "You always seem to forget that I've already managed to kill you once. Doing it again really wouldn't be too hard."
Violence is truly living up to her nickname - only three men remain, including Jack fucking Barlowe, who she's already killed once, apparently. I stay frozen where I've been standing, though. I'm seeing a completely different side to the woman I met on the plane - the one that is far more ruthless and dangerous; the one I read about. Those records hadn't done her justice. She looks like an angel of death - beautiful and terrifying all at once.
"You sure you don't need help?" My voice comes out teasing. "I think you missed a few spots."
"Fuck off, Riorson." She doesn't even look over her shoulder at me, her focus trained on the three who remain.
I sit back and watch while Violence dispatches Barlowe's two remaining cronies with admirable skill and no hesitation as she deals the death blows, leaving only the blonde standing in the pools of his allies' blood.
Those blue eyes of his are glaring daggers at the woman who stands nonchalantly in front of him. "You're going to regret this, Sorrengail." He doesn't give her the chance to reply before he launches himself at her.
Sorrengail is clearly beginning to tire - her movements are slower, and there are flashes of discomfort on her face as she dodges and weaves around Barlowe's stabs and swipes. I continue to stand back.
Violence made it clear: This is her fight. I'm not about to get in the middle of it.
Barlowe is like a bloodhound, and the look on his face tells me he sees Sorrengail tiring out the same way I do. My stomach drops when she strikes out with her fist - for the first time since this whole shitshow started, she has left herself open. Barlowe takes advantage, grabbing her outstretched arm and wrenching it behind her back. I hear a sickening pop and her sharp cry of pain, and I know her shoulder has been dislocated.
The rage washes over me like a tsunami, sudden and powerful. I want to fucking kill this man, as slowly as I possibly can. I want to make him hurt. I shouldn't care that she's injured, but she's Brennan's little sister. She's the one who tried to save Valerie; the one who ran for the bomber and instead of away from it, despite likely not knowing a thing about the identity of the attacker, and damn if that doesn't mean something.
Before I can take a single step and put my violent fantasies to life, Sorrengail gives me a sharp look, and I freeze. This is her fight, I remind myself. But the anger doesn't fade. I can practically feel myself vibrating with the intensity of it.
"What do you think, Sorrengail?" Barlowe's voice croons sickeningly, and I'm almost overcome by the urge to let my own dagger lodge itself in this man's skull. "Admit it. You and I both knew it would be like this between us. Quick. Embarrassingly easy. Fatal. Your precious squad isn't here to save you this time."
Clearly, I'm not the only one Barlowe has pissed off. Rage and hatred cover Violence's face. "Fuck. Off." She bites out the words through her clear pain, before dropping her body weight and hurling Barlowe over her shoulder. His body hits the ground with a thud, and he lets out a shocked groan. She kneels at his side, using one of her knees to pin his chest to the ground.
"You're right, Jack," Sorrengail says, using her good arm to withdraw another knife. Despite her injuries, she looks every inch the hardened killer she was trained to be. "This was embarrassingly easy. I warned you in Calldyr - if you interfered with me, you'd pay the price. You should have stayed dead and spared yourself the humiliation."
She drives the knife straight through his heart - no hesitation.
The life bleeds out of Jack Barlowe, but the unadulterated hatred on his face remains, even in death.
Violence doesn't move, her chest heaving as she gulps in air, her hand still gripping the knife embedded in Barlowe's chest. I have no doubt that the two of them have a long history, if that interaction was anything to go by. Silence falls over the bathroom, the previously spotless room now covered in blood and bodies.
After what feels like an eternity and a split second all at once, Sorrengail finally stretches up, withdrawing the knife from Barlowe's chest. I tighten my grip on my own dagger instinctively - just because she suddenly decided to take out six of her own people doesn't mean we're on the same side.
"Can't say I expected that," I drawl, sounding far more carefree than I actually feel. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around what I just witnessed.
Sorrengail lets out another one of those humorless laughs. "I'm sure it wasn't." Her gaze drops down to where I'm clutching my dagger. "Put that away, Riorson. I'm not going to kill you - yet. Not when you could probably throw me around like a rag doll."
"Don't sell yourself short," I tease, but put my dagger away regardless. It's stupid - idiotic, really, leaving myself without a weapon when she just killed six people - but I'm certain she's telling the truth. "You've already demonstrated that you're more than capable of taking out people twice your size, Violence."
"It's not that hard when the alternative would have been far more unpleasant." She grits that statement out through clenched teeth, and I realize her shoulder is probably causing excruciating pain. Her eyes flash, as if she can see what path my thoughts are going down. "Don't even think about it, Riorson. I can take care of myself."
I cock an eyebrow, and gesture to the scene she's made. "You want to tell me what all of this was about?"
I desperately want her to be different from the rest of them. I want her to be on my side.
Violet looks at me, considering, as her good arm moves to cradle her injured one.
"Your teacher," she says with a sigh. "Managed to get me mixed up in some minor treason."
I blink once, then twice.
"What?" I ask incredulously. The fuck is minor treason even supposed to mean?
She groans, and moves backwards to lean against the row of sinks. What she says next rocks my world.
"If I told you I think the NIA made my father disappear because he was looking into your father's death, what would you say?
My mouth goes dry, and I try to think of how to respond. There's no way she knows the truth - and I can't give it to her either. I want to. But I can't.
"Should I contact Brennan?" SGAEYL speaks up for the first time since we landed, whatever software patch Brennan was installing clearing finished.
"No. Not yet."
"I would say that you're treading very dangerous ground, Sorrengail," I say cautiously.
Those eyes of her narrow on me again. "Devera told me to find you."
"Did she now?"
"I need your help, Riorson, and I don't even know why."
That piques my interest. "Help with what?"
She huffs, blowing some of that silver-tipped hair that had fallen loose from her braid out of her eyes. "I literally just said I don't know why."
I chance closing the distance between us, moving slowly, as one would so they don't startle a wounded animal. I don't trust her. I want to. But I know I can't.
That doesn't change the undeniable fact that I'm worried about her; that I don't like seeing her injured. I stop just inches from her, far closer than I would maybe stand to anyone else. I don't question it, not when that addictive smell of hers wafts around me, mixing with the coppery tang of blood that coats the air.
"You were the one who sent the message," I say out loud, the realization striking me like a bolt out of the blue. "You tipped us off about NIA agents being on board."
She nods.
"Why?"
"Because I need your help," she says simply. "And I couldn't risk you or your friends doing something stupid and tipping off Jack."
She's being surprisingly forthcoming. I glance at the man's corpse at my feet. I have the inexplicable urge to draw a knife and stab him a few times myself.
"Right. Care to explain why you're out here killing six of our own operatives? Or why they were trying to kill you?"
"Care to explain what you and your friends are doing, traveling to Cordyn under fake names?"
Point taken.
"Well," I cross my arms. "Clearly your motivations for tipping us off weren't altruistic. What do you really want?"
"Do you know anything about what happened to David Sorrengail?" she asks me. I pick up on a note of desperation through the clenched teeth and almost imperceptible whimpers of pain.
I hesitate. Then I do something I try to avoid at all costs: I lie through my fucking teeth. "No."
Something akin to rage ignites then extinguishes on her face. "You're lying," she hisses. I have no idea how she knows, but I keep my expression schooled.
"Am I?" I'm so close now that I could touch her if I reached out. I could wipe away the spatter of blood - not hers - that made its way to her cheek, a bloom of crimson against her pale skin. Instead, I pick up the end of her braid which is draped over her shoulder, and run my fingers through the tail of it. I'm tempted to yank out the hair tie and let her hair fall loose. "Let's say I am. Why should I tell you anything, Violet Sorrengail? You may have helped me out once, but lets not forget that you're a member of the agency that had my father killed; the daughter of the woman who likely ordered his death."
I let the familiar rage and grief fuel me as I lean in. I can feel her breath on my face. Her expression hardens, and I'm once again reminded of her monster of a mother. It makes lying to her so much easier. I could kill her now, if I really wanted to. The perfect revenge for what Lilith Sorrengail did to mine and so many other families. And I almost think I want to, but I know I won't. The stakes are too high.
A beat passes, then two.
"I'm waiting," I prompt, my voice low. "You know better than anyone how deadly these games we play are. Why should I tell you anything?"
The two of us stare at each other amidst the bloodbath, two bodies drawn together as if by gravity. She feels inescapable; like Violet was someone I would inevitably crash into no matter what I did. Our gazes stay locked for another moment, before she shoves me away with her good arm.
"Because I may have information that could exonerate your father."
I freeze at that.
"What?" I ask dumbly.
She looks at me with a look that one would give a child when you have to explain instructions to them for the fifth time. "You heard me."
"Careful," SGAEYL cautions. "She might be baiting you."
As always, my AI is correct. I let my walls and shields and masks fall back into place.
"Sure you do, Violence. I'm not interested."
"You're lying."
"Am I?" I ask again.
Sorrengail makes a sound of utter frustration, pushing away from the sink and putting distance between us again. I fight the urge to once again get up close to her.
"Control your hormones," SGAEYL snaps. Gods, do I wish I could.
"You are such an asshole," Violence spits.
"Duly noted," I reply instantly.
Her eyes blaze, and for a moment I think she's actually going to try to attack me. But then she deflates, and she just looks - tired. Like the weight of the world is on her shoulders, and she's slowly crumbling under the weight. It's a feeling I'm intimately familiar with. The somewhat homicidal urges I was feeling abate. I don't like how much I relate to her - Navarre's killing machine in the flesh.
I'm so lost in my own thoughts that I notice she's moved to leave only when she's almost to the door. I leap forward, blocking her path.
"And where do you think you're going?"
"Get out of my way, Riorson," Violet hisses, but it has none of the fire of our earlier exchanges. Just that bone deep exhaustion. "I need to go get patched up."
WIth all the back and forth, I'd managed to forget her arm was dislocated. I suddenly feel like every bit of the asshole she believes I am.
"Can I-"
"I'm not about to let someone I barely know, much less trust, help me with this," she interrupts. "Get out of my way."
"No."
"Why are you being so stubborn about this?" SGAEYL admonishes. "The sooner she is gone, the better."
"I'm not in the mood to discuss my decision making at the moment."
Sorrengail bristles. "I'll stab you if I have to." She won't though. She needs my help - even if I'm not entirely sure why.
I smirk. "I didn't take you for the backstabbing type, Sorrengail."
"You clearly don't know me very well," she fires back. "I'll do whatever is needed to do my job and get home. Including dropping you where you stand"
"Hm," I hum, finally moving to close the gap between us yet again. "Except you won't. I have something you need, clearly. You have questions, and I apparently have the answers." My hand comes up, giving in to my temptation to undo that braid of hers.
"Devera told me to find you," she replies stiffly, as if that's any explanation.
"I didn't take you as someone who liked to do as you're told." My voice sounds gravelly and low. This proximity is so fucking dangerous.
"Trust me, most people don't even try to tell me what to do," she admits. Enemy or not, Violence is a lethal beauty who somehow seems tailor-made to be my downfall. I let my hand unravel the hair tie holding together what remains of her braid, and run my hair through the loosened strands. I didn't realize it was possible to be so attracted to someone who I'd be willing to kill for the sake of the work I'm doing.
What's the phrase? There's a thin line between love and hate.
Not that I love her.
Her voice hitches. "What did I tell you earlier about looking but not touching?"
That's all the reminder I need to bring myself back to reality, and I jolt backwards.
"See a doctor about that arm," I order gruffly.
Sorrengail bristles at my commanding tone, and shoves past me to the door.
"To paraphrase an asshole I met recently," she spits. "I don't like being told what to do."
She slams the door in my face, and I'm left alone with six dead bodies, a snarky AI, and a lot of questions. It seems like Miss Violet Sorrengail is always leaving me in her wake, both in Draithus, and now here, in the airport bathroom.
"I like her," SGAEYL says.
I sigh. "Of course you do."
Notes:
I'm so glad I was able to get this done quickly, because next chapter? SHIT GETS REAL
I know people loved the meet and make out concept of TFTAB (and I do too, trust me) but it just doesn't work for this particular story (we'll get there I promise). in the meantime, I hope you enjoyed Very Conflicted Xaden, who can't decide if he wants to fuck violet or kill her. I'm writing their relationship dynamic a bit different than I have in past fics, so it's taking so adjustments, but hopefully it'll read a bit better in upcoming chapters :)
as always, I post a lot about my writing progress on my Tumblr (same as my AO3 handle) so go check it out if you like previews of the upcoming chapters!
Chapter 8: Kairos
Notes:
and now, shit hitteth the fan
kairos - an ancient greek word for "the decisive moment"
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Violet
Three Years Ago
I've lost count of how many times I've thought I was going to die and still managed to come out on the other side, alive and kicking. It's almost my calling card at this point.
I'm less sure it will work this time around.
It's almost the end of my first year in the BASGIATH protocol, and I'd begun to get hopeful that I'd survive. I'd gotten used to the soulless metal of the underground facility we train in, day in and day out. I'd gotten stronger. I'd made allies.
And enemies.
Six months. That's how long it's been since I killed Oren and his group in my bedroom. I've killed again four times since then. Once when someone attacked me after class, once in the shower, and twice during hand-to-hand matches. I cried after each one.
Today will make five - maybe more. If I can survive.
I'm flanked on either side by Rhiannon and Ridoc, Sawyer bringing up the rear, as we enter the Pit. My anxiety ratchets up as the illuminated ring below comes into view. The bleachers are already full with the other trainees, a low hum carrying throughout the cavernous room. Everyone is fully dressed in black mission suits, weapons of all kinds gleaming from where they're strapped every which way across people's bodies. Normally, this room is used for combat training; the pit below resonating with the clang of weaponry from sparring matches. Today, we're here to learn about what cruel game we'll be forced to play.
Today marks the first day of the Spy Games. And what dangerous games they are.
No one in my squad says a word as we make our way to an empty row of seats near the top of the arena-like seating. We all know the statistics. We all know that the Spy Games are one of the deadliest parts of our training. They say that up to a third of the graduating class dies during the two days of murder and mayhem that are hallmarks of this part of the year- well, hallmarks of the entire damn protocol, if I'm being honest.
Rhi is the first to break our group's tense silence as we take our seats. I feel the daggers strapped to my thighs press in as I shift my body weight.
"Are you ready?" She whispers, her eyes glued to the pit below as our teachers begin filing in. She means if I'm ready for the shit show this day will bring, but my reply answers a different question.
"Yes," I reply honestly.
I'm ready to die. I've made my peace with it.
Rhi gives me a disbelieving look, but before she can open her mouth, Devera's strong and confident voice cuts through the hum of chatter and whispers.
"Trainees! Today is one of the most time-honored traditions of the BASGIATH protocol - the Spy Games!" Devera's voice booms, her arms thrown wide.
"Way to make it sound like a college spirit day thing rather than a murderous bloodbath," Ridoc mutters from my other side. I have to fight my own laugh.
"You will be tested in ways you can't even imagine. You will need all of the skills you have learned this year to survive," Devera continues. "Some of you may not be stereotypical in your skills, but who cares? All that matters is if you are alive by the end of it all." I swear her eyes land on me. "Not all strength is physical. Underestimate your opponents at your own risk."
I am suddenly acutely aware of every sensation my senses are taking in. The dank air of the cavernous room. The feel of my tight mission suit against my skin, digging in at places because I'm sitting. The press of my daggers against my ribs; my thighs; in my boot. The slight tug of my hair, woven into its usual braided crown atop my head. The feeling of Rhiannon's arm lightly brushing against mine. The low hush of the other trainees as they murmur words to their companions. My senses are in overdrive, taking it all in, as if they suddenly realize this may be my last chance to experience it all
Devera drones on with some kind of pep talk, but I'm no longer paying attention. A cold trickle of dread slithers down my spine as I meet the icy blue eyes of Jack Barlowe across the room. He always seems homicidal, but something about him today promises death. The smile tugging his lips only further embeds the cold certainty that I'll meet Malek today into my mind.
As Devera explains how the day will unfold, I keep thinking about how I will die. At first, it is with certainty, but- I killed Oren. And everyone else who came after me. Every obstacle that people swore I wouldn't be able to overcome, I managed to get past. Thanks to Devera's training, I win sparring matches. I'm the fastest trainee in the protocol. I've even begun training my squad to throw daggers.
Why am I so convinced that I'll be the one to die today, when I'm as formidable as they come? When I'm near the top of our class?
I meet Jack's eyes again, but this time the dread and fear is replaced with fire. I harden my resolve, and lift my chin. Jack narrows his eyes into a glare, but I won't let him intimidate me.
I feel that fire burn away at my humanity, which I had so desperately clung to at the beginning of the year and was left in tatters from months of death and terror; hard choices and daunting obstacles.
Rhiannon catches my eye, her brow furrowed.
"What's on your mind?" she asks quietly.
"How to commit cold-blooded murder," I reply, the nonchalance of my tone not matching the absolutely insane confession I've just made.
I will not die today. But Jack Barlowe will.
Present
As I watch the life bleed of Jack Barlowe, I expect to feel relief, or even satisfaction.
All I feel is numbness.
His face is frozen in that hateful sneer, and my hands are coated in his blood.
I killed him. I feel no remorse; no flicker of regret. I don't wonder about his family, or ask myself if his death was necessary like I sometimes do.
No, all I do is stare. And stare. And stare.
Jack Barlowe is dead. For good, this time.
Good fucking riddance.
I tug my knife from his chest and regain my feet, returning my attention to the only man still standing other than me - Xaden Riorson.
"Can't say I expected that," Riorson says.
I laugh despite myself. "I'm sure it wasn't."
I catch sight of the dagger clutched in his hand, and have to fight not to roll my eyes. The man has a foot and a half on me, and he thinks he needs a knife to take me out? He could step on me like a freaking bug and that would be that.
"Put that away, Riorson," I say with a sigh. "I'm not going to kill you - yet. Not when you could probably throw me around like a rag doll."
"Don't sell yourself short," Riorson replies, his mouth quirking up into a ghost of a grin for all but a second as he sheathes his knife. "You've already demonstrated that you're more than capable of taking out people twice your size, Violence."
"It's not that hard when the alternative would have been far more unpleasant." A twinge in my injured shoulder makes me grit my teeth. I see Xaden's expression harden, and I can see the path his thoughts are going down with ease. I cut him off as his lips part, no doubt to ask about my injury. "Don't even think about it, Riorson. I can take care of myself."
He raises an eyebrow in my direction, but elects to drop the subject as he throws his arms wide, highlighting the destruction I've wrought.
"You want to tell me what all of this was about?"
At first, I debate lying. Maybe this is a horrible idea. Maybe I should try to figure out the mystery my dad left behind on my own.
It's so tempting to fall back on my loner ways, but that's got me nowhere so far.
"Your teacher managed to get me mixed up in some minor treason."
Xaden Riorson, the gorgeous idiot, looks at me like I've grown a second head.
"What?" he asks, his voice disbelieving. It's the first real scrap of emotion I've managed to draw out of him. He is not making this easy for me. Men can never catch a fucking hint.
I move backwards, groaning as the movement irritates my wounded arm. "If I told you I think the NIA made my father disappear because he was looking into your father's death, what would you say?"
For a moment, I think I see a glimmer of something on Riorson's face, a bit more of that elusive emotion he seems to keep behind locked doors, but I blink, and all I see is the emotionless mask he seems to try to have pasted on his face at all times.
"I would say that you're treading very dangerous ground, Sorrengail."
I glare. "Devera told me to find you."
"Did she now?" He looks like he couldn't care less. I want to throttle him.
"I need your help, Riorson, and I don't even know why." The admission flies from my mouth before I can think better of it, and I feel myself burn with embarrassment. I don't need help - ever. At least, not since BASGIATH. Asking for help from a Riorson? This is a new low. My mother would hang me on the spot if she saw me now.
But my confession seems to have finally gotten through to the soldier standing before me.
"Help with what?" He tries to come off uninterested, but that look in dark eyes of his is unmistakable. He's curious.
I blow a lock of hair from in front of my eyes. "I literally just said I don't know why."
He slowly begins to move towards me, and I fight my instinct to flee this bathroom we've found ourselves in. Xaden Riorson is all sleek lines and power - a predator on the prowl, his attention focused solely on me.
My logical mind is telling me I should be terrified. My traitorous body has... other ideas.
The air takes on the scent of mint and leather as Riorson invades my personal space. Its so disarming that I don't even think to tell him to take a step back.
"You were the one who sent the message," he says softly, the gold flecks in his eyes glinting. "You tipped us off about NIA agents on board."
I don't want to know how he managed to figure that out. I nod.
"Why?" His brow is furrowed, looking down at me like I'm a puzzle he's trying to solve. Maybe I am.
"Because I need your help," I say again. "And I couldn't risk you or your friends doing something stupid and tipping off Jack," I admit after a moment's hesitation.
Honesty is the name of the game here, I remind myself.
Riorson looks back at the corpses at our feet. "Right. Care to explain why you're out here killing six of your own operatives? Or why they were trying to kill you?"
"Care to explain what you are your friends are doing, traveling to Cordyn under fake names?" I'm not interested in spilling the details of my strained relationship with the NIA with this man, at least not yet. Maybe honesty is more of an aspiration than the name of the game.
He doesn't push the point.
"Well." he crosses his arms, and I fight every urge to drool over the way his toned arm muscles ripple and bulge at the movement. He is too damn attractive for my own good. "Clearly your motivations for tipping us off weren't altruistic. What do you really want?"
Finally, he's asking the questions I want him to ask.
"Do you know anything about what happened to David Sorrengail?" I ask, almost instantly.
"No." But something flickers on his face, so imperceptible that I almost miss it, but I know immediately. He's lying.
Fury curls through my body. I need whatever it is he knows. "You're lying."
"Am I?" He reaches out and runs his fingers over the tail of the braid draped over my shoulder almost absentmindedly. "Let's say I am. Why should I tell you anything, Violet Sorrengail? You may have helped me out once, but lets not forget that you're a member of the agency that had my father killed; the daughter of the woman who likely ordered his death."
The fire goes out. He's right. And I hate it.
We stand there in stoney silence, before Riorson's deep voice cuts through the quiet. "I'm waiting. You know better than anyone how deadly these games we play are. Why should I tell you anything?"
Those gold-flecked onyx eyes of his bore into me, and I wonder, for just a split second, what our meeting would have been like if I wasn't an NIA operative and he wasn't the son of a supposed traitor. The thought has me rubbing my thighs together as the possibilities flash through my minds, his breath in my ear and hands on my waist and fingers inside my-
I jerk myself out of my thoughts. This is Xaden Riorson. I can't afford to let him get under my skin - in any way. His fingers are still playing with the end of my braid, and I'm shoving his arm away as soon as I realize that fact.
"Because I may have information that could exonerate your father."
The man before me stills, disbelief once again evident on his face. "What?"
"You heard me."
'He schools his expression a moment later, with a precision and ease that I envy.
"Sure you do, Violence." The nickname sends shivers down my spine. "I'm not interested."
No. No. I need his help - he can't turn me down.
"You're lying," I accuse.
"Am I?"
He is - he has to be. It's all I cling to at this point. But I get the feeling that pushing the subject won't get anywhere. I've barely known Xaden Riorson a few hours, and I can already tell he is as stubborn as the worst of them. I move away from the sink, ignoring the fresh stab of pain in my shoulder as I move away from Riorson.
"You are such an asshole." I hurl it in his direction. I hope it stings, even though I know he probably doesn't give two shits what I think about him.
"Duly noted," he quips.
Gods, I could kill him. But that would require moving and- I just feel tired. The adrenaline from the fight has all but left me, and I'm barely keeping myself from falling over from the pain in my shoulder. I've forced through worse - so much worse - but there's nothing else I'd like more than to curl up and pretend the world doesn't exist for a few hours. Pretend I'm not a lifeless killing machine; pretend that I didn't just kill six people, just as Navarre trained me to do.
But if I do that, then those six will likely take their places in my nightmares, and I'm not sure I want to see that either.
I give myself a shake. Riorson looks like he's lost in thought, and I move for the door while he's zoned out. I've failed here, and now I need to regroup and come up with a new plan. And maybe get my should relocated-
"And where do you think you're going?"
My hand is outreached for the door handle, and I freeze midstep when he manages to get in front of me. Stupidly tall man. He peers down at me, scarred eyebrow raised in question.
"Get out of my way, Riorson. I need to get patched up."
"Can I-"
For fucks sake.
"I'm not about to let someone I barely know, much less trust, help me with this," I snap, letting my frustration towards his refusal and towards the clusterfuck that is my life these days bleed into my words. "Get out of my way."
"No." He settles back onto his heels and crosses his arms.
Fuck. Him.
"I'll stab you if I have to."
That seems to amuse him. "I didn't take you for the backstabbing type, Sorrengail."
"You clearly don't know me very well," I retort. "I'll do whatever is needed to do my job and get home. Including dropping you where you stand."
It's a lie. I know it. He knows it. But this is a matter of pride.
Riorson makes a barely audible noise as he steps towards me, invading my personal space like we've known each other for years, not hours. "Except you won't. I have something you need, clearly. You have questions, and I apparently have the answers."
I'm barely paying attention to the words leaving his mouth. I'm solely focused on the sensation of his fingers running over the tangled strands of my brown and silver hair, undoing my braid.
"Devera told me to find you." It's all I can think to say.
"I didn't take you as someone who liked to do as you're told." Gods, there are so many contexts for what he's saying, and all of them have me fighting a blush.
"Trust me, most people don't even try to tell me what to do," I say, my voice breathier than I'd like. He fully unravels my braid, and he runs his hand through my hair, loosening it from its style. I have to believe he feels this attraction I'm feeling. I don't think it's possible for this kind of chemistry to be one-sided. And to think I once thought what I had with Dain was special. This tension that's laced each and every word Riorson and I have spoken to each other is a whole different beast, one that has me wanting to stab him and fuck him at once.
This is so fucking dangerous. I need to throw on the brakes.
"What did I tell you earlier about looking but not touching?" I remind him, and he jolts backwards as if he's just been shocked.
A beat passes, then two, then-
"See a doctor about that arm," he orders. I have to fight not to roll my eyes as I shove past him.
So he wants to be difficult? Wants to pretend he doesn't want what I can offer him? Fine. I don't need him. Devera is around here somewhere, and I'll get the answers I need from her. Xaden Riorson means nothing to me. I've gotten by this long on my own, and I'll finish this on my own if I have to.
I turn back to him for a just a moment to leave my parting blow. "To paraphrase an asshole I met recently, I don't like being told what to do."
I make sure to slam the door in his face with all the strength I have left.
Day is beginning to break as I stalk through Corden's slums, my fingers crumpling the scrap of paper clenched in the fingers of my uninjured arm. I haven't bothered to reset the dislocated joint, even though every step I take brings a jolt of fresh agony.
I'd like to think its to spite Riorson's command earlier, but its mostly because I'm too desperate to find Devera.
I came up short with him, and he was the only lead I had. I need to find Devera; interrogate her to find out how much she really knows. For the first time in years, I've been given hope. Hope that I could finally learn what happened to my father. I won't let that slip away just because Xaden Riorson is an asshole.
A beautiful asshole. A touchy one too. But an asshole nonetheless.
My first order of business after practically fleeing Cordyn's airport was tracking down one of the NIA's many informants on the city, who had passed me an address hastily scrawled on the piece of paper now crumpled in my grip. My vision is swimming with every step I take towards my destination but I won't stop - can't stop.
It's only a matter of time until the NIA - until Colonel Aetos - learns what I've done. But I don't care about that right now, not when it's more likely than not that Aetos was acting on his own. The agency wouldn't dare try to murder me without my mother's permission, and sending Jack of all people after me isn't her style.
No, Lilith Sorrengail would make an example of me.
I blink rapidly as the sun crests over the low rise of buildings on the horizon, temporarily blinding me. The streets are slowly beginning to come to life, people shuffling out of decrepit apartments. I ignore everyone I pass, and they ignore me.
It doesn't take long before I arrive in front of a grimy, abandoned looking building, three stories tall. The steps leading up to the entrance are littered with trash, and my nose crinkles at the odor wafting from the adjacent alleyway. A man, his face covered in a weeks-old beard, lies sleeping on the sidewalk, underneath a fire escape that would surely tumble to the pavement below if even a child stepped out onto it. I'd barely call myself human, but the place where my heart would have been hurts. Every time I come here, it's worse. Between the bombings, poverty, and political infighting, Poromiel is a mess.
I grit my teeth when a fresh wave of pain makes my head swim as I make my way to the entrance. The lock is rusted through, and I kick through the door easily enough, but the impact nearly takes me to my knees. I don't stop; I push through, forcing myself over the threshold into the dimly lit corridor beyond.
The silence is eerie as I take in my surroundings. Slivers of light highlight the dust motes floating through the air. I spy an abandoned reception desk, with empty cubicles beyond. This building must have been some kind of office space. It doesn't take me long to find the stairs leading upwards, and I climb, my breathing labored and shoulder screaming.
I don't bother stopping on the second floor, and continue all the way up to the third. I kick the heavy metal door at the top of the staircase open, and it hits the wall with a clang. Devera always told me to seek out the high ground.
As expected, my mentor awaits, staring me down with a raised eyebrow and arms crossed against her chest as she leans against the wall directly across from the door I just kicked open. Sunlight streams through the grimy windows, illuminating the cavernous, empty space.
"You," I bite out through pained gasps. "Are not an easy woman to track down."
"Did you consider, perhaps, that that was because I didn't want to be found?"
I scoff, closing the distance between us until I'm only a few feet away from her. The black mission suit I've grown accustomed to seeing her wear is nowhere to be seen, replaced by a leather jacket and jeans. I spy a sleeping bag in the corner, along with a solar-powered lamp. She's been on the move, it seems.
"Tell me about my dad."
Devera has the audacity to laugh.
"I don't know what you want me to say, Violet," she says with a shake of her head.
I narrow my eyes to slits. "Bullshit. You held onto those document for as long as you did and never once tried to decipher them? I don't believe that for a second."
"Believe whatever you want." Her eyes slide down to my shoulder. "We should fix that shoulder of yours before we continue this conversation."
As much as I want to snap at her, tell Devera that she should worry about herself and not me, I'm fast approaching the limit of my pain tolerance. I hesitate for a moment, before nodding my assent. I grit my teeth when she steps forward and puts her hands on my dislocated shoulder.
"On the count of three," she says, locking eyes with me, and I nod again. "One-"
My shoulder slides back into place, and a scream rips out of my mouth before I can stop it, the burning pain of the relocation making my eyes water.
"Shit," I gasp, stumbling backwards. "What happened to the count of three?"
Devera shrugs. "It's better if you don't know its coming."
I should have seen that coming.
I roll my shoulder experimentally, satisfied now that the worst of the pain has receded. I'll need to be careful with it for a week or two, but other than stiffness, the worst of the discomfort is gone.
"Thank you," I say after a moment. "Will you answer my questions now? Why did you tell me to get Xaden Riorson's help? He was completely useless."
A familiar flicker of annoyance rekindles in my chest at the thought of his stupid face. Bastard.
Devera chuckles. "Riorson is many things, but 'useless' isn't a word I'd use to describe him." She gives me a once over, then her eyes widen in slight horror. "He wasn't the one to dislocate your shoulder, was he?"
Before I can stop it, a wicked grin curls my lips. "No. The one who did thought he really had a chance to take me out, though. He learned his lesson."
"I pity whoever thought that."
"Don't," I say with a humorless laugh. "It was Jack Barlowe."
Her eyebrows shoot up at that. "So he's dead, then?"
"You're making assumptions," I say defensively. But its kind of pointless - she's not exactly wrong.
"I've met you, Violet," Devera replies drily. "The list of people that I think you'd actually kill in cold-blood is quite short, and Jack Barlowe just happens to be the only one on that list."
If only that were true. I've been Navarre's obedient little killing machine for far too long now.
"I'll kill whoever I have to."
I feel the gaze Devera bestows upon me in my very bones. It reminds me of pity.
"Exactly. Whoever you have to." She sighs, and runs a hand through her purple hair. All of a sudden, my usually inexhaustible teachers looks so, so tired. The bags under her eyes are pronounced, and her frown lines have grown deeper since I last saw her.
Sometimes I wonder why she saved me; why she took the time to train me. I've asked before, but she's never given me a straight answer.
"Why did you train me, in the protocol?" Even I can hear the desperation that laces my voice. "You could have left me to die that night, and you didn't. Why? Did it have something to do with whatever it is my father left behind?"
I'd like to think it was because she saw my potential; because she thought I was worth saving.
Devera leans back again the wall, in between two windows, he expression closed off. I take a step forward, pleading. "I need you to tell me something, Devera. Anything. Please."
"Because you need to live. None of this will matter if you don't survive."
The words hang heavy in the space between us as I process the words. My hand tears at the hair that's fallen around my face, pushing it away from my eyes roughly. "No more fucking riddles, Devera. You need to tell me what's going on right now." My voice breaks a little bit. "I have to know what happened to Dad, and I don't know how to put these puzzle pieces together."
The admission just about tears me apart. I hate admitting that I don't know something. My greatest weapon has alway been my mind; its always been knowing. Not knowing feels antithetical to my very existence.
"You are truly your father's daughter." Devera laughs softly. "I really don't know much about what your father discovered, but it was big, Violet. A massive cover-up. Those documents contain everything, or so I've been led to believe." Her words are carefully chosen, measured. If I didn't know any better, I'd say we were discussing one of her many lessons back in BASGIATH, not a conspiracy.
"But you only gave me half the damn cypher. The documents are-"
"Riorson has the other half," Devera interrupts, a hint of mischief leaking into her expression. "I already told you, you're going to need his help."
Fucking hell. I could throttle her.
I cross my arms across my chest, the compressive material of my mission suit digging into my shoulders and upper arms. "I don't get why you didn't just give me the whole thing."
Devera closes the distance between us once again. Her hand comes up to my shoulder, and gives it a squeeze that would be almost reassuring if we weren't discussing literal treason.
"You're going to need Xaden, Violet, to get through all of this." Her expression is somber, her eyes searching mine. "Too much is at stake to put it on one person."
"I don't understand," I whisper, shaking my head. "Please stop with the riddles."
"You will." She's now gripping both of my shoulders. "You have every tool you need to figure this out. The smarts of your father, the strength of your mother, the loyalty of your sister, and the heart of your brother."
I choke up at the mention of Brennan. I don't like the way this conversation is going. It feels suspiciously like a goodbye. "You make me sound like this incredible person, but I'm not."
"You are. You are Violet Sorrengail - there are very few who could ever be your equal."
I step back jerkily, tugging myself out of her grip. I can't do this - I can't have her looking at me like I'm something I'm not. Like I'm someone incredible. I'm a murderer. There's nothing incredible about that. "Let's agree to disagree on that one."
Devera huffs, but elects to drop the topic. She merely stares at me. A minute stretches into two before she breaks the silence again. "Are you going to kill me today, Violet?"
Am I? I consider her for a moment. I had asked myself that very question the entire way here. I'm a cold-blooded murderer, no doubt, but am I really capable of killing Devera? My teacher who saved my life, who taught me how to survive? I think of my squad back in Calldyr, waiting for me to return home. I think of Mira, who told me not to leave her as an only child.
Then I think of Dad. Of Brennan. What would they do?
And then I have my answer.
Maybe I do have an almost microscopic shred of goodness left in my soul. Or maybe I'm even worse than I thought, considering this decision may doom my closest friends. But I know I can't kill her. I think it would destroy me in a way I couldn't come back from.
I open my mouth, but before the words can leave my mouth, a crack like thunder rends the air. The window directly behind Devera shatters into a million pieces.
A bloom of crimson seeps across Devera's shirt, and she drops to the floor with a pained groan.
Oh.
Oh gods.
"Devera!" I lunge for her on instinct, ignoring everything I've been trained to do, not bothering to check to see where the shooter is; to make sure they aren't reloading to take me down next. Shattered bits of glass crunch under my boots as I hook my arms under her armpits and drag her to a more covered position.
I twist my body around hers, putting my back between her and the sniper. She can't die. I think it over and over again. Devera groans as I ease her to the floor, her head in my lap, blood seeping from the gunshot wound in her stomach.
She's going to bleed out before anyone could even get here to help. And who would even help? She's a fugitive on the run; I'm essentially a traitor, even if the NIA hasn't fully realized it yet.
The room is silent save for the tinkling of glass falling loose from the shattered window and Devera's breathing, which is quickly becoming shallow. I debate ripping the sleeves off my mission suit, but it's made to be resistant to tearing and even if I could get them off, they would be next to useless for keeping her from bleeding out. Instead, I shove my hands against the wound, trying to staunch the bleeding even though I know it's pointless. I offer a prayer up to Malek, begging him to spare this woman to whom I owe everything.
My face feels wet, and I realize I'm crying as I hear Devera's breathing get more and more labored.
"You aren't allowed to fucking die," I say, in what sound more like a sob than a hiss as I meet her eyes for the first time. All I see is grim acceptance. "You can't."
"You have to be careful Violet." Her voice rattles in her chest, and a dribble of blood leaks from the corner of her mouth. No, no, no. "The only one you can trust is Riorson... No one else."
I shake my head jerkily, pressing harder against the wound. My tears are falling freely now. I owe her so much. I owe her my life. How can I just sit here and let her die? How could the gods just let her die?
"Violet." Her voice is stern, so much like the tone she used with me when I struggled to regain my feet during her more brutal training sessions. I sit up straighter on instinct. "Stop... Listen to what... I'm about to tell you."
She's fading fast, her life literally leaving her body with every beat of her heart. I meet her eyes again, and they soften. I take her hand and squeeze. She squeezes back, but her grip doesn't have that iron quality I'm used to. Her pulse flutters weakly beneath my fingers. Slow - too slow.
"For you, anything," I whisper.
"Navarre is hiding..." she takes a shuddering breath, fighting to hold on. My heart clenches painfully, and something that sounds a lot like a sob rips from my throat. "Your father... was looking... into..."
She stops for a moment, catching her breath, and more blood trickles from her mouth.
"VENIN," she whispers. "He was looking into... VENIN... it... destroyed... but..."
She trails off.
Her hand goes limp.
The pulse under my fingers stills.
The light in her eyes goes out.
There's a roaring in my head, both far away and right in my ears. I blink rapidly, as if doing so could make the horrible truth in front of me any less real.
I couldn't save her.
Dead. She's dead.
My hand releases hers, and gently - so gently - I close her eyes. I ease her head from my lap onto the cold concrete floor.
And for the first time in a long, long time, I just sit there and let myself mourn the latest death that will haunt my dreams.
Notes:
:)
Chapter 9: Point of Reckoning
Notes:
that last chapter really kicked things into gear, yeah? be prepared to learn even more in this one :)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Xaden
Eleven Years Ago
I know Dad had a rough day when I find him on the roof, sipping from a glass filled with whiskey, staring up at the stars with a closed off expression on his face.
I just don't expect to find him out there tonight, of all nights. My 15th birthday.
The air has a bite to it - typical of March - but its not as cold as it usually is when I stick my head out the large window on the second floor that I know he uses to climb out onto the roof above. I see his legs dangling from the edge, still clad in his uniform pants, that glass clutched in his fingers.
"Dad?" I call out.
He stays silent for a moment, before replying: "Come out here, Xaden."
I don't have to be asked twice. I step out onto the ledge, before turning, gripping the edge of the roof, and hauling myself up. The rest of my father appears in my line of sight. His dark brown hair, usually slicked back with military precision, is mussed, while his uniform jacket is nowhere to be seen, instead replaced by the rolled up sleeves of his button-up shirt, which is untucked at the waist.
"You look like shit," I comment.
Dad shoots me a glare. "Language, son."
"Sorry," I smirk. "You look like ass."
That manages to get a smile out of him. "You done being a smart aleck?"
"Nope."
We sit there in silence for a few minutes, staring up at the stars. Our home is in the suburbs, far away from the bustle of downtown Aretia, but still the stars are hard to see save the brightest ones. It makes me wish for the times Dad would bring me out to the ruins of old Aretia - the ruins of Riorson House. We'd camp there, and he'd point out all the constellations he knew, telling me their stories.
There hasn't been time for trips like that in a long time.
"Navarre wasn't happy about the Assembly's proposal," Dad says, startling me out of my thoughts. I nod. No wonder he's out here tonight.
"What are you going to do now?"
My father lets out an aggrieved sigh, leaning back on one hand as he takes a sip of his whiskey. "I'm still figuring that out. I'm technically part of Navarre's military but..." He shakes his head. "Tyrrendor deserves better than this."
I frown. "You're doing everything you can. I wish you'd let me help."
Dad laughs at that. "And do what? Scare them off with your teenage moodiness? Why don't you focus on getting that history grade up first?"
I glower as he continues to laugh. Helping Dad and the Assembly is way more important than high school.
We slip back into companionable silence. I love these quiet moments with my father more than I'd ever admit aloud. We don't celebrate my birthday - not because Dad hasn't offered, but because it feels wrong for me to.
I take a deep breath, muster my courage and decide to ask the question that led to me to seek out my father in the first place.
"What really happened to Mom?"
Dad freezes, glass halfway to his lips, and he stays like that for a split second before he shifts to face me fully.
"I'm not sure what you mean," Dad says carefully.
"Yes you do," I push. "You said she died in a car accident on a work trip, but I hacked into the accident records database in Calldyr, and I couldn't find any records with her name in it."
I realize I maybe should have reconsidered asking about this when a look of horror dawns on Dad's face.
"You did what?"
Too late to take it back now. "I said I couldn't find any-"
"Not that," he snarls, setting the glass down on the roof and grabbing me roughly by the shoulders. "You hacked Calldyr's accident records? What were you thinking? What if you got caught?"
I widen my eyes, unable to keep my surprise off my face. "Why are you so upset? Even if I did get caught, its a misdemeanor at best, and-"
"No." Dad says it sharply, and I immediately close my mouth. Shit. He's pissed.
"Listen to me, Xaden." Dad tightens his grip on my shoulders, looking me straight in the face with a degree of urgency I'm not used to him directing my way. "I need you to promise me you won't do something that reckless ever again. Navarre is looking for any reason to discredit me, to discredit everyone in the Assembly, and this would just give them more ammunition. Do you understand?"
I blink once, twice, then shove his arms away.
"No, I don't," I argue. "I don't get why you're making such a big deal about this."
"Because you don't know the lengths that Navarre will go-"
"I don't give a shit, Dad!" I interrupt, something I'd normally never dare to do. But I'm tired of being sidelined, of him not telling me what's going on to protect me. I don't need protecting. "Stop treating me like a child."
"Then stop acting like one."
Fuck this. I scoff, and clamber back down to the open window below.
I swear I hear Dad mutter "fucking teenagers" under his breath as I slam the window closed behind me.
Ten Years Ago
The night before Dad's funeral, I climb out to the roof to watch the stars and regret every argument I ever had with him, every moment I spent being angry and moody when I should've just seen that he was trying to protect me from the cruel world we live in.
Bodhi and I are the only Riorsons left, and tonight is my last night in this house - I'll be sent into foster care tomorrow, no doubt, since I'm only 16. It's been two days since Dad died, two days since those officers who delivered the news practically grinned while informing me that my father had died, but this is the first time I've been left alone with my thoughts. The rest of the time has been spent dealing with lawyers and business executives and military men trying to strong-arm their way into my house to get Dad's files. The Assembly has remained silent, and I want it to stay that way. Maybe Dad wouldn't have been framed - because I know in my soul he was - if the Assembly didn't decide to go and piss off Navarre as much and as often as it did.
I brought a handle of vodka - cheap, not the expensive stuff Dad keeps kept in a locked cabinet in his study - and I'm already well on my way to a raging hangover when Garrick pulls himself onto the roof next to me. He doesn't say a word, silently accepting the bottle when I offer it to him and taking a swig. He makes a face as it goes down.
"That," he says with disgust. "Is horrible."
I don't even crack a smile. Maybe I won't ever smile again. I can't imagine feeling happy - not under these circumstances. "Bring your own damn booze next time, then."
We slip back into silence, and I reclaim possession of the bottle.
I don't bother to hide it when I begin to cry.
Present
"You are being stubborn."
I'm not in the mood for SGAEYL's lectures, but as always, she doesn't care about my opinion. I'm sitting in a grimy bar on the outskirts of Cordyn, less than a day after the bizarre confrontation with Violet Sorrengail in the airport bathroom.
"I'm being cautious," I shoot back.
"Your caution is unwarranted."
Instead of responding, I just take a sip of my beer. It's watered down, and frankly disgusting, but after the last 24 hours, I needed a fucking drink. I'm still trying to wrap my head around everything that's happened.
I keep telling myself that I made the right decision by lying to Sorrengail, but SGAEYL's admonitions are beginning to wear on me. I don't want to be associated with anyone who claims Lilith Sorrengail as family, but the NIA operative's words have been bouncing around in the back of my mind ceaselessly all day, and I can't forget the look on her face when she asked for information about a man I knew to be her and Brennan's father.
"It's possible she holds crucial information," SGAEYL says. "Are you really not going to try to find out what she knows?"
I tighten my grip on the glass, but again I don't respond. I don't want to admit it, but I almost don't want to know what Sorrengail claims to have discovered about my father. Not because I don't want to clear his name, but because I'm scared whatever she's found will change the way I view my father. I'm not stupid - I know he hid a lot from me, much of it underhanded and possibly illegal - and I've avoided poking around because I don't want the last image I have of him in my head - one of someone going to face an injustice with honor and humility - to be tainted.
Does that make me a coward? Maybe, but I don't care. I've already lost so much. I want to keep what scraps I have.
"So much more stands to be lost if you don't put your personal feelings aside and find out what my administrator's sister knows," SGAEYL snaps in my head.
Fucking AI. For a program that's not supposed to have emotions, she's really fucking moody today.
"I'll think about it," I finally concede, mostly to get her to stop nagging me about it. I have no intention of getting dragged back into Violet Sorrengail's orbit. I almost made an unforgivable mistake because I couldn't stop thinking with my dick instead of my head.
SGAEYL finally deigns to leave me alone, and I'm left to wrestle with my thoughts. As much as what she said about my father bothered me, that isn't the part that's been taking up most of my brain space today.
You were trained like Devera just like I was, so you should've been more careful. Some people in the NIA are already noticing something is off. They'll want you dead just because of your name.
Her words have been echoing in my head all day. How had we landed on the NIA's radar? Do they know that we know about Project VENIN? Or are they only suspicious because I've been traveling to Poromiel?
I'm knocked out of my brooding by a hearty clap on the back, and I look up with a glare at Garrick's smiling face as he pulls out the chair next to me.
"You survived your encounter with Violet Sorrengail!" Garrick proclaims. "Excellent. That'll make this evening significantly less depressing."
I roll my eyes. "You already knew I wasn't dead. I called you."
"For all I knew, you were being impersonated by killer clowns, Xaden." He says it so seriously I wouldn't even think he was joking if I didn't see that mischievous glimmer in his eyes.
"How was the drop?" I ask, changing the subject. Garrick lifts a finger, flagging down the bartender and ordering his own beer, before turning back to me.
"Didn't happen," he says with a shrug. "Syrena didn't show."
I frown. "SGAEYL?"
"Brennan reports that Syrena did not make him aware that she would not be picking up the drop. He is attempting to contact her."
Garrick is looking at me with a mildly amused expression when I refocus on him. "What did SGAEYL say?"
"Brennan's looking into it." It takes everything in me not to growl, and I throw back another swig of my gods-awful beer. "Where's Liam?"
"At the hotel," Garrick says. "He didn't get any sleep on the plane."
I feel a slight prickle of guilt, knowing that the reason for that was because I demanded he find out more about the message that apparently came from Sorrengail.
We slip into silence after that, drinking our shitty beer and pretending to be interested in the football game playing on the staticky TV precariously hanging above the bar. The bar begins to fill up, the quiet giving way to the din of a packed establishment. The crush of people cheer when one of the teams scores a touchdown, temporarily deafening me. The scent of stale beer wafts through the air, and I genuinely wonder what kind of person comes here on a regular basis.
"Riorson."
I spin around in my seat, and lo and behold, Syrena Cordelia stands behind me, arms crossed across her brown leather jacket. I can barely make out her features in the dim light, but I can tell that she's pissed, and I have no fucking idea why. I let my mask slip over my features, cocking an eyebrow and doing my best to look disinterested.
"You're a bit late, Cordella," I drawl, tapping my fingers on the edge of my glass. Garrick goes rigid next to me, eyes darting between me and Syrena, clearly sizing up the situation.
Thankfully, there's no sign of her harpy of a sister.
"The situation has changed," she growls. "We need to talk."
I narrow my eyes on her, cocking my head to the side as I pretend to consider her request.
"Have you heard anything back from Brennan?" I ask SGAEYL.
"Negative," she responds.
I blink and refocus on the woman in front of me.
"You better have my list for me, Syrena," I warn, pushing up from my seat and drawing to my full height. I leave some cash on the bar top to cover my drink, then take a step towards Syrena. I gesture towards the door. "Lead the way."
Syrena leads us to an a narrow alleyway a block away from the bar Garrick and I had found ourselves in. Garrick sticks to my side like glue; he's never trusted the Cordellas, but frankly I don't blame him. Syrena tells us just enough for us to have a vague idea of what's going on, but I know there is still a lot we don't know.
"Care you explain why you didn't show today?" I ask, a definite edge to my voice. "I didn't love finding out that I risked my life to keep the NIA off your back and you didn't even show up."
"40% of the Poromish government is likely compromised."
I blink in surprise, and I hear Garrick's sharp intake of breath next to me.
"That's impossible," he says, his face reflecting his disbelief.
"And yet, it's true," she bites out. "Their methods are evolving."
I can't help my own sharp breath. "You're sure?"
She nods. "We managed to capture a bomber in Zolya alive three days ago. We confirmed it. They didn't have the device, but they were definitely part of the project."
"Shit," I curse, pushing my dark hair away from my forehead. "We need that list, Syrena."
"It's impossible," she says, shaking her head. "We can't keep up with the rate of proliferation, and the supplies you have provided are woefully inadequate."
"We have our limits too, Syrena," I growl.
"Then raise your limits, Riorson!" she cries, throwing her arms wide. "How many civilians have to die in explosions before you see the reality in front of you? We have failed at containment! VENIN is in full swing, and your attempts to find a way to shut it down have failed. It won't be long until Navarre and Tyrrendor are facing similar fates, do you not see that?"
"Don't fucking preach to me," I hiss. "I'm well aware of what happens if we fail, and don't you dare forget what VENIN has cost me. We have done everything we can. It's not our fault we don't know what the fuck Navarre did in its weapons labs. If you want to be pissed at anyone, be pissed at them. Brennan is working day and night to try and find anything that can help."
Syrena looks like she wants to argue, but after a moment, she deflates.
"We don't have much time," she says. "Whoever is doing this - they're going to control the government by the end of the year."
I do my best not to let the cold dread that expands in my stomach from showing on my face. That's years earlier than Brennan originally predicted - Syrena is right; something has changed.
And we're fucked if we don't figure out what it is, because Syrena's right on another point too - once Poromiel falls, Navarre and Tyrrendor will be next.
Syrena steps into the flickering light of the lamp that partially illuminates the alley, and for the first time I notice the gnarly scar that stretches from her collar and extending up to her jaw. The wound is fresh, and it's a physical reminder of the hidden battle she is fighting every single day to keep Project VENIN from gaining more ground. It's a battle we're losing, badly, and no matter what I do, I can't figure out how to regain the ground we've lost. We just don't know who we're really up against, not really.
Garrick finally speaks up again, his arms crossed, his face displaying none of the levity and mischief it had just thirty minutes before. He's slipped back into his role as my right hand man.
"We'll meet tomorrow at the safe house so you can get the shipment," he says, in that no-bullshit manner of his. "Make sure you show up this time. We won't wait around."
Syrena nods, but doesn't say anything else as she stalks past me and turns out of the alleyway, disappearing into the night. Garrick and I stand there in silence for a few minutes, processing the bombshell we've just been delivered.
"Shit," Garrick finally says, rocking back onto his heels as a rush of air leaves his lungs. "This is bad."
"Yeah," I nod. "It is."
"What do you want to do?"
I ponder for a moment, but there isn't anything I can do, not from here.
"SGAEYL?" I question. She's been uncharacteristically quiet, normally one to offer her opinions to me at moments like these, which is precisely when I don't want her distracting me. "Have you told Brennan?"
"I have informed him of the situation. He is unhappy."
I think 'unhappy' might be a bit of an understatement for what I'm betting Brennan is feeling right now.
"Right now? Nothing," I say to Garrick with a shrug. "We can't do anything from Cordyn other than give them them the disablers like we promised, although I'm not sure what good they'll be now. We'll regroup when we're back in Navarre."
We begin to walk out of the alleyway, Garrick trailing slightly behind. He lets out a sigh and laces his fingers behind his head.
"What can we even do, though?" Garrick questions, sounding more dejected than I've heard him in a long while. "Brennan doesn't have a good solution yet, and now the project has figured out how to operate without the devices it originally needed. We have no leads for how Navarre managed to lose control of VENIN either."
I grimace. We've been trying to find out that particular piece of information for years, but we're no closer than we were before. It's like someone erased all records of the project's existence. We don't even know who worked on it in Navarre's labs. Whoever it was, though? They had to have been fucked in the head to create something with the potential for this much destruction.
And that's not even touching the question of who managed to revive the program with everyone in Navarre being none the wiser until it was too late.
When Navarre finally realized the scale of their fuck up, they tried to cover it up instead of admitting their mistakes. It was a secret my father - and nearly Brennan - died trying to expose. A younger, far more ignorant version of myself, was convinced that he'd been framed because of his work with the Assembly. How wrong I had been.
"We'll figure something out," I respond, a little fiercer than I intended. Garrick doesn't respond, but I can feel the quiet tension that still permeates the air. This was not how either of us expected this trip to go.
We slip back into silence, the yellowing street lights just barely illuminating the path back to the bar we came from. SGAEYL takes the silence as an invitation to continue our earlier conversation.
"Given the recent developments, I highly recommend you reconsider your decision not to seek out Violet Sorrengail."
I roll my eyes, shoving my hands into my pockets as I do.
"I'm not sure how the recent developments have anything to do with what Violet Sorrengail can offer me."
SGAEYL is silent for a moment, and an inexplicable uneasiness settles in my chest.
"SGAEYL?"
"Query complete," she says, and that uneasiness expands tenfold. "Violet Sorrengail has been accessing NIA files on the Sorrengail Incident without authorization since she completed her time within the NIA's BASGIATH protocol. She has hidden this unauthorized access by purging access data from her access code, but she did not erase the access records from the backup repository. According to the data I accessed, she has retrieved multiple files in relation to the incident. Additionally, she appears to be looking into the disappearance of David Sorrengail, who similarly accessed many of the same files multiple times before the house fire."
Holy shit.
"You hacked the NIA's computer systems?" Unbelievable. If she left so much as a trace of her intrusion, we're beyond fucked. "What the hell were you thinking? Are you trying to tell Navarre what we're up to?"
"I am the most advanced artificial intelligence program ever developed," SGAEYL says primly. "I do not think. I calculate. And I calculated it was a necessary risk to get you to move past your stubbornness on this matter and see that seeking out what Violet Sorrengail knows is the most logical course of action."
We're almost back to the bar now, but I'm barely paying attention.
"Please, enlighten me. How is Violet Sorrengail going to-"
I freeze, physically and mentally, as the puzzle pieces click into place. Garrick nearly crashes into me from behind.
"Xaden? You good, brother?" he asks, but I pay him no mind, my thoughts racing as I make the connection SGAEYL laid out for me.
Sorrengail has been accessing the same files David Sorrengail was going through just before his disappearance. The NIA took Brennan's father out of the picture after he discovered something that he wasn't supposed to know in his quest to find out what really happened to his son. He discovered that Navarre had engaged in a massive cover up of experimental military tech gone horribly wrong, and that it had the capabilities to kill an untold number of people if the wrong people got ahold of it.
Sorrengail has been accessing the same files. And she said she has information that could exonerate Dad.
Sweet Amari. Has she found what we've been looking for all these years - information about Project VENIN?
"Fuck," I whisper, forgetting to say it in my head, my eyes wide. "You couldn't have just told me all of that point blank?" I ask my AI, who I think might be as stubborn as I am.
If she could sniff, that would be the sound SGAEYL makes. "It is good for you to use your own brain for once. What is the phrase your species often uses? Character development?"
"I don't think that phrase means what you think it means," I say wryly. SGAEYL says something about updating her algorithms so she can use the phrase correctly in the future, but I barely hear her as Garrick brings me back into the real world.
"Xaden?" Garrick asks cautiously, coming around to my front, looking a bit concerned. "Are you good?"
"Fine," I whisper, my brain still reeling. "We need to find Sorrengail."
Garrick scrunches his brows, confused. "I'm pretty sure Brennan is in the bunker where we left him."
"Not Brennan. Violet."
Garrick looks at me like I've told him I want to become a ballerina.
"Uh, okay," he says, looking even more confused. "Care to explain why we now want to actively seek out the assassin that straight up said she might kill you at a later date?"
I glance around the street we're standing on. It's deserted, the only sounds being the muffled music from the bar 20 yards away. But this isn't a conversation I want to have in a place this exposed.
"Not here," I say, returning my gaze to my best friend. "Let's go fill in Liam, and then I'll explain."
When I try to open the door to out hotel room, it only opens an inch before the door chain stops it. I hear Liam curse on the other side, hear him shuffling about. I swear I hear another voice with him, but my ears must be playing tricks on me.
"Open the door, Liam," I say, exasperated. "I'm tired and we have shit we need to talk about."
I hear the clack of the chain as Liam moves it out of place and opens the door a little more, but he uses his body to block me from entering. I raise my eyebrow at him, but I'm immediately concerned when I see his face. He looks nervous - an emotion I don't normally associate with my foster brother.
"Please don't get pissed," he says, and steps back to let me through.
I'm about to ask what the fuck he's going on about, but Garrick swears behind me and I finally see why Liam would say something like that to me.
Violet Sorrengail sits in the singular armchair in the room, one leg crossed across the other, still covered in blood.
I react before I really think, whipping a knife out of the hidden sheathe inside my jacket and rocketing forward, stopping when the length of the blade is a millimeter from the pale column of her throat.
She only raises an eyebrow at me, head tilted to the side ever so slightly as if to ask 'Is that it?'
As my brain catches up with my caveman instincts, I notice that there's more blood on her than there was earlier, while her arm has clearly been reset. And her eyes- they're harder, steelier than they were before, something I wouldn't have believed possible this morning.
"Why are you here?" I growl.
I swear I see her lip tremble, but she locks down whatever emotion was threatening to come to the surface before I can fully process it.
"Devera is dead."
I tighten my grip on my dagger, pressing the blade against her skin with the slightest pressure. "Did you kill her?'
She closes her eyes, and they look haunted in a way I'm not comfortable with when they reopen.
"No."
The blood all over her is Devera's, I realize, and I suddenly feel sick to my stomach. I pull away, letting the dagger fall to my side, my stomach roiling as Sorrengail's words fully sink in.
Devera is dead.
I drag my empty hand down my face, and take in a shuddering breath. I turn my attention to Liam, who still stands in the open doorway with Garrick, looking at me with trepidation.
"Did you let her in?" I ask.
Liam nods, and I seethe. How could he have been so reckless? She's Lilith Sorrengail's daughter, an assassin for the NIA, and-
"She's Brennan's sister," Liam says solemnly, interrupting my train of through, and I immediately tense. She doesn't know he's alive.
But Liam clearly knows what has me stiffer than a board, and he doesn't give away Brennan's secret. It's not ours to tell. "He'd never forgive us if we didn't at least hear her out."
"You knew my brother?" Sorrengail questions, looking surprised.
"Surely you knew this," I reply. "Brennan was in his mother's chain of command. Liam practically grew up around him."
For that matter, he was also in my father's chain of command, but I elect to leave that unsaid for now. She might say that she has information that could exonerate him, but the world has believed Fen Riorson killed Brennan Sorrengail for 10 years, and I don't know what she knows. I don't want to poke a bear by bringing him into it.
"How did you find us?" I demand.
A smirk plays her lips, and I'm fascinated by the way they curve upwards. I give myself a shake before my thoughts go down even more dangerous paths. "That's classified."
Of course it is.
I give my friends a sharp look. "Close the door," I bark, and they shuffle in, shutting and locking the door behind them. I tell SGAEYL to run a sweep to make sure the room isn't bugged, and I don't talk again until she gives me the all-clear.
"How did you know Devera?" I ask. I've sheathed my dagger, my arms crossed over my chest as I glare down at her where she sits, still looking completely unbothered. I know its a mask, know there is no way she is as emotionless as she wants the world to believe. I've seen that fire slip out; I know it exists. I can't help but wonder why she hides it, but it's not like I'm much better either.
Sorrengail settles deeper into the armchair, crossing her arms too. I can see the gears turning in her head, the calculations she's running about what she should say.
"She saved my life when I was in training," she says after a moment. Her words are clipped, drawn, and I think there might be more - a lot more - to the story. But something about Sorrengail's expression tells me it's in my best interest not to pry more about that particular topic.
"And you didn't kill her?"
If looks could kill, I'd be dead ten times over.
"No, I didn't," she hisses, and she finally stands, drawing to her full, still very short, height. "She's one of a long list of people I have to avenge."
That fire that she was hiding has reappeared, and the vehemence of her words take me off guard. This is someone who has seen far more death than I likely ever have, and I realize that at least some of that may be her own friends.
My curiosity gets the better of me. The world around us has completely faded - Liam and Garrick are barely thoughts in my mind - and my point of view has narrowed entirely to the woman standing in front of me. It was like that before too, and I wonder what it says about me that I'm seemingly this drawn to someone who so easily threated my life only a few hours ago.
"What do you mean?" I ask.
But instead of answering my question, she asks one of her own.
"What do you know about Project VENIN?"
I freeze, barely breathing, eyes wide. She knows. I hear Garrick let out a choked cough behind me.
I don't know whether to thank the gods or curse them, because if she knows anything, I'm stuck with her. She's stuck with me. It's a mutually disagreeable situation.
But even knowing that, I smile. After all this time, a fucking break - a potential lead on information.
I reach over to the desk immediately to my left, snagging the notepad and pen that sit there. I scrawl an address on the paper, and hand it to her. She takes it, but looks at me with clear question as she tucks it into a hidden pocket in her bloodstained mission suit.
"Meet me there tomorrow," I say. "I've decided to take you up on your earlier offer."
Notes:
LOTS going on in this chapter. What is Project VENIN? What did Papa Sorrengail discover before he disappeared? And what was Fen up to before he died? So many questions...
I hope this chapter was worth the wait! We're finally beginning to learn a little more about what the real threat is, but we still have a long way to go!
As always, thanks for reading! I'm interested to know what people's theories are about Project VENIN. Lastly, if you want to be kept up to date on what I'm writing, you can check out my Tumblr (same as my AO3 name) because I post a lot about my writing progress, along with little previews as I write!
Chapter 10: Trust Fall
Notes:
hello hello! a lot of reveals in the last chapter, and now we're back with violet. enjoy!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Violet
Three Years Ago
"Again."
I hoist myself to my feet, my joints screaming in pain as I settle my weight low and stare down my opponent. Devera's arms are crossed, her boots planted wide on the mat, waiting for me to make the first move.
I fling myself at her with a cry, my capped dagger outstretched. Devera shifts to the right, and I sail past her. I expected that though, and I drop low and aim a kick at the back of her black-clad legs. I manage to catch her by surprise, and down she goes. I'm pinning her down, my dagger at her throat, before she gets the chance to even think about regaining her feet.
I'm breathing hard, sweat clinging to every crevice of my body, but I won. It's a rare day I manage to best my teacher.
"Good work," Devera says. "You've been practicing."
I scoff, and regain my feet awkwardly. I offer my hand to pull her up from the mat, but she doesn't take it, standing under her own power.
It's December of my second year, close to the solstice. I can barely remember what life was like outside of the BASGIATH protocol. I've become numb to the death and danger that permeates this place, in a way that I would have been horrified by before. My old self was one of the many early casualties of this three-year-long nightmare that I've found myself in.
I uncap my daggers in silence while Devera gathers her belongings dumped in the corner. It's late - most of the other trainees are probably asleep - but this has become our almost-daily ritual. Me, learning what it means to kill-or-be-killed from Devera in the dead of night.
As Devera returns with her bag slung over her shoulder, a velcro patch on the shoulder strap catches my eye. I've seen it before, but never asked about it. It's a flame, with a numeral 4 stitched in the middle.
"What's with the patch?" I ask, jutting my chin in her direction as I take a cloth to clean the dagger in my hand.
Devera glances down at it, and she smiles ever so slightly.
"From my military days," she says, her fingers coming up to run over the stitched orange flame. "Before I was assigned to teach trainees in the protocol, I trained special operations squads for the air force."
"Oh?" Devera hasn't talked much about what she did before she came to BASGIATH. It's like a window into a part of this woman that I'm completely unfamiliar with.
"It was both different and the same as teaching here," she says after a moment, before chuckling. "The last group I trained were quite the characters."
"Clearly," I say, a brow raised. "Since they drove you off."
Devera shakes her head, her purple hair catching in the fluorescent overhead lights. "Not quite." She eyes me for a moment. "You're very similar to one of them."
I don't know how to respond to that, so I merely raise my eyebrows, and she continues. "You're both... very certain of the path you think you have to take, to the exclusion of all others."
I pause my wiping, my brows scrunched. "That sounds like an insult."
Devera chuckles again. "Take it however you want, Sorrengail. I'll see you tomorrow."
I resume my wiping as she leaves the room, the steel door swinging shut behind her with a resounding bang. I wipe, and wipe, and wipe, and wipe, but the blades I carry will never be truly clean. It's not that easy to wipe away the blood I've spilt.
Devera's words echo through my mind as I sit in silence, pressing my weight into the cloth as I rub away at any imperfections, perceived or real. You're both very certain of the path you think you have to take, to the exclusion of all others.
My path has always been clear. It's one that requires me to kill to survive, one that requires me to shed my innocent, naive younger self and grow into the hardened copy that Navarre wishes to wield as a weapon.
My path is one I've slowly begun to come to terms with. I stop wiping the blade.
No matter how much I wipe, more blood will always come to stain it red.
Present
It doesn't take me as long to find Riorson.
The NIA has bugs in more computer systems than anyone could possibly realize, and all it took was using an installed backdoor into a major travel website to find out where him and his friends were staying. Like me, they're trying to lie low, and their hotel - an unassuming building in a working class neighborhood not too far from where Devera had been camped out - is one that I would likely stay at myself.
As soon as Devera's name crosses my mind, I have to bite down the grief that threatens to drag me under. I can practically hear her admonitions in my head right now. She would tell me not to let her death slow me down; to keep moving forward. She wouldn't want me wallowing or crying - she would want me to do what I've set out to accomplish.
The sun set hours ago, and the streets have slowly become deserted. I sit on the stoop of a brownstone across the street, staring at the hotel entrance, mentally preparing myself for what I'm about to walk into.
I drag that anger; that grief I feel down deep inside me, and chain it up so it has no chance of bubbling to the surface. I have a job to do, and I would be doing my teacher a disservice by not pouring myself into it. I close my eyes, and take a deep, calming breath - the same way the therapist I saw in high school told me I should do if I was feeling overwhelmed - and just exist in my body for a moment. I feel my weight bearing down on the rough stone beneath me, the wind tickling my cheeks. I feel the stiffness of my mission suit, caked in dried blood. The scent of gasoline and the iron tang of blood permeates the air, inescapable. A tendril of hair has escaped from my braid, and the silver tips drag across my cheek whenever there's a change in the wind.
I stay like that for a few minutes, breathing deeply and just feeling the world around me. When my eyes reopen, I feel a little more grounded, a little more in control. The last few days and weeks have felt like I'm flailing, the world that I thought I knew being yanked out from under me. My life has gone up in flames, but if I want to maintain whatever scrap of my sanity that remains, then I need to let go.
Valerie.
Devera.
I can't control the missions the NIA sends me on. I can't control if Colonel Aetos wants me dead. I can't control that I have to kill in order to survive.
Saying I need to let go is easy. Actually doing it? That's the hard part.
But perhaps the most difficult thing to accept is that I have absolutely no control over what happens when I stroll up to Riorson's hotel room. I can't control whether he'll change his mind, and I certainly can't control the very real chance that he'll try to kill me.
VENIN. That was what my father was looking into; what Devera had warned me about with her dying breath, what those documents I need Riorson's help to decode likely contain information on. She and Dad had laid it all out for me.
Navarre is willing to go to any length to keep it a secret - isn't that what Dad wrote in his letter? And Devera - she'd known the agency would come after me for whatever is in the documents she gave me, the ones I haven't been able to decode, because she knew the agency was willing to kill to keep whatever he'd found a secret. She'd called what Dad had discovered a massive cover-up.
My brain whirs. VENIN. Some kind of project of Navarre's military, maybe? One that they'd destroyed - or were supposed to destroy - but didn't, and it was covered up? I think back to the documents I found before I'd even entered BASGIATH, the ones in the safe high in the tree above the cabin I used to go to with Dad. Those documents were coded too, but some weren't, and what I'd managed to decipher begins to weave in with what I've learned recently. He'd been looking into the clandestine division.
Whatever Dad was looking into had to do with the NIA, I realize with cold certainty. This is something my agency is covering up, something that they've killed people to cover up.
Xaden Riorson is the only person I can trust right now. That is what Devera said as she lay dying, and that's the only reason I'm setting aside my pride to beg for his help if I have to.
I steel my resolve and rise to my feet, crossing the street in a hurry. I don't even bother to stop at the front desk when I step into the lobby, and the employee sitting there doesn't look up when I pass. I march for the elevator, punch the button for the third floor. Moments later, I'm standing in front of their hotel room. I take a deep breath, then rap my knuckles on the door. At first, there's silence on the other side, but before I can wonder if they aren't here, I hear shuffling, then a curse. A second later, the door is yanked open, and I'm met by a shirtless Liam Mairi, who squints at me through the bright light of the hallway. The room behind him is dark, and I feel a tad bit guilty for waking him up.
"I'll be damned," he says. He's looking at me like he's not all that surprised to see me, which I wasn't expecting. "Violet Sorrengail, in the flesh."
He's tall - not as tall as the other two he's traveling with, however - and I have to crane my neck to meet his gaze. "You don't look surprised to see me."
Liam stares at me for a moment, then steps away from the door, a silent invitation. I step over the threshold and he shuts the door behind me. The world is pitch black for all but half a second before the lights are flicked on. I spy one of the beds, blankets rumpled, and I know that I was right about waking him up.
"It's not that I'm not surprised," he starts, before pausing for a moment. "Let's just say that I had a hunch, and was hoping I was right about you."
I cock an eyebrow. "A hunch?"
He flashes me a grin, the kind that I'm sure has women lining up to try and have him. "That's all you're getting for now, Sorrengail. Care to share why you've woken me up from my beauty sleep?"
I go further into the room, and flop down in the armchair I spot before I think much of it. This day has been hell on my body - the fight with Jack, preceded by hours in an uncomfortable plane seat, and then everything that happened with Devera - so my joints are making it their mission to make me regret every choice I've ever made. I suppress my groan as I shift my weight off my legs. If Liam can see my discomfort, however, he doesn't say anything, just looking at me with a friendly expression.
"I'm looking for your friend," I say after a second.
"Which one?" Liam asks innocently, and I shoot him a glare. I know damn well he knows who I'm looking for.
"Your captain or leader or whatever you call him," I say with a wave of my hand, and the blonde chuckles, sitting on the end of the bed with the messy sheets.
"As you can see," he says, head tilted. "Xaden isn't here right now. And honestly, I wouldn't recommend being here when he gets back. He'll be pissed if he finds out I let you in here."
"Well, when will he be back?"
Both of his eyebrows pop up. "Did you not just hear the part where I said he'll be pissed if he finds out you're here?"
"I can handle myself, Mairi," I say. "Although your concern for my safety is noted."
His eyes inspect me, and his brows knit. "I'm not - judging from the blood on your clothes, you're more than capable of taking care of yourself."
I stiffen at his observation. Six people are dead today because of me. Another is dead because I couldn't save them. Their blood covers me, and it's a constant reminder of my failures and my own lack of humanity. I avert my eyes, letting them land on the generic artwork hanging on the wall to avoid having to see the expression on Liam's face. The silence doesn't last long; its broken by the clatter of the door, and the sound of voices on the other side.
"Shit," Liam mutters, his eyes darting from me to the door.
It's the moment of truth. "You should probably open the door." I keep my voice low. "There's no chance I'll be able to leave now."
Liam hesitates for a moment, and I can see the battle he's waging, but he gives in and moves toward the door, undoing the chain he locked into place after letting me in, and opening the door just enough for Xaden to see him, but not enough so that the dark-haired man can see into the room.
"Please don't get pissed," I hear him say as he steps aside. Riorson's attention stays on Liam, a confused expression on his face, but Garrick Tavis sees me.
"Holy shit," Garrick says, looking alarmed, and Xaden finally notices me.
His face contorts from confusion, to shock, to rage. Despite his tall stature, he's fast as hell, and quick as a flash he's crossed the room, a dagger outstretched and meeting the soft skin of my throat.
My heart is hammering in my chest, but I will not let him see my reaction. I will not let him see any weakness, anything that could stop him from agreeing to give me the other half of the cypher.
I tilt my head, raising an eyebrow as I do, in an attempt to look completely unbothered by him.
There is something calculating about the way he looks down at me, the gold flecks catching in the light.
"Why are you here?" he asks, his low voice menacingly calm.
Devera. She is why I'm here. Because she wanted me to be here.
"Devera is dead," I say, as if that's the only explanation he needs. And maybe it is, if the flicker of horror and disbelief that I see cross his expression is enough indication. The blade of the dagger pressed against my skin, cold and deadly. Maybe he'll slit my throat, I muse.
"Did you kill her?"
The scene replays in my head for the millionth time. The window shattering. Devera, falling. Me, sobbing. VENIN. Deathly silence.
I see the fire I started on the third floor, using gasoline I hauled from the gas station down the street. I feel the heat of the flames drying my tears as the woman who saved my life became nothing more than ashes in the wind.
I embrace the primal rage I felt, stalking up to the roof of the building where I guessed the shot had been fired, as the building across the street went up in flames. I relive the cold determination, the silent vow for revenge I made as the sound of sirens approached, when I found a single spent round, left behind by whoever murdered my teacher.
I didn't fire the deadly shot. But I might as well have delivered the final blow, with how her death hangs on my conscience. I won't let it be in vain.
I open my eyes, and I don't even know when I'd shut them. "No."
That seemed to satisfy the man who towers over me, because the knife that had threatened to cut my throat the same way I'd done to Oren four years ago pulls away. Xaden takes a deep breath, before turning his attention back to Liam and Garrick, who are still frozen at the door.
"Did you let her in?" He questions angrily. His eyes flash when Liam nods his confirmation, and he looks like he's about to finally lose that careful veneer of control he wears at all times when Liam speaks up again, shocking me.
"She's Brennan's sister. He'd never forgive us if we didn't at least hear her out."
Brennan. Everyone believes Fen Riorson killed him when he tried to stop Fen from committing treason, but if Fen was framed, who killed my brother? And why?
"You knew my brother?" I ask, surprised. I knew he'd been stationed in Tyrrendor, but the region is vast, and the odds of him crossing paths with Liam seems slim.
"Surely you knew this," Riorson interrupts, a note of disbelief in his tone that I don't particularly like. Asshole. "Brennan was in his mother's chain of command. Liam practically grew up around him."
The way he looks at me, as if he's holding back from saying more, has me feeling like I'm being judged for not knowing these apparently basic facts about my own brother. I seethe. I do not want to ask for this man's help. Fen might have been framed, which makes his son the perfect partner in this mission of mine, but Xaden Riorson is a condescending, infuriating, piece of-
A horrible thought occurs to me: What if Fen did kill Brennan, not because he was trying reveal Fen's 'treason' but because Brennan was helping to cover up VENIN?
I force the thought from my mind. I can't go down that rabbit hole right now, especially because the idea that Brennan would help cover something like that up seems intrinsically wrong at a molecular level.
"How did you find us?" Riorson demands, yanking me from my throughs, clearly done with our previous conversation.
I really don't like him.
"That's classified," I say with a little smile. Riorson's nostrils flare, and I can tell he wants to argue back, but it's an argument he won't win, and I think he knows it. He looks over his shoulder, and orders his friends back into the room. The silence is awkward and heavy, and I have no clue why no one is talking.
Riorson stares. And stares. And stares. Just when I'm about to snap at him, he finally speaks, but it's more of that same pissed off tone and distrustful glaring. It's like he's trying to look right through me, and I don't like it.
"How did you know Devera?"
The way he uses past tense to refer to her is almost what does me in; almost what finally makes me lose control of my tear ducts. I focus on making myself comfortable in my chair, crossing my arms as I do. He knows that she trained me - I said as much this morning - but I don't know how much more is safe to tell him. Devera thinks - thought - that he is trustworthy, but I don't see it. Not yet at least.
So I settle on the safest answer: the vague one.
"She saved my life when I was in training," I say. I glare back at him, dare him to question me.
Riorson just continues to look down at me, expression impossible to read. "And you didn't kill her?"
For fucks sake. We're just going in circles at this point. Behind Riorson, I can see Garrick dragging a hand down his face, exasperation towards his own friend clear as day. How relatable.
"No, I didn't." I rise back to my feet, despite the protests of my joints. Fuck. Him. I'm more likely to kill him than work together with him at this rate. "She's one of a long list of people I have to avenge." I put the force of my rage, my grief, my hopelessness into my words, trying to force him to see that I am not the bad guy here, that I'm not here to drag him back to the NIA in a body bag.
Finally, something other than cold indifference graces his infuriatingly beautiful face. A glimmer of amusement in his eyes, the slight tug of his lips into a smile, and suddenly I'm looking at him for entirely different reasons.
No. Bad Violet. This is why pretty boys can't be trusted.
"What do you mean?" he asks.
But we've been beating around the bush for far too long, and I'm not about to get into the details of all the people whose deaths I feel responsible for with Xaden fucking Riorson. I still have some scrap of self-respect left that keeps me from doing that.
"What do you know about Project VENIN?" I ask instead, and I know immediately that I've managed to hit the nail on the head. All three men go stiff as boards. Garrick coughs, and Liam's gaze is darting between me and Riorson, his eyes widened in alarm.
Then, Xaden Riorson smiles, and it's so unexpected, so out of the character that I imagined him to be, that I'm momentarily stunned. He reaches over for a pad of paper, and scribbles something on it before handing it to me. A glance tells me it's an address, but I'm not really following what's going on. I look back at him, raising an eyebrow.
"Meet me there tomorrow," Riorson elaborates, his eyes glued to me, but they're still completely, frustratingly unreadable. "I've decided to take you up on your earlier offer."
My breath catches in my chest, but then I frown.
"Which offer?" I ask slowly. "The one where I offered you information about your father, or the one where I threatened to stab you?"
Garrick snorts, and Liam trembles with silent laughter.
He just smirks. "You wouldn't stab me. I told you before, you're not the backstabbing type."
"You don't know me, Riorson," I bristle. I want to wipe that arrogant smirk of this bastard's face. "I'd drop you where you stand right now if you didn't have something I want."
I take a step forward, and jab a finger into his stupidly hard chest. "And let me make one thing abundantly clear. I'm not going anywhere tomorrow, not until you tell me what I want to know, because you clearly know something about-"
I can't finish what I was saying, can't finish demanding he tells me what he knows about VENIN, because Riorson's massive palm is suddenly covering my mouth, keeping me from speaking. My eyes widen in indignation, and I really am about to stab him, but his other hand darts out and grabs the hand that was reaching for one of my daggers. It's big, and warm, and completely wraps up my much smaller hand.
"Don't," he warns. I nail him with the nastiest glare I can muster. He sighs as if I'm the unreasonable one here.
"Don't say it," he continues, dropping his voice so that I can only just barely hear him. "You never know who's listening."
Understanding dawns on me, and the fight in me evaporates. I nod, and he removes his hand and releases my own.
"You will explain everything to me tomorrow," I warn. He blinks in rapid succession, brows knitted together, before he reaffixes that mask of his in its place.
"We'll talk tomorrow," he deflects.
I sigh. This is not going to be an easy partnership.
My dreams are haunted by ghosts.
Ghosts of those I killed. Ghosts of those I failed to save. It doesn't matter - they haunt me all the same.
I wake with a start, the unseeing eyes of Devera and Valerie burned into the back of my mind, their voices screaming in pain echoing faintly in my ears.
"Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream, just a dream," I whisper to myself as I bring my trembling body back under control. Every inch of my skin is covered in sweat, and I don't bother to try to go back to sleep. Grey morning light filters through the grimy window of the dilapidated motel I decided to check in to last night. Sunrise is fast approaching. A shower will do me more good than more nightmares.
The water that pours down on me minutes later is ice cold, and the shock of it hitting my skin is enough to snap my mind away from the bloody images that have haunted my sleeping hours since the day I stepped into BASGIATH for the first time. They'll likely haunt me till the day I die.
As Mira said to me once, in one of the few conversations I've had with her since I joined the NIA, it's quite possible that I need some therapy.
But that's a thought for another time.
I drag myself out of the shower, shivering, and pull the hotel-supplied towel around my small body. I catch a look of myself in the grungy mirror, and I wince. The yellowing light of the bathroom can't hide the fact that I'm in rough shape, covered in bruises from my fight with Jack, and my knees are marred by healing cuts from the glass I knelt on yesterday. I've also had worse, so I give myself a shake and move on.
It takes me ten minutes to get dressed. I debated putting on the other mission suit I brought with me - the one I worse yesterday was unsalvageable, and I'll need to burn it before I leave Cordyn - but I decide to dress in civilian wear, so not to draw any attention. That means I'm wearing the same thing I did on the plane, which feels like an age ago now, even though its been less than 48 hours. I don't even bother trying to wrest my hair back into its braided crown, I still haven't regained my full range of movement with my arm. Instead, I just throw it in a simple braid down my back, and call it a day. I shove the rest of my belongings in my backpack, and leave the motel behind.
When I step out onto the street, the sun is just peeking above the tops of the buildings, blinding morning light making me squint. I get a disturbing sense of deja vu as the street around me slowly begins to come to life.
I can practically see Valerie running up to me, dragging me to dance with her.
And blood. So much blood. Dust and smoke. Screams and death.
I give myself a shake, and drag myself from the memory. I'm not in Draithus, I tell myself, not next to that clocktower as it blew apart. There's no bomber, no threat - at least that I know of.
Then I frown - the bombings have been happening in Poromiel for months now, yet I've barely heard whispers about them from the NIA. It's the kind of thing we definitely would have been briefed on, yet it's like leadership is purposefully not drawing attention to them. A cold feeling overtakes me - how much has the NIA not been telling us? What else has it hidden or covered up? Can I trust anything it tells me?
Even if Devera hadn't said so, my gut instinct screams at me that I can't.
How many half truths and omissions have been the basis of complete lies? Devera said it was good that I was questioning everything, but all it's doing is making my brain hurt.
I begin stalking in the general direction of where I think the safe house is. I settled on this area last night because of its general proximity to where Riorson told me to meet him, and it'll only take me 15 minutes to walk there. With every step I take, I can feel the dozen daggers strapped all over my body. I can't rule out the possibility that he's just using this as an excuse to attack me while my guard is down. I'll be outnumbered, three to one, if that is the case, but I've faced worse odds. Plus, I have those taser knives that Mazzie wanted me to try with me to - maybe they'll give me an excuse to use them as guinea pigs.
As I draw closer to the address, I pull the scrap of paper Riorson handed me before unceremoniously kicking me out of their hotel room last night out of my pocket, inspecting the loops and lines of the words on the page. For someone with so many sharp edges, his handwriting is surprisingly elegant. I confirm the cross street, and turn onto Parapet Street. The buildings don't draw attention, with storefronts on street level and apartments on the floors above. It's still early enough that not many people are about, save for the occasional dog walker or tired-looking person hustling towards the nearby transit stop.
I stop in front of a dilapidated brownstone that looks like it hasn't been well-cared for in years. I check the faded brass numbers above the door, confirm they match that of the address in my hand, and then climb the steps. I don't bother knocking, letting myself in and shutting the door behind me just as quickly.
Dust motes swirl through the air, illuminated by strips of light streaming in through the large windows. My gaze falls on footprints in the layer of dust on the floor, and I know someone has been here before me. I move forward, careful not to make a sound, a dagger clutched in my hand. The house is eerily quiet, but I somehow doubt Riorson would have sent me here and then not shown, even if all he wants is to kill me.
"You're late."
I jump, whirling around and flinging my dagger in the direction of the voice. Riorson moves his head to the left, and my dagger flies past, embedding in the wall he's leaning against at the base of the stairs, mere centimeters from his ear.
"That," I snarl, breathing heavily as I try to calm my racing heart. "Was a very stupid thing to do."
"Telling you you're late?"
"Sneaking up on me," I bite. "I damn near killed you."
He looks unperturbed. "You're not the first, and you won't be the last. If I let every dagger that came flying at my face scare me, I wouldn't get anything done."
This man gives me a headache. I rub at my temple, before taking a few steps towards him and crossing my arms, mirroring his body language.
"So?" I ask. "You got me here, Riorson. Time to talk."
He smirks, pushing back against the wall and walking past me further into the house, patting my shoulder as he goes. "Not here, Sorrengail. Follow me."
I stalk after him, doing my best not to take another dagger and bury it in his back. For all that he says I'm not the backstabbing type, he sure brings out some homicidal urges in me. Frustrating, infuriating man.
We enter what used to be the kitchen. Riorson motions for me to stay close, and then tugs open the door to the refrigerator, which has long since stopped working. I expect it to be filthy inside, covered in dust and debris, but it's spotless. He reaches up with one hand and fiddles with the light fixture in the back of the unit, and a moment later the refrigerator is sliding aside into a hidden alcove, revealing a set a stairs.
"Ladies first," Riorson says, gesturing towards the stairs.
"Like hell," I hiss. He'll probably try to shove me down.
He stares at me for a moment, then shrugs as if he couldn't care less and begins descending. I follow, another one of my daggers clutched in my hand, my eyes on a swivel for any potential danger. I've seen no sign of Garrick or Liam yet, but who knows where they could be lurking.
When we reach the bottom, he flicks at a switch and the darkness makes way for fluorescent lighting. Another door awaits ahead, steel and secure. Riorson strides towards it, and begins inputting a code into the touchpad to its right.
"Where are we?" I ask, my curiosity getting the better of me.
"A safehouse. It belongs to one of my... allies here in Poromiel."
I raise an eyebrow. "You've been meeting with Poromish political figures recently." It's a statement, not a question.
He looks away from the keypad, which beeps, and meets my eyes curiously. I hear the lock on the door release. "Keeping tabs on me, Sorrengail?"
"No," I reply truthfully. "But I'm not who you need to be worrying about right now."
He makes an affirmative sound in the back of his throat, before opening the door. This time, he doesn't offer to let me go first, instead holding it open for me as he passes through.
We're in another hallway, with another door at the end. But this one is basic, just a slab of wood rather than a security door. I struggle to keep up with his long strides, each of his steps requiring two of my own.
"I told you before," I continue. "You've managed to get on someone's radar at the NIA. Whatever it is you're doing, you're being too obvious."
He glances over his shoulder at me. "Worried about me?"
"Fuck no." It comes out harsher than I meant it to, but I can't bring myself to care that much. "But I do need your help. And I can't get that from you if leadership decides you need to disappear."
Riorson scoffs, and begins to open his mouth to respond as he opens the door, but he freezes before he does. I nearly run into his stupidly broad back, cursing as I skid to a halt.
"The hell?" I ask, but then I see who he's looking at.
"The fuck are you doing here?" he growls at the woman who sits at a table in the center of the room. She's gorgeous, the type of woman you'd see on the front page of magazines, not someone you'd expect to see in a safe house underneath an abandoned townhome.
"Hello Xaden," she coos, rising gracefully from her seated position. "I'm so glad to see you."
"The feeling isn't mutual." The tension is so thick, I can barely think. Riorson is tense, his gaze downright murderous despite the emotionless expression he wears. I feel a shiver make its way down my spine at the intensity of it. I decide that I don't need to worry about him trying to kill me - I need to be more worried about him killing her.
"I told Syrena that I didn't want to see you again," Riorson bites out, and the woman pouts. I file that name away for later.
"You didn't mean that, Xaden," she says, her voice sickeningly sweet. She takes a few steps forward, and I'm shocked she still hasn't noticed me behind him. She runs a hand down his arm, an intimate touch that immediately has me wondering what the two of them are - or were- to each other. "What do I need to do to get you to give me another chance?"
He yanks his arm back, and the movement finally reveals me to the woman. Her eyes fall on me like a vulture's on a carcass, then slide down to the silver-tipped braid that's swept over my shoulder. Her lip curls and nose crinkles.
"Violet Sorrengail," she snarls. Shit. Stupid fucking hair.
I tighten my grip on the dagger in my hand, but say nothing. She eyes return to Xaden, whose face is still remarkably impassive despite the clear loathing he holds for the woman in front of us, and she jabs a perfectly manicured finger into his chest. "You brought the daughter of that bitch here?"
"Careful, Cat," Riorson warns, his eyes flashing. "Don't say something you'll end up regretting."
The woman named Cat laughs, a cold and hard sound. "Regret? Doubtful," She looks back at me with disdain. "I should kill her now. It's only fair, since her bitch of a mother-"
I'm moving before I can think better of it, grabbing her wrist and wrenching it behind her back in a lock. She lets out a cry of pain as I tighten my hold on her.
"I don't know who you are, nor do I care," I hiss, the edge of the taser knife Mazzie gave me pressed against her neck for emphasis. "But my mother has absolutely nothing to do with me or my life anymore, and trust me when I say that you are incapable of killing me. Men and women much stronger than you have already tried and failed." She flails in my grip, cursing me with every filthy word she can think of, but I hold steady. I lean a little further in. "Now, Riorson and I have business to discuss, and from what I can tell, you aren't welcome. Scram before I show you why every single person in the Navarrian Intelligence Agency is terrified of me. I promise you won't like it."
I finally release her with a shove, and she stumbles forward. The look she shoots me is promises slow, painful retribution as she regains her composure and stalks towards the door, shoving past me and Riorson and slamming it behind her. Those gold-flecked eyes find mine again after a moment.
"That was kind of hot," he says with a smirk. I flip him off.
"Are you trying to get yourself stabbed, Riorson?"
He sighs, and sits on top of the table where the woman named Cat once sat. I don't bother to sit, crossing my arms and staring at him, willing him to provide the answers I want.
"First of all, this isn't going to work if you're going to call me 'Riorson' all the time,' he says, a glimmer in his eyes that I don't particularly like. "We'll only have this conversation if you use my first name."
"You're joking," I say incredulously. Is he for real?
"Nope. You want what I know? You'll have to call me by my first name first." He shoots me a grin that, if I didn't know any better, I'd say was genuine. "You've done it before. I don't think it's that much to ask."
Calling him by his last name creates distance, makes the interactions I have with him and the thoughts I have of him less... personal. Calling him by his first name is the equivalent of admitting he is going to have a more permanent presence in my life. I wrack my brain, trying to remember when he was anything other than Riorson in my head or in my words. The plane, I quickly realize. I called him by his name on the plane.
I consider for a moment, but I give in fairly quickly. We are stuck with each other for the foreseeable future, until I can figure out exactly what my father got mixed up in and how it's related to Brennan and Fen Riorson.
"Fine," I say with a sigh, backing up a few steps until my back is against the door. "Xaden."
That smile of his that curls his mouth should be fucking illegal. "Good," he says. "Now, want to tell me why you were looking for me before, and what it has to do with my dad?"
"Want to tell me what I want to know about VENIN?" I ask in response.
"I'll answer your questions when you answer mine, Violence." I bristle at the nickname, and I think he can tell, because that smirk only grows. "You came to find me, and didn't really give me any information. I think I'm owed answers before you are."
I can't even argue with that. I sprung a lot of questions on him, out of the blue in that bathroom. I'd probably reach the same conclusion in his position. I open my mouth, then close it a moment later. How much should I reveal? If I reveal too much, what kind of disadvantage will that put me at? What if he kills me once he has what he wants?
Then I remember the way he looked at that Cat woman - that was clearly someone he disliked, someone who he seemed far more likely to kill. He'd never looked at me like that before, never acted like he disliked me.
The debate I'm having in my head reminds me of the trust exercises I used to do with my classmates in elementary school. I'm going to have to do a trust fall, and pray to whatever god will listen that Xaden Riorson is there to catch me.
So I tell him what I can, hoping that I read him right and I'm not one wrong move away from being put six feet under. I tell him about the message I got from Devera before I went to Draithus, how I was assigned to kill her. How she gave me a thumb drive with a message from my father, and how the documents she left me are encoded with a cypher I only have half of. I tell him how Devera instructed me to find him, to get his help. I tell him how my father's message led me to think that he'd discovered something that would exonerate Fen Riorson, how I was certain it would be in one of the documents he'd left behind for me. I tell him about my last moments with Devera, what she'd told me.
Xaden stays silent as I speak. I leave out certain parts - I don't tell him about the safe in the mountains, or how I was looking into him before I confronted him in the airport bathroom. I don't tell him how my dad was acting strange before he disappeared. I don't tell him I joined clandestine ops to find out what happened to my father, and I don't tell him that I'm certain Colonel Aetos is already suspicious that I didn't destroy the data Devera stole. I don't say anything about my suspicions that Devera worked so hard to keep me alive for a reason other than to pass along the documents my father left for me.
"Devera said she left you with the other half of the cypher," I finish. "That's why I need your help. It's the only way I'll find out what drove the NIA to take my dad."
Xaden takes a deep breath, and he looks like he's deep in thought.
"How much do you know about Project VENIN?" he asks after a moment.
I raise an eyebrow. "Nothing, other than the fact that Devera warned me that it wasn't destroyed and there was some kind of cover up." I wrinkle my nose. "I'm assuming that it has something to do with my dad's disappearance, but I don't know for sure. Devera said he was looking into the project, and my dad mentioned something in his note that I think was referring to VENIN, and he said it could kill a lot of people, so I just assumed it was some kind of weapon."
Xaden stays quiet for a minute. "Yes," he says, breaking the silence again. "It's a weapon. One that Navarre created, and was supposed to destroy, but didn't, and now it's being used against the Poromish."
I take in a sharp breath. "It's being used?" I hadn't even considered that whatever this was was being used, I'd just assumed it still existed when it wasn't supposed to, and was so dangerous that it's very existence was a threat.
He nods, those eyes of his boring into me, as if he's trying to suss out my reaction.
My thoughts race as I pore over every piece of information I've stored away in my brain, trying to figure out how a weapon of the kind described by my dad could already be being used, and no one is saying anything about it.
"The bombings," I realize aloud. "This is why they aren't briefing them. They have something to do with VENIN."
"Yes," he nods again, but doesn't elaborate. "The Project VENIN tech was stolen, and it's only going to get worse as whoever stole it gets more resources to finish the project."
Sweet Malek - how could Navarre have been so careless? How could it have lost control of a weapon that could kill so many people? I file that tidbit of information away for later - VENIN wasn't finished before Navarre lost control of it.
"So this VENIN - its some kind of explosive technology that hasn't been completed," I muse aloud. "And my father found out about a cover up relating to it, and the NIA took him." My eyes widen. "Your father... he knew about this, didn't he? Brennan too."
Xaden nods again, but stays silent. His eyes are far away, and I know better than to pry.
And if Fen knew about it, and Brennan did too, then...
Oh gods.
As the implications come crashing down, nausea overtakes me. Brennan wasn't murdered and then Fen framed for it by accident - both Brennan and Fen were killed to hide Navarre's mistake. The sickening clarity that allows me to come to that conclusion is too much, and I taste bile rising in my throat.
I spy a trashcan in the corner, and I lunge for it. Xaden startles at my sudden movement, but before he can say a word, I'm heaving up last night's dinner into the can. I hear him approach me from behind, and I throw out a hand.
"Don't," I say, my voice ragged. "I'm fine."
I take a deep breath in through my nose, then out through my mouth, forcing down my nausea before regaining my feet. I wobble a bit, my muscles feeling like jelly, but I compose myself quickly, turning back to face Xaden. He still has that emotionless exterior. I envy his ability to keep his emotions off his face.
"They were killed to keep this a secret," I say through clenched teeth. I don't need to say who I'm referring to. The horror of the realization is giving way to fiery rage, the kind that has become my almost constant companion of late. Rage towards the horrible deeds I've had to commit to survive. Rage towards my nation for erasing my father. Rage towards my mother for never being there. Rage towards everything and everyone that put me on my current path.
"Yes." I see some of my rage reflected in his eyes.
"I'll kill all of them," I promise, my voice deceptively soft. "If I ever find out who did this, I'll make them suffer the same way Brennan did."
Xaden tilts his head to the side, contemplative. "Even if it means making an enemy of your home? Of your mother?"
I blink moisture out of my eyes, and force down the constant, ever-present grief that I feel about my brother's death. I don't miss how he calls it your home, as if he doesn't consider Navarre his home.
"Brennan was the only one who saw past my defects and what my parents wanted me to be and saw me," I say, the admission vulnerable, but the absolute truth. I meet his eyes again, forcing him to see my conviction. "Even my sister can't do that. And I meant what I said about my mother earlier - I could die in a ditch and I doubt she'd care. I'd die to avenge Brennan, if I had to."
Xaden takes another step towards me. He's just this side of too close to me, but I can't bring myself to care. He's looking down at me with an intensity that has me transfixed.
"I'll help you get your revenge, Violet Sorrengail," he says softly. "But I need your help, too."
"Name your price."
He reaches out and tucks a tendril of hair that's escaped by braid behind my ear, and I fight my urge to swat at his hand. Touchy, touchy man.
"I want you to be my eyes and ears inside the NIA," he says, and I stiffen. "We've been trying to find out about Project VENIN for years, but we've found nothing. You, on the other hand, have access to their files in a way we don't."
"In exchange," he continues. "I'll give you the other pieces of the cypher, so you can decipher your dad's documents."
"You're asking me to commit treason, Xaden," I point out to him. If I'm caught, they'll kill me without a second thought. And despite the revelations I've experienced regarding the NIA, I'm still finding myself instinctively hesitant to move against it. Perhaps because I know what happens to me if I do. Up until now, everything I've done can be explained away, if necessary. Killing Barlowe? That was self-defense against someone who's had it out for me since BASGIATH. Not killing Devera? She trained me - I had no chance of beating her.
But if I become Xaden's spy, that's something I can't take back. A full betrayal of the agency that I have dedicated the last four years of my life to.
He chuckles, leans in a bit further. My breath hitches at the unexpected proximity, and the smell of leather and mint fills my nose. "What's a little more? You're already in deep, Violence."
Xaden pulls back, a small, cold smile on his face, and offers out his hand. "You get me what I want, and I'll give you what you want. Those are my terms."
My brain whirs, as I try to compute the pros and cons of this frankly insane offer. Xaden Riorson is clearly involved in something much bigger than I initially thought. Getting involved with him is dangerous. He is dangerous - so much more so than I imagined. It could get me killed. He could kill me.
But in exchange, I can finally get the answers I want. I can get revenge for Brennan, and maybe find where the NIA took my father - if he's still alive.
My hesitations fall away, and the decision comes far easier than it should. I don't trust him. I know he doesn't trust me. But there is no better relationship than the kind based in mutual self-interest, and we each have something the other wants - something unattainable without the help of the other. We now know enough about the other to be mutually assured destruction against each other, should either of us fail to hold up our end of the bargain.
I take his hand.
"Deal," I say, shaking, and the feral grin that stretches across my face unbidden should alarm me, but I bask in the certainty that I will make each and every one of the people responsible for my family's suffering pay for what they've done. For the first time, I'm grateful my humanity and morals were crushed under boot in the protocol - I have no misgivings about what I'm willing to do to get what I want. "Let's burn them to the fucking ground."
Notes:
xaden and violet have struck their deal! now they're working together to get to the bottom of fen's death, papa sorrengail's disappearance, and navarre's cover up of project VENIN. now, we're heading back to navarre, and violet is going to start discovering how difficult it is to keep up her end of the bargain...
as always, you can follow me on Tumblr for chapter blurbs as I write and generally to see what I'm up to! my username is the same as my AO3 user. till next time!
Chapter 11: No Control
Notes:
I was kind of blown away by how much people seemed to enjoy the last chapter??? I know people tend to prefer my xaden pov chapters, so it made me even happier to see that people liked the violet pov in the last chapter.
thank you to everyone who has been patient with me as I've worked through stuff in my personal and work life. I've posted about it on my Tumblr, so I won't rehash it here, but being a part of such a supportive community is truly a godsend during stressful times. thanks for being awesome readers :)
now without further ado, chapter 11! I already mentioned this on Tumblr, but this is a shorter chapter intended to bridge the first part of the story (pre-deal between x+v) to the second part (post-deal between x+v) because there were some things that needed to be addressed from Xaden's pov before we go back to violet, but I'm trying really hard to not do split-pov chapters like I do in swan song.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Xaden
I'm staring up at the ceiling, replaying everything Violet Sorrengail said and did today on a loop.
Hurling a knife at my head. Threatening Cat. Using reason and logic to put together some of the puzzle pieces about Project VENIN. The way she said she would burn Navarre to the ground if it meant getting revenge for Brennan - who she doesn't even know is still alive.
She is, without a doubt, the most astounding, mind-boggling, infuriating, brilliant fucking woman I've ever met.
It makes me want to trust her, even though I know I shouldn't. In fact, it should make me want to not trust her.
Garrick and Liam's soft snores fill the room, and I shift my head to see the blinking red numbers displayed on the digital clock on my bedside table. 3 a.m. Our flight back to Navarre leaves in four hours. In four hours, there will be no going back.
After Violet agreed to my terms, I gave her a burner phone and strict instructions to check in when she returned to Calldyr. She looked at me like I was shit on the sole of her shoe.
Tell me what to do again and you'll be getting the same treatment as the lady from earlier, she'd threatened.
Cat is hardly a lady, I responded.
I pull back the covers and swing my legs over the edge of the bed. I move towards the bathroom, moving as silently as possible so as to not wake my friends up. I shut the door softly behind me, then flip the lights. My own reflection stares back at me in the oversized mirror as soon as the darkness retreats. The bags under my eyes tell me all I need to know about my lack of sleep as of late, and my racing thoughts relating to a deal I've made with certain silver-haired woman definitely isn't helping my insomnia.
"Your constant thoughts on the matter will do nothing to reassure you of Violet Sorrengail's trustworthiness," SGAEYL says, speaking for the first time in hours. "Dwelling on the matter will not allow you to control her actions. You will simply have to deal with the consequences of her inevitably doing things you don't like as it comes."
That's exactly what I'm worried about, but I don't bother pushing that thought towards the AI. She'd probably say something snarky, like how that proves her point or something like that. I'm not in the mood to deal with it.
I splash some water on my face, flip the lights, and slip back into the hotel room. I think I'm being quiet, till a voice makes me jump.
"Can't sleep?" Liam's voice echos through the darkness. I squint, and I can just barely make out his form on the other bed, where he's still lying down.
"Sorry," I say. "Didn't mean to wake you up."
I hear rustling, and I can make out the outline of him sitting up. I move to sit on the edge of my own bed.
"Thinking about Violet?" he asks. I stiffen, because she's exactly who I was thinking about. Everyone is a fucking mindreader today. I'm taking a huge risk by involving her, an even bigger one by talking to her at all. She could bring down everything that I've - that we've - worked to accomplish over the last three years.
"Something like that," I demur. I don't want to talk about this right now, not when I'm still sorting my own feelings out on getting her involved.
Liam sighs. After a moment, he speaks again.
"For what it's worth, I think she's trustworthy."
My eyebrows shoot up. Liam is generally nice to a fault. He can become anyone's friend. But just because he's friends with someone doesn't mean he trusts them, and I trust his judgement enough to be curious about his of Violet.
"And why is that?" I ask.
Liam stays quiet, and I know he's thinking.
"Did you see her face when I brought up Brennan yesterday?" he asks.
I did. It's a scene that's been replaying in my head all this time. His supposed death destroyed her. She's not the little girl Brennan remembers her as. But I remember, just as easily, that the path she's taken is littered with the bodies of the enemies of the NIA that she's killed.
Whenever my mind begins to drift towards the idea of trusting her, I see the six bodies of her own colleagues that she killed with no hesitation; no inkling of remorse. What set her on that path? What is driving her ruthlessness, her seeming nonchalance with the bloodshed she leaves in her wake? The thought of bringing someone like her, someone who takes lives so easily, into the fight we're fighting leaves me with more reservations than I know how to put into words.
But as soon as that thought populates my mind, I think of the woman that flung herself at the clocktower in Draithus; the woman who cried over that little girl's body. The woman whose devastation over her brother's death is still too raw, too real, ten years later. The one who swore revenge on all the people who killed the people she cared about - a sentiment I'm all too familiar with.
I can't help but wonder which version of Violet is the real one. The one who kills for a living? Or the one who's emotions and actions I deeply relate to?
"Xaden?"
I startle, and realize I haven't responded to Liam.
"I did," I sigh. "But she's not the little girl Brennan is always talking about anymore." Violet has a confirmed kill list a mile long, and it's only going to get longer. And nothing is stopping her from going straight to the NIA's leadership with everything she's discovered about us.
Liam snorts. "You wouldn't have made that deal with her if she was. You're always saying you don't like people who can't defend themselves."
Violet can definitely defend herself. The speed with which she flung that dagger at my head this morning was unlike anything I've seen before. A secret thrill races down my spine just thinking about it. I told her that she hadn't scared me, but my heart had been hammering my chest the entire time, adrenaline coursing through me in reaction to the very close call my face had with her blade.
"Stop thinking about it, Xaden," Liam continues, parroting SGAEYL. "You can't control what Violet does. Better accept that now than stress out over it."
I'm more than aware that I can't control what she does. The fact that I have no control over what happens next scares the shit out of me.
"Go to sleep," I order after a moment. "We have a flight to catch in the morning."
I hear the sheets rustle as Liam lays himself back down.
"Try to get some sleep," he says, voice already heavy.
"I will," I say.
I don't. I stay awake until sunrise, replaying every word Violet Sorrengail said to me in my head, and praying to whoever will listen that I haven't just doomed us all.
"You look like shit," Garrick remarks impassively as we drag ourselves down to the hotel lobby.
"Did I ask?" I snap.
I probably shouldn't be taking out my stress on Garrick, but I'm tired, and nervous, and frankly I don't give two shits about how my lack of sleep in manifesting on my face. Garrick raises his hands in mock surrender.
"So that's how we're playing things today. Noted," he says.
We're standing on the curb, waiting for a taxi, when Liam speaks up.
"What are you going to tell Brennan?" he questions. Garrick looks in my direction as well, his brow raised.
I've been asking myself the same question since Violet showed herself out of the safe house yesterday, fuming about whatever I'd done or said to annoy her. Probably a few things, if I'm being honest - she's easy to rile up.
Brennan still doesn't know about Violet - doesn't know that she's become one of the deadliest assassins in Navarre's arsenal. I kept it from him intentionally, to spare him the anguish of knowing what had happened to his sister in his absence. I don't regret not telling him - there's no room for regret when one wrong move could get me killed - but no matter what I do, tell him; don't tell him, it could explode in my face.
No - if I tell Brennan, there's a good chance he'll lose his shit and try to go retrieve Violet himself - putting all of us, his sister included, in extreme danger. Violet just agreed to become a double agent - she's betraying Navarre, seeking secrets that could get her killed if she's discovered. I can't do anything that would risk her losing access to the NIA's data.
I take a deep breath, a hand fruitlessly pushing my hair back from my forehead.
"We don't tell him - not yet at least," I say with finality. There is no room for regret, no room for doubt. "We stay the course."
Both of Liam's eyebrows shoot up as he hikes the shoulder strap of his backpack up. "You sure about that?"
Not at all.
"Yes," I say aloud, injecting authority into my voice. Liam looks at me like he's expecting me to say more, to elaborate on my reasons, but I'm keeping it to myself for now. There's no point in going into details. I'm protecting an asset, a crucial tool that could finally get me what I want. If getting that means sacrificing her later on, that's something I'm more than willing to do.
"I didn't realize you'd gotten into the habit of lying to yourself," SGAEYL says mockingly. If it was possible to flip off an AI, I'd be doing it right now.
"I'm not lying." Even my thoughts sound clipped. "Sure, it wouldn't be my first choice, but if things come down to sacrificing Violet or never getting the info we need on Project VENIN, I'll choose to sacrifice Violet every single time."
SGAEYL makes a sound that I've slowly come to realize is the digital equivalent of a snort. "You might be able to lie through your teeth, but you can't trick me. Nice try."
I decide to ignore her.
I spot Violet almost as soon as we arrive at our gate. I suspected that she'd be returning to Navarre today too, so I'm not necessarily surprised to see her, but she does make me do a double take regardless. She's wearing the same clothes as yesterday - did she only pack one outfit? - and her hair is woven into what I now assume is her signature braid. If she was just someone random; some random person off the street with no connections to assassinations and runaway military projects, I'd be blown away by her beauty. I'd probably go up to her, practically beg for her name. I'd called her beautiful before, back when I did think she was just someone random. That entire interaction is still seared into my brain, something I can't escape.
But she's not someone random - she's Violet Sorrengail, and my instincts were right to warn me that she was dangerous - so I ignore her. Or at least pretend to.
Violet is facing out towards the center of the terminal, and she clearly sees us arrive. I clock her eyes narrowing as she registers our presence, but I continue to pretend to be none the wiser to her identity, circling around with Liam and Garrick to the row of seats facing the window, directly behind her. When I sit, I'm hit with the scent of her - that vanilla and citrusy smell that I first got a hint of that first time I was on a plane with her. It's fucking intoxicating, making my head spin.
"What are you doing, Riorson?" I hear Violet hiss at my back. I can't help the grin that stretches my face at the utter annoyance in her tone. I can't figure out why I like pissing her off, but here we are.
"Just sitting and enjoying the sights and smells of the airport," I reply flippantly. "I told you to call me Xaden, by the way."
Violet scoffs, but I don't dare to turn around and see the put-upon expression I'm certain is all over her face.
"And I told you to stop telling me what to do, pretty boy. Seems like we're even."
Pretty boy. That's what she'd called me in that alleyway, after the Draithus bombing. Both times she's used it now, she's meant it to be derogatory, but all it does is confirm to me that despite the distance she's put between us, she finds me just as attractive as I find her. I don't think she realizes I'm the same person who carried her away from the clocktower, since she's never brought it up, but the words are also a reminder all the same of exactly what's at stake. I can't let her distract me from the the bigger picture. I can't let her distract me, period.
"I'll be the judge of that," I fire back. Liam gives me a look that I'm certain is him telling me not to be an ass, while Garrick is clearly trying not to laugh on my other side. "Remember, Violence - you want answers? You need to cooperate."
I can practically feel the hostility wafting off of her. Still, I keep my eyes glued forward, propping my ankle on my knee.
"You'll get what you want, Xaden," she hisses, and my grin grows at my name on her lips. "But if you aren't careful, I might accidentally throw a dagger at your throat. You seem to be very good at pissing me off, and sometimes my aim is a bit off when I'm dealing with raging assholes."
"That's on your temper, Violence. Maybe you should learn to control it?"
I'm playing with fire, and I can't bring myself to care.
"Call me that one more time and I'll show you what it actually looks like for me to lose my temper."
There's an icy note to her tone, and I decide that I've pushed her enough for now. Any more, and I'm halfway convinced she actually will try to kill me.
"Send me the documents and your half of the cypher when you arrive in Calldyr," I say, switching gears. "I'll begin to decode them while you look for information on the project." I don't dare say more than that in such a public place.
"Like hell," Violet retorts. "You'll send me your half of the cypher. I don't trust you enough to give you everything, not when you could just not give me the decoded documents after you've finished."
I don't blame her for being suspicious - hell, I'd probably be saying the same thing in her position. I open my mouth to tell her as much, but she barrels on.
"Besides, do you even have any experience with codebreaking?" she questions, her voice dropping low enough that there is no chance of anyone around us hearing. "Knowing my dad, just plugging in the code into the cypher won't be enough. He'll have scrambled the information in other ways too. Between my experience with cryptography and my familiarity with how my dad thinks, this will go a lot easier if you just let me have both halves."
I shift in the uncomfortable pleather seat, feigning looking at my phone, fight my own grin as a text from Garrick that reads, Damn, she's a ballbuster, isn't she? followed by a winking emoji flashes across the top of my screen. He must've sent something similar to Liam, because the blonde snorts as he peers down at his own device. All the points Violet has made are good, but she doesn't know about the super-powerful AI literally hardwired into my head that can decode the documents in a blink.
"Loathe as I am to admit it, you should listen to the girl," SGAEYL says breezily, as if summoned. I fight to keep my expression neutral - if it were possible for an artificial intelligence to be prideful, then SGAEYL would take the digital crown. She continues, "My algorithms for codebreaking are not optimized for older methods. If the method David Sorrengail used is completely by the book, I could decode it using my logic algorithms, but any deviations from standard practice would render any decryption efforts on my part futile."
"Seriously?" I question. "You've known about the cypher as long as I have, and you're only now bringing this up? Isn't this exactly what a computer does?"
"You never asked me if I was capable of decrypting the files," she replies blandly. "You only asked me to scan the codes and send them to my central processor."
Fucking AI semantics.
I'll have to bring up the codebreaking issue with Brennan. SGAEYL needs to be able to do that kind of work. I return my attention to Violet. "Fine," I say. "But we're going to do this my way." I need to regain some semblance of control over this situation, for my own sanity. "I'll supply one keyword for every useful piece of information you bring me."
I practically feel Violet blaze at my back. "Absolutely no-"
"You either do it my way, Sorrengail, or you never find out what's in those documents," I interrupt her as I lean further back into my seat, crossing my arms across my chest as I do. I don't feel bad about holding the answers she wants about her father over her head, not when the answers she can bring me could save countless lives. I have my priorities, and frankly, making her happy isn't one of them. "It's your choice."
Violet scoffs, and my stomach drops when I feel her lift herself out of her seat through the malleable pleather seat at my back. Before I can think better of it, I twist over my shoulder to see where she went.
Violet Sorrengail is nowhere to be seen.
Fuck.
Two nights after returning to Navarre, I chance a call to Brennan. I've heard nothing from Violet since she disappeared into thin air in Cordyn's airport.
I leave the base I'm stationed at, drive nearly 20 miles into the rural backcountry, before I feel comfortable enough retrieving the phone I use to communicate with him from underneath the driver's. I park in the near-deserted parking lot of a lonesome Dollar General, and the moonless night means that the only light illuminating my face comes from the bright signs above the door.
The line rings almost five times before Brennan answers.
"Is anyone dead?" he asks briskly. It's how he always starts our calls.
"Not yet," I confirm.
"Good," Brennan says, and then he sighs. "How was Cordyn?"
The vivid memory of his sister's face, spattered with the blood of six NIA operatives, comes to mind. So does how she damn near took my head off with her dagger at the safe house, and did maybe the hottest thing ever by threatening Cat the way she did. But I keep all of that to myself - especially the last part - and not just because Brennan would have an aneurysm if he found out what Violet had gotten herself involved in.
"Bad," is what I say instead, leaning back in my seat as I keep my eyes glued on the road, looking for any sign someone might have followed me.
I fill him in on everything Syrena told me, even though I know SGAEYL already relayed to him the particulars of our meeting with Syrena, how VENIN is much further along than we initially thought. How they can no longer accurately track the expansion of the project at the rate it's expanding. How the Poromish government is poised to be in the palm of the enemy - whoever they are - within months, not years.
"Did they get the disablers?" Brennan questions. They did - I met with Syrena in the same room I spoke with Violet later that day, long after the NIA operative had left. Her face had practically crumpled - or the closest thing to it, considering Syrena's face is normally as expressive as rock - when she saw how little we were able to give them. It's not like we can do much more, either, not with our limited manufacturing capabilities and manpower. I tell him as much, and he sighs again.
"There's nothing we can do about that right now," he says, and I know how much it pains him to admit it. "We don't have the resources or facilities to expand production."
"And you've had no luck finding a more permanent solution?"
"No. Without access to more data from the beginning of the project, I'm stumped. I understand the basics of Navarre's tech, but something like this is way out of my field of expertise."
Data that his sister might be able to get for us - if I haven't pissed her off bad enough that she's changed her mind about working together. I desperately wish I had insight into her mind, into how she thinks. If there is one thing I need above all else, its control. Information. I need to know how things will happen, when and where. I need to have a backup plan, and a backup plan for the backup plan. I meticulously ensure every variable is accounted for, no outcome I haven't considered.
Violet is throwing all of that into disarray, and it makes me feel like I'm free falling, and not in the good way. She is a mystery, completely unpredictable, and it scares the shit out of me. And I'm talking to the one person who can give me a parachute, who can make her a bit more predictable. So before I can think better of it, I open my stupid mouth.
"Your sister-" I say, stopping and wincing as my brain catches up with me and I realize how horrible of an idea this is. But I know Brennan heard, so I have to continue. "Could she help us?"
"Mira?" Brennan asks, snorting. "No way. Even if I didn't think she'd murder me if she found out I was alive, she sees things in black and white. She'd never be able to put her personal feelings aside if she found out what Navarre had done, and it would get all of us killed when she inevitably decides to storm headquarters in some poorly mission to expose the truth."
I refrain from noting that, minus the poorly planned part, that's exactly what had gotten my father killed and nearly gotten him killed as well. And as useful as that background on Mira Sorrengail was, that wasn't the sister I was hoping to hear more about. The fact that he immediately thought I was talking about Mira, and not Violet, also speaks volumes. I try again.
"What about the other one? Violet?" I hedge. I hear SGAEYL laugh in my head, clearly taking whatever counts for amusement for an AI out of my piss poor acting, as I pretend I don't know a damn thing about the youngest Sorrengail. If Brennan notices the awkwardness of my questions, however, he doesn't let on. He gets quiet for a moment. A car drives by, its headlights temporarily blinding me. I'm blinking black spots out of my vision when he finally speaks up again.
"Violet would probably be able to get us the information we need, and the stuff we didn't even know we needed," he says, tone wistful. "If there is anyone in the world that could be considered a genius, it's her. She isn't a soldier like the rest of our family. Her weapon is her brain. She consumes information like no one I've ever met, and she's sharp as hell."
I don't feel remorse over withholding information about David Sorrengail from Violet, for holding it over her head so I can get what I want. But this? Not telling Brennan, one of my friends, that his little sister is actually a killing machine, forged and honed by Navarre? The guilt I feel congeals in my stomach, heavy and nauseating.
Brennan continues without pause. "But even if we could convince her to help us, she's probably still in training to be an analyst. There's no way she'd have access to that kind of information. And it wouldn't be safe for her to get involved, not with her condition - she used to do ballet, and she couldn't even go to practice without coming home with something sprained or subluxated. If Navarre got their hands on her..."
Brennan trails off into tense silence, and I know he's thinking of all the ways Navarre could hurt or torture the young girl he still has pictured in his head, but I'm focused on what he just said. Her condition? Violet had acted like her dislocated shoulder, the one she'd received from Jack Barlowe, was no big deal. She acted like it was an injury she'd suffered dozens of times. It barely bothered her, or if it did, she didn't let it show. Brennan talks about her like she's a fragile, breakable girl, but that person - if she ever existed in the first place - doesn't seem to be the same woman Violet is now. And honestly, I can't see Violet being anything other than fierce and deadly and more than willing to stab someone if the mood strikes her.
But Violet as a dancer? That I can see. When threw herself towards the bomber in Draithus, when she fought, when she threw her daggers, and even when she scared the shit out of Cat, she moved with a kind of fluid grace that was impossible to notice. The kind that draws the eye, makes it impossible to look away.
I want to ask Brennan what he means by her condition, but SGAEYL interrupts once again.
"You cannot blame him for believing his sister is unchanged," SGAEYL points out, and I startle. Brennan and I both had sunk into silence, lost in our thoughts. "According to my data on psychology, it is not uncommon for people to maintain mental images of people as they last saw them, not as they would be in the present. I am sure the same would apply in this situation."
"Thank you for scanning the DSM-5 on my behalf," I say dryly to the AI.
"Don't be silly," she says haughtily. "This came from a peer-reviewed publication."
Right. Of course.
A week goes by, and the burner phone that I got specifically for communicating with Violet has remained frustratingly silent.
Liam, Garrick and I settle back into our usual routines after our "vacation." The rest of our unit thinks we travelled to Calldyr so I could take care of some family business stuff. Liam and Garrick tagged along because they're also employed by the business.
After what Violet said, however, I'm a little more on guard, a little more cautious. Someone is suspicious of us.
I'm about to give up and assume that Violet has gone back on her word, when my burner phone - not the one for communicating with Violet - begins to ring as I get ready for bed.
"What?" I snap into the receiver when I accept the call, not even bothering to look at who is calling.
"Watch your attitude, Riorson," the familiar voice at the other end of the line says, and I freeze. I pull the phone away from my ear, staring in disbelief at the caller ID on my screen.
Today just got interesting.
I made a deal.
It could get me killed if I'm discovered, but the risks will be worth it. I received orders this morning - me, Garrick, Bodhi, Liam, and Imogen all did - and we're all being transferred to a new duty station today. I'm sitting with Garrick and Bodhi in my Jeep, eating our lunch in the only place we're guaranteed privacy as I fill them in on the phone call I got the night before, how it's related to our reassignment, when the phone rings again.
I know who it is from the ringtone - Violet.
"I was wondering when you'd call," I say.
Silence.
I wait a moment, then another, before speaking again. "Hello?"
Another moment of silence, and I'm about to hang up when her voice finally wafts through the small speaker.
"I think Colonel Aetos knows something about the project."
I freeze. She doesn't say it outright, but I know she's talking about VENIN. It's barely noticeable, but her voice is uneven. She sounds... shaken?
"What happened?" I demand. Bodhi and Garrick look at me with concern, but I ignore them, opting to stare at the steering wheel as I focus on the sounds filtering through the phone.
"Something he said when I returned to HQ. It's not safe to talk about here. Consider this information provided in good faith."
Her voice no longer has that unfamiliar, shaky quality to it, and I wonder if I imagined it in the first place. "You should have called earlier," I say, my tone slightly accusatory.
"I didn't have anything to share before," she fires back. I drag a hand down my face, fighting down the exasperation I feel.
"I'll send you the first keyword tonight," I say. I know that's the only reason she's calling me. "I want daily updates on the progress."
"I'll give you updates when I have them." I hear something in the background, something like papers shuffling. "So don't tell- shit!"
I hear a loud crash on the other end of the line, and more cursing. A scream. A male voice.
"Violence?" I'm on high alert when she doesn't respond. "Violet, what's going on?"
The line goes dead.
I curse, tossing the burner onto the dashboard. Dread and unease begin licking their way up my spine, while Garrick looks at me with wide eyes from the passenger seat.
"What happened?" he questions. Bodhi is silent in the backseat, but I know he's paying rapt attention. I stay silent for a moment, but there is only one thing to do now.
"I don't know." I start the Jeep. Violet can take care of herself, I tell myself. But those thoughts don't assuage my nerves. "Call Liam and Imogen. We're about to go fucking find out."
Notes:
the ending of this chapter went a bit different than I planned but im going with it bc honestly where's the fun in always following the plan? I'll figure it out as I go :)
who called xaden? what deal did he make? and what happened to violet? stay tuned to find out! I've actually already written part of the next chapter so hopefully go-between time won't be too long :) you can keep up to date with my writing progress on my Tumblr (same user name as my AO3)
Chapter 12: Countdown
Notes:
sorry not sorry for that cliffhanger in the last chapter, it was necessary for the ~plot~ (I wanted to write it that way so I did, that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it).
we're finally getting a flashback with more of papa sorrengail! like so many of my writing ideas, this scene came to me a bit out of the blue as I was writing the end to chapter 11, so I rearranged my entire plan for chapter 12 to accommodate it, but I think its better for it. and of course, this is I think the longest cc chapter to date? so that's fun :)
as always, im so grateful to everyone for your kind comments and continuous support of my writing. I honestly don't understand why people read what I write sometimes, but I'll keep doing it as long as there are people that enjoy reading it. without further ado, chapter 12!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Violet
Eight Years Ago
The cold air bites at my cheeks, and I can't suppress my shiver as the winter winds make themselves known to me.
"We really couldn't have waited to do this?" I grumble, crossing my arms across my chest as if that would do more to ward off the cold than the down jacket I wear.
Dad glances over his shoulder at me, little flecks of snow melting and leaving small streaks on the lenses. He hikes his pack up once again.
"Knowledge waits for nothing, dragon," he admonishes, my oft-used childhood nickname making me glower at his back when he turns forward again to continue his trek. "Not even the seasons."
I don't even bother to give a reply - it's not like I could convince him to turn back towards the car now that we're over halfway to our destination - or so he thinks. I'm not entirely convinced by my father's directional abilities.
Knowledge waits for nothing. He's always saying that, yet I really don't think knowledge would have minded if we'd waited even a week to make this trip. At least then, I wouldn't be freezing my ass off during my winter break instead of enjoying my time off.
High valley walls begin to enclose us from either side as we continue our journey. The woods thicken, but the cold doesn't let up, the canopy of the forest doing nothing to keep the wind chill out.
Dad stops suddenly in front of me, and I all but run into his back. Before I can mutter an apology, I finally see what made him pause.
Old Aretia.
The ancient city, reduced to nothing more than ruins and rubble, stretches before us, overtaken by forest and nature and unending white snow. I'd seen photos, of course, in history classes and when studying with Dad, but the city is even more magnificent in person.
"Incredible," my father breathes, his eyes wide as he takes in the view, before looking at me again. "I've always wanted to see this place in person. It's an incredible monument to the old Tyrrish civilization that Navarre has conveniently forgotten." He wrinkles his nose at that, and I fight not to roll my eyes. Old Aretia is truly a wonder, but if it really is as important to old Tyrrish civilization as Dad thinks it is, then Navarre would've taken more steps to preserve it over the years.
"It's beautiful," I say instead, allowing my eyes to roam as we make our way deeper into the old city. "But you still haven't really told me why we're here."
Instead of answering, Dad remains silent, scribbling in a notebook he withdrew from one of the many pockets of his fur-lined parka as we walk. We continue on for a few more moments, and this time, I'm the one who stops in my tracks.
"What is that?" I ask, awe clear in my tone as I point at the building that can only be described as palatial that can just barely be see behind a tall line of trees separating the structure from the rest of the city. Dad looks up from the stone carved with words in the old Tyrrish language and follows my finger to where I'm pointing.
"Good eye, Violet." Dad grins as he straightens up. "That is Riorson House, the ancestral seat of the Tyrrish kingdom's royal family. A marvel of architecture, isn't it?"
My eyebrows shoot up, but not because of the architectural wonder before me. No, I'm stuck on the history fact he just dropped, and how something about the name Riorson House is familiar. "Tyrrendor had a royal family?"
He scribbles another note in his notebook. "You would have known that if you'd spent more time studying instead of dancing." Dad gives me a disapproving look and there's nothing I can say to refute him, so I stay silent instead.
We meander in the direction of the palace slash fortress slash seat of government, the freshly fallen snow crunching underneath our boots. Dad doesn't stop taking notes, in that ridiculously thorough manner of his. Dad's obsessed with his work, but when he isn't head down in threat assessments and raw intelligence, he fancies himself a historian.
Honestly, I think he'd like to quit his job and become one, but every time I ask him if he's considered it, he gets a strange look on his face and says there are still things he needs to do with the NIA.
Which isn't doesn't tell me anything, but it's not like he'll tell me more even if I did push.
We're practically at the front door - which remains in surprisingly good condition - when he finally stores the notebook away. I jump when his arm wraps around my shoulder, pulling me tight to his side. I sink into the comforting feeling, staring up at the imposing door.
"Do you want to go inside?" he asks quietly after a moment.
"Can we?"
"Knowledge waits-" he starts.
"-for nothing, I know," I finish. His hand comes up to ruffle my hair in retaliation for my flippancy, but I dodge with a laugh.
The old wooden doors, once stately, would crumble if we tried to force them open, but it doesn't take long for us to find an alternate way in through a crack in the crumbling walls.
As my eyes adjust to the dim interior, the silence is the first thing I notice. The wind howls outside, the snowstorm picking up, but the fortress is solid despite its age. Not a whisper of wind flits across my cheeks.
By the time my eyes fully adjust to the darkness, Dad is handing me a flashlight from his pack. I flick mine on, and begin surveying our location. The vaulted ceiling goes up forever, and two staircases line the balk half of the circular room, leading up to places unknown.
"This is the atrium," Dad says, his voice echoing in the cavernous room despite its softness. I nod, moving to take a closer look at a carving of a dragon that I spot along the wall.
"Incredible," I whisper, admiring the craftsmanship that has withstood centuries. The carving depicts a dragon mid-flight, as if looking down at it from above, its wings extended mid-flap and its tail streaming out behind it before ending in a savage point. The ancient Tyrrish revered mythical beasts such as dragons, saw them as both warriors and protectors. It's not surprising to find one immortalized like this in their former capitol.
I've been fascinated with dragons since I was a kid - as evidenced by my father's nickname for me. Dad used to tell me all kinds of stories, mythologies, folktales. I would repeat the stories to myself as I fell asleep and excitedly recount them to the other kids on the playground the next day. When my kindergarten class put on a play, I volunteered to be the dragon when everyone else fought over who would be the knight or the princess.
Then reality came calling, and I had to give up my childish fantasies for my parents' expectations. After all, there was no time for daydreaming about dragons when I had hours of dance lessons, followed by equally arduous lessons with my father.
I admire the carvings while Dad takes photos of different points in the atrium, but it isn't long until we're proceeding deeper into the building. Our footsteps echo against the ancient stone, and a sense of unease trickles through me the further we go.
"Dad." I freeze. The ground is dusty - incredibly so. Dad pauses too, looks back at me with a raised eyebrow.
"Someone has been here before us," I whisper, the uneasy feeling increasing as I drop to one knee, inspecting the footprints in the dust that definitely weren't left by either of us. I look closer at the edges of the print - still well defined and sharp, instead of being rounded off. "They're recent, I think."
Dad drops down next to me, frowning as he shines his light on the prints that go deeper into Riorson House.
"Indeed they are," he says after a moment, the frown lines on his face deepening.
"What do we do?"
He hesitates, but when he finally looks at me, its like I've grown a second head. "We keep going, of course."
This time, I do roll my eyes. Of course.
We go even further in, but the silence is tense, and I practically jump out of my skin when the wind howls a little louder than usual.
Dad chuckles as we round a corner. "Nervous?"
"Of course," I grumble. "What if some weirdo is watching us as we speak? Who even comes out here anyways?"
Dad is silent for a moment. "People like us. People who want to know more about Tyrrish language and culture."
"No offense, Dad, but we can read about that stuff on the internet and from books," I point out, navigating around a shattered table in the middle of the hallway. "The old Tyrrish civilization has been studied ten times over, especially Old Aretia. What do you expect to find here that hasn't already been found?"
I've finally asked the question that has been on the tip of my tongue since Dad awoke me before dawn had even broken, demanding I get ready for a trip, but his answering silence only ratchets up the vague sense of anxiety that's plagued me since we arrived in the ancient city.
"The Old Tyrrish language is not as well understood as you seem to believe it is, Violet," Dad says as we turn around another corner. "You can read it, and even speak it, because I've taught it to you since birth, but there are still many aspects that we don't know, words we don't have translations for." The look he gives me reminds me of a teacher looking at a student they know can do better, if only they put in just a bit more effort. "You should know better than to assume that there isn't more to learn."
The only reason I don't open my mouth to argue is because I know he's right. But something about this place unsettles me. I feel off center, and I'm looking for any out, even if that means questioning our very reason for being here.
"To be fair, you've taught me a lot of languages since birth," I say instead. "It's hard to keep all of them straight and remember which ones I know and which ones I only kind of know."
I'm basically a walking encyclopedia for dead languages at this point, which does absolutely nothing for me in terms of practical skills I can apply in the real world.
Dad snorts. "Don't act like you think there are any of those languages that you aren't fluent in to the extent you can be. When you start something, you tend to finish it, dragon."
Again, he's not wrong.
We round yet another corner, and I know immediately we're in what remains of the throne room. Gray light filters in through yellowed windows that stretch the height of the walls, illuminating the dust dancing through the air. Amongst the ruined remains of tables and chairs, of fallen chandeliers and scraps of fabric that might have been carpet or banners that hung from the ceiling, is a stone dais in the center of the room. Upon it sits an imposing seat, blackened as if it was once burned.
"Is that...?" I whisper.
Dad nods gravely. "Yes. The old throne of Tyrrendor."
"The original one?" I clarify, still not quite believing what I'm seeing.
He nods again.
"How?" I question, brows scrunching together as I peel away from my father's side to get a closer look. "Why hasn't this been taken to be preserved? Culturally, historically- It's priceless."
When I get closer, I can see the magnificent carvings that decorate it. Dragons in flight, doing battle against their mortal enemies, the wyvern - or so the myths go. Swords and shields. Life and death. Growth and decay. It's all depicted in a throne that would be better called a work of art.
Dad remains silent. I turn back to him, now almost equal in height from where I stand on the dais.
"Why is this still here?" I demand, more forcefully this time.
"I told you, dragon." His eyes reflect my own disbelief, my own frustration that such a priceless artifact has been left here to rot. "Navarre doesn't care."
"But why?" I ask. It goes against everything I'd assumed about my own home. That they valued culture and history and knowledge as much as I did, as much as my dad did.
"Because Navarre wants the world to forget its mistakes, the less... palatable aspects of our history," he says simply as he joins me on the dais, squinting as he inspects the throne himself. "It's a bad habit that has endured over our long history. When Tyrrendor became part of Navarre... well-" He raises an eyebrow. "It wasn't exactly peaceful."
I return my attention to the throne, blackened from fire but still standing.
"Old Aretia burned," I say after a moment of contemplation. It's a statement of fact. I think back to the city outside the fortress. Years of exposure to the elements have washed away most of the soot and the stains, but they are still there, if I look hard enough. "Navarre burned it." I return my gaze to him. "They don't teach that in school though, that's why you brought me here. So I could see."
He nods. "Amongst other reasons, but yes." He grasps my shoulders, looking at me with a severity that takes me off guard. "Don't ever forget this, Violet; don't ever forget what you've seen here. Navarre is ruthless, and it always has been. It razed an entire civilization and its culture to the ground. It will do the same to you, to anyone else that gets in its way. You must never, ever give them a reason to doubt your loyalty. Do you understand?"
I suddenly feel like we're talking about something entirely different, but I have no idea what it could be. I nod.
Dad backs away, and the seriousness of the moment is broken when he shoves a camera at me and demands I take as many pictures as possible, documenting every nook and cranny of the throne room. We stay in there for close to an hour, documenting every little thing we find. The only sounds are the click of the camera shutter, and my father's occasional exclamations over a carved phrase here, a priceless artifact left to the elements there.
The sun is beginning to set when we finally leave, but my thoughts are stuck on everything I saw in the ancient city, how my fundamental perception of my home has changed. Knowledge, as my father says, waits for nothing. Not preparedness for the truth knowledge brings, not anything else.
The soot and stains of Navarre's brutality have been washed away almost entirely by the current of history, but small specks remain. The throne, burned and blackened, remains.
Present
The burner phone Xaden gave to me lies on my my poor excuse of a bedside table, staring at me accusingly, ass if reminding me that I haven't contacted him.
I should. I made a deal, after all, and if I want those cypher keywords then I need to play along. But Xaden's infuriating attitude in Cordyn''s airport yesterday has turned me into a pettier person than I normally am, and I've stubbornly refused to so much as turn the phone on as a result.
The pale morning light filters through my closed blinds, reminding me that no matter how much I want to, I need to get out of bed. But hell if I don't want to. After the week I've had, I want nothing more than to curl up under my blankets again and pretend this shitstorm isn't my life.
I groan, throwing myself back against the flattened pillows on my bed that I should really get around to replacing. It's Saturday, and unless I'm called in for a mission, I have today and tomorrow to myself. After I finished training in BASGIATH, the ones of us who survived had to spent a day being lectured by staff from human resources of all things. After three years of fighting and maiming and killing, we were being told about vacation and retirement benefits. Told our weekends would be "protected" after three years of barely being able to sleep for fear of waking up with a dagger in my chest.
Talk about whiplash.
I have to laugh at the irony - the NIA has no problem waking me up at 4 a.m., but it really does zealously guard my weekends. I don't remember the last time I was called up on one of my off-days, unless you count times when I was already on a mission that extended into the weekends.
My phone - my personal one, not my burner or my work phone - buzzes. I don't bother turning over, feeling around for my phone and then holding it over my face.
It's Rhiannon. "Want coffee?" she texts. Another message appears a moment later. "Ridoc driving me crazy."
I grin. Ridoc is always driving all of us crazy. We love him for it.
"Meet at the place near mine?" I text back. Rhi replies in the affirmative, and that means I actually do need to get out of bed now. I sit up once more, groaning as my joints protest - the residual effects of being crammed on a cramped airplane for hours on end.
It doesn't take me long to pull on one of the few casual outfits I have, and before long I'm striding out into the morning air. Ten minutes later, I round a corner and set Rhi, Sawyer, and Ridoc sitting at a table outside the coffee shop, sipping their drinks and chatting animatedly.
"Oh look, she's alive!" Ridoc says as I approach.
"Barely," I mutter, pulling out a chair between him and Rhi.
"How was it?" Rhi doesn't say the quiet part out loud.
I hesitate, debate how much I should say. I opt not to go into the details.
"She's dead," I whisper. All three of my squadmates stiffen, glancing between each other.
Sawyer is the first to speak up. "I'm sorry, Violet."
All of them know about my relationship with Devera. They think I had to kill her. They don't know what I've learned, don't know how royally Navarre has fucked up.
"Me too." I have to let them believe I killed her. They don't know.
We settle into silence for a moment, but it's promptly broken by Rhiannon, who skillfully changes the subject, much to my relief. We sit there for an hour, discussing mundane topics. Rhiannon fills us in on the latest development in her will-they-won't-they relationship with Tara, another BASGIATH operative. Sawyer shows us photos of the metalwork project he's been working on in his spare time. Ridoc tells us about his most recent date, and we tease him when he reveals he accidentally went to the wrong bar, standing his actual date up but not realizing it because he happened to run into someone with the exact same name.
"I say it worked out," Ridoc says proudly at the conclusion of his story.
"I say you're an idiot," Sawyer drawls.
Rhiannon raises her hand. "Hear, hear."
Ridoc gasps with mock outrage. "I have never been more insulted in my life." He turns to me. "Violet, you're my last hope, tell them how wrong they are using your freakishly smart nerd knowledge."
I raise an eyebrow in amusement. "Sorry, Ridoc. I'm with them on this one." I grin as he gasps again. "You're an idiot."
We devolve into good natured bickering, and the next thing we know, another hour has gone by. The sun is overhead now, and it begins to get uncomfortably warm, and the shop gets progressively busier, tables filling up and chatter drifting through the air. We give up our table the third time one of the coffee shop employees sticks their head outside the door to see if we're still there, and the four of us meander down the street, soaking in the sunshine with no particular destination in mind.
"I still feel weird about being able to go outside whenever I want," Rhi says with a sigh as we walk. I look away from the window display I'm admiring to focus my attention on her. Ridoc and Sawyer are just ahead, arguing loudly over who is better at darts.
I nod. "I know what you mean."
The BASGIATH protocol was three years of brutal training, all completed in an underground facility that we were rarely given leave to venture out of. Once every other week, we were given two hours to leave, to go buy essentials from the nearby town. For two hours, we could see the sun. Other than that and training exercises that had to occur outdoors, we were stuck underground, getting our vitamin D from sun lamps. After graduation, I was so horribly pale that I got the worst sunburn of my life on my first mission.
"Sometimes I wonder what life would have been like if we hadn't gone through BASGIATH," Rhiannon muses, peering down at the display I was just looking at. "I wonder how I'd see the world then."
"With a lot more optimism, probably," I remark. Rhiannon snorts, leaving the window behind and rejoining me as we continue walking. The sun blinds me temporarily when we step out from the shade cast by the building.
"Probably."
We walk in silence, stopping occasionally to look at storefront windows, but never going in. We do this often - playing pretend at normalcy, while silently knowing that nothing about our lives are anywhere near normal. Like clothes that look good on the hanger but just don't fit quite right when you put them on, normalcy doesn't fit us. Going inside the stores, buying the things that normal people buy - it's uncomfortable, almost foreign.
We continue our window-shopping.
After awhile, Ridoc and Sawyer drop back, demanding we settle their argument over darts, and Rhiannon suggests we make our way to a nearby bar to test our skills. The unspoken truth that all of us know is that I'll demolish all of them, but where's the fun in that?
We play darts, drink beer, and laugh like we don't murder for a living until the scorching afternoon sun gives way to calming twilight. None of us are drunk - we wouldn't dar, not when, in theory, we could be called up for a mission at any time - but we're pleasantly tipsy as we stumble our way into the apartment that my three friends share. Rhiannon throws a bag of popcorn in the microwave as I squeeze myself between Ridoc and Sawyer on their crappy couch. Almost immediately, the two of them start squabbling over the TV remote.
"Knowing you, you'll put on some dumb Godzilla movie that no one except for you wants to watch," Sawyer argues.
Ridoc goes red in the face. "Godzilla is not dumb. It's a masterpiece of Japanese cinema, and-"
"Enough, you two," Rhi says, exasperation evident when she slams the bowl of popcorn down on the coffee table in front of us. "We're not watching your weird macho rage monster crap, Ridoc. We're watching season 3 of Bridgerton, and you're going to sit there and enjoy it."
Ridoc and Sawyer both open their mouths to argue, but Rhiannon cuts them off. "And if you argue, I'll get Violet to beat the shit out of you next time we train together."
They both close their mouths.
Rhi, satisfied, settles into the armchair next to the couch and doesn't waste time opening Netflix. I personally don't feel strongly about Bridgerton, but she is obsessed. By the time we finish part 1, though, Sawyer and Ridoc are both snoring, and I'm on the verge of nodding off too.
"I should be getting home," I say, stretching my arms high above my head as I yawn. The two men on either side begin to stir as I move, their eyes blinking open blearily.
"Just crash here tonight," Rhi says, standing and collecting the now-empty popcorn bowl before making her way to the kitchen. I hear the clatter of the dishwasher opening, and the sound of running water as she rinses it out. "It's already late."
I'm too tired to argue, so I silently make my way to the small closet where I know they keep extra blanket and pillows. I press myself again the shelves as Ridoc, then Sawyer, squeezes past me on their way to their rooms.
"Night, Vi," Sawyer says quietly as he passes.
"Night," I reply, turning as I do to head back towards the couch where I'll be sleeping tonight. My eyes dart back to Rhi, who flicks the kitchen lights off. "You sure you're ok with me staying over?"
Rhiannon gives me the same look that my teachers used to give out when someone asked a stupid question. "Of course it is. Get some rest." She turns to walk back toward her room, but pauses with her hand on the door handle.
"What happened to Devera, Vi?" she asks after a moment.
I freeze, and immediately I'm more alert. "What do you mean?"
Her hand drops away from the handle, and she nails me with a look that makes me feel like she's looking right through me.
"We both know you didn't kill her."
I think I stop breathing.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I say, injecting confusion into my voice. "She's dead. I killed her. End of story."
This time, there's no way around it. I'm lying through my teeth to my best friend, and it's the worst feeling in the world. I'm already a shitty enough person as it is, and this is just the cherry on top.
Rhiannon's eyes narrow on me, and she crosses her arms across her chest. "How did you kill her then?" She questions, as if daring me to lie again. "Tell me how you killed the person who saved your life. Because I know you, Vi. You never would have killed her - not when you feel like you owe her something. That's not who you are."
Shit. "I had my orders," I say tightly. I can't keep eye contact with her, can't keep lying to her while looking her in the face. "I didn't have a choice."
"Wrong." Rhiannon shakes her head, before opening her door. "We always have a choice, Vi."
She steps through her door and closes it before I can think of another lie to tell.
I wake early, before the sun is even fully up, and slip out before any of the others wake. I didn't sleep well on the couch, and my joints are hurting more than usual as I make my way back to my apartment wearing the same clothes I did yesterday.
Of course, I probably wouldn't have slept well even if I was in the king's bed, given that I'm certain Rhiannon knows I'm hiding something.
She knows me better than anymore. She saw me transform from the person I used to me into the weapon I am now. It was stupid of me to think she wouldn't notice, wouldn't suspect. I need to figure out how to keep her from digging, from accidentally saying something that could get all of us killed. For the first time since yesterday, I think of Xaden, of the deal. He'd probably know what to do in this situation. The line from his file that I read what seems like an age ago floats through my mind - he's a skilled liar.
Still, when I return to my apartment, messy as ever, I don't pick up the burner, like I know I should. I don't really know what's holding me back now, but I can't bring myself to do it. Maybe it's lingering hesitation, maybe it's the fact that he's an egotistical prick - it doesn't matter. The phone stays where I left it, untouched.
I spent the day picking up, doing the laundry I've put off for far too long. I do the mundane chores that seem so at odds with the life I lead outside of these four walls. The sun is beginning to set again when I'm satisfied with my progress. No more piles of dirty clothes and mission suits on the floor, no more overflowing trashcan. I begin to put away a stack of books, when my hand brushes against one that I haven't cracked open in months, maybe years.
A photo album.
I hesitate, my fingers brushing along the worn leather binding, cracked from the heat of the fire. My dad made this album, gave it to me for my birthday the year before he disappeared. It was one of the few things that survived the fire, as if to say that all hope wasn't lost, that my father would someday return.
It hasn't happened yet, and as the years have passed, I've found it harder and harder to look at the photos inside.
Still, I find myself making myself comfortable on the floor, crossing my legs and carefully opening the album in my lap. The first page is a photo of Mom holding me the day I was born. Just as she does now, she looks stoic, but it's impossible to miss the small glimmer of pride in her eyes. It disappeared when she realized that I was defective, but there is a small part of me that relishes the fact that there was once a time that she looked at me with the same subtle affection she showed the rest of our family.
I turn the page.
Another photo, this time of me. It's my first dance class. I couldn't have been older than four or five.
Turn the page. First day of school. Turn the page. Dance recital. Turn the page. Hospital visit. Turn the page. Turn the page. Turn the page.
The last photo is of Dad and I during our mid-winter trip to Old Aretia, when we were making the trek back to our car. Our cheeks are red from the cold, and I can just barely make out the outline of Riorson House in the background.
Wait. Riorson House?
I remember, distinctly, feeling a strong sense of deja vu when we visited the ruins. Now, I can't believe I'd missed the connection back then, when the name matched that of the man who had supposedly killed my brother - or so I believed at the time. Yet another reason why my old self was too naive, too ignorant, for her own good.
I return my attention to the photo. Dad looks happy - or as close to happy as he did after Brennan died. This was taken around the time he started acting strangely, when he'd disappear for days on end. It didn't take me long to deduce he was looking into something. Thinking about it now, he must have had some idea about Project VENIN by the time he'd taken me to Old Aretia. It's the only explanation for why he'd want me to see that place - to warn me of Navarre's ruthlessness.
I hear a click - probably just the sound of my neighbor unlocking their door, so I ignore it. The walls here are paper thin. I continue to inspect the last photo, as if staring at it would reveal to me what my father knew, what he was thinking, when he took me there.
I hear a floorboard creak, and I barely have time to dodge the dagger sailing towards my head.
I throw my bodyweight to the side, photo album all but forgotten as I lock eyes with my would-be assassin. I don't know them, but the clothes, the daggers, the stealth- no doubt, she's an NIA operative.
I get my feet back under me in a split-second, my mind whirling as I try to figure out what I can use as a weapon. My attacker palms another dagger and flings herself at me. I grab the album, use it to block the dagger sailing for my throat. It's razor-sharp blade slices through the already fragile leather binding, and the cover falls off. I use her momentary confusion to spin to the side, grabbing her outstretched arm as I do and wrenching it into a lock behind her. She cries out when I apply pressure, dropping her dagger as she does.
"You have three seconds to tell me who sent you, or you'll be as dead as every other person that's tried to kill me the last few weeks," I hiss into her ear. I feel her tremble in my grip - no doubt she knows exactly who I am, and that I mean exactly what I say.
Mercy is not my way. Not when mercy gets me killed.
"Colonel Aetos!" she chokes out. She's shaking hard now. "He said you'd betrayed the agency."
"What else did he say?" I increase the pressure on her arm, and she cries out. A little more, and I'll dislocate it.
"He promised to let me go home if I killed you!"
I pause at that. Go home? What the hell is she talking about?
"Explain," I order.
Tears trickle down her cheeks. "He said he'd let me out of the program if I could kill you. I didn't sign up for this, I want to go home-"
She begins to hyperventilate. Something here isn't adding up. If she's really a BASGIATH operative, she can go home anytime she wants after graduation, assuming it doesn't interfere with her work.
"When did you finish the protocol?" I ask.
She looks at me with confusion. "The protocol?"
"The BASGIATH protocol," I say impatiently. "When did you graduate?"
"I don't know what that is," she cries. "Please, I don't want to die. Please let me go home. I want to go home!"
None of this makes any fucking sense. She fights like a BASGIATH operative. She's wearing our mission suit. But she doesn't know what BASGIATH is? I'd be inclined to think she was lying about not knowing what it was, but some kinds of fear can't be faked, and she's definitely not pretending.
I release her arm, and she drops to her knees, still trembling and gulping in heaving sobs.
"Leave," I say flatly, looking down at her. "Don't show up here again. I'll kill you if you do."
She nods, and rises to her feet. As she turns to go, I bend down to pick up the dagger she left behind.
Big fucking mistake.
She lunges at me again, another dagger produced from who knows where in her grip.
"I won't let them take me back!" she screeches, eyes wild as she goes for the kill. I react on instinct, barely thinking, and a moment later the dagger I picked up is buried in her chest. The girl makes a shocked noise as blood begins to leak from the wound, from her mouth. I feel a sting, and realize my upper arm has been stabbed clean through. The adrenaline is pumping, however, and I barely feel it.
I watch the girl bleed out, the life leaving her eyes as she collapses in a heap on my floor.
My brain is racing, trying to put the puzzle pieces together and failing miserably. This wasn't a normal assassination attempt by the agency - not that assassination attempts are normal in the first place. I am missing something. I know it.
My eyes fall on the burner phone on my bedside table. I almost move to pick it up, to dial the single number saved in its contacts. I don't, though. I have more pressing matters, and I still don't trust Xaden.
I pick up my personal cell, and dial Rhiannon.
"Hey Violet," My best friend's voice drifts over the speaker.
"I need you at my place. Now."
I can practically hear her immediate concern over the phone. "What happened?"
"Just get here. Please." I'm taking a massive risk, but she already knows I'm hiding something. She's too smart not to figure out more, and I can keep her safer by giving her something, so she knows just how dangerous all of this is.
Rhiannon says she'll arrive in five minutes, and I insist that it can only be her. She promises not to bring Ridoc or Sawyer, and then hangs up. I slump down on my bed, blood still running from where my arm was run through. I don't remove the knife - not yet. Rhi will stitch me up when she gets here.
My eyes land on the photo album where it landed just next to my bed in the struggle. I reach down, pick it up.
The photo of my dad and I - the one in Old Aretia - is stained in blood.
"Gods, Violet!" Rhiannon exclaims when she opens my door and spots me. Her eyes flick to the cooling body of my attacker, quickly assessing the situation, before she makes her way over to me. "What the hell happened?"
"I think it's obvious that I was attacked." I hiss when she takes my arm into her hands, moving around to get a good look at the injury.
Rhi gives me a sharp look. "Now isn't the time to be a smartass, Vi." She returns her attention to my wound. "We need to get this pulled out and then stitch you up. Where's your med kit?"
I direct her to where I have it stashed under the kitchen sink, and she tuts disapprovingly when she sees how sparse my supplies are.
"I know I refilled this a few months ago. Have you been getting hurt and not telling me?"
Yes.
"No," I say instead.
"Liar." Rhi shakes her head, but doesn't linger on the subject, which I'm grateful for. The adrenaline is wearing off, and now the pain is beginning to seep in, making it difficult to focus on what, exactly, I'm not supposed to tell her. Which would be everything, ideally, but at this point it's impossible to keep her fully in the dark.
Rhiannon braces one hand on my arm, the other coming up to grip the dagger. "You ready?" she asks, and I nod. "Count of three. One-"
She yanks it out, and while I manage to stop myself from screaming, I can't help the loud groan of pain that escapes my lips.
"Fuck," I gasp. "You're just like Devera."
With the way Rhi's eyes immediately shoot my way, I realize too late that I maybe should have kept that to myself.
"Is that what this is about?" She says, her voice barely a whisper, as if she's worried about being overheard. "Does this have to do with Devera? What happened in Cordyn, Vi? What are you hiding?"
I hesitate. If I tell her anything, I could be putting her in danger. On the other hand, she'll just keep digging if I don't tell her, which could put her into even more danger.
"Yes," I admit. "Aetos - the older one, not Dain - has been sending people after me. I think he suspects that I know something I'm not supposed to know."
"And that is?" Rhi doesn't look up at me, focused on my wound as she begins to stitch it back together.
I draw the line in the sand here. I can't tell her about Project VENIN, or my dad, or Xaden. It risks too much - her life being chief among them.
"I can't tell you that," I whisper. "I had to kill six people in Cordyn, Rhi. Jack Barlowe and Caroline Ashford are dead because I killed them, because they were told to kill me because of Aetos' suspicions." Rhi sucks in a sharp breath, but doesn't interrupt me. "Honestly, I'm lucky to be alive. If I tell you anything more, they could start coming after you too." And we both know that what I can survive is vastly different from what Rhi and the others can escape. There's a reason for the vastly different difficulty levels of our missions.
Rhi gives me a long, hard look, before sighing.
"Fine. I can't force you to tell me more, but it's clear you've managed to get yourself caught up in something dangerous." Rhi cuts the thread, tying off the stitches. "You're more than capable of taking care of yourself, but I need you to promise me you'll tell me if you're in over your head. I can help you."
I think I might already be in over my head, but I keep that thought to myself.
"If I think you can help, then I will," I say instead. That obviously wasn't the answer my best friend wanted, because she shoots me a glare. She doesn't argue back though, so we slip back into silence while she finishes stitching up where the dagger exited my arm.
When she finishes tying off the second round of stitches, I move my arm gingerly, testing my range of motion. The twinge of pain I feel when I lift it too high has me hissing, and I quickly decide that pushing so soon will only end up with me bleeding again. I drop my arm to my side lamely as Rhiannon begins taking in the destruction of my room and the bloody mess covering the floor.
She lets out a sharp breath. "What do you want to do about that?" she asks with a vague wave of her hand in the direction of the girl.
I regain my feet, looking at the person I killed for the first time since Rhi arrived. Now that I'm looking closer, it's clear she never went through the protocol. Rhi, Sawyer, Ridoc, me - we all have scars that cover our bodies, evidence of the brutal training we had to undergo. This girl? She doesn't have a visible scar anywhere on the pale skin of her exposed arms.
The way she attacked me too should have been a dead giveaway. It was no trouble overcoming her attacks and subduing her. A trained BASGIATH operative never would have been taken down that easily.
Between Xaden, VENIN, and now this - the list of mysteries in my life just keeps growing longer and longer.
"Let's call in clean up," I say with a sigh, my eyes never leaving the girl's body. "It's not like we can just dispose of a body without someone asking questions."
Rhi's brows furrow. "But if the NIA is the one sending people after you-"
"It's not," I interrupt her with a shake of my head. I move towards the girl, dropping to my haunches as I inspect her closer. There are no muscles under her mission suit, nothing that indicates that she had any kind of training before she was sent to kill me. "I think Aetos is acting alone. If not, the agency would have just waited till I was at headquarters to take me out with a whole team, to make sure I couldn't escape. Unless Aetos wants to admit he's trying to kill one of his own operatives without agency authorization, then there shouldn't be any issues."
Rhi drops down next to me. "If you say so," she says dubiously, before turning her attention to the dead girl in front of us, the lines between her brows deepening and her nose wrinkling. "Who is this? I don't recognize her."
"I wish I knew." I push the hair that's escaped my braid out of my face with the hand on my uninjured side. I open my mouth, almost tell Rhi what the girl told me before I'd killed her, but my fears stop me. I'm already putting her in so much danger by telling her as much as I have.
But my best friend is too observant for her own good, and I know she's noticed some of what I've noticed when her dark eyes narrow as she inspects the girl.
"She doesn't look like she's had any physical training," Rhi says with a frown, before standing and circling to the girl's other side. "No scars either." She looks back at me. "This is really weird."
Crazy is the word I'd use, but when the shoe fits. I shrug, pushing myself back to my feet and trudging back to my bed. Dain really wasn't lying when he said people were going to come after me.
Wait.
Dain knows something. That's the only way he could have warned me.
Does he know something about VENIN? Is that why he was spying on Xaden before he was assigned to the protocol?
Motherfucker.
"Vi?" Rhi walks over, looking concerned. There must be something in my expression, because her concern grows as she gets closer. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
"I'm fine," I lie, forcing myself to give what I hope is a reassuring smile. "Let's call clean up. Want to get dinner after?"
I park Tairn near the entrance of headquarters as the sun begins to peak above the horizon, dying the sky in brilliant oranges. The cool morning air feels glorious, and I vaguely realize that this might be the last time I feel the wind on my cheeks.
Either Aetos accepts my version of what happened in Cordyn, or I'm dead. No in-between.
Hopefully I survive, because I fully intend on grilling his son once I'm done with debrief.
Once again, I almost reached for the burner phone when I woke up this morning. Once again, I couldn't bring myself to do it. I'm not too worried though - Xaden wants eyes inside the agency, and I'm the only person stupid enough to agree to it. If he wants what I can get him, he'll have to wait till I'm good and ready to make that final step.
Until then, that phone will stay on my bedside table.
Everything is deceptively normal when I enter the large atrium. This time, however, Dain isn't waiting for me. I stalk silently towards the security checkpoint, lost in thought. As always, I have to step back through because of the dagger in my boot.
When I approach the steel blast doors that mark the start of the clandestine division, I barely give the two guards more than a cursory nod before I duck under the door as it slides slowly upwards.
Of course, Colonel Aetos is waiting for me as soon as I cross the threshold, flanked by cronies while his fingers tap impatiently against the arm of his crisp military uniform.
"Sorrengail," he says, his voice friendly but lined with an undercurrent of hostility. "So glad you finally decided to drop by. We have so much to catch up on." He gestures towards the debrief room. I've sat in that rooms dozens - no, hundreds - of times, but never before has it looked so ominous and threatening. I suppress the urge to shiver, and fight to keep my hands from trembling as I walk ahead of Aetos and his buddies.
One wrong move, and one of them will snap my neck.
This is for Dad, I remind myself. For Brennan. For myself. For my revenge. I cannot fail here.
I stand in front of the room's holo projector, as the three men follow me in. The click of the door closing behind them sounds like a death knell. My hands are clammy, but I don't wipe them on my mission suit. I don't want to give off even a hint of weakness.
Aetos looks me over, eyes narrowing as he does.
"How good it is to see you unharmed," he says after a moment. "Though I admit, I expected Devera would at least get a few hits in, with how you struggled to take her down the first time."
I know that isn't what he's surprised about. He knows it too. This is about Jack and the others. This is about me still being alive in the first place.
"Turns out, I just needed to approach it differently," I say nonchalantly, doing my best to appear unbothered as I cross my arms, ignoring how it hurts my stab wound. "It helps that Jack and the others you sent with me never showed up in Cordyn. Isn't that strange? I'm not complaining, since they only would have held me back in the first place."
Aetos' face turns a shade of purple that I'd be laughing at if it wasn't for this unspoken battle that we're waging. Maybe I shouldn't be provoking him, but just seeing his face makes my rage bubble up. Channelling that into sarcasm is far better than the alternative - stabbing him and accepting the consequences.
"Barlowe and the others have not reported in," he says through clenched teeth. "We are assuming they have deserted."
"What a shame," I reply, sarcasm thick. We both know all six are dead. "He was such a valuable asset."
Aetos straightens up like the military man he is, tucking his hands behind his back as he begins to stalk towards me.
"And Devera?" he questions softly as he stops directly in front of me.
I take a deep breath. "Dead," I say steadily, willing my voice not to waver. "I shot her in the chest. She bled out in minutes. There is a photo in the written report I submitted."
Aetos looks at me suspiciously, like a dog sniffing for contraband, trying to catch me in a slip-up.
"I didn't realize you were a marksman, Sorrengail," he says, tone light.
I smile, but there's no warmth behind it. "My brother taught me before he died, colonel."
It was one of the last things Brennan ever taught me, and honestly, it shouldn't even surprise Aetos. My hand-eye coordination is superb. Throwing knives, shooting guns - all of it comes naturally to me.
For emphasis, I withdraw the single spent round that I found on the rooftop from my pocket, holding it out for him to inspect as I force my hands not to shake. Aetos practically grabs it, turns it over in his fingers. He's staring at it so intently, you'd think it was speaking to him. Maybe it is, in some strange way, and it will be the thing that unravels this elaborate lie I've constructed.
He looks back at me, his snake-like eyes making he hair on the back of my neck stand up.
"You will demonstrate how you killed her," he declares as the round is returned to me.
"I'm sorry?"
"You heard me." A slow, unnerving smile spreads across his face. "You will show us how you killed her, from the same distance that you reported in the written debrief you submitted. If you fail, well-" he shrugs. "We'll have to investigate to determine whether or not you've lied to us about the completion of your mission."
My stomach bottoms out. I might be able to shoot a gun, but a sniper rifle over that large of a distance? I haven't done that since I was in the protocol.
I can see it in Aetos' eyes - If I fail; if I miss during whatever stupid test he has prepared for me, I'm dead.
Ridoc and Sawyer are waiting for me outside of the debrief room when I stagger out a few minutes later.
"You look like shit," Ridoc says bluntly, earning an elbow to the ribs from Sawyer.
"What Ridoc means is that you don't look great," Sawyer adds, giving Ridoc a sharp look as he does. "What happened?"
I'm fighting my body, trying to keep the terror that has slowly but surely begun coursing through me at bay. If I fuck this up, if I can't make the shot - I'm dead. My squad might be dead. My dad's words from that trip to Old Aretia all those years ago play on repeat in my head - that Navarre would destroy anything that got in its way, me included.
The heavy reality of the treason I'm committing finally hits me square in the chest. I'm fighting to take even breaths, to keep myself from panicking, but I know I'm failing when the joking concern on my friends' faces morphs into genuine worry.
"Violet?" Ridoc asks, putting a hand on my back. I realize that my breathing is coming in short gasps. I'm hyperventilating.
Oh gods. I'm going to die today.
"Let's get her somewhere else," Sawyer says to Ridoc. I'm barely present, my thoughts moving a million miles an hour as Ridoc clasps my wrist in his hand and practically drags me into an empty office.
How could I have I allowed my desire for answers about Dad put me in this position? He wouldn't have wanted me to do this. How could I have been so stupid? I never should have done this, never should have fallen down the rabbit hole Devera all but dug for me. There's no way I'll be able to make that shot, and when I miss, it'll get me and all the people I care about killed.
I'm going to leave Mira an only child. Will Mom come to my funeral? Will she even acknowledge that I'm dead?
I'm full-on panicking now, my head spinning and my breathing erratic.
"Violet!" Sawyer claps loudly right in front of my face, knocking me out of the spiral my thoughts have gone down. I look around wildly, realize that they've sat me down against the wall and are both kneeling in front of me. "You need to breathe."
"I-" I try to speak, try to tell them I'm ok, but I can barely get air into my lungs. My whole body hurts, my joints screaming in pain as if my panic has triggered their own. "I don't-"
Ridoc glances at Sawyer, before shuffling close to me, taking my hands in his.
"Look at me, Violet," he says, his tone uncharacteristically serious, no trace of the usual mischievous expression he normally wears. "We're going to take deep breaths together, ok? That will help."
I don't bother trying to speak, but I nod.
"In," he says, taking a deep breath. I try to copy, but my body doesn't want to listen. "And out." He lets the breath out.
We sit there for a few minutes, me mimicking Ridoc as he takes deep breaths. Rhi slips in halfway through, looking at me with concern but not saying a word while Ridoc helps bring me down.
When I finally feel like I regained control of my lungs, I feel like I've been wrecked from the inside, out.
"Thank you," I croak, giving my friends what I hope is a reassuring smile that is likely closer to a grimace. "I'm sorry you had to see that."
"You don't get to apologize for having a panic attack, Vi," Rhi says, pushing back from where she's leaning against the wall to join Sawyer and Ridoc in kneeling in front of me. She gives me a knowing look. "Now, do you want to tell us what this is about? I haven't seen you lose your cool like that since we were in the protocol."
I'd told myself that I'd be as honest with my squad as I could be, and I have to remind myself of that as I debate how to respond.
"Aetos wants me to replicate how I killed Devera," I admit. Rhi's eyes flare wide. Even though I didn't admit it when she asked, Rhi already suspects that I didn't kill her. "I don't know if I'll be able to. And I think they'll kill me if I can't."
We all fall into stony silence. No one bothers to tell me it will be ok - we all know what the reality is here. I already failed once. If I can't prove that I didn't fail again, then there won't be a third chance. They'll dispose of me, and they'll do it painfully.
I shudder as the memories of OSC - Operative Survival Classes - flood my brain with every possible way Aetos could torture me before I die. I know he would. He would want to know exactly what I know. Would want to know if anyone else knows.
"You're going to be fine," Sawyer speaks up after a moment. "You're the best out of all of us." He glances at the other two, before meeting my gaze again. "You've always been secretive Vi, and that's ok. We all have secrets. I don't know what you've gotten yourself into here, but Aetos doesn't know who he's messing with. You'll be fine."
Rhi nods in agreement, and Ridoc flops down next to me, throwing an arm over my shoulder.
"Sawyer's right," Ridoc drawls. "You'll probably go in there, do something totally badass, then make a smartass comment that will have Aetos 1 and 2 steaming out of their ears like you always do. The Violet Sorrengail I know always manages to exceed expectations."
I grin, because I realize that he's right. I survived BASGIATH. I survived Aetos sending six operatives to kill me. I have survived.
And I will not die today. I refuse. Failure is not an option, not when so much is at stake. If Xaden was telling the truth, if Navarre has truly lost control of a weapon that could kill thousands of people, then I have to fight tooth and nail to make sure the truth is revealed before it's too late. That's what Dad would want. That's why he left his trail for us to follow.
I'm not fighting for answers for myself anymore. I'm fighting for answers because the consequences could be unimaginable if I don't. I don't trust Xaden Riorson, but I know in the marrow of my bones that he wasn't lying when he said Project VENIN was already being used.
I'm fighting for revenge. For Brennan. For Dad. For everyone else Navarre hurt to keep this covered up. I can't make them pay for all the suffering they've caused if I'm six feet under.
I disentangle myself from Ridoc and haul myself to my feet, the others following. I look at each of them, and attempt to memorize their faces. Just because I've overcome my momentary panic doesn't mean my chances of success are any higher. If today is the day I die, I want to make sure I remember this moment.
"I love you guys," I say, my voice cracking. It's the truest thing I can say in this moment.
"Oh, Vi," Rhi says softly, taking a step forward and wrapping me in a hug. Sawyer and Ridoc pile on top of her, forming a protective cocoon of human arms and torsos around me. I don't remember the last time I felt so safe. "We love you so much."
We stay like that for a while, and when we finally break apart, I feel stronger, more ready to face whatever it is Aetos throws at me.
"Do you want us to come watch?" Rhi asks as we finally exit the room.
"No." A twinge of pain nearly makes my flinch when I reach up to make sure the pins holding my hair in its braid crown are secure. "I don't want you guys there if I miss."
Rhi takes a deep breath, a solemn expression crossing her face. Sawyer and Ridoc glance at each other. We all know what I've left unsaid - I don't want them to see me dragged away to my death if I fail.
"Whatever you want, Vi," Rhi gives me a weak smile, and squeezes my uninjured arm lightly. "Give them hell."
Mazzie is busy clearing her workspace when I arrive down in the armory an hour later.
In fact, the entirety of the massive underground space has been cleared. The vehicles, sparring mats - all of it is gone, save for one shooting target in the middle of the room. I know without even asking who it's for.
"Hey Maz," I greet as I approach the inventor. Her auburn curls bounce as she whirls on me, ready to throw what looks like a circuit board, but she relaxes as soon as she sees me.
"Violet!" she exclaims happily, dropping the circuit without a second thought on the workbench and rushing up to me. "You're back! How did the mission go? Did you use the taser-knife?" Her eyes are practically sparkling as she waits for my answer, and I can't help but laugh.
"Unfortunately, I didn't get to test them this time."
Well, unless you count holding one to that woman's throat in the safe house I visited with Xaden, but I don't think that would be all that helpful for Mazzie.
Mazzie's face falls, transforming into a pout. "What a shame," she sighs. "Next time, then."
"Next time," I promise. If I make it past today, that is.
"Now, what can I do for you?" Mazzie pulls her hair back into a ponytail as she returns to her clean up, unceremoniously shoving tools into drawers and carefully placing prototypes onto shelves.
"I'm waiting for the Aetos." I peer closer at a piece of tech that looks like high-tech carrot, trying to figure out what it does.
"1 or 2?" Mazzie grabs the techno-carrot out from under my nose, placing it back on its shelf.
"1," I say. Mazzie glowers. She's not a fan of the colonel - not that anyone really is. She's always said that there was something "off" about him. I'm beginning to see why. "How is the portable holo coming along?"
Mazzie groans, slamming the doors of one of the cabinets shut with with enough force to make me jump.
"Ridoc's little stunt set me back weeks, if not months," she seethes. I almost pity Ridoc, who routinely loses his earpiece and has to come ask Mazzie for a new one. No doubt she's ripping him a new one every single time. "What he broke took me ages to perfect, and recreating the prototype is not going smoothly." She glances my way hopefully. "Maybe you could test the taser-knives on him?"
I snort. "I don't think Ridoc would like that very much."
"And I don't care what Ridoc likes."
We settle into silence, Mazzie continuing to clean while I nosily inspect every little thing she has out. No doubt she was ordered to clean up since I'd be firing off high-powered sniper ammunition in here.
Mazzie knows weapons better than just about anyone, tech genius that she is, and the fact that she's still mad at Ridoc doesn't bode well for him. Just because she's a non-combatant doesn't mean she's helpless. I've seen her test weapons before, and her aim is just as good as mine. If he doesn't work to ingratiate himself to her, he might end up on the receiving end of one of Mazzie's inventions.
I pause. Mazzie knows all kinds of things about the different things the NIA is working on, technologically. Could she have access to information about VENIN, and not even realize it?
I glance back in the redhead's direction. She's shoving her entire bodyweight against a door, trying to get it shut. My gaze slides to the holo computer she uses to access the NIA network. I file it away for later - if I survive what Aetos has planned for me today, I'll need to sneak in here and look through her computer. I doubt she knows anything about the project - frankly, she'd never be able to keep something like that to herself - but her computer access is a different question.
Aetos shows up ten minutes later, still flanked by goons. I rise from where I'd seated myself, carefully placing myself in a defensive posture in case any of them try anything. If I fail today, I won't go down without a fight.
"You're here already. Good," Aetos says with the fakest smile I've ever seen him wear. His attention slides to Mazzie behind me. "Ms. Carrigan, I'd advise you to take cover for your own safety, in case Violet here misses the target."
The way he says it tells me he has no doubt that I'll miss. I bristle at the confidence I see. I'll fucking show him not to underestimate me.
"I'm good," Mazzie says nonchalantly. "Violet never misses."
It's a fight not to laugh at the disgruntled expression on the colonel's face at Mazzie's rebuttal, although he quickly regains his composure. "Very well," he says. "I can't force you. Sorrengail, we'll commence the demonstration in ten minutes. Prepare yourself accordingly."
I don't bother responding, just giving him a curt nod before spinning on my heel and stalking into the room that houses the division's dizzying array of firearms. While BASGIATH operatives prefer more classic weapons like daggers and swords, more traditional NIA agents that didn't go through the protocol prefer modern weaponry. I pause for a moment, taking in the vast array of guns. I've only come in here once before, during my tour of the place on my first day after I graduated the protocol. I haven't had a reason to come back.
I quickly spy the sniper rifle I need and make a beeline for it, doing a quick visual check of its components as I approach. I don't have time to take it apart and fully inspect it like Brennan taught me to do. I lift the rifle off the wall pegs it sits on, and frown when it's heavier than I remembered it being. I position it, try to get used to the weight in my hands, but with so little time, I know its impossible.
I offer up a prayer to Zihnal - he might be the only one who can save me now.
I exit the room, rifle clutched in my arms, the cold gunmetal causing shivers on my uncovered arms. Aetos waits for me with Dain, who joined in while I was getting the gun. I can see the barely masked panic on his face - he doesn't think I'll be able to make the shot either, just like his father.
He's never believed in what I'm capable of. Never seen the person I actually am. Today will be just another lesson that likely falls on deaf ears, or proof that he was right all along. If I have anything to say about it, it'll be the former.
I stop in front of the group, drawing myself as tall as I can and steeling my expression. "I'm ready, colonel."
Aetos turns away from his son, inspecting me. He must like what he sees, because that smile that makes my skin crawl appears on his face.
"I have marked you spot over there, Sorrengail," he says, gesturing towards a red X on the floor. The target must be at least a 100 yards away. "You'll have one shot, and one shot only." I swear his smile grows, and I don't miss the unnerved expression on his own son's face as Dain glances between the two of us. "Make it count."
Once again, I don't bother responding. I stalk past him, and shoulder checking the older man as I go. I don't even care that my shoulder screams in protest at the contact.
"Sorrengail-" the colonel growls menacingly.
"Dad, stop." Dain's voice is hushed, but can be clearly heard. "That's enough."
I don't bother turning around to see what the colonel's reaction to his own son standing up to him is.
I turn on my heel when I reach the red X, taking a knee and extending the stand on the front of the rifle's barrel, before lying flat on my stomach. I bring the scope up to my face, adjusting it till I'm sure it won't get any better.
My palms are sweating, and I can hear my blood roaring in my ears. This is do-or-die, make-or-break. My hands can't shake now, my breathing can't be anything other than controlled. Anything other than that would doom me. I pour every ounce of willpower of willpower I posses into remaining calm and composed. My body's reaction to fear will not be what kills me today.
"I will count down from ten, and then you will fire," Aetos calls from where he has taken shelter behind a barrier.
"Ten, nine-"
I bring my face to the scope once more. Stare down the barrel at the target.
"Eight, seven-"
I make a small adjustment to the right. Take a deep breath.
"Six, five-"
I let my finger drift over the trigger. I feel sweat beading on my forehead.
"Four-"
When you start something, you tend to finish it, dragon. I hope I'll get the chance to find Dada, to hear him call me that again.
"Three-"
Rhiannon. Sawyer. Ridoc. Mira. Gods, I love them so much. I force my hands to stop shaking.
"Two-"
I offer up another prayer to Zihnal, take another deep breath.
"One-"
Devera's voice, ever calm and collected, echoes in my head: You are Violet Sorrengail - there are very few who could ever be your equal. A sense of calm envelops me as I recall the absolute certainty she expressed to me in her final moments that I was someone worth something.
I pull the trigger, gasp when the recoil knocks the air out of me and nearly sends me sprawling. I'm terrified to look up, to see if I missed, to see if I will live past this day.
I will not die today, I will not die today, I will not die today-
I finally look up at the target.
There's a single, perfectly shaped bullet hole, straight through the bullseye.
I'm cleaning the barrel of the rifle at Mazzie's work station when Aetos approaches me, fury radiating from every pore. This time, he's completely alone, as if he knows that no one can know what he's done, how far he's gone to try and catch me in a slip-up.
"You are I both know you didn't kill Devera," he says, voice soft and menacing.
I don't stop cleaning, running the rag over the barrel again. "I don't know what you're talking about," I say lightly, not even bothering to look up at him, simply because I know it will infuriate him.
"Don't play dumb with me, girl." This time, I do stop, shoot him the nastiest glare I can. This girl has been foiling his every attempt to have me killed. "You better stop while you're ahead, Sorrengail. You'll regret it if you go any further. You have no idea what kind of secrets you're messing with."
I realize with sickening clarity that he's not talking about Devera anymore. Dread explodes in my chest, and I force my lungs to pull in air. This just confirms what I'd already suspected - he knows that I know about Project VENIN - or is suspicious that I know about it, at least.
"Again," I say cooly, forcing myself to return to my cleaning. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Mark my words," he says, drawing closer and closer. I drop the rag I'm holding and let my hand fall to the handle of one of the daggers strapped all over my body in pointed warning. He doesn't get the hint, his eyes locked on mine. "I will make your life a living hell. Everyone you love, everyone you care about, I'll-"
"You'll what, colonel? Consider your next words carefully."
I freeze. Aetos freezes. I know that voice, but there is no fucking way she'd be here. It's been four fucking years, and this is how she decides to make her entrance into my life again?
But indeed there she stands - Lilith Sorrengail, in the flesh. I swear, she looks exactly the same as she did before, her short hair the exact same length, her uniform in impeccable condition. She stares down Aetos with a coldness that makes him flinch, and he backs away from me in a hurry. I keep my hand on my dagger.
"General Sorrengail," Colonel Aetos says, snapping to attention and saluting her, the superior officer. "I was merely reminding the operative that her performance is being closely watched, and-"
Mom holds up a hand, and Aetos' mouth snaps shut.
"I hear you sent six other operatives with Sorrengail here to take out Major Devera," she says. She practically radiates power as she takes a step towards Aetos. "And yet, none of them returned. In fact, I've just learned that they're all dead. Care to explain?"
Oh. Shit.
Aetos stutters out a response, but I barely understand what he's saying. Mom just looks at him. It's hard to believe, with the way she's staring him down, that he used to be her closest aide.
"I'll tell you what I think, colonel," she says. He straightens up. "I think that you assumed my daughter purposefully failed her original mission because of a long-ago personal connection to Major Devera. I think you then assigned multiple operatives who have made clear on multiple occasions that they would kill her if given the chance to 'assist' on the mission, although I doubt that was the objective you actually gave them. I think those six then tried to kill her, and then she demonstrated exactly why she was the top of her class in the protocol."
I can barely believe what I'm hearing come out of her mouth. How the hell does she know all of this?
I don't even remember the last time I heard her call me her daughter.
"And I think you fully expected her to fail this test, and were planning on using it as an excuse to accuse her of treason because, again, you seem to think Sorrengail's connection to Devera would preclude her from being capable of completing her mission. Am I getting this right?"
Aetos pales. "Absolutely not! I was acting within the bounds of my authority," he retorts, and I can see the strain of his efforts to remain at attention when he is so used to being the highest ranked person around. "I had no way of knowing that Barlowe and the others would try and kill Sorrengail. And even so, Sorrengail herself said that they never arrived in Cordyn. If they'd attacked her there, why didn't she just say so? And how else could I have determined if she really was able to shoot someone from as far away as she did if I didn't test her?"
"Clearly you lack common fucking sense, Aetos, and not just because you seem to think there's anyone in my family who isn't an expert marksman," Mom spits, eyes narrowing before looking at me for the first time since she arrived. I want to see something there - love, concern, relief, pride - but there's nothing. Surprise, surprise. "Sorrengail, come here."
I immediately spring to my feet, approaching them both. Unlike Aetos, I remain relaxed. I'm no soldier, and I'm under no obligation to salute my own mother. I cross my arms and raise an eyebrow.
"Hypothetically," Mom says. "If Barlowe and the others had tried to kill you in Cordyn, would you have told Aetos here about it?"
I debate how I should play this, but there's only one good answer. Mom has always been infuriatingly good at seeing through my lies. I don't know how she did it, but she's already found out that Jack and Co. tried to kill me. She didn't say it outright, but she probably knows about everything else too. Lying here won't do me any good. The enemy of my enemy is my friend - or in this case, my mother.
"No." My words are clipped. I still don't know how to feel about her presence here after four years of radio silence. "The colonel had already questioned my ability to complete the mission and sent the six of them with me despite my clear objections. Hypothetically, if they had tried to kill me, I wouldn't have said anything because it seems like the colonel was purposefully looking to put me in situations where I was set up to fail. I would be worried that I'd be framed for killing them without just cause."
"Like I said, Aetos - you lack common sense. I would have come to the same conclusion." Mom's gaze is practically withering. As someone who's been on the other side of that look before, I'm glad it's not me. "Report to my office in two hours, colonel. It's time we had a discussion about how you've been managing the clandestine operatives. I am not impressed by this little stunt. You're dismissed."
The glare he sends my way should probably scare me, and maybe it does, but I'm too exhausted by the whiplash of- well, everything that's happened today to really care. Mom and I stand in silence, staring each other down, until we hear the hiss of the sliding doors close behind Aetos.
"What are you doing here?" I ask warily, arms still crossed.
Mom looks at me impassively, clasping her hands behind her back. "That doesn't concern you."
The laugh that escapes me is cold, just like the feeling in my chest.
"In never does, does it?" I say bitterly. Fuck this. I'm not dealing with her shitty parenting right now, especially not when I know she might be been involved in Fen Riorson's death - and by extension, maybe even Brennan's, something I still have a hard time believing. Call it being in denial, I guess. I begin to walk towards the stairs, not bothering to look Mom's way when I pass her.
"Violet."
I freeze, but I don't turn around. I don't remember the last time I heard my name on her lips.
"Good shooting," Mom says. I almost want to turn around, to see if I'll see that pride that she often had when she looked at Brennan, or Mira. But I'm not emotionally prepared for the disappointment not seeing it will bring, so I don't reply and walk out.
After Mom's surprise appearance at the agency, I haven't seen hide nor tail of Colonel Aetos. Rumors have begun to swirl, saying he's being replaced. The rumors vary wildly about why he's being replaced, and while I'm fairly certain it has to do with how he handled the Devera missions, I'm not about to go digging.
My squad doesn't pry, doesn't ask what has me in a foul mood the rest of the week. They've never seen the effect my mother can have on me, not when she hasn't been a speck in my life in four years.
On Thursday, Rhiannon and Sawyer are sent on another mission. Friday, I spend the day training with Ridoc, sparring until neither of us can stand anymore, resting, and then doing it all over again.
I finally caved and told Sawyer and Ridoc about the attack in my apartment after Rhi insisted, but I didn't give them anymore details other than what I already told Rhi. Of course, that meant that Ridoc insisted on coming home with me, proclaiming he was going to sleep on my floor and protect me from further home invaders.
I use him as a glorified grocery-runner instead.
When I'm certain he's gone, off to procure the ingredients for a pasta recipe, I focus my attention on the burner phone that has sat, untouched, for a week now.
This time, I pick it up.
I've run through everything I know on a loop. Project VENIN. Dad. Brennan. Devera. Mom. Aetos. Fen Riorson. Cyphers and coded messages. Secret weapons and a girl who attacked me in my own home, despite not looking anything like the fighters I spend my days around. At the end of the day, all of it comes back to Xaden, to needing more answers.
Before, I didn't tell him about Aetos, didn't tell him about my suspicions. It's time for a bit of good faith quid pro quo.
I dial the number. Xaden picks up after two rings, his low voice sounding somewhat annoyed.
"I was wondering when you'd call," he says.
I open my mouth, then close it. I don't even know where to start. Do I tell him about the attack in my apartment? Do I tell him about Mom intervening with Aetos, that I'm sure she at least suspects that I know something about VENIN?
"Hello?"
"I think Colonel Aetos knows something about the project," I say after another moment's hesitation. This entire week has been a clusterfuck, throwing me off my axis once more, and I hate that it's reflected in my voice. I sound tired, small.
"What happened?" Xaden asks sharply.
"Something he said when I returned to HQ." I glance warily at the door. The store isn't far from here, and Ridoc could walk back through that door at any moment. "It's not safe to talk here. Consider this information provided in good faith."
"You should have called earlier." He sounds pissed.
"I didn't have anything to share before." I roll my eyes - he's going to need to learn that I do things on my own schedule. I'm not in the military for good reason - I don't like being ordered around.
There is a moment's silence, before: "I'll send you the first keyword tonight. I want daily updates on the progress."
A grin splits my face. Finally. "I'll give you updates when I have them." I move some papers on my bed to the bedside table as I hear the door open. "So don't tell- shit!"
I finally look towards the door, and Ridoc doesn't stand there. It's another man in an NIA mission suit, several times bigger than me. I don't hesitate, flinging the phone to the floor and lunging with the dagger I keep on my bedside table. I take the man off guard, and he stumbles back into one of my clothes racks sending it tumbling to the ground with a crash.
He's a lot better than the girl that came here before though, and he rears his arm back and clocks me with a vicious right hook.
"Fuck," I gasp, quickly regaining my balance and darting out of the way before he can strike again. I need to end this fast - if he gets his hands on me, it's all over.
He might be bigger, stronger, but like the girl who was here before, he isn't trained. His body language practically screams what he's about to do. I flip my knife in the air, catching it by the tip just as he charges at me, shoulder lowered like he's a damn football linebacker. I flick my wrist, and send the dagger sailing. It strikes true, embedding in his throat. He let's out a strangled scream as he drops to the ground with an earth-shaking thump.
"Violet? Gods, are you ok?" Ridoc comes sprinting through the door, groceries no doubt abandoned somewhere as soon as he heard the commotion.
"Fine," I groan, fingers moving up to prod my cheek, which is already tender. I'll have a hell of a bruise come morning. I shoot him a weak grin and elbow him lightly in the ribs. "So much for protecting me from further home invasions, yeah?"
Ridoc groans. "Rhiannon is going to kill me."
I laugh, and once again call for clean up. I've been attacked here for the second time in a week - I guess that means it's time to find a new apartment.
It's only a few hours later, long after the body has been removed and after Ridoc has settled in to sleep on the air mattress I pull out for him, that I remember I was on the phone with Xaden when I was attacked. I'm sure he's wondering what happened.
I snuggle deeper into my blankets, the sweet oblivion of sleep overtaking me. I'll just call him in the morning.
Notes:
I am so excited about this chapter! Lilith made her first appearance! more insight to papa sorrengail! Mazzie finally showed up again! violet keeps getting attacked under ~mysterious~ circumstances! Rhiannon is a Bridgerton fan!
xaden went off somewhere in the last chapter after the call with violet ended, and now we know what happened :) who's excited to find out what happens next? 👀
Chapter 13: Enlighten Me
Notes:
guys the reaction to the last chapter was insane! I don't even know what to say other than THANK YOU for loving to read this story as much as I love to write it! and of course, thank you to everyone who started reading my fics since the last time I updated this one! I hope you've been enjoying everything I've been writing :)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
A Year and a Half Ago
I am drenched in blood.
Three. My kill count today is three so far, and the sun is still high in the sky. Or I think it is - the rain is coming down too hard to tell how much time has truly elapsed.
The Spy Games have always been brutal, but there's something about cutting down my fellow protocol trainees this time, when we're all so close to getting out, that makes it particularly hellish. I glance down at the numbers flashing on my small digital wristband. It's not a clock, but a counter - a display of how many points I have from maiming and killing in this place. And the number is only going up, slowly but surely.
I'm the best there is here. Or the worst, depending on how I look at it. Either way, no one comes close to my point count.
I hear the snap of a twig behind me, the rustle of fabric, and I'm moving before I can really think, the blade I've been clutching leaving my hand in a deadly line. A half-second later, I hear it hit my target, accompanied by a strangled choking sound.
I turn to look as a familiar face sinks to the ground, my dagger embedded in their heart. I don't know their name. I stopped learning them ages ago.
Four.
More names. More blood. More death. More points. It's all the same to me now. What's the point in mourning?
As time passed in the protocol, death became less common as each of us became more deadly in our own rights. But that also meant that when it did occur, it was far more heart-wrenching, monumental. Every person who's life I've ended today I knew.
A shiver passes through me, from my toes to the tips of my fingers. It's May now, but with the rain pounding down ceaselessly, it could be February with how cold I feel. My joints are screaming, the cold and the damp doing them no favors.
The Spy Games are a two-day affair. We're drugged, then dropped in unfamiliar terrain; told to survive with nothing but our wits and our weapons. And what's left unsaid? This is also the best time to accumulate points by sneaking up on unsuspecting classmates. On paper, it's possible to graduate from the protocol without killing. After all, points are awarded for injuring opponents too. But everyone knows the point system is far more rewarding to those who rid themselves of their morals and kill, kill, kill.
I shiver again, and this time, I know I need to find shelter with the rain showing no sign of stopping. I squint through the thick forest around me, and begin wandering south - I think. Without the sun to tell time and give me direction, it's more accurate to say that I'm wandering aimlessly.
We spend almost all of our time in the protocol in squads - training, eating, sleeping - so there's something dissonant about the Spy Games that always manages to set me on edge, as we're purposefully separated from the people we've come to rely on. I should be used to it, this being my third time I've been thrust into this exercise, but the knowledge that my squad is out there somewhere, likely so far away that I'll have no idea if they need help, creates a tight anxiety in my chest.
I wander for what I think is around thirty minutes, all of my senses on high alert for a potential ambush. Mercifully, I don't come across anyone else, but I do find a rocky overhang that allows me to escape the rain somewhat.
Not for the first time, I wonder what the point of this exercise is, as my back presses uncomfortably against the rocky wall behind me. It doesn't teach us anything about infiltration, or information gathering. There isn't an objective that we have to fulfill, so long as we survive to the end of the 48 hours. All it does is provide us a time and place for indiscriminate killing. Maybe that is the point, to demoralize us and show us that we could die at any time. I don't know. I just don't know.
Despite the danger, I find myself fighting to keep my eyes open, the rain having sapped my energy and making a short nap ever more appealing. Just as I'm about to give in to the embrace of sleep, I hear a rustling in the brush ahead of me. My eyes fly open, and slowly, so that the fabric of my clothes doesn't make noise, I reach for the dagger sheathed at my ribs, eyes never leaving the area where I heard the noise.
Just as I'm about to let my dagger fly, a familiar, friendly face pops out from behind a tree.
"Gods, Auralie," I breathe, regaining my feet as she grins and approaches. "I was about to take your head off."
Auralie Donans is a member of my squad - not one I know very well, but someone I know won't stab me in the back the second I turn around. The Spy Games are ruthless, and having her around will make it easier to survive. She's good in a fight too - like me, she grew up in a military family. Serving Navarre is all she's known, all she's ever considered. We're kindred spirits in that regard, although this was far from the experience I thought I would be having five years ago.
"I would've dodged," Auralie says with a wave of her hand. When she looks at me, she still has that undeniable sparkle of life that many of us lost. I honestly don't know how she's managed to stay herself over the last three years, despite the horrors we've all had to endure. Maybe its because she was always a little more clear-eyed about what would happen here - I remember her mentioning that she had a sibling that went through the protocol - but I'm somewhat envious of her in that regard. I can't stand the person this place has turned me into.
"Sure," I say drily. I move to the side to make room for her under the outcropping. "This rain shows no sign of letting up. Did you see anywhere that would be better for shelter?"
She shakes her head. "No. I saw the body you left behind though - good aim."
I shrug. "I got lucky."
We sit there in silence for a few minutes, and I draw my knees up to my chest in a futile attempt to conserve some of my body heat.
"We should move," Auralie remarks, glancing up at the sky as she breaks the silence. It's begun to get a bit darker. "We're exposed here."
"Agreed." I nod, and gratefully accept Auralie's offer of help, using her offered hand to pull myself off the ground with a groan. While I've never talked about my condition with anyone outside of my small group of friends, its an open secret that my joints are weaker than most other people's.
We begin traipsing through the forest, doing our best to remain as quiet as possible as we track through the underbrush, heads on a swivel for anyone that might attack us. I don't know how long we wander, but when we reach the edge of a cliff, a realization strikes me.
"I know where we are," I hiss to Auralie, as I take in the familiar landscape. The forest below is a good thousand feet down, maybe more. I don't have good memories of this place - I fell more times than I can count - although never from this high, clearly, since I always started from the bottom. I don't think I ever climbed past the 25% mark. "Devera took me to this cliff face my first year for climbing training. There should be a cave near the bottom that we can shelter in."
Auralie grins. "Sounds good to me. Shall we just scale down then?"
"I'm not sure that's a good idea," I say warily, looking at the rocks. The rain is still falling steadily, with no signs of letting up, and the stone is visibly wet. And neither of us have scaled down a cliff of this size before, I'm certain of that "This rain makes it way more dangerous. There's another way down, but it'll take a few hours at best."
Auralie furrows her brows, hands on her hips as she stares down the cliff. "My boots have good grip, and I'm a good climber. I don't mind climbing down if you're ok with it. It's a bad idea to get caught out here without shelter after dark, and by the time we find another way down, the sun will have set."
I'm not worried about my climbing skills - I'm certain I can push through and make it. I am worried about Auralie getting in over her head. Her confidence has been her downfall before. But she's also right - getting caught in these woods without shelter after dark is just asking for trouble, especially when the instructors drop us in places that are more likely to have dangerous wildlife.
I waffle back and forth before sighing. "Fine." I look back at her, where she's eagerly looking at the cliff side. I know she's just seeing this as the latest challenge she gets to tackle. "We're going to go slow though. I don't want either of us to fall."
She nods, and then carefully lowers herself to the exposed rock as she begins picking her way down the cliff. I follow after her as soon as there's a bit of distance between us, carefully testing each stone before I put my full weight on it. There are a few times where I almost lose my grip on the rain-slicked rock, but I manage to recover every time.
I'm so focused on not falling to my death, that I have no idea how much time has passed when I finally cross what I think is the halfway point. I'm thinking it's been at least an hour. I've stopping on a somewhat larger ledge to catch my breath, when I hear Auralie scream beneath me.
I look down, and to my horror, I watch as Auralie's feet kick out beneath her, trying to find some kind of foothold, as she struggles to keep her grip.
"Don't flail around!" I scream, fear injecting into my veins. "You'll knock yourself loose!"
But she either doesn't hear me, or is too freaked out to follow my instructions. I begin making my way down to her, faster than I was moving before despite the rain that's hitting the cliff face.
I practically see it happen in slow motion.
The rock, crumbling out from Auralie's hand.
The look of confusion, then fear, then downright terror, as gravity begins to pull her towards the ground below.
Her scream, echoing up the rock face, before abruptly halting with a macabre thump.
"AURALIE!" I scream, my voice hoarse and broken.
In the corner of my eye, I see the number on my wrist band go up, because I was the person physically closest to her when she died.
When I reach the bottom of the cliff, I don't bother looking at Auralie's body. I don't want to see what the fall did to her. I find a bush, and I throw up until I can't anymore.
Five. The number of deaths attributed to me today is five.
Present
I wake up to banging on my door, sweat clinging to my brow as I'm ripped unceremoniously from my nightmares of bloodbaths and cold rain and blazing fires.
I bolt upright at the same time as Ridoc, who is already clutching a knife in his hand. I glance at the clock - it's 3:00 a.m.
For a brief moment, I think it might be another attacker, but I quickly put that notion to rest. The last two didn't bother to alert me to their presence like this.
I mouth at Ridoc to stay put, clasping my own dagger in my hand and slipping from my bed. I move in silence, taking care to avoid the creaky floorboard that alerted me to my first attacker. As I creep up to the door, I try to hear anything from beyond that could tell me who awaits, but there's nothing.
I have to practically flatten myself against the door, lifting up onto my toes, to see out the peephole. I curse when I see who is on the other side, and begin fumbling with the lock as I sheathe my dagger with my other hand.
"Who is it, Vi?" Ridoc asks.
I rip the door open, and on the other side stands Garrick Tavis, his fist raised as if he was about to knock again.
"Ah, Sorrengail," he greets cheerfully, dropping his fist. "Good to see you're alive."
I raise an eyebrow. "Care to explain why you're beating down my door at 2:00 a.m. in the morning, Tavis?"
He shoots me an easy grin, before peering over my shoulder to get a look at Ridoc with a look of growing amusement. My squad mate is still clutching his knife while, comically, only wearing his boxer shorts as he stands just behind me.
"Just checking in," he says cheerfully, returning his attention to me. He gives me a once over - not in a sexual way, but closer to what I'd expect from one of my squad mates; something evaluative and analytical. "My brother was worried when the call cut off earlier."
Understanding dawns on me. Garrick is checking for injuries. Xaden sent him, probably because he heard the scuffle on the other end of the line. I hadn't even considered that he would've been worried, but maybe I should have.
"Violet," Ridoc says, louder this time as he steps next to me, giving Garrick a suspicious examination. "Who is this?"
"My cousin." I grasp onto the first lie that comes to mind. Luckily, Garrick takes it in stride, nodding as he steps over the threshold and into my apartment, now even more cramped with three people.
"That's me," he says as he looks around. I suddenly feel somewhat self-conscious about the state of the place. Two attacks in a week have left it in less-than-desirable condition. "Cousin Violet and I are super close. I'm just here to check on her."
"At 2:00 a.m. in the morning?" Ridoc questions dubiously.
"Yep!" Garrick comes to my side and throws an arm over my shoulders. I glare at him, and he ignores me. "She was on the phone with my brother earlier, and we heard some weird sounds on the other end before the call ended. We got worried when she didn't call back, so we decided to come check on her. Now, we live all the way in Aretia, so it took us a while to get here, but here we are!"
I guess the best lies are the ones with as much truth in them as possible. Garrick lies so smoothly that I'd believe him, if I didn't already know better.
Ridoc turns his suspicion on me, and rightfully so. This entire situation reeks. "I didn't know you had cousins in Aretia."
Gods, this sucks. I hate lying to him.
"I fell out of touch with them after my brother died," I say, keeping my tone steady and light. "We only recently reconnected."
I glance up at Garrick, who makes a subtle look towards the door. I look back at Ridoc.
"Can you give us a minute, Ridoc?" I ask, hoping to Zihnal above that I'm selling this lie well enough. "I need to talk with Garrick here for a minute about family stuff."
For a second, I think Ridoc is going to say no - and given the day's events, I wouldn't blame him - but after a beat, he drops his dagger on the counter, grabs his pants, and shoves his legs into them before walking out of the door.
"I'll be back in 10 minutes," he shouts before he shuts the door behind him, leaving me along with Garrick Tavis. The following quiet is almost jarring.
We're both silent for a moment, then another as we size each other up. Garrick is a big guy - just as tall as Xaden, but with a bulkier frame. He carries himself in a way that says he doesn't take himself too seriously, but I find myself more on guard with him than I did with Liam Mairi. Garrick is Xaden's right-hand man, and I doubt any person that close to a man committing treason is a pushover. Garrick is clearly evaluating me as well, his posture loose, but guarded as he inspects me with the same look that I'm no doubt giving him.
I break the stalemate, cocking an eyebrow as I do. "You guys drove here all the way from Aretia? That's a long drive."
Garrick shrugs. "You try telling Xaden what to do. I've found it never goes my way."
I snort at the clear exasperation in Garrick's voice. I can definitely see that.
"So this was his idea?" I don't bother hiding my curiosity and surprise. "I kind of thought he'd leave me to the sharks if it came down to it."
Garrick shakes his head, readjusting his footing as he does.
"Like it or not, Sorrengail, we're all on the same team now." Garrick gives me a meaningful look as he shoves his hands into his pockets. "That means looking out for each other. I get that you might not trust us yet - I think that's smart, actually - but what happened on the phone raised some serious alarms. You know enough that if you're compromised, then we're all compromised."
Again, something I hadn't thought of. A cold feeling settles in my stomach - I suddenly feel somewhat guilty for not taking the time to call Xaden back after the attack.
"I'm sorry," I say, and I actually mean it. I've been so wrapped up in my own concerns, that I hadn't given enough thought to the very real risks Xaden and his friends were also taking by entrusting me with the information they've given me. It's not an exaggeration to say they put their lives at risk, just as I have.
"Can you say that again so I can record it?" Garrick asks, a grin stretching across his face. The slight tension in the room breaks, and I flip him off in response.
"Is Xaden here too?" I ask carefully. Compared to the murderous urges I'm prone to whenever I find myself around Xaden, Garrick and Liam are far easier to get along with. I'd almost rather have them as middle men so I don't have to deal with their de facto leader ever again.
Garrick's grin grows. "As a matter of fact, he is. He was just too much of a chickenshit to come up here himself."
"Chickenshit?" I echo, eyebrow raised. That's a... revelation to unpack later.
Garrick nods sagely, as if he's revealing the secrets of the universe to me. "Chickenshit."
I snort. I probably shouldn't, but I like him. Like I liked Liam, despite my short amount of time talking with him.
"So, where is Xaden, if he was too 'chickenshit' to come up here and face me himself?" I ask, doing air quotes with my fingers. It's a battle to keep the corners of my mouth from quirking upwards at the novel insult that I will definitely be using next time Ridoc or Sawyer try to come up with excuses not to spar with me.
Garrick sidles up to the kitchen counter, picking up a half-empty glass of water I'd left there before going to bed. I wrinkle my nose when he downs the entire thing, apparently not caring who had potentially been drinking from it before.
"He's still in the car," Garrick replies as he moves to the sink, refills the glass and takes another sip. He sighs with satisfaction as he puts the glass back on the counter. "He's demanded I bring you down to see him," he informs me.
I roll my eyes. "Oh, he demanded, did he?"
"I already told him that probably wouldn't go over well. He didn't particularly care."
I roll my eyes again. I've only known Xaden a short period, but that tracks, based on what I've seen from him so far. He doesn't like being told no, and I'm supremely good at not doing what people want me to do. It's doesn't take a genius to figure out why we've been clashing.
"Of course he didn't." I wave my hand dismissively. "I get the sense he wasn't particularly used to being told 'no.'"
"You sense correctly." Garrick picks up the glass again and finishes off the water, then places the cup in the sink. He tilts his head as he examines me again. "You seem less pissed off than the last few times I've seen you."
"Have you considered that that's because you woke me up at 3:00 a.m. and I'm not awake enough to be my usual bitchy self?"
Garrick laughs openly, propping his hands on his hips as he does. "You said it, not me. You're growing on me, Sorrengail."
"Well, let's just get this over with," I say with a sharp sigh. "Lead the way."
Garrick feigns deep shock, a hand over his heart for effect. Still, he begins moving towards the door. "Willingly? Who are you and who have you done with Violet Sorrengail? Should I go get a doctor, have you examined for head injuries?"
"You're pushing it, Tavis," I warn with a glare. He just grins, clearly already immune to my threats. He reminds me of Ridoc somehow, even though they really aren't anything alike.
Speaking of Ridoc, he's waiting outside my apartment, leaning against the wall directly across from the door, eyes shut. He opens one eye when we exit, eyebrow raised.
"I'm going to get something from Garrick's car real quick," I lie, no hesitation. "You can go back in. I won't be long."
Ridoc eyes Garrick warily, still clearly not convinced by our earlier explanation for his appearance on my doorstep. "You sure?"
"I'll just kill him if anything happens," I say with a nonchalant shrug.
Garrick's head whips towards me, eyes wide, while Ridoc merely snorts.
"Atta girl," my squad mate says, patting me on the shoulder as he pads towards the door. "I'll be passed out, so make sure you scream really loud if you need anything."
"We both know I won't need to," I call back at him. Ridoc's responding laugh is the last thing I hear before the door clicks shut behind him, as Garrick and I begin walking towards the stairwell.
"You NIA people are kind of scary," Garrick quips as we trample down the stairs, the sounds of out feet falling on the metal echoing downwards. He's taken his phone out, and he's typing something out. He puts the phone back into his pocket before I can get a good look. "And no offense, you're fucking terrifying."
"Most NIA people aren't like us, to be fair," I respond, my hand trailing lightly along the rail that is honestly more of a safety hazard than anything. "We aren't run-of-the-mill operatives." I ignore the second half of his comment, with its implication that I am different from even the different operatives.
"I didn't think someone with a kill list as long as yours would be," he says solemnly. The unspoken truth is now out in the open - he was talking about me specifically, not BASGIATH operatives as a whole.
I press my mouth into a tense line, but I don't respond. Don't dispute it either. It's just another reminder that at the end of the day, these people still have their humanity. They're fighting to save people from Navarre's mistakes. They're only working with me out of necessity - and the reverse is true as well - because I have access they don't have. I'm not their equal; I'm not someone they would go out of their way for. Who would, after all, when I have a kill list as long as a river, as Garrick so accurately pointed out?
We exit my apartment building into the chilly night air. Goosebumps immediately erupt on my arms, and I have to force myself not to bring my hands up to try and rub some warmth back into them. Garrick leads me around the corner, where, lo and behold, Xaden waits.
He's not in the Jeep - which is stupid, if I'm being honest, considering the number of late-night muggings around here recently. He's leaning against its hood, his hands shoved in the pockets of a black leather jacket. He's lost in thought, staring off into space at the ground by his boot-clad feet, but when we approach, his gaze shoots up to us.
He pushes away from the Jeep, hands leaving his pockets, tension immediately defining every line of him.
"What the hell happened?" he demands, taking a few steps forward to meet us where we are. The street lights overhead flicker, and their dim light isn't enough for me to get a good look at his or Garrick's faces.
I rock back on the balls of my feet, crossing my arms across my chest as I fight a shiver from the cold. "Aetos sent someone else after me. The phone's battery died in the middle of the fight." I shrug. "I already apologized to Garrick, but I'll say it again - I'm sorry. Getting the body taken care of and finding an excuse that would work for my friend were more pressing at the time and I didn't think it would be that big of a deal if I waited to check in until the morning."
Xaden's jaw ticks, and he ignores my apology and everything else I said. "Someone else? Did you get attacked other times?"
Garrick stays silent, but his eyes have widened slightly in alarm. Shit. Maybe I should have left that part out, if the hardened expression on both men's faces are any indication. I can't tell if they're mad at me or at Aetos.
"Yes," I say, hesitating for just a moment before deciding that holding back does me no good. "It's the second time."
"Fucking hell." Xaden drags a hand down his face, taking a deep breath before he looks back at me. "And you decided to keep all of this to yourself? What if you'd gotten seriously hurt? Or died?"
I look at him incredulously. I can't tell if he's joking or not. He saw me practically slaughter six people nearly twice my size in Cordyn, and that wasn't enough to convince him I'm capable of defending myself?
"Knowing everything that you do about me, do you really think that one NIA assassin is enough to take me out? Seriously?" It's impossible to mask the disbelief in my tone.
"Don't avoid the question," he snaps.
"Then don't ask stupid questions," I retort.
He glares at me, and I glare at him, and clearly we're getting absolutely nowhere with this discussion. The simmering anger in his eyes matches the frustration I'm certain is written all over my face. The wind blows once more, and I'm fucking cold. I turn to go back to my apartment, because I'm too tired to deal with this crap, and frankly, I don't have the patience to deal with Xaden if he's going to be belligerent right now.
"Wait," Xaden says, an exasperated sigh escaping him. I continue marching back towards my apartment, determined to try and get just a little more sleep before the sun inevitably wakes me. "Violence, wait."
I hear his heavy footsteps approaching from behind. I keep going. But then Xaden grabs my still-healing upper arm, and I yelp.
"Shit!" I hiss, turning back towards him to give him the most murderous look I can.
He immediately releases my arm, as if the contact had burned him, those gold-flecked eyes of his blowing wide. "Are you hurt?" He asks, alarmed. He looks to Garrick, saying, accusatorially, "You said she wasn't hurt."
The other man raises his hands in a show of surrender. "I said she didn't look hurt. I can't see through her fucking clothes, Xaden."
"Did you even ask her?" Xaden asks, voice rising.
"Didn't really think it was necessary, considering she was standing and about ready to stab me when she opened the door," Garrick argues back.
They start bickering like fucking kindergarteners fighting over whose turn it was on the swings, and the harsh sigh that I drag out of my lungs is downright weary. Children, the both of them. I'm too tired for this shit.
"Boys." I raise my voice, tone stern, and it cuts through their increasingly-vocal argument like butter. They both stop mid-sentence, and look back at me. The sudden silence is almost jarring. I cross my arms, and raise a tired eyebrow.
"Are you done?" I ask. They both remain silent, which is the only answer I want at this point. Sweet, peaceful quiet.
"You didn't answer the question," Xaden says after a moment, the tense set of his jaw still present as he looks back at the arm he just grabbed with evident wariness.
"Stab wound from the first attack," I say with a dismissive wave of my hand. "One of my squad mates patched me up. It's healing."
His eyebrows shoot up, and I can already tell he's gearing up for another argument. The Tyrrish love to argue, clearly. "You were stabbed and didn't think that was worth reaching out about?"
"Uh, no?" I cross my arms. He also clearly likes to ask stupid questions. Does he not understand what my job is? Getting stabbed is a daily occurrence around here. "Is this why you're running around, throwing a tantrum like a five year old? Are you pissed off that I didn't call before tonight?"
I say that I want quiet, want to avoid the arguments, but here I am baiting him. I'm not currently interested in examining what that says about me.
For a second, I think Xaden is going to argue, is going to rise to my bait, but he takes a deep breath instead. It's the same kind of sound that Brennan used to make whenever he'd caught Mira or me doing something asinine, as he used to say. I bury the memory before the reminder can overwhelm me. Now I'm the one acting childish.
"You can do whatever you want, Sorrengail. I don't particularly care. Just don't forget our deal," Xaden says quietly, recapturing my attention as he rakes a hand through his hair, pushing a stray lock away from his forehead. I practically watch him force his emotions back behind that mask of his - in part because the action is so similar to what I do, how I force down my own feelings and memories. "We're after the same thing, and it would be inconvenient if you died before we get what we need."
"I am so sorry to be an inconvenience to you," I reply, my tone positively dripping with sarcasm. "I haven't forgotten our deal - I want answers just as much as you do."
We face off for what feels like an eternity, both of our arms crossed as we stare each other down, waiting to see who blinks first. For someone who says he doesn't particularly care what I do, he sure is acting like he does. I'm having a hard time getting a grasp on who it is I'm working with. Xaden gives me fucking whiplash.
Xaden looks at me for a moment, impassive. Then, he takes a slip of paper out of his jacket pocket, closes the distance between us as he does. When I take the paper from his outstretched hand, I don't need to ask him what is written on it. It's the first cypher keyword, the first piece I need to solve the puzzle Dad left behind for me.
I swallow the lump that forms in my throat. "Thank you."
His responding laugh is low as he takes a step back. "Don't thank me yet. You still have to decode those documents by hand." His tone is somewhat mocking, and I bristle. "Just let me know when you get tired so we can actually decode them quickly."
"That won't be happening," I say cooly. We might be on the same team, and I might even have a little more respect for Xaden - although I'll never admit it aloud - after he came all the way here to check on me, but I'm still working on trusting him the way Devera wanted me to. Until I reach that point, I'm decoding the documents by hand instead of handing over my half of the cypher and potentially never seeing the decoded documents.
Xaden smirks. "I figured. You're horribly predictable. Maybe you should work on that."
"And you're horribly annoying. Maybe you should work on that," I snap, parroting his words over my shoulder as I begin to make my way back to my warm bed. I hear the Jeep start behind me, but I'm certain Xaden isn't the one in the driver's seat. It must be Garrick. "Have any other enlightening pieces of advice you'd like to share with the class?"
"Sure," he says with a shrug. "Maybe don't get stabbed? How's that for enlightening?"
I don't bother with a verbal response - but I do raise my middle finger as I walk away.
The cypher, shockingly, is not easy to decode.
When I return to my apartment, I am forced to endure Ridoc's questioning, then his jokes, and then lastly, his requests for Garrick's number.
"He's hot," Ridoc notes.
"He's off-limits," I say in response. That could only end horribly.
Ridoc sulks, and then returns to his makeshift bed with a declaratory "You're no fun when you're grumpy."
Instead of returning to my own rest, as I should, I begin working to decode the first document Dad left behind the old fashioned way - with a piece of paper, a pencil, and the flashlight from my phone, angled so that I don't rewake my friend sleeping on the floor. It's slow work, having to constantly check to make sure I didn't miss even a single letter of the scrambled document, then checking to ensure it matches up with the key phrase I'm working through, before I can move on the the next word.
The first document is four pages long - by morning, I've made it through three sentences, but even those aren't fully done - they're still gibberish until I put them through the second keyword, the one that I already had. The morning light hurts my eyes as it begins to filter through the blinds.
At 6:30, I finally give in to my exhaustion, and slip back into a blissfully dreamless sleep.
I wake up again around 9:30, to Ridoc shaking my shoulder.
"Whatdoyouwant," I grumble, shoving my head under my pillow.
"Rhiannon and Sawyer are in trouble," Ridoc says urgently, the panic in his voice impossible to miss. I'm immediately alert, sitting up and practically flinging myself from my bed, fear gripping my chest.
"What happened?" I ask, making a beeline for the clothes rack with my mission suits. I already have a sneaking suspicion, but I need to hear Ridoc say it.
"I got an SOS from Sawyer," he says, tapping at his phone, before he holds it up for me to see. I strip down to my underwear, not at all caring that Ridoc can see me, and begin pulling on the first suit I can get my hands on as I read through the messages. According to Sawyer, they were on a reconnaissance mission near Athebyne, on the Poromish border, when two people wearing NIA gear attacked them. Sounds awfully familiar.
"Fuck," I curse under my breath as I zip up the suit. This is exactly what I was worried about. "Call him."
Ridoc eyes me carefully as I begin to rummage for my daggers. "Are you sure? We could get in trouble for contacting them when they're supposed to be radio silent."
"They contacted us first," I retort. "I don't give two shits."
Ridoc starts the call. With each ring, I swear my anxiety increases tenfold. When it goes to voicemail, Ridoc curses softly.
"They're probably not answering if they've taken cover somewhere," I reason, mostly in an attempt to calm my raging nerves. I squeeze the hilt of one of my daggers until my knuckles are white. "They're fine."
Ridoc gives me a dubious look as he lays claim to some of my knives as well. "You're not very convincing."
"Call Dain," I snap. "We need to get authorization to go after them."
The phone begins ringing again, and I'm strapping sheathes onto my body when Dain answers on the fourth ring.
"What do you want, Ridoc?" Dain asks, clearly annoyed. I have no doubt that Ridoc has played enough pranks on our commanding officer enough times that Dain is naturally wary of any phone call from my squad mate.
"It's Violet," I say, taking the phone from Ridoc when he offers it to me. "Rhiannon and Sawyer need back up. Can we assist?"
Dain is silent for a moment on the other end. When he finally answers, my stomach drops.
"I can't authorize that. I'm sorry, Vi,"
"Don't call me that," I hiss, my frustration beginning to rise. "And what do you mean, you can't authorize it? You're my fucking handler."
Another tense silence, then- "I'm not your handler. Not anymore. Did you not hear?"
This time, I'm the one who is stunned into silence. I exchange an alarmed look with Ridoc, who's confused expression likely mirrors my own.
"What are you talking about?" My reply is incredulous, as I try to process. Dain has been my handler since I left BASGIATH.
"Ask your new handler if you want to know, because I have no idea either." The way he says new handler is venomous, and a sense of unease joins the anxiety that I already felt about Rhiannon and Sawyer's situation. "They should be at headquarters now, if you want that authorization that badly."
And if Dain is gone, that likely means his two-faced father is as well. That's something I can get behind. I end the call.
"Get ready to go," I tell Ridoc, returning his phone. "We're going to headquarters."
He nods. "I'll get my car."
When I march through the security checkpoint at headquarters, Ridoc in tow, I don't even bother to stop and take off my daggers when I go through the metal detector, setting off every alarm there is. I don't care. I stalk towards the massive blast door that sequesters the clandestine division from the rest of headquarters, even as the alarms sound faintly in the background.
When the blast door slides open, I halt in my tracks at who I see waiting for me on the other side. Ridoc nearly runs into my back, but manages to swerve around me at the last moment.
"What are you doing here?" I ask, sounding far more aggressive than I intended.
Xaden Riorson looks back at me, and smirks.
"Why, Violence, I'm your new handler." I want to punch him in his stupid face. Ridoc just looks between us, confused, clearly wondering who this man is and how I know him.
I take a few steps forward, until I'm practically face-to-face with him, hands propped on my hips.
"This is a massive risk," I hiss quietly. My eyes dart around, as if Xaden being here could make enemies jump out of the shadows. I can't ask him anything of substance, not without someone overhearing, so I instead ask a general "What the fuck are you thinking?"
Smartly, he lowers his voice to match mine. "Just that you might appreciate no longer listening to that asshat Aetos."
"That is not what I'm asking and you know it," I reply. I raise my volume back to normal. "I need authorization to help my squad out in the field. Can I have it?"
I have so many questions for him, such as How? and Why? and You do realize I'll probably kill you before the week is up, right? but they need to wait till later, till after I make sure Rhiannon and Sawyer are safe. They will always be my priority.
Xaden cocks his head and crosses his arms, and for the first time, I realize he's wearing a mission suit that matches mine. If I wasn't laser focused on the task at hand, I'd take more time to admire how it clings to his muscular form, but now is obviously not the time for that.
"Permission granted," he replies, before bending over and hauling a pack over his shoulder. "But I'm coming with you."
Notes:
WE ARE SO BACK!!! after a VSGTSAS-induced break I am so excited to spend a significant amount of time working on this fic again. I missed my crazy spy idiots. as always, you can find me on tumblr, where I post a lot of previews and general thoughts on FW.
Also MASSIVE shout out to hockeyspiral23 for giving this a read through bc I was worried it didn't make any sense!
Chapter 14: This is Kind of Insane
Notes:
XADEN'S POV MAKES ITS REAPPEARANCE!!!! enjoy besties, it's rescue mission time! <3
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Xaden
36 Hours Ago
“Is this some kind of joke?”
I lean against the door that leads to Imogen’s small bathroom, as the pink-haired woman stares me down with an expression filled with incredulity.
“Do I sound like I’m joking?” I ask calmly.
Im’s face contorts, and for a brief moment, I think she’s going to attack me. Not that I would really blame her, not when I just told her we’re partnering with the daughter of the woman she blames for the deaths of her mother and sister.
“She’s a Sorrengail,” Imogen spits, gesturing wildly. “An NIA operative, Xaden. And that’s not even touching on how her bitch of a mother killed my family and yours! We can’t fucking trust her, much less rely on her.”
When Garrick, Liam and I arrived back in Aretia, I instructed them to keep their knowledge of our new-found partnership with Violet close to the chest. That wasn’t because I didn’t trust the ones that didn’t come with us, but because I knew that once Imogen found out, it would not take much for her to go on the warpath. Garrick volunteered to be the one to tell her, but this was something I had to do myself. This was a decision I made, so I’ll bear the consequences.
And now that we’re set to leave for Calldyr to become the new military liaisons within the NIA’s clandestine ops division, I can’t avoid this conversation with her. So here I am, in her tiny barracks, fully prepared to take the full brunt of her anger.
“I’m not going to dispute any of that,” I concede with a dip of my head. I cross my arms across my chest, the black fabric of my t-shirt brushing against my forearms. “You’re just going to need to deal with it, Im. The decision’s made. She has access we don’t have, and I don’t need to tell you that we’re running out of time to find a way to shut down VENIN.”
Im bristles, but I can tell from the way she clenches and unclenches her hands that that she’s trying and failing to find a suitable retort.
“Does the Assembly know?” she asks a moment later as she braces her weight against the small desk tucked in one corner of the room. I keep my expression neutral, even though the question leaves me tense.
“No.” I shake my head. “And for now, we’re keeping it that way.”
“What the fuck are you doing, Xaden?” Imogen hisses in disbelief, then her eyes widen. “Does Brennan know?”
She caught on quickly. I shake my head again.
“No. And he can’t know,” I level her with a cutting look. “I’m serious Imogen. He thinks Violet is training to be an analyst. He has no idea what she is now. We need her access, and we’ll lose it the second Brennan finds out what actually happened.”
Imogen snorts, and the tension in the room eases slightly. “He’d storm their fucking headquarters and drag her to his little bunker kicking and screaming.”
It’s a joke, but it’s also 100% accurate. He would.
We sit there in silence for a few moments, imagining the havoc Brennan is fully capable of wreaking.
Imogen speaks up first, a sigh escaping her lips. It’s a somewhat uncharacteristic sound for her. “You’re playing a dangerous game here, Xaden.”
“When am I not?”
“That’s not what I meant.” She shakes her head, pink hair swishing lightly with the movement. “Keeping the Assembly out of the loop is just asking for trouble.”
I smirk. “When have you ever cared about me causing a little bit of trouble?”
Imogen’s responding grin is a bit feral, and a lot scary.
“Oh, I don’t. I just don’t want to clean up the little pieces of you left over after Suri tears you apart.”
My grin grows to match hers. “Suri can try.” And I know she would, too.
I’ve never liked, nor trusted, the Assembly – a sentiment that grew tenfold after my father’s death. I work with them out of necessity and because I love Tyrrendor, not because I fucking want to.
“I need to you promise me you’re not going to intentionally blow things up because of your vendetta against the Sorrengails,” I say after another period of silence. The uncomfortable tension that had partially dissipated returns as Im cuts me a withering glare. I meet it with the same impassive expression I always try to keep on my face.
“Keep her the fuck away from me, and I’ll see what I can do.”
That’s the best I’m probably going to get. Imogen’s anger towards Lilith Sorrengail – and anyone related to her – is far more visceral and heated than my own. She still doesn’t fully trust Brennan either, despite everything he’s lost to right Navarre’s wrongs.
“I’m serious, Im,” I say anyways. “Best behavior.”
“I make no promises,” Imogen grumbles. There’s no point in pushing anymore – expecting Imogen to act civil with someone she doesn’t like is like asking for chocolate cake without frosting – weird as fuck and not at all reasonable.
I keep to myself my suspicions about General Sorrengail, the ones that I haven’t even told to Garrick, who I arguably trust more than anyone. I don’t think any of them are ready for those particular truths – I’m including myself in that group too.
Just as Violet is having the rug being pulled out from under her, as she learns the truth of all the events that have shaped her life, I’m finding myself having to rearrange some of the facts I once thought infallible in my mind.
“The Assembly is going to have questions when they find out we’re all being reassigned,” Imogen points out, her muscular arms crossing as her brows furrow.
I’ve thought about that too, and I’ve elected to use my typical strategy when it comes to dealing with all of the ways the Assembly finds to make my life even more difficult than it already is – ignore it and them. They can’t do a damn thing without me anyways.
“The Assembly can deal with it, if they know what’s good for it,” I retort. “I’m not wasting my energy on them. I have bigger problems.”
Im mutters something under her breath that sounds a whole lot like “Typical.”
“You need to give them some kind of explanation,” she says, louder this time. “Just telling them to fuck off when they ask about why you’re being transferred will just invite more questions.”
“You sound like Brennan,” I inform her.
She wrinkles her nose in disgust. “Ew. Take that back.”
“Nope.” I smirk under her glare. She’s also, unfortunately, not wrong either. As much as I hate dealing with them, in this particular circumstance, not having some kind of answer for those questions when they inevitably come might end up backfiring on me.
“I’ll call Felix,” I concede after a moment’s thought. “He can tell Suri and her lackies what they need to know when they eventually come knocking.”
Eventually, I’ll need the Assembly. Eventually, everything my father worked towards will come to fruition. Time and patience and ungodly amounts of diplomacy and money will get us there. Except time isn’t on our side, not with Poromiel on the verge of falling to Project VENIN within months, and Tyrrendor undoubtedly next on its list of targets.
I can’t risk alienating the few allies I have when I might need every one I can get far sooner than I ever feared.
Present
I really should examine why I get so much enjoyment out of pissing off Violet Sorrengail.
First, it was the way I actually managed to shock her when she showed up - unexpectedly, I might add - to the NIA's headquarters. Then, it was the rage at the flippant way I revealed to her the other reason why I had to come to Calldyr.
Unbeknownst to her, I would've been here even if she hadn't gone and gotten herself attacked.
The deal I made two nights ago was two-fold - I keep an eye on Violet Sorrengail, and in exchange, I get some answers about Project VENIN. It's a win-win for me, honestly, because now I can be even more sure that she's not about to sell us out, a constant fear of mine despite my logical reasoning that she gains nothing from doing that. Of course, that also means I can't breathe a word of it to Violet, which I don't particularly have an issue with, not when I'm still not 100% certain I can trust her. But the person I bargained with for this is even less trustworthy, so I'm truly playing with fire here.
Despite my own insistences to Imogen in Aretia that we need anything Violet can give us, I still have doubts that the risks we’re taking are worth it. Im was right – trusting her; relying on her? It’s crazy. It’s a desperate last-ditch effort to change the balance of the scales now that our backs are against a wall.
I'm putting my life on the line on every front. No one within the NIA really knows why I've been reassigned here, if my contact did their job right. No one can know. We're all dead otherwise, and all we gain from the arrangements I’ve made won’t matter if we’re six feet under.
Of course, I had no idea that making the trip to Calldyr early would result in me being crammed into the backseat of Ridoc Gamlyn’s car, subjected to some frankly horrific driving by the woman I’d left early to check on.
“Have faith,” SGAEYL had counseled me as I drove to Calldyr in under the cover of night, only Garrick accompanying me, wondering if I was going to find Violet Sorrengail dead when I arrived. I didn’t respond to SGAEYL, didn’t even try to speak to her for the entire drive. Other than those two words, she remained silent too. Maybe she could sense that my thoughts were all over the place.
A strange fear had taken root in my chest during that drive. I barely knew Violet, and I definitely didn’t trust her. She has too much blood on her hands, with a willingness to kill that defies my own understanding, and I’m no stranger to killing. She knows enough to drag us all down to hell with her if she decides to betray us to Navarre. There’s the matter of the complicated ties between her family and mine, too.
I should have wanted her dead, one complication I wouldn’t have to worry about anymore. But the idea of finding her cold and dead didn’t sit well with me, despite all the reasons the world has given me to wish for her downfall.
By the time we arrived in Calldyr, cutting the engine of my Jeep around the corner from her apartment, it took all of my effort to contain the anxious energy that had built up in my muscles, under my skin. When Garrick made a joke about going to visit “your girlfriend,” I snapped at him.
“If you have time to make jokes, then go find out if Sorrengail is dead,” I told him. I half-expected my best friend to make another joke, to tell me to do it myself, but I think something in my expression stopped him. He strolled off in the direction of Violet’s building, and it only took all of five minutes for me to wish I’d gone myself, every second that passed without confirmation that she was alive feeling like a year.
“Just admit that she’s grown on you,” SGAEYL told me, tone bored, as I waited for Garrick with bated breath.
“Just admit that you want her to grow on me.”
It’s a lame reply, a cop-out really, but I’m not ready to examine why I feel as nervous as I do.
I was about to march up to Violet’s apartment myself when Garrick finally texted, informing that she was alive and uninjured. Then, when they appeared around the corner a minute later, the anxiety I’d been feeling for hours bubbled to the surface. But even though we quickly devolved into petty squabbling, there was a part of me that was relieved that I was talking to her in the first place.
When she revealed her injury, I could barely comprehend her nonchalance about the whole situation. Every time I talk with her, the mystery of Violet Sorrengail deepens. How did this person become the woman she is today? How can she talk about getting stabbed as if it’s nothing? In that moment, the moment in the airport bathroom in Cordyn returns to the front of my mind – the way she brushed off her injuries then too.
When we engaged in that staring contest, all I could think about was that when – if – Brennan discovers the truth about Violet, he’s going to be heartbroken. And then he’s going to murder me for keeping it from him.
Then, when I handed her the piece of paper with the keyword she needed to start decoding her father’s papers, I knew that there was no going back.
Garrick and I spent the night in a shitty motel, but I didn’t sleep. I stared at the ceiling, processing everything I’d learned. Colonel Aetos knew something about the project, Violet claimed. He sent people to attack her.
There was a hesitance as she told us about the attacks, and I’m certain that there were parts she left out, details that she kept to herself for some unknown reason. Just as I don’t fully trust her, she’s equally wary of me. I know, logically, that one of us will have to give at some point. I’m not quite there yet, despite SGAEYL’s needling. I’m certain that Violet is even further from that point than I am.
That, at least, I can understand. She’s a trained assassin; a member of one of Navarre’s top secret intelligence programs. It would be even more worrying if she was trusting.
“Now you’re using your brain,” SGAEYL had snipped. “Do you think you’re the only one making difficult decisions?”
“I think I’m being necessarily cautious since I’m committing treason,” I supplied.
“You’re being overly cautious because you don’t want to get attached to her,” SGAEYL points out. “Nothing about your hesitance has any basis in logic. She has demonstrated that she will not betray you. Your objectives align so that she has an interest in making sure you succeed. Her desire for revenge and information about David Sorrengail far outweigh any loyalty to the Navarrian Intelligence Agency, if my analysis is correct. Trust built on mutual gain is far stronger than trust built on sentiment. You are being illogical.”
I don’t argue with her, because I know she’s right. I’m letting my emotions dictate how I’m handling things with Violet, instead of looking at the situation with an impartial eye, only weighing the pros and cons.
I ruminate on the complicated and conflicting emotions that my interactions with Violet Sorrengail have brought out of me, staring at the ceiling of the motel room until weak morning light begins to filter through the shitty blinds.
I knew I wouldn’t fall asleep, so I instead got to work. I hadn’t even been planning to report in the headquarters until tomorrow, hadn’t planned on revealing the real reason I was in Calldyr to her until the day I was told I needed to be here, but with Violet’s attack moving up the schedule, I decided to get the lay of the land when fewer people would be around.
I spent the first two hours familiarizing myself with the role I was taking over from Dain Aetos. That little piece of knowledge filled me with a kind of smug satisfaction that a better person would try to shove down deep. His father, if I believe Violet – and I think I do – knows something about VENIN.
And Dain? I know him from training, and I dislike him just as much now as I did back then. I don’t feel any remorse taking his job, that’s for damn sure.
While I was familiarizing myself, I snuck bugs into the computer systems I could access, which in turn gave SGAEYL access. Of course, that was only the first step. She’ll need to break through the firewalls and encryptions to get access to the things that will actually be of interest to us.
I have no doubt the NIA has only granted me the bare minimum of access – it’s a miracle that I was even allowed in the building.
I knew, vaguely, from the information I gained from those incursions that Rhiannon Matthias and Sawyer Henrick were out in the field. I also knew that today was an off-day for Violet and her squad mate Ridoc. I was surprised to learn how zealously the NIA makes its operatives stick to their off-days, even top-performers like Violet.
This knowledge is what had me on alert the moment Violet arrived in the operations center, in full mission gear with daggers strapped all over, demanding authorization to go after her squad mates.
Judging from the panic in Violet's eyes, something so foreign and unexpected when it came to her, I was immediately convinced that those squad mates are far more than mere co-workers to her, and something must have happened to them if it was enough to drag her from her day off into the NIA’s headquarters. And given the current state of things on the Navarre-Poromiel border, I'm not about to let Violet go off there by herself with someone I'm not sure will have her back.
I need her alive, after all, because right now, she's the only one with all of the pieces to decode those documents that could tell us what we need to know about VENIN.
Of course, because I’m a piece of shit, I also took a moment to admire her all kitted out for a rescue mission, mission suit, daggers, and all. Just because I don’t trust her, doesn’t mean I’m not fully aware of how fatally attractive I find her.
I caught her slowly running her eyes over the matching mission suit I’m wearing as well as I reached down to pick up my pack, so I think it’s safe to say that the feeling is mutual.
So that's the incredibly long story of how I end up in the backseat of Ridoc Gamlyn's tiny-ass sedan, my knees crammed against the seat in front of me as Violet drives in a manner that can only be described as aggressive, while Ridoc rambles on and on about– Godzilla? He's describing it as a "cinematic masterpiece" so I'm not sure we're thinking of the same movies.
What a life I'm living.
"And then I said, 'What do you mean you don't like-" Ridoc is cut off mid-sentence by a clearly annoyed Violet.
"Ridoc." Her tone is exasperated. "I do not care who insulted the original Godzilla movie. We have been over this. Can we talk about a movie that is in a language I understand?"
Ridoc, not one to be deterred obviously, takes this rejection in stride. "Oh! Have you seen the new Deadpool movie?" When Violet shakes her head, he turns in his seat, looking at me. "What about you?"
"I am not a part of this conversation," I inform him. "Turn back around."
"Lame," he mutters, before returning his attention to Violet. "How did we end up with a curmudgeon for a handler?"
At this, Violet snorts, the closest thing I've heard to a real laugh since I met her, as she jerks the wheel to swerve around a slower car. "Through incredibly bad luck."
Ouch.
"And here I thought we were becoming friends, Violence," I say, sounding hurt, even though we both know I don't actually care.
"I'd rather rot in a shallow grave, asshat." Another jerk of the wheel. I glance at the speedometer - we're nearly 90 mph. How the hell has she not been pulled over yet?
"Ouch," I say aloud this time. "You planning on killing us today, Sorrengail? You're going fast enough to achieve liftoff."
Her only response is to remove one hand from the wheel - daring, at the speeds we're going - to flip me off. Ridoc chuckles as he looks back to me again.
"You'll get used to her," he says, voice lower conspiratorially. "She's an asshole because she doesn't want to get attached and because she’s worried about Rhi and Sawyer. The protocol does that to people. Not everyone has my stellar personality."
That's a tidbit of information I store away for later. The protocol? I hadn't heard of that before.
"What protocol?" I ask. Violet visibly tenses up. Ridoc opens his mouth to respond, but Violet beats him to it.
"It's nothing." Her tone tells me it's something, and that I won't be getting any more answers on the subject today, so I don't bother pushing. We'll have plenty of time for that after we've rescued her squad mates from whatever trouble they've found themselves in.
“Anything on a protocol, SGAEYL?” I ask. The AI is silent for a moment.
“That information is not accessible.” There’s something about her tone that sets me on edge.
“Can you make it accessible?”
Another pause, then: “Negative.”
I frown, but quickly school my expression. I’ll do more digging when we’re back in Calldyr. Maybe it was the way Violet seemed to want to avoid the topic at any cost, but now I’m curious.
The three of us – or four, if SGAEYL is included in that number – fall into an awkward silence.
I half expected Violet to spend this car drive interrogating me, asking why I'm here, but she's been suspiciously quiet. Her squad mates are clearly important to her, and I suspect the quiet stems from her worry. It was a bit jarring, seeing this person who I'd imagined as a coldblooded killer being defensive over other people.
It humanizes her in ways that I wasn't expecting, but maybe I should have. Everyone has someone they give a shit about, in some way.
If anything, Ridoc is the one doing the interrogations.
“So, how do you two know each other?” he asks after an awkward period of silence.
Violet slams her foot onto the accelerator, and I’m pushed back into the cloth seat. I have to clutch the handle on the door to keep from being thrown around when she swerves around another slow-moving car.
“What makes you think I know him?” Violet asks, tone deceptively light. I can’t see her face, but I can imagine it – drawn up, mouth tight, brows furrowed as she looks at the road ahead.
Ridoc blinks rapidly, turning his body back towards her. He cocks a brow and clears his throat, before speaking out in a high pitched voice that I think is supposed to mimic Violet’s but instead just sounds like a dying cat.
“’What are you doing here?’” he mimics, repeating her words from when she first laid eyes on me at headquarters almost an hour and a half ago now. Then he lowers his voice as he recites my response. “‘Why, Violence, I’m your new handler.’ He literally has a nickname for you, Vi. Why would I think that you hadn’t met before?”
I can’t help it – I bark out a sharp and short laugh. The impression is fucking ridiculous and spot on at the same time.
“That’s not what I sound like at all,” Violet protests, but I think I hear a hint of a smile in her voice.
“I’ll work on it.” Ridoc waves a hand dismissively. “So, which one of you are going to fess up? How do you know each other?”
I stay silent, although I’m struggling to wipe the grin from my features. This is Violet’s turf – she can handle how to explain things to her friends.
“I think you just enjoy seeing her in difficult situations,” SGAEYL butts in.
“I think you should just mind your own business,” I fire back.
When the silence begins to veer back into awkward territory, Violet finally speaks up, the only sign of tension being her white knuckles as she grips the steering wheel.
“His father killed my brother.”
Ridoc freezes, and it feels like the air is sucked out of my lungs, out of this car. I wasn’t expecting her to go there. For a brief moment I feel a stab of hot anger, because her mother killed my father, but it’s gone as soon as it came. She told me herself – she doesn’t think Dad killed Brennan – not anymore at least. She’s questioning everything she thought was true. Wasn’t that the entire reason she sought me out in the first place? Because she thought vindication for my father, finding out the truth about their deaths would get her my help in finding her father?
This is all so fucked up. I at least have the presence of mind to recognize that.
SGAEYL laughs in my head, in that weirdly digital way of hers. I think she enjoys seeing me in difficult situations.
“Excuse me?” Ridoc asks incredulously. His eyes slide back towards me, none of that joking glimmer to be seen, but they quickly flash back to Violet, who admirably manages to keep her eyes squarely on the road, even as she shrugs.
“That’s Xaden Riorson,” she points out, matter-of-factly. “I’m sure you heard about what happened to Brennan. It was big news at the time.”
“No shit,” Ridoc replies, still wide-eyed. “That doesn’t explain how you know him.”
I hold my breath. She’s either going to give him – and by extension, the rest of her squad which I’ll be overseeing – reason to drive a dagger through my back if I let my guard down, or she won’t. It wasn’t like I could hide my name anyways – her squad probably would have figured it out eventually. It’s probably for the best that she’s heading with the his dad killed my brother thing. That’s what the world knows.
“I met him when I was hunting Devera,” she states lightly. “He’s a pain in my ass. I’m still deciding if I’m going to stab him when we stop driving.”
Not exactly a ringing endorsement. To a normal person, it would be downright threatening, but clearly something about that introduction puts Ridoc at ease, because he relaxes a moment later.
He turns in his seat again, nailing me with a surprisingly serious look.
“I’ve got my eye on you. I’ll end you if you hurt Violet,” he warns, then his expression breaks when he grins, a shiteating smile that would give Garrick a run for his money. “Luckily for you, Violet threatens to stab everyone she likes. If she really had a problem with you, you’d be dead already. Welcome to the team!”
I’m pretty sure there’s something seriously fucked up about that statement, but I leave it alone, don’t bother to examine it closely. This entire situation is fucked up. No point in trying to make sense of it.
Violet doesn’t say anything, only makes a disgruntled sound in her chest that I’m not even going to try to interpret. I don’t get her. She’s a mystery. I’m just going to accept that for now.
I’m accepting a lot of crazy shit right now. For the sake of my sanity, I think I have to.
When Ridoc offers his hand to shake in some kind of belated welcome, awkwardly contorted over the seatback, I take it. It feels like I’m sealing my fate.
Athebyne is an old military intelligence surveillance post from years gone by. It’s in a strategic location, just off the towering Cliffs of Dralor that have delineated the borders of Tyrrendor for centuries. It has a direct view of Resson, the small Poromish city that has changed hands more times than I could count.
But, as far as I knew, it had been abandoned for years, after a period of budget cuts rendered it too difficult to man consistently. Of course, when I voiced this, Violet just chuckled.
“You’re about to be introduced to a whole new world, Riorson,” she said while Ridoc was pulling back the padlocked gate that blocked our way to the outpost itself.
I cock an eyebrow, meeting her eyes in the rearview mirror. “Care to elaborate?”
“Not particularly.”
“I’m technically your boss now, Violence,” I remind her. “That’s insubordination.”
She huffs, a sound that I almost think is a laugh, but not quite.
“This isn’t the military, so good luck getting anywhere with that.” Her tone has a hint of laughter that seems out of place on her. It’s almost normal – a word I wouldn’t typically associate with Violet Sorrengail. “Just ask Aetos. I think I took years off his life just by ignoring protocol.”
I can definitely see that – for both of them. Dain Aetos was a stickler for rules during basic, too. It just made him even more annoying. He was like that teacher’s pet who always ratted you out in school, making you lose recess privileges.
And Violet – well, if there’s anything I’ve learned about her, it’s that she’s very good at doing exactly what people don’t want her to do.
“Yet another reason why I’d think you’d be happy to have me around,” I say aloud, my tone almost teasing. “Anyone’s better than him. And we both know I’m not exactly a stickler for rules either.”
“You’re just upset that he told the instructors that you had a handle of vodka hidden under your bed,” SGAEYL points out.
I won’t deny that. “He’s also annoying,” I reply.
I watch Ridoc struggle with the gate, its hinges rusty from lack of use. I stretch out a bit, which isn’t easy, given my height and the relative lack of space in the back seat, and tuck my hands behind my head.
“I won’t argue with that,” Violet replies. “You seem to like committing treason a little more than the average military man.”
I’m about to open my mouth to respond when Ridoc flings open his door and plops back into his seat with a groan.
“That was way too hard,” he complains, buckling his seatbelt as he does.
“You need more time on the mat then,” Violet responds. There’s something a bit vicious about the observation. “Shall we practice more together when we get back?”
I swear Ridoc goes pale at her suggestion. “Absolutely fucking not.”
I don’t even want to know what that was about.
Violet presses the gas, and the car creeps forward slowly. We’re off the main roads, and the path here isn’t well-worn. It’s already getting dark, and as we continue further, Violet grows more and more tense.
“Is something’s wrong?” Ridoc asks, looking at her with concern.
Violet hums an affirmatory sound, her eyes narrowed. A moment later, she throws the car into park and cuts the engine.
I raise an eyebrow. “What are you doing? There’s nothing here.”
We’re surrounded by trees, only accompanied by the droning sound of insects. There’s no sign of an abandoned intelligence outpost, much less a view of Resson. I know this isn’t where we’re supposed to be.
“We’re going on foot the rest of the way,” Violet declares. She pops the trunk, and then ducks out of the car. Ridoc follows, and I find myself fumbling with my seatbelt so I can climb out as well.
When I round the back of the car, I’m greeted by a veritable armory in the trunk of Ridoc’s sedan. There are at least two dozen daggers – Violet’s weapon of choice, I’ve learned. That’s not all – crossbows, extendable metal staves, and even swords are neatly organized into foam cutouts. There are small drones, spare communicators, a loaded first aid kit that I’d love to steal for myself.
I frown; there’s only one thing missing.
“No firearms?” I ask, brow raised. I have maybe one extra clip of ammunition for my sidearm on me, which won’t be enough if we get into deep shit. Ridoc and Violet look at me blankly, blinking in confusion.
“Of course not,” Violet scoffs.
“Why would we have those?” Ridoc asks, confusion written all over his face as he fumbles with the strap of a sword sheathe that’s slung over his back.
I don’t even know how to respond. Do these highly trained assassins only kill people using weapons that were invented long before electricity was even a thought in anyone’s mind? What kind of alternate reality did I just walk into? I knew Violet had an affinity for daggers, but I’d thought she was an outlier, that it was a strange quirk of a highly unique operative even by the NIA’s standards.
Clearly, I was wrong.
“Seems like you’re learning all kinds of new things today.” SGAEYL’s snark is in top form, as always. She’s infinitely helpful when I need her, but I don’t necessarily love the running commentary whenever she’s bored – or whatever the equivalent of boredom is for a computer program. But I know that if I make a comment about it, she’ll only do it more just because she fucking can.
Instead, I strap a few of the sheathed daggers to my body. I hesitate, then take one of the swords too, strapping it to my back. I did fencing for a while when I was younger, before Dad died. No clue if that will help me use a literal sword, but I guess we’ll just have to find out.
Violet hands me a communicator without a word, and I take it without thanks, putting it into my ear the way I saw her do a moment before.
“Test, test,” Violet’s voice carries into my ear, quiet and serious. I shoot her a thumbs up, as does Ridoc.
Violet nods, then turns back to the trunk. She presses down on a square cutout in the foam organizer, and it flips over, revealing one of those holo projectors that the NIA uses. It’s crazy tech – the kind I’ve only ever seen in Brennan’s little underground lair before.
A topographical map illuminates, spilling blue light over our faces, and I immediately recognize the Cliffs of Dralor in one corner of the map.
“We’re here.” Violet points to a spot on one end of the map. I follow her finger as it winds through the forest and stops at a point in the center of the map. “This is Athebyne – on paper anyways. Rhi and Sawyer likely never went there.”
Ridoc crosses his arms across his chest, brows furrowed. “Do we know what exactly they were supposed to be doing out here? Athebyne is autonomous now – they don’t need to send operatives for reconnaissance missions.”
“Autonomous?” I question. This must be the new world Violet had mentioned in the car before.
Ridoc nods. “Athebyne was shut down – on paper, anyways – ten or fifteen years ago, but that was only so the NIA could use it to test autonomous surveillance technology here.”
“Drones,” Violet says flatly. She’s staring at the map intently, as if that will make the locations of her squad mates appear. “Navarre was testing drones that could blend in with the surrounding landscape, making it difficult to see them visually. They needed to do that somewhere with diverse topography to make sure the platform could be used in different places. Athebyne was the ideal candidate.”
She finally looks up, eyes darting between Ridoc and me. “About five or six years ago they made the outpost fully autonomous. Resson and Athebyne are strategic locations, so the brass always wants eyes on them, but they didn’t necessarily need human eyes.” The look she gives me is pointed, as if there’s another meaning to what she’s saying. “Especially since Poromiel doesn’t pay much attention to this part of their territory anymore, it was easier to roll out the tech and pull the operatives from the area at the same time.”
I’m just trying to figure out how the fuck I didn’t know about this in the first place, when Athebyne is as close as it is to Tyrrish borders. This seems like the kind of thing the Assembly should be telling me when I’m out here risking my ass day in and day out.
Unless they didn’t know either, which would be an entirely different set of problems.
And Violet - she’s clearly trying to tell me something, but I don’t have a clue what it is.
“I think she’s implying that there might be clues about Project VENIN here,” SGAEYL says with a sigh. Of course. The timelines would match up.
But if that’s the case, then Rhiannon and Sawyer might be in bigger danger than I initially realized.
“Look at you, using your brain,” SGAEYL says sarcastically.
“Why should I use mine when you can do all of the hard thinking for me?” I ask. She snorts in that weirdly digital way of hers but doesn’t respond.
“Again, why would they send Rhiannon and Sawyer out here then?” Ridoc asks, frustration evident. He looks to me. “You wouldn’t happen to know, would you?”
I shrug. “I didn’t even know Athebyne was still being used. What do you think the odds are that I know what your squad mates are up to?” I turn to Violet. “And how do you know that something is wrong?”
“The drones are basically invisible, but they aren’t silent,” she says with a shrug. “Do you hear anything right now, other than the trees and insects?”
We fall quiet – and she’s right. It’s silent, other than the calls of insects, rustling of leaves, and occasional snap of a stick.
“Very few people have the authority to shut down an entire autonomous outpost,” Violet continues, looking back at the map. “Alternatively, they didn’t shut down the outpost entirely, but they’re manually controlling a few drones to keep watch for intruders, like us.” She glances up at me. “That’s why we’re going on foot, since that will likely be your next question. We’ll be harder to spot in case someone was expecting us and is using the drones to look for us.”
Brennan was right. Her mind is her weapon. The resemblance between the two of them is almost painful.
Violet presses her lips into a tight line, then points to the edge of the cliffs leading down to Resson, where they jut out from the rest of the cliff face.
“There,” she says, sounding assured. “If they were sent here to observe Resson, that’s the best vantage point if they want to remain unseen. We should start there.”
Ridoc doesn’t argue, and I’m feeling just unmoored enough from all the discoveries of the evening that I just take her word for it. That’s how I find myself on her back, Ridoc behind me, moving as silently as we can through the woods.
We’ve walked for maybe thirty minutes, and night has fully fallen when Violet throws up a hand, lurching to a halt. I manage to stop myself just before I collide with her back and look in the direction she’s locked onto.
“Stay here,” she mutters, before creeping forward, completely silent. She tugs a dagger free from the sheathes along her ribs, then stops in front of a large tree maybe ten feet ahead of Ridoc and I. I see it then – an incision, an inch or two long. Violet stabs her dagger into it, and it’s a perfect fit. Violet takes a deep breath, then turns back to us.
“They were here, I think,” she whispers over the comms. “That’s a fresh cut.”
“Are there any tracks?” Ridoc asks. Violet sheathes the dagger back at her ribs, then looks around on the ground, before dropping to a knee.
“Come here,” she orders.
We creep forward, careful to make as little noise as possible, till we’re at her side.
“There,” she whispers, pointing at one set of tracks. Then she swivels, pointing in another direction. “And there. We’ll need to split up.”
Ridoc eyes her warily. “That’s not a good idea, Vi.”
“Do you have a better one?” she hisses. “We need to find them as quickly as we can, especially if they were attacked the same way I was.”
“Wait, what?” My eyebrows shoot up. She never mentioned that they’d been attacked, that this might be related to her attacks.
“That’s exactly why we shouldn’t be splitting up,” Ridoc argues, ignoring me, becoming more agitated. “What if Aetos is trying to get you alone Vi? You humiliated him. Rhi and Sawyer wouldn’t want you risking yourself unnecessarily.”
“I can take care of myself,” Violet hisses. I can practically see her hackles rising. “You and Xaden go follow that path – I’ll follow the other one.”
“Absolute no-”
I cut him off. “She’s right, Gamlyn. We need to split up, and it makes more sense for Sorrengail to go on her own.” Violet gives me a surprised look, but quickly wipes it off her face.
Ridoc’s eyes flash, and he takes a step towards me. “No offense, Riorson, but I don’t know you. You don’t know anything about what we do either. Don’t tell me what to do, and don’t side with Violet when you don’t even know the risks of what she’s telling us to do.”
“I think my job as your handler actually allows me to do just that,” I say, eyes narrowing, my tone deceptively soft as I cross my arms. I’ve clearly touched a nerve, because the jokester that was in the car with us not that long ago has disappeared. “Sorrengail is an adult. She’s capable of taking care of herself.”
“Like fucking hell-”
“That’s enough, Ridoc,” Violet says sharply, hand gripping his arm as if to make sure he doesn’t lunge at me. “Stop arguing with him. We’re wasting time that Rhi and Sawyer might not have. We need to go.”
Ridoc looks at her pleadingly. “I promised Rhi I’d watch out for you,” he says quietly enough that I don’t think he meant for me to hear.
Violet’s mouth quirks up into a quick smile, before it returns to her usual serious expression.
“And you’ve done an amazing job,” she replies, just as quiet. “But you and I both know that I can cover more ground on my own. We need to find them as soon as we can – we haven’t been able to get through to them at all since Sawyer texted you. You said it yourself – Xaden doesn’t know what we know. He needs one of us with him.”
I know she’s right, but her words still sting my pride.
I think Ridoc is going to argue, going to insist that he stays with Violet, but he sighs in defeat instead, the fight leaving him.
“Fine,” he concedes, drooping a bit. He looks back at me, a little guilty. “Sorry, man. Shouldn’t have yelled at you like that.” He cuts a chastising look at Violet. “This one just tends to get herself into trouble whenever we leave her alone.”
Violet rolls her eyes, but there’s a hint of a fond smile on her face that tells me this is a common gripe with her group.
“We need to move,” Violet says. “Call in if you find anything.”
I nod. “You too.”
She merely dips her head, then disappears into the undergrowth, following a set of tracks I never would have been able to see if she hadn’t pointed them out.
Ridoc and I begin following the other set of tracks deeper into the forest. The moon is full overhead, casting silver patches of light through the gaps in the tree branches above.
“Sorrengail seems like she’s a good tracker,” I say, breaking the silence after a few minutes. That isn’t a skill that can just be taught – it takes years to develop that kind of eye for detail.
“She’s been good at that for as long as I’ve known her,” Ridoc says, as quietly as he can. “Her dad taught her, I think. She doesn’t talk about him much, so I’m not sure.”
We fall back into silence. Brennan told me that David Sorrengail had trained Violet to follow in his footsteps as an intelligence analyst her entire life, but why would he teach her a skill like tracking? That’s not something that an analyst would need to know how to do.
The mystery of Violet Sorrengail thickens.
We keep following the trail, not speaking again until Ridoc jerks to a stop, sniffing at the air.
“I smell smoke,” he mutters. I sniff the air myself. I never would have noticed that if he hadn’t pointed it out either. Do these NIA people just have crazy strong senses?
We shift directions slightly, heading towards the source of the smoke. It doesn’t take long for the glow of a fire to filter through the trees. The scent of smoke gets stronger the closer we get.
When we’re close enough to see the shapes of people surrounding the fire, Ridoc takes in a sharp breath, then darts behind the broad trunk of a tree. I do the same.
“That’s Sawyer,” he whispers, so quiet that the only reason I hear him is because of the communicator. I carefully peer back around the trunk, and I spy who he’s talking about. A man, a little taller than Ridoc, I think, in a tattered match for the body-fitting mission suits Ridoc, Violet, and I wear. His hands are bound behind his back, and I can’t tell if he’s sleeping or unconscious.
There’s another person there too – also in an NIA mission suit, but their hands aren’t bound.
“Do you know the other guy?” I ask Ridoc, jerking my head in the other person’s direction. I reach down, pulling my pistol from the holster I strapped to my thigh. Silently, I disengage the safety. Ridoc looks back in the direction of the fire, then shakes his head, his gaze growing hard.
“Stay there,” he orders, his eyes sliding down to my hands. “You’ll fuck everything up with that gun of yours. I’ll handle this.”
Normally, I’d scoff and say no fucking way, but I have no clue what he means when he says I’ll fuck everything up either, and this day has been just crazy enough that I don’t want to take any chances when someone’s life could be on the line. I nod, but I don’t put my weapon away. If this goes south, I won’t hesitate to shoot.
Ridoc unsheathes the short sword from his back, then tugs out a dagger in his other hand. I hold my breath as he creeps forward, gaze glued onto the unbound NIA operative.
“If this goes badly, don’t fucking use the gun,” Ridoc’s voice filters over the comm, barely a whisper. “Only use it if you literally have no other weapon. I’m not kidding. Throw the fucking knife, or the sword if you have to, just put the gun away.”
I have no idea what the deal is with these NIA people and firearms, but I comply. Today has been unsteadying enough that I’m not going to take the words of someone far more comfortable in this situation for granted. If he says no gun, I’ll put the gun away.
I can throw knives decently enough – if that’s all Violet needs, then surely can figure out how to get by with just those. I reengage the safety, then carefully stow the weapon. I replace it with a dagger in each hand.
One moment, Ridoc is waiting for a moment to strike, the next he’s hurtling forward, taking the unbound operative by surprise. They’re taller than Ridoc, but Ridoc is faster. They squawk in surprise but manage to dodge out of the way of Ridoc’s first vicious attack, pulling out their own dagger and making a pass of their own. Ridoc dodges with ease.
It’s over quickly, Ridoc’s dagger finding its home in the other operative’s throat. The other man falls to the ground with a thud. Just as I’m about to step out from behind the tree, SGAEYL practically snarls at me.
“Wait,” she snaps. “There is another.”
It’s then that I hear the rustling sound to my right. I melt further back into the darkness offered by my hiding spot, and then I see them perched on one of the low-hanging branches of a nearby tree – another mission suit-clad operative - just as they’re lifting a crossbow aimed at Ridoc’s chest.
Thank you SGAEYL.
I barely think – I don’t have to – as I let the dagger in my right hand fly, quickly followed by the one in my left. The aim of the first one is a little off, catching them in the arm instead of the throat, but the second one hits true, lodging squarely in their chest.
Their body falls from the tree, down to earth with a macabre thump, and Ridoc jumps, looking at the body with surprise as I emerge from behind the tree.
“You did that?” he asks, disbelieving.
I raise an eyebrow. “Don’t sound so surprised.”
Ridoc appraises me, then: “Good aim, Riorson.”
That’s all the thanks I get, as Ridoc’s attention quickly turns to Sawyer. He’s out cold, but doesn’t appear to be in any danger. There’s a nasty cut on his forehead though, and it looks like there’s a shallow stab wound in his thigh that someone tried to patch up hastily. He’s long since bled through the bandages, but when Ridoc pulls them back to inspect the wound, it doesn’t look too bad – it’ll need stiches, but doesn’t look infected.
Ridoc grabs Sawyer’s shoulders, shaking lightly.
“Wake up, Sawyer,” he says tersely, and Sawyer groans a bit, but his eyes don’t open. Ridoc makes a frustrated sound, and my eyebrows shoot up when he slaps the other man across the face. “Wake up, asshole!”
That gets him up. Sawyer’s eyes fly open, blinking rapidly.
“What the fuck?” he groans, then squints. “Ridoc?”
“The one and only,” he quips, then grins. “Glad to see you’re not dead, dipshit.”
“Glad to see I’m not dead too,” he replies with another groan. Sawyer’s eyes drift to me, and they widen with alarm. “You’re Xaden Riorson.”
“That’s me.” How he knew who I was right off the bat is a question for another time.
“What the hell happened?” Ridoc asks. “You texted us and then nothing. We were scared shitless, man.” Sawyer’s expression immediately changes to one of alarm.
“Did Vi come with you?” he asks urgently. “Where is she?”
Ridoc and I glance at one another before Ridoc answers, “She went to follow another set of tracks.” Then his eyes widen too. “Where’s Rhiannon, Sawyer?”
“Fuck,” Sawyer curses quietly, his eyes pressing shut for a moment. “You need to go find her. Right now. They split us up on purpose. I never texted you – they took my phone and did that to draw you guys out here and then get her alone. There were four of them that took Rhi towards the cliffs.”
“They’re after Violet?” I clarify. Sawyer nods, and this time Ridoc it’s the one who curses.
“I knew something was off about this,” he mutters.
Violet killed six people without hesitation in an airport bathroom. She’ll be fine. I know she will. Yet that doesn’t stop my heart rate from galloping in my chest, anxiety growing with every passing second. She had nothing to lose in that bathroom though. This time, they have Rhiannon as leverage.
I don’t like this. At all.
“Get Sawyer back to the car,” I tell Ridoc. “I’m going to find Violet.”
I expect him to protest, but he doesn’t. Instead, he nods, before looping an arm around Sawyer and hauling him to his feet.
“Bring them back alive, Riorson,” he says. “And don’t forget what I said about the gun. Last resort only.”
I’ll ask them what the fuck the deal with that is when we’ve survived this shitshow.
I don’t bother to stay quiet, sprinting through the forest as fast as my legs will take me. My lungs burn, my chest heaving as I work to get enough oxygen to power my pumping legs.
I know I’m close when I hear the scream.
It’s not Violet – it’s a bit lower, but definitely female. Rhiannon.
I run even harder, if that were possible. I’m fully prepared to storm in there, but SGAEYL stops me.
“Do not just run in there without a plan. This is a hostage situation,” she reminds me sternly. “You’ll get them killed if you don’t stop and think.”
She’s right. Of course. Fucking AI.
I skid to a stop, ducking low at the tree line. I see shapes, shadows flickering as figures pass in front of another fire.
“Don’t hurt her!” The scream stabs through me – it’s Violet. I’ve never heard that kind of terror in her voice before. I finally spot her, the silver moonlight making the silver of her hair glint like a beacon, near the edge of the cliff, a dagger clutched in a death grip in each hand. I can’t see her face in the darkness, but every muscle in her body is taught, and she’s practically vibrating where she stands.
I look to the right, and I suck in a quiet breath. Four others are on their feet, just like Sawyer said. One of them is holding someone who I can only assume is Rhiannon Matthias up by her hair, a dagger of their own pressed to the woman’s throat. In the moonlight I can see a heavily bleeding wound on Rhiannon’s side.
This is not good. At all.
“What can you tell me, SGAEYL?” I ask. I need to make a plan – fast. I get the feeling that Violet isn’t going to just sit there and let them hold onto Rhiannon. She’s going to do something impulsive, and it might just get her killed.
SGAEYL is quiet for a moment, then: “Data compilation and analysis complete. Your best course of action is to wait for Violet Sorrengail to surrender.”
“What?” I ask incredulously.
“According to Violet Sorrengail’s personnel file, she is incredibly loyal to her squad mates. She is extremely likely to surrender herself to if she thinks it will guarantee Rhiannon Matthias’ safety. When that happens, that will be your opening. They are on guard since Violet Sorrengail has a formidable reputation, but once she gives up, their guard will be down. You will only have once chance. Take out the one holding Matthias first.”
I hate this plan, but I can’t think of a better option. Not when SGAEYL’s analysis hasn’t failed before.
“We’ll release Matthias if you drop your weapons,” a female operative steps forward from the group, arms crossed. “You don’t want us to hurt her? Give yourself up. Otherwise we’ll gut her right here.”
Violet scoffs, but I can tell she’s bluffing. Her bravado is barely there, the tenseness of her body giving her away. “So you can just kill me for Aetos?”
The other woman’s teeth glint when she smiles. “There’s someone who wants to meet you before that.”
“Who?” Violet demands.
“Put your weapons down, and you’ll find out.”
Violet doesn’t move for a beat, then two. Then her shoulders droop, and her grip on the daggers loosens. They clatter to the ground.
“All of your weapons, Sorrengail,” the other woman says, sounding bored. The man holding Rhiannon presses the dagger against her throat, and she whimpers as a small trickle of blood trails down her neck.
“Don’t you fucking do it, Violet,” Rhiannon hisses, then cries out when the man wrenches her arm behind her back. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
If Violet hears her or registers Rhiannon’s words, she doesn’t show it. Robotically, she begins removing every dagger I know she has sheathed on her body, until they’re all in a small pile on the rocky ground.
“Happy now?” she asks, spreading her arms.
“Very,” the other woman says. She glances at the other man to her right. “Help me tie her up.”
He lumbers forward, the woman in tow, and each step they take feels like an eternity of waiting.
I’m barely breathing, holding my breath, waiting for the perfect moment to spring forward.
The man holding Rhiannon releases her arm, the blade against her throat separating from the column of her neck as he watches his companions.
“Now,” SGAEYL orders.
I emerge from the trees, sticking to the shadows. When I’m close enough, I fling a dagger towards the man holding Rhiannon. This time, I find my mark the first time when it buries into his throat. He releases her as he grabs at his neck, but he doesn’t last long before he falls to the earth, dead.
I unsheathe the sword from my back and offer up a prayer to whatever god will give luck to a nonbeliever like me. It’s not a moment too soon, because I whirl around, using the flat of the blade to deflect a savage slash from the other woman who accompanied the group, which would have likely taken my head from my shoulders had I not blocked it.
She stabs forward again, and I drop the sword, grabbing her by the arm and using her momentum to slam her into the ground.
It knocks her out cold, and I immediately return my attention to Violet. My stomach drops – in the thirty seconds since I started my assault, the other two closed the distance. I watch as the larger man grabs her and slams her to the ground, a shocked shout of pain erupting from Violet’s lips. My attention is diverted to the woman, who has changed directions and is advancing on me. I pick up the sword I discarded, my other hand occupied by another dagger, as she unsheathes two of her own and charges at me. I don’t move, wait, wait, wait-
I fling the dagger just as she gets close. It embeds in her arm, and she doesn’t stop.
“Fuck.” I hiss when one of her daggers slices my arm. But it was a mistake on her part – she got too close, and I jam the hilt of the sword against her head. She collapses without a sound, and I immediately begin sprinting towards Violet.
The larger man’s hands are wrapped around her throat, and I feel distinct panic rise in my chest when I see her eyelids flutter, as if she’s struggling to stay conscious.
The horrifying truth dawns on me as she stops moving. I’m not going to make it in time.
“She will live!” SGAEYL proclaims, as if she has any control over who lives and dies tonight.
Clearly the man on top of Violet doesn’t think the same – in fact, he releases her neck when she goes still and turns to look at me as I rapidly close the distance.
Of course, I should have known better than to count Violet out.
Her eyes fly open as soon as his hands leave her neck, and her hand darts down to- her boot? But then I see a flash of light on metal and I understand – she had a dagger in her boot. A split second later, Violet lunges upwards, and that same dagger is speared through the larger man’s heart.
He falls over with a thump as he bleeds out. I can’t bring myself to give two flying shits.
I skid to a stop in front of Violet, take a knee. She’s coughing, a hand to her neck as she fights to return air to her lungs.
“Are you ok?” I ask urgently. I drop the sword with a clatter, my hands coming up to brace her shoulders as she coughs. “Are you hurt anywhere?”
Violet’s eyes are wild, and they dart around.
“Rhiannon?” she asks, her voice raspy. I realize that I’m blocking her view.
I glance behind me. Violet’s friend is one tough cookie – she’s managed to sit herself up despite her wounds. She’ll live.
“Alive,” I tell Violet, returning my gaze to her. I can feel her sigh of relief.
“Thank the gods,” she whispers.
I stopped truly believing in gods a long time ago, but I thank them too.
We make camp on the cliff for the night to give Violet and Rhi time to recuperate a bit before making the trek back to Ridoc’s car. Ridoc appears not long after Violet finished the last of them, and he brought the first aid kit with him.
“Looks like you made a real mess of things, Riorson,” he notes, looking around at the field of bodies. Two of them still breathe, but I get the feeling they won’t be for long.
“You can thank Violet for that one,” I say, jerking my thumb towards the man that almost killed her. Ridoc looks, then snorts.
“Leave it to her to go after the biggest guy,” he quips.
“Is that you, Ridoc?” Rhiannon’s voice rings out from the campfire. “That better be the fucking first aid kit.”
“Uh oh. She’s in a bad mood,” Ridoc whispers conspiratorially. “Violet and Rhi tend to get cranky when they get stabbed.”
Again, delivering that kind of information as if it’s normal is fucking insane. I blink in surprise as Ridoc dashes towards Rhiannon. Luckily the wound in her side wasn’t very deep – it looked a lot worse than it actually was – and it probably won’t even need stitches.
"This is kind of insane," I murmur absentmindedly to SGAEYL. "I knew what it would be like with them, logically, but this..." It's fucking insane. I don't know how Ridoc has a smile on his face right now.
"I think you need to get used to it," she says primly. "They won't stop killing people anytime soon, and they know it too. They aren't going to live their lives in misery, so this is the result. Normalization. Do I need to find peer-reviewed articles about coping mechanisms in order for you to understand this concept?"
I don't bother to grace that last question with a response.
After helping Rhiannon bandage her wounds, Ridoc disappears for a while again, returning with a duffel of camping supplies. He pitches the tent, informs me of the rest of the supplies in the bag, then returns to his car for the night, saying that he doesn’t want to leave Sawyer alone.
Violet appears at my side then, but she doesn’t look at me. She’s looking at the two women, still knocked out cold. Her face is unreadable.
“You should look away,” she says quietly.
I don’t. I watch as she snaps their necks – and it isn’t lost on me that that was probably the most painless way she could have killed them.
Violet doesn’t say a word to me when she returns to the fire, her face devoid of emotion. Rhiannon wraps an arm around her shoulders. They both remain silent, staring blankly at the fire.
I take the first watch.
The stars here are more visible than they ever were at Dad and I’s old house, when we used to stargaze on the roof. I don’t know how long I stare up at them, but I know at least an hour, maybe two has passed when I hear the tent flap rustle. I turn to look just as Violet emerges.
“Hi,” she says quietly.
“Hey,” I reply.
She’s quiet for a moment, then: “You should get some sleep. I’ll keep watch.”
I shake my head, then smirk. “Nice try, but I know you’re just going to use that as an excuse to skewer me like you did the big guy over there.”
Violet scoffs, but it’s not as cold or dismissive as it normally is. She hesitates, but then joins me next to the fire, looking up at the stars.
We’re quiet for a while, looking at the sky, and, if I could forget everything that led up to this moment, it would feel incredibly, impossibly normal.
“My dad used to take me stargazing.” Violet breaks the silence but doesn’t look at me. Her eyes remain glued on the stars above. “We’d go to this cabin in the mountains, not all that far from here, and he’d teach me all the constellations and the stories of each of them.”
“Yeah?”
“Mm.” She nods, then draws her knees up to her chest. “I haven’t been back since he disappeared, except for one time. Someone burned it to the ground. But even if that hadn’t happened, I don’t think I would go back again. It’s… too painful.”
“What will you do if those documents don’t lead you to your dad?” The question leaves my mouth before I can stop it, and I watch her tentatively to see her reaction.
She sighs, then says in a heavy voice: “You know as well as I do that my father is probably dead, Xaden. Don’t lie to me.”
My breath catches in my throat.
“You lied when I asked you if you knew anything about my dad, the day we first met,” Violet continues. Her gaze slides to me, so piercing that I feel like I’m under a microscope. “I’ll ask you again: Do you know anything about what happened to him?”
I did lie the first time she asked me this question. Completely. Utterly.
This feels like one of those do-or-die moments, like my decision here will completely change the direction of whatever path we’re currently on. Devera wanted us to trust each other. One of us has to give first. I just hope that this won’t blow everything to shit.
I take a deep breath.
“Your father is dead, Violet,” I admit. It’s the one truth I hoped I’d never have to be the one to tell her. “I’m sorry.”
Her eyes close, and when she takes a shuddering breath, I think she’s about to cry. But when they reopen, there’s no tears, only a familiar determination, similar to the look I saw in that safe house in Cordyn.
“Thank you for telling me the truth.” She doesn’t say anything else
“Do you not want to know how I know?” I ask, almost surprised, after a moment passes. She shakes her head.
“I don’t- I don’t think I’m ready to know that yet.” She looks back up at the sky. “One world-shattering revelation at a time, I think.”
I chuckle, and we fall back into silence.
“What will you do now that you know?” I ask after some time has passed.
She raises an eyebrow and looks amused. “Worried I’m going to back out of our deal, Riorson?”
“Xaden,” I correct her. “And I think it’s a valid question, when finding out what happened to your dad was part of your motivation for helping us in the first place.”
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t you worry, Xaden-” I smirk at the emphasis on my first name. “-I’m all in. If my dad was killed because of what he learned about VENIN, then I want to track down every person responsible, and make them regret it for the rest of their painfully short lives.”
Her words are vehement, a far cry from the quiet conversation we had been exchanging, and suddenly the Violet Sorrengail that had disappeared when we entered these woods has returned. I grin at her reemergence.
“Glad to hear it,” I quip. “I pity whoever crosses you, Violet Sorrengail.”
“You’re better in a fight than I thought you would be,” Violet muses. “Nice aim with those daggers.”
I snort. “Well, apparently I’m not allowed to use my gun, so I worked with what I had.”
Violet leans back on her hands, and I’m momentarily distracted by her hair, loose down her back. Fuck, that’s going to get me in trouble one of these days.
“Control your hormones,” SGAEYL says lazily. I ignore her.
“I forgot that the gun rule is a bit strange to outsiders,” she replies. “We’re technically allowed to use guns, but virtually none of us do. That’s probably part of why Aetos was so suspicious when I said I sniped Devera.”
“Why don’t you guys use guns?” I ask curiously, leaning back on my hands too as I let the fire warm me. “Seems like it’s a lot more dangerous to get up close with a knife.”
Violet raises an eyebrow and levels me with a look that makes me feel like I’ve asked a stupid question. “We’respies, Xaden. Assassins. We’d be pretty fucked if we made a lot of noise and gave away what we were doing.”
“And the risk of death or bodily harm is less with a knife than with a gun?” I ask.
“Guns leave evidence – shell casings, the bullet in the target’s body.” Violet rolls her eyes, and once again I am struck by how fucking insane this conversation is. “All of those things can be traced, and we need to be untraceable.”
That… actually makes sense.
“Guess I should get rid of my gun then,” I quip.
“Please do,” Violet looks at where it’s strapped on my leg, expression almost nervous. “It might seem dumb, but there’s a reason why operatives have developed rules like these over the years. Our line of work isn’t exactly the epitome of worker safety. It’s how we stay alive.”
We fall into a quiet silence again as we both return to gazing at the stars. It lasts longer than the others. I’m not sure how much time has passed when Violet speaks up again. At least an hour.
“Thank you for coming to check on me last night. Thank you for telling me the truth about my dad.” Violet’s voice is quiet, with none of that bite that I’ve come to expect from her. “And thank you for helping Rhi and Sawyer today.” She looks at me then. “You saved their lives when I couldn’t. You saved my life. I owe you now.”
I blink once, then twice. I wasn’t expecting any of that, and it takes me a bit off-guard. The proximity allows me to see the details of her eyes, how the color seems to shift. They’re a little more blue right now.
“You don’t have to thank me for that – for any of it. You saved yourself anyways,” I say, having to clear my throat when the words come out a bit raspy. The air is charged, and I feel a strong urge to fill the silence. “But if you insist, Violence, hopefully saving your ass will keep you from stabbing me when we get back to Calldyr.”
For the first time since we came face-to-face in that airport bathroom, Violet actually laughs. It’s not one of the cold, humorless laughs I’ve heard from her before, or the forced ones she made when we were on that plane together. It’s open, and happy, and real. Its disarming, and I decide that I like the sound of it.
“I’ll take that into consideration,” she replies, but there’s none of the cold sarcasm or flippant tone that I’ve come to expect from her. Tonight, she’s joking and more relaxed than I’ve ever seen her, and I realize that maybe, just maybe, we’re making progress.
Maybe this partnership will work. Maybe we can trust each other. It’s jarring, the difference between her moodiness last night and her casual conversation now, but I realize that maybe that’s just because I’m seeing a completely different side of her – someone who loves her friends deeply, someone who likes stargazing.
These small pieces of her that I’ve begun to see that completely contradict the coldblooded assassin I thought she was are beginning to settle in my mind, slowly but surely changing how I see the youngest Sorrengail.
I am surprisingly ok with that.
Notes:
we have DEVELOPMENTS. pro: violet and xaden are finally talking instead of arguing! :) con: papa sorrengail is confirmed dead :(
next chapter! how is athebyne connected to project VENIN? (or is it connected at all?) what happened during rhi and sawyer's mission? and what happens next with the cypher? FIND OUT NEXT TIME WHEN I GET AROUND TO WRITING CHAPTER 15
mwah, love all of you <3 thanks for reading!
Chapter 15: Truth for a Truth
Chapter Text
Thirteen Years Ago
“And why, Xaden, is it important that we preserve our history?”
I roll my eyes from where I sit across my father at the dinner table, just as I slurp up a noodle from my spaghetti.
“Because without history, culture is lost and we’re doomed to repeat our past mistakes,” I respond in somewhat stilted Old Tyrrish. It’s a recited, practiced answer that I’ve given a hundred times.
There’s a small grin on his face when I look up from my bowl. “You’ve been practicing.”
“Not like I can do much else.” I gesture at the boot I’ve been in for the last six weeks, the same one that’s kept me from returning to fencing practice or any of the other activities I normally enjoy.
Dad sighs, picking at some carrots with his fork. He hates carrots, yet he still insists on making them for dinner at least once a week. I don’t understand him.
“I wish you’d have a little more appreciation for our culture, Xaden,” he says after a moment of quiet and a swig of the beer set to the left of his plate.
I roll my eyes again. We’ve had this conversation dozens of times now.
“Not much of a culture left to appreciate, Dad.”
A tense silence falls over the table. The set of Dad’s jaw tells me I managed to tick him off. But every word of what I just said is true – Navarre destroyed Tyrrish culture when it destroyed Old Aretia centuries ago. All that remains is a barely-spoken language, half-forgotten myths and soot-stained ruins. Most people don’t even know that there is a Tyrrish language in the first place.
“That’s exactly why people like us need to work to preserve what remains,” Dad says, and it is a true battle of willpower to keep myself from rolling my eyes for a third time as he launches into his usual spiel about honoring what came before us, preserving our history, blah, blah, blah.
The doorbell rings, interrupting Dad’s tirade. He gets up to answer the door, and I continue to pick at my meal in silence. I can hear low conversation in the entry way. A few minutes later, Dad returns, with a man I’ve never met before in tow. He’s taller than Dad, just by a bit, and is in green fatigues. His hair is short, but will likely need a trim soon if it’s to stay within military regs.
“Xaden, say hello to Brennan,” Dad says, gesturing to the solider. “He recently transferred into Colonel Mairi’s unit, and I’ve invited him to join us for dinner.”
I eye Brennan dubiously. “Hi, I guess.”
The man grins, pulling out the chair next to me as Dad returns to his own spot. “Nice to meet you, Xaden. Your dad was telling me you like fencing.”
I roll my eyes. “It’s ok.”
Brennan cocks an eyebrow. “Just ok, huh?”
“It’s fine,” I insist.
“Xaden.” My dad’s tone has a hint of warning.
Brennan ignores him, looking at me curiously.
“Tell you what,” he says after a moment. “If you start teaching me Old Tyrrish, I’ll teach you how to fight. Hand-to-hand.” He glances down at my boot. “After your leg heals, of course.”
That piques my interest. I find myself nodding before I give the proposition much thought.
“Excellent.” Brennan grins. “Now, shall we eat?”
When I wake up the next morning, the sky is grey and a light drizzle wets the cliffside. I didn’t get much sleep; tossing and turning as I tried to make sense of everything I’d seen, as I thought about the slowly creeping threats that were on our doorstep.
Everything is happening too quickly and all at once, and I’m barely keeping track of all the moving parts. Project VENIN progressing faster than even our most extreme calculations. The devices they previously needed to make it all work no longer being necessary. Colonel Aetos’ potential connection to the project. The attacks on Violet and her squad. The coded documents that David Sorrengail left behind before his death. Devera’s assassination. The deal I made to get me and my people inside the NIA.
It's a miracle I’m staying sane.
I’m not sure what time Rhiannon came out last night, but she insisted on taking my spot on the watch when she did. I let her – I’m of no use worn ragged and exhausted, and I got the feeling she wasn’t the type to take no for an answer either. Violet stayed out there with her, and as I settled down in the tent to try and get even a little bit of sleep, I could hear them talking softly, quiet enough that I couldn’t quite make out the words but just audible enough that could tell that the discussion was tense.
When I emerge into the weak morning light, the rustle of the tent flap alerts Rhiannon to my presence. Violet, on the other hand, is nowhere to be seen.
“Before you ask, she’s scouting ahead to make sure no one is waiting for us,” Rhiannon says, not even bothering to look at me as she pokes at the dying embers of the fire with a stick she found somewhere.
I eye Rhiannon impassively, then take a spot sitting next to her, but I leave a healthy distance between us. She looks at me now, gaze equally wary – not that I really blame her.
“You’re Xaden Riorson.”
I nod. “Yes.”
Her eyes narrow slightly. “You met Vi in Cordyn?”
“I did.”
There’s a pause as her sharp gaze appraises me. Then, Rhiannon glances back at the remains of the fire, tosses the stick aside, and replaces it with a dagger. She begins to wipe against the leg of her mission suit casually. I see it for the threat it is.
“I’m not stupid, Riorson,” she says after more tense silence has passed. “Whatever you’ve gotten Violet involved in, you better be fucking careful.”
I keep a blank expression on my face. I remain silent. I can practically hear the Or else that Rhiannon doesn’t give voice to.
The woman cocks a brow and crosses her arms, the sharp tip of her dagger glinting savagely as it points up towards her jaw. “Nothing to say, Riorson?”
“Nothing that you’d want to hear,” I reply matter-of-factly. I keep my posture relaxed, but I wouldn’t put it past her to try and skewer me. I don’t get the sense she likes me that much.
“Why are you even here?” she asks, tone accusatory. “There’s no way the NIA would let the son of Fen Riorson into our division without a damn good reason, much less as our squad’s handler.”
Both accurate observations on her part, to be fair. There is a damn good reason, except I’m not giving it.
“Would you believe me if I said it was just a coincidence?”
“I’d tell you to tell a better lie before I gutted you.”
“I’m just doing what I’ve been ordered to do, Matthias,” I dismiss, leaning back on my hands as I do.
Rhiannon scoffs, and in a flash, she’s hauled herself to her feet and closed the distance between us, that dagger held perilously close to my neck as she stands above me.
“Don’t fuck with me, Riorson – you and I both know you’re lying, that you’ve gotten Violet involved in something dangerous.” Her brown eyes flash with barely controlled frustration. I remain silent, however, giving her nothing, which only seems to aggravate her more.
“This isn’t a fucking joke. Violet has been through more than you could even possibly imagine,” Rhiannon continues, her tone cold and unflinching. The cold steel of the blade kisses my neck, not enough to break skin, but enough for me to know that it wouldn’t take much for that to change. “Outsiders might see her as a murderer, as the NIA’s dog, but you know nothing about the sacrifices she’s made, the ones we’ve all made.”
“I can imagine that giving up your humanity and morals for work is quite a sacrifice,” I taunt before I can stop myself. It’s a horrible idea, goading her like that when she has a knife to my throat, but at the same time, I’m talking with a killer, just like Violet. Maybe not quite as deadly or renowned, but a trained assassin nonetheless. I watched her friend Ridoc obliterate a man twice his size yesterday without breaking a sweat, and Rhiannon strikes me as someone much more formidable.
She leans in a little closer, and I can see the same ruthlessness in her expression that I’ve seen on Violet’s, on Ridoc’s. The frustration on her face before has transformed into unfiltered rage.
“Say something like that again, especially to Violet, and I’ll make it my personal mission to end your fucking life, Riorson,” she hisses. “Sawyer, Ridoc, and I have been through hell to make it this far. What Violet’s experienced is ten times worse. And she’s still one of the most caring, loving human beings I’ve ever met. If whatever mess you’ve gotten her caught up in gets her hurt, if you break the parts of her that haven’t been broken yet, I will follow you to the ends of the earth and make sure you pay the price. Violet might be the strongest and deadliest of us, but I can promise you that I’m more than capable of making your life a living hell if I have to. Have I made myself clear?”
I blink once, then twice. I’m not sure what to say, what I can say to that. The worlds we’ve lived in, similar in many ways, are also different in unimaginable ways. The sounds and sights of the people I killed yesterday still linger in my mind. It wasn’t my first time killing, but I don’t kill the way these people do, with the same casual acceptance. I’ll remember their faces from the rest of my life.
Rhiannon speaks as if there are still parts of Violet Sorrengail that have been left unbroken, parts that are still human, but I can’t see how that’s even possible, not when she seems to hold such little value for the lives she’s snuffed out. Sure, she cares for her friends, and she was certainly more open last night, but I have to remember that there are a multitude of other sides to Violet that negate that.
“She’s not bluffing,” SGAEYL growls in my mind, interrupting the path my thoughts have gone down. “She will kill you for the Sorrengail girl if you give her reason to.”
There’s no doubt about that. This unit they’ve created amongst themselves is a bond far deeper and lasting than mere friendship of camaraderie. They are family is every sense except by blood. A family of killers.
“I’ve never made decisions for Violet,” I say, choosing my words carefully. “Everything she does is what she’s decided to do.” I chuckle a bit. “Trust me, I learned very early that she does what she wants, and that my opinions don’t matter all that much to her.”
Rhiannon stays silent for a moment, observing me. I’m half-expecting her to slit my throat and wipe her hands of me when she finally pulls away, slipping the dagger back into a sheathe at her thigh.
“I don’t know what you and Violet are up to, but this-” Rhiannon gestures vaguely to the area around us. “-Isn’t normal even by the NIA’s standards. You better be very fucking careful, Riorson. Whatever you’re playing at is going to end up with someone dead if you aren’t.”
I don’t respond, don’t give her anything that could blow back in my face later on. I don’t think she’d rat me out – not when doing so would likely bring Violet down with me, and she’s already demonstrated a loyalty to Violence that matches Ridoc’s – but I could also be wrong.
Either way, Rhiannon is right. I’m playing a very dangerous game, stepping into the heart of the enemy the way I have. It’s a desperate, last-resort play. I’m putting the lives of everyone I care about on the line.
“I’m well aware that being attacked by members of your own agency isn’t normal,” I say diplomatically, just as Violet appears exiting the tree line in the corner of my vision.
At that, Rhiannon furrows her brows, just as Violet takes up the spot to her friend’s right, looking between us, a questioning look appearing on her features. Her hair was down last night, but at some point, she returned it to the braided crown she’s worn just about every other time I’ve seen her. I don’t try to examine the feeling of disappointment that accompanies that particular observation.
“I don’t think they were NIA,” Rhiannon says with a slow shake of her head. Violet shifts her weight, and a nervous expression crosses her features for all but half a second before she locks it down, replacing it with a blank slate.
My eyes narrow. “What do you mean?”
“If they wanted to take out Sawyer and I, they’d need to send the best they have – and if they were the best, we’d know about them too. I didn’t recognize any of the people who attacked us.” Violet looks deep in thought as Rhiannon speaks. “We’re not on Vi’s level, but we’re still some of the best in the division.”
Rhiannon returns to the rock she’d taken to using as a seat, a soft hiss of pain escaping her as she lowers herself down. It’s enough for me to remember that she was injured yesterday. She hasn’t been acting like it, though. None of them have, even though I’m almost certain that Violet is black and blue from head-to-toe thanks to the way she was slammed around last night.
“But the people they sent after us, they weren’t that hard to take out. We managed to drop four of them before they finally got us. In fact, the only reason Sawyer and I were even captured was because of the damn drones,” Rhiannon continues.
Violet cuts me an almost smug look that screams I told you so, before returning her attention to Rhiannon.
“I knew something weird was going on when I couldn’t hear them coming in,” she says, taking a seat next to her friend.
“That’s why we were sent out here in the first place,” Rhiannon says with a frown, looking up at the overcast sky. “They said there was an issue with the drones, and so they needed manual observations of Resson for a few days while the issue got fixed.”
“Wait a sec.” I frown, as I process all the information I’m receiving. “How did the drones get you captured if they weren’t working?”
“Well, obviously the whole thing about them not working wasn’t true,” Rhiannon scoffs. “But the drones – they’re designed for surveillance primarily, but they can also serve in a limit capacity for border patrol.”
“They’re equipped with tranquilizers,” Violet clarifies for me. Rhiannon nods.
“We knew something wasn’t right after about 12 hours,” she says. “That’s when we were attacked for the first time – just one person.” She looks at Vi. “They were like the person who attacked you the first time.”
Violet’s expression hardens.
“She is hiding something,” SGAEYL observes.
“I think that’s obvious. Any idea what that could be?”
The AI scoffs. “I’m not a mind reader. Find that our yourself.”
“It wasn’t hard to take them out, or the two that came after us the day after,” Rhiannon continues. “But someone was jamming our communicators, and we couldn’t get word out that we needed help. Then Sawyer caught a dagger to the leg, and it only went downhill from here. After we took out the fourth guy, I guess whoever was pulling the strings decided they needed to change tactics, because that was when the drones started looking for us.” The laugh that follows is cold. “They managed to tranq us, and it became very obvious after that that you were their target, Vi.”
Violet looks stricken, her knuckles white in her lap, as Rhiannon’s words sink in.
“I knew this was going to happen,” she says through clenched teeth, her anger beginning to show. “This is exactly what I was afraid of.”
Rhiannon’s face softens, and she puts her hand over Violet’s, squeezing tight.
“This is not your fault,” she says fiercely.
Violet doesn’t respond, face stony.
“We should get moving,” I declare after a few moments of tense silence. “We don’t know if whoever sent these guys after you will send more people.”
Violet returns from wherever her thoughts took her, slowly nodding in agreement. “You’re right. Let’s get out of here.” She hauls herself to her feet, and we follow.
It doesn’t take long for us to break down the campsite. I elect to carry the heavy duffel with all the supplies before Violet or Rhiannon can try.
The last step before we leave is arguably the least pleasant.
“You can go ahead if you don’t want to watch,” Violet tells me as we prepare to light the pyre, to burn away the very existences of the people we killed yesterday. There’s no hint of judgement in her gaze when she offers me the out, her tone once again missing some of her usual bite. I’m not sure if she’s offering this because she thinks I’m a stranger to death, or because she thinks by offering me an out, I’ll forget that we had to kill all of these people.
I shake my head. “I’ll stay.”
Those hazel eyes of hers harden. Violet turns her back to me, drops the match on the fuel-doused bodies, and watches them all go up in a burst of flames. She doesn’t look away even when the stench of burnt flesh becomes so overwhelming that my eyes water.
As the fire begins to ebb, nothing remaining but charred bone and ash, I catch her muttering something. After a moment, I realize it’s an old prayer to the god of death, one that used to be recited after death in battle.
“May their souls be commended to Malek,” she finishes, so quiet I barely catch it.
When she finally turns her back to the dying flames and joins Rhiannon and I at the edge of the forest, her face has taken on that closed-off quality I saw last night. I lag back even as Rhiannon tramps on ahead, matching my strides to Violet’s.
“Why pray for the people who tried to kill you and your friends?” I ask, my curiosity getting the better of me. If those people had tried to kill Bodhi, or Liam, or Garrick – I would’ve spit on their graves without remorse. And Violet was praying for them.
She’s quiet, deep in thought for a moment, as if she hadn’t entirely considered it herself before I asked.
“Who would pray for a murderer, except for another murderer?” she muses, asking the question so quietly that I wonder if she’s asking herself the question.
Something about that answer doesn’t sit right with me, but I don’t pry further. The look on her face tells me she wouldn’t answer anyways – she’s lost in her mind again, having taken on that furrowed expression that she seems to wear when she’s deep in thought.
We don’t speak again till we’re close to where we left the car. I feel a tug on my sleeve, and look back to Violet.
“I want to check out Athebyne - old outpost,” she says, keeping her voice low as she looks ahead to where Rhiannon is continuing on. “But I don’t want Rhiannon or the others to come.”
Realization dawns on me as I recall what she said about the outpost yesterday. “You think…?”
Project VENIN.
She nods. “Yes. Call it a gut feeling, I don’t know. Something is off. All of this only began happening after I learned about the project.” She’s smart, chooses her words carefully, keeps her volume low. “The timing of the decommissioning was odd too. We should check it out, just to be safe.”
“They’ll ask questions if we just disappear,” I point out.
She rolls her eyes. “Obviously. I’m not an idiot, Riorson. I’m going to tell them we’re staying behind, I just won't say why.”
“Xaden,” I correct.
She scoffs, then shoves past me, yanking the duffel from my hand as she does, the middle finger of her other hand raised high. There’s the Violet Sorrengail I know.
“I’ll wait here,” I call out.
“I almost wish you wouldn’t, pretty boy!” she responds over her shoulder. I grin at the nickname. She clearly thinks it's derogatory. I just find it funny. Especially because, after a day and a night trekking through the forest, I doubt I’m looking all that pretty. She, on the other hand, manages to make the dirt and grime work. Maybe it’s because she’s as gritty as they come already.
“You’re the one who wants my help,” I remind her.
“I take it back.” The response is immediate and exasperated. “I’ll go alone.”
“Too late for that, Violence. You’re stuck with me.”
She makes a disgusted sound in her chest, but doesn’t argue, pressing on through a thicket before disappearing beyond the line of trees. I take to leaning against a tree trunk, waiting for her return. If Violet wants to go find this outpost without her squad, she can convince her friends not to tag along. That’s not my responsibility.
A few minutes later she returns, a small pack slung over her shoulders that wasn’t there before.
“Let’s go.” Her tone is terse as she marches past me, heading back into the woods.
I push back from the tree and take long strides to catch up with her. The sun is beginning to burn off the cloud cover, and thin rays of sunlight are beginning to filter through the canopy overhead as we walk.
“How are we going to get back to Calldyr if the rest of them are going ahead of us?” Maybe fifteen or twenty minutes of silence have passed. It’s probably a question I should have asked before I agreed to this little side trip of hers.
She halts, turning and nailing me with one of her signature Are You Stupid? Looks, one brow raised for emphasis.
“Rhiannon and Sawyer aren’t in a condition to be driving, so they’re driving back with Ridoc,” she tells me, as if the answer was obvious. “We’re taking her car back, obviously.”
“Obviously.” I don’t bother to mask my sarcasm.
Violet, of course, ignores me. She turns and begins stomping through the undergrowth once again, not even bothering to check if I’m actually following.
I’m not sure how long we walk, but the sun is high in the sky when we stop to take a break, the clouds long ago burned off as it rose higher. I can feel sweat beginning to run down my back, and I’m quickly learning that these skintight mission suits that the NIA seems to like are a bitch in the summer heat.
Clearly, Violet agrees with me, because she’s unzipped the front of hers, letting the top part flop around her waist, leaving her only wearing a tight-fitting sports bra – no, it’s some kind of skintight vest – on her upper half. I can practically hear my dad yelling at me to turn away, because I didn’t raise a disrespectful dipshit that ogles women.
Violet is a woman who is objectively beautiful. It’s an inescapable fact. Or maybe it’s just that she happens to embody every trait that I find attractive. My attraction to her is going to get me in trouble, if I’m not careful. Last night, when her hair and her guard was down, it wouldn’t have taken much on her part to get me to do something I’d regret.
“What is it?”
Violet’s voice jerks me from my thoughts, and I refocus on her. She’s looking at me with a questioning look, one hand on her hip, the other clutching her water bottle against her chest.
“What?” I ask blankly.
She blinks once. “You’re staring at me.”
Motherfucker.
“Sorry,” I mutter, then turn away, busying myself with withdrawing my own water bottle from my pack.
This just proves my point. I can’t let her draw me in – can’t let her get under my skin any more than she already has – not when maintaining a smooth working partnership with the moody assassin might be the key to saving the fucking Continent.
Thinking with my dick will not help on that front.
“At least you’re self-aware,” SGAEYL sniffs. She’s been unusually quiet today, and she sounds even quieter in my mind.
I ignore her.
Violet and I rest for maybe twenty minutes, each claiming a large rock to sit upon as we guzzle the water be brought with us and tear through a protein bar each. I’m glad she thought to bring this stuff, because I wasn’t thinking that far ahead when I agreed to this detour.
Soon, my thoughts drift back to the conversation I was having with Imogen before we came to Calldyr. I’m still figuring out exactly how much I’m going to tell the Assembly about why I’m here. But first, there’s someone I need to talk to first.
“Any word from Brennan?” I ask SGAEYL. I need to tell Brennan – in the loosest terms – why I’ve ended up in the NIA, before he catches wind of it and chews me out. “Tell him we need to talk. Tonight.”
SGAEYL doesn’t respond.
“SGAEYL?”
A moment passes, then two. Nothing. Just yawning silence, as if my connection to her was suddenly cut off. An uneasy feeling begins to accumulate in my stomach. Something isn’t right.
“Hey.” Violet’s voice cuts through my thoughts, and I look back at her. Her expression is wary, matching how I currently feel. Her voice drops to a whisper. “Do you hear that?”
A soft roaring reaches my ears, and Violet sucks in a sharp breath at the same time it does. Her gaze flies to me, eyes going wide. She doesn’t need to say it – NIA drones.
“We need to run!” she hisses. I don’t have to be told twice. We both begin to sprint in the opposite direction of the sound of the approaching drones, but I can tell by the steadily growing noise – they’re gaining on us fast.
“We need to find somewhere to hide!” My longer legs are giving me an advantage, and despite the split-second head start Violet had on me, I’m already pulling ahead of her.
We sprint between a large rocky outcropping, then Violet yells “Left!”
I don’t hesitate, banking left as soon as her voice reaches my ears and whipping around the rocks and running deeper into the woods. The sound of the drones is gaining, faster and louder, creeping dread threatening to steal the air from my lungs as they get closer.
I don’t know what those NIA-designed drones are capable of, and I sure as fuck don’t want to find out.
I feel a tug on my sleeve, and suddenly Violet’s pulling me sideways, into a small crevice in the rock to our left that I wouldn’t have noticed myself. It’s barely wide enough for me to squeeze through, the rock pressing against my back and my chest.
The tight quarters have me taking deep breaths – I hate airplanes, but I don’t enjoy enclosed spaces in general. I haven’t since the day Dad died. If I ever went to therapy, I’m sure I’d know why that was – and I can make educated guesses – but for now, I just try to shove those feelings deep, deep down.
I half expect SGAEYL to make some kind of snide remark about the DSM-5 or peer-reviewed publications. When she doesn’t, the dread in my chest only grows. I’m cut off from her.
Just as the crevice opens into a larger enclosed space, I hear the whoosh of multiple drones cutting through the air just outside.
“Fuck,” Violet gasps, stumbling forward before propping her hands on her knees as she fights to catch her breath. I take a step back, letting my back collide with the rock. My head falls backwards, and I try to control my breathing. My heart is thundering in my chest as I finally realize just how close we were to a massive fuck-up. If those drones had caught up to us…
“That was too close,” I finally manage after my heart calms a bit.
Violet just shakes her head, hands still on her knees. A moment later she straightens up. Sweat drenches her face, and she’s pale – more so than usual, to an almost concerning degree. I suddenly remember that she got thrown around like a rag doll only last night, the image of that massive man slamming her into the ground seared into my brain like a bad dream. She could have internal injuries that we don’t know about, and we’re sprinting through a fucking forest, maybe on a wild goose chase.
“You don’t look so good, Violence,” I remark. “Do you need another break?”
I don’t mean to sound mocking, but there’s no doubt that that is how Violet takes the question when her eyes flash with indignation.
“I’m fine,” Violet snaps, but she still sounds winded. Her eyes slide down just a bit, and they flare ever so slightly so I can see a bit more of the blue there. “Worry about yourself first.”
She looks pointedly at my arm. I frown, look where she’s pointed, then wince. There’s a bloody gash stretching down my upper arm, fabric of my mission suit torn clean through – no doubt from the rocks I squeezed between in our mad dash to find cover. I didn’t feel it because of the adrenaline pumping through my veins, but now that it’s beginning to fade, I can feel the first signs of pain emanating from my wound.
Violet takes a step forward, then motions with her hand.
“May I?” she asks with an almost put-upon sigh, palm outstretched, close to my arm but not quite touching. I nod, and she takes another small step forward. She maneuvers my arm so she can get a closer look, and her touch is surprisingly gentle as she carefully pokes at the wound, wiping away blood as she does.
I hiss when she puts applies a bit of pressure, and it earns me a look that almost looks apologetic – something novel, from my limited experience with Violet Sorrengail.
“It’s not too bad. You’ll probably need stitches though,” Violet says when she finally pulls away, her blood-stained fingers dropping to her sides as she steps back from me. “One sec.”
She unsheathes a dagger from her thigh, and with a few smooth movements she’s cut away the sleeve covering my injured arm, before turning the blade to her own suit, cutting away most of the fabric that made up the upper part, which had been dangling loosely from her waist since before our mad dash to safety. A minute later, that fabric has been repurposed into strips, and she’s wrapping them tightly around my arm with a familiarity that indicates this isn’t the first time she’s done this.
“You do this a lot?” I ask. I mean for it to be a joke, but it’s too serious to be considered as such.
Violet pulls back a bit, and I expect another biting comment or defensive remark, but she considers me, then: “Truth for a truth?”
I raise a brow. “What?”
Violet blinks, then returns to winding the bandage around my arm.
“It was something I did with Brennan – my brother,” she corrects herself. She doesn’t know he’s alive. The thought clangs through my brain for the umpteenth time, each time a little heavier and louder. “I used to get into all kinds of trouble as a kid, so whenever he wanted me to fess up to something, he’d say ‘truth for a truth.’ I’d tell him what I did, and he’d tell me a secret as insurance, I guess. We’d promise that we wouldn’t tell our parents about what we said to each other.”
I fight the smirk that wants to curve my mouth upwards. I can absolutely imagine Brennan lecturing a smaller version of Violet, while simultaneously helping her hide it from their parents. “So are you promising not to tell our parents?”
“I don’t have parents to tell,” Violet snorts, but almost as soon as she does, she freezes, eyes blowing wide as if she didn’t mean to let the words slip out.
An awkward silence quickly descends as her words settle around us. Interesting that it seems like she’s including her moth in that statement, despite Lilith Sorrengail being very-much-alive. Although, I can’t really judge - Gods know I didn’t have a good relationship with my mom, when she was still alive.
“Well, I don’t either, so looks like we’re all good to go,” I reply, just when I begin to see Violet withdrawing back into that quiet shell she seems to prefer. I want to keep her talking. Not because I think I’ll learn anything, or because it might give me useful insight into the person I’m working with, but because it’s a welcome change from the blatant hostility and raised hackles that characterized so many of our previous interactions. I’d prefer her openness last night not become a one-off.
Violet pauses, and then I swear I see a ghost of a smile curve her lips.
“We must be pretty fucked up if we’re making jokes about our dead parents,” she says with a sigh. She tucks in the end of the makeshift bandage, then admires her handiwork. I glance down as well – it’s definitely better than what I could’ve done on myself, that’s for sure. What can’t she do, at this point?
“We’re extremely fucked up,” I agree. “You’re an assassin-turned-double-agent. I’m a soldier-turned-traitor. We’re fucked up by definition. Truth for a truth?”
She nods hesitantly. “Truth for a truth.”
I offered the game, yet I wasn’t ready for her to actually accept. I wrack my brain, trying to think of something I can tell her that matches the spirit of this little game we’re playing, without compromising too much. Then I grin, because I have the perfect truth.
“You see this scar?” I point to the patch of skin behind my ear, where a barely-visible scar lies from when Brennan placed the chip containing SGAEYL there. Violet nods. “If I told you that there was a device right there that lets me talk with a super powerful AI hundreds of miles away, what would you think?”
“I would think that you hit your head on the rocks coming in here instead of cutting your arm,” Violet tells me bluntly. If Brennan knew what I’m about to tell her about SGAEYL, he’d probably have an aneurysm.
At that exact same moment, SGAEYL decides to make her reappearance.
“Jamming interrupted my signal for approximately 24.4 minutes,” SGAEYL says. “I have not been able to determine exactly what caused the jamming, but I suspect it was a group of those drones Violet Sorrengail described.” She pauses, no doubt collecting my thoughts through her processor. “You are doing something unadvised. My existence is supposed to remain secret except for those expressly told by Brennan Sorrengail.”
“Brennan can get over it,” I inform her, just as I hold out my hand to Violet. “Give me your communicator.”
She eyes my hand suspiciously, and I beckon with my fingers. She lets out a tiny, almost imperceptible huff, then removes the device and hands it to me.
“Can you connect to it?” I ask SGAEYL.
“Are you actually asking me that?” The AI has the nerve to sound offended. “I am the most powerful AI ev-“
“So you can,” I interrupt, before she can get herself going. “Do it then.”
There’s a pause, and an almost imperceptible hum in the background of my thoughts that I sometimes notice whenever SGAEYL is communicating with a device that isn’t her central processor down in Brennan’s bunker. Then, “Linking complete. Hand the device back to her.”
I do as instructed, handing it back to Violet who looks at it, then back to me, with a look of confusion.
“You didn’t do anything,” she states.
“Thank you for stating the obvious, Violence,” I reply. “Put it back on.”
Those eyes of her narrow on me, and I wonder for a brief moment if she’s going to argue, but a second later she returns the communicator to her ear. Her eyes widen in shock almost immediately. I can’t hear SGAEYL, but whatever she said to Violet has the woman’s eyes as large as saucers.
“Holy shit,” she whispers. She’s silent for a moment, biting her lip, then: “Compare and contrast rainfall patterns over the last twenty years in Poromiel compared to the twenty years preceding that period.”
She’s silent, as SGAEYL no doubt rattles off an overly-important answer to her question.
“And the causes?” Violet asks when SGAEYL finishes. Her expression looks awed, and it’s quite the contrast to the usual hostility and distrust I see on her face.
When Violet finally looks back at me, she looks as shell-shocked as I felt yesterday, as I witnessed the true ferocity and ruthlessness of the NIA firsthand.
“You weren’t lying,” she almost whispers, half from shock, half from disbelief.
A stifle a chuckle. I’d give good money for a camera to get a shot of the look on her face right now. “Were you expecting me to?”
“Yes,” she replies without hesitation. Ouch.
I don’t let it bother me, however. She has her reasons for being distant. I can understand that. Getting her to trust me won’t happen with just two collegial conversations. But now it's her turn to lay down a truth, and I’m not about to let her off the hook.
“Lesson number one, Violence: I don’t lie,” I inform her. Her mouth opens immediately to dispute that, and I amend my statement. “Or at least, I try not to. I think it’s safe to say that neither of us fully trust each other, especially with the risks we’re taking. I don’t expect you to be entirely open with me, either.”
Violet crosses her arms. “Yet you want me to give you all the cyphers and documents.” She almost mutters the words, as if she didn’t entirely mean to say them out loud.
“And yet, you still have them,” I return, the smirk. “Your turn. Truth for a truth.”
She sighs, a deep, almost defeated sound. She juts her chin out, gesturing towards my arm. “You wanted to know if I’ve treated wounds like that before, right?”
“I don’t know Violence,” I say, moving back to prop myself against the rock wall once again. “It’s your truth. Say whatever you want.”
She looks at me, quietly considering, head tilted slightly to the side. Then she gestures at herself – or more specifically, the black vest I noticed earlier.
“This vest has saved my life at least a dozen times,” she says. I take it as permission to get a closer look at it. It’s such a dark shade of green that I’d think it was black if I looked at it from further away.
“Looks like an ordinary vest to me,” I say.
“Trust me, it’s not.” Violet is the one who smirks this time. “Try to stab me.”
My brows shoot upwards. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” She unsheathes a dagger from her thigh, holds it out to me. “Try to stab me, Riorson.”
“Xaden,” I correct. This was not the direction I was expecting this game to take.
“Don’t change the subject.” She shoots me an admonishing look, then shakes the dagger in my face like it’s a toy, not a deadly weapon.
“I’m not stabbing you,” I tell her firmly, which I feel like should go without saying, but I probably should have known the game would take a turn like this considering I’m playing it with someone who kills for a living. Violet rolls her eyes, and mutters something under her breath that sounds a lot like Fucking hell.
I find myself shooting forward in alarm when Violet switches her grip on the dagger, plunging it towards her own stomach. It takes less than half a second to close the distance between us, but the blade has already slashed across Violet’s abdomen, leaving a bloody–
Wait.
My hands are gripping her wrists, having grabbed them in an effort to keep the blade she holds away from her stomach, but now I’m staring in shock at where there should be a bloody wound, because there’s no wound at all. No blood. Not even a tear on the vest itself. It’s like the blade just slid off it.
I exhale sharply. “What the hell?”
Violet lets out a huff of a laugh. “Like I said, it’s saved my life a lot.”
“What is it made of?” I ask, releasing her wrists as I do and taking a step back as I do. It doesn’t look like Kevlar.
“This one is made out of some kind of synthetic polymer,” she says, glancing down as she runs a hand over the fabric. “I can’t pronounce the name, honestly. Mazzie created it.”
“Mazzie?”
She looks back at me. “Someone at the NIA. I’m sure you’ll meet her eventually.” She drops her hand and sheathes her dagger. “Anyways, I have two of these. The other one is Kevlar, but it’s thicker, so I can only wear it over my mission suit. I was wearing it that day in the bathroom. Mazzie made me the second one so I'd have one that wasn't as conspicuous.”
I wrack my brain, but I had been fairly preoccupied watching her obliterate six adults and admiring how beautiful she looked while doing it. I didn’t pay much attention to her attire.
Of course, I’m not going to say that out loud. “I see,” I reply instead, a small grin fighting to make its way onto my face. “I think I win in the truth department. AI beats vest any day.”
Violet bristles. “You think?”
I nod. “I do. Sorry, Violence. Better luck next time.”
“You are a very stabbable person, Riorson,” Violet declares.
My grin grows. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“I promise you, it’s not.”
“That’s too bad. Are you ready to get going, or are we going to start living in this cave?”
I’ve lost track of how much time we’ve been hiding out, but enough time has elapsed without the tell-tale sounds of the drones flying nearby that it’s probably safe to resume our journey towards wherever Violet is taking me.
Violet closes her eyes, taking a deep, slow breath as she does. I tamp down on my grin when her eyes reopen. I can’t deny I enjoy getting under her skin, but despite my earlier words, I really would prefer that she not try to stab me. Unlike most people, she’d actually succeed.
I follow when she silently stalks towards the crevice we squeezed ourselves through and do my best not to focus on the suffocating feeling in my chest as the rock around me seems to get closer and closer. The breath of fresh air I suck into my lungs when we finally find ourselves outside again is the best feeling in the world.
The sunlight has turned golden since we entered the cave, that beautiful shade that indicates the end of the day approaches. It doesn’t take long for sweat to begin to drip down my forehead, however, sticking the fabric of my mission suit to my back. The end of the day has not brought an end to the heat.
“We’ll need to stay alert when we approach the outpost entrance,” Violet says after a few minutes of walking. Her fingers dance along the hilt of one of the daggers sheathed along her ribs absentmindedly. “The drone depot right next to it. They can’t last longer than a couple hours without needed to recharge. We can’t risk one of them seeing us on approach.”
“Drone depot?” I ask, matching my strides with hers so I don’t get ahead of her.
“It’s an outdoor structure that’s capable of charging and performing maintenance on the drones without human direction or presence. It’s why they’re able to operate autonomously,” she explains. “They built it on top of the old outpost so they could use the energy infrastructure.”
I frown. How did they build that on top of an existing building? Would that kind of machinery even fit on a roof? How big is this outpost anyways?
Violet must see the confusion on my face when she glances up, because after a moment she starts talking again.
“The outpost isn’t a building,” she says, gesturing with her hands. “There was an above-ground cover facility, at one point, but the part that actually mattered was almost completely underground.”
I blink. “Really? Entirely underground?”
Violet nods, and there’s something distant about her expression, as if she’s recalling an unpleasant memory. Her eyes fall away, staring forward again. “Most NIA facilities are.”
I have a hard time imagining that. Then again, the NIA – especially its clandestine division – is about as secretive as it comes. Despite our best efforts, almost all of what I knew about it was from what Dad and Brennan shared with me. And those conversations didn’t really touch on the architectural choices of the agency.
The conversation petters out as we both become lost in our own thoughts. The sunlight has turned from golden to sunset colors when Violet crouches down, one finger to her lips as she urges silence.
I drop down next to her, maybe just this side of too close because her bare arm brushes against the one I injured, warm and soft, and I have to stop myself from jumping. The skin-to-skin contact feels almost intimate.
“There,” Violet points. I follow her finger, and then I see it – a massive hunk of dark metal beyond the trees. In the distance, I can see a drone duo flying into the structure – they’re bigger than I thought they would be. If I’m guessing correctly – not a given with the distance - the main body is roughly the length of a small table, and is maybe half as tall, with four propellers.
“That’s bigger than I thought,” I admit, eyes narrowing, and I could be referring to the depot or the devices it services. I watch as another drone begins climbing into the air, heading in the opposite direction of where we’re hiding.
“Last time I checked, this depot could support up to 200 of them.” The set of Violet’s shoulders is tense, and her mouth is pressed into a tight line as she stares at the depot, but her tone betrays none of the anxiety her body language is screaming.
I suck in a quick breath, my eyes never leaving the structure ahead of us. “That’s a lot.”
“Mm.” Violet nods, then jerks her head. “Follow me. Stay low.”
“Bossy,” I joke, but I’m not entirely surprised when her only response is silence. I’m used to being in charge – I prefer it, actually – but as always, I find myself doing exactly what Violet Sorrengail tells me to do, moving stealthily, still crouched low to the ground, as we begin to circle the clearing that the depot is located in.
“Where is the entrance to the outpost?” I ask when Violet stops again, hiding behind the broad trunk of an oak tree.
Violet doesn’t answer, instead pulling a small scope out of one of the pouches strapped to one of her sheathes. She twists around the tree, holding it up to her eye. I don’t know what she’s looking at, but when she puts it down, she points.
“See that grate?”
I squint. It’s almost invisible, a rusted-out grate right next to the much newer metal of the depot. I get the feeling I know where she’s going with this, and I don’t like it.
“Are you crazy?” I ask, keeping my voice low. “There is almost no way those drones won’t notice us.” There’s no cover between our current position and the grate. We’d be out in the open, with nowhere to hide if we’re noticed or attacked. “There must be another way in – I doubt all the former outpost staff made their way in through a fucking grate.”
Violet rolls her eyes, retreating with me fully behind the tree and leaning against the trunk. I cross my arms.
“Obviously they didn’t go in through the grate, pretty boy,” she retorts. “But if you want to use the actual entrance, be my guest. All you’ll need to do is walk straight into the depot, with all those drones, and hope they don’t tranq you out of existence.”
And that’s completely out of the question. I groan, running a hand through my hair. “Fuck.”
Violet tilts her head, propping her foot against the trunk. “Exactly. The grate is the best option we’ve got.” She crosses her arms, and the movement accentuates her toned muscles as something close to a smile toys her lips. “Now, you’re welcome to stay up here while I check it out if you’re that scared–“
“Fuck that,” I scoff. “Nice try, Violence. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”
She has the audacity to pout. “Damn.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“No, you’re not, pretty boy. What happened to not being a liar?” She pushes back from the tree, returning her attention to the grate.
“You know, ‘pretty boy’ really isn’t a good nickname if you’re looking to insult me,” I tease from behind her as she peers out from behind the tree. “As for being a liar, I-”
I have to clamp my mouth shut to keep myself from vocalizing my surprise when Violet grabs my wrist and yanks, pulling me after her into the clearing at a dead sprint with a strength that still manages to surprise me. My brain quickly catches up with my feet as we run towards the grate.
“A little warning would have been nice,” I growl. I’m not going as fast as I could be. If I was, Violet would be left in the dust, with how small she is.
“You keeping your damn mouth shut would’ve been nice too, but we can’t always get what we want,” she snaps, her breathing labored as she struggles to keep up with me despite the slower pace I’ve set.
I’m about to respond, but that’s when I see it – an approaching drone, still far enough away that it's tell-tale buzz isn't audible. I see it, gaining quickly in the distance, and it won’t be long until we’re within its sensors’ range.
I’m acting before I can really think. I reach out, plucking up Violet like she’s a sack of flour and throwing her over my shoulder, gripping the backs of her thighs with one hand and keeping her feet from kicking at me with the other. Her outraged shout echoes in my ears as I pick up the pace, sprinting full-speed towards our destination.
The drone is growing closer and closer when I skid to a stop in front of the grate, kicking it open with one foot. There’s a ladder that leads down into the dark depths. My stomach drops to my feet when the drone suddenly changes directions, now on a collision course with us instead of the drone hangar.
“SGAEYL?” I try, but she’s silent, just like last time. Fuck.
I set Violet on her feet with more roughness than I intended, but now isn’t the time for gentle or nice. If that drone gets to us, we’re fucked.
“Climb down,” I order, pointing to the ladder. The drone is too big to follow us down the shaft. Even if it’s seen us, it won’t be able to get to us down there. “Now.”
Violet’s rage is palpable. “You do not-”
“For fucks sake, Violence, stop arguing and climb down before we’re both fucked!” I yell, my temper getting the better of me. She blinks in surprise, and that’s when she notices the drone quickly gaining on us for the first time. She just nods tightly and begins climbing down the ladder. I don’t have any illusions about this, however – she’ll definitely be yelling at me once we aren’t in imminent danger.
Once she’s part way down the ladder, I plant my boots on the first rung. The drone is close enough now that I can make out equipment attached to its shell, including–
“Fuck,” I gasp, throwing my upper half not already in the shaft to the ground just as a barrage of machine gun fire sails over my head.
“What was that?” Violet’s voice echoes up from below me.
I grip the grate I kicked aside in one hand, then drop down several rungs at once as I pull it over us just as another volley of gunfire erupts.
“Xaden?” Violet’s tone is urgent. It’s the first time she’s used my name today, I realize. I’m not sure what her aversion to it is. “What the fuck was that?”
“Keep going,” I order. We aren’t safe yet - that kind of weaponry would slice right through that rusty grate. We need to get all the way down and out of the way before it tries again.
For once, she doesn’t argue. When my boots hit the metal floor below, I practically drag her out of the way just as the drone fires down through the grate, the ammunition embedding itself into the floor.
“Holy shit,” Violet whispers, eyes blowing wide. “That’s new.”
I look at her through the corner of my eye. “You think?”
The shocked expression gives way to annoyance, and she bats at my hand, which is wrapped securely around her wrist. I release her.
“You’re insufferable.”
“You seem to like to come up with new ways to tell me you don’t like me.”
“You’re finally catching on.” Her tone drips with sarcasm, but her eyes are sparking the way they always seem to when we begin to bicker.
When I finally tear my eyes away from Violet, I note a couple things at once. First, the air is completely still, with a hint of dampness. No one has been down here in a long, long time.
Second, we’re in some kind of hallway, and the door at the end is closed. The lights above us are dark. I hear a metallic groaning somewhere deep inside the structure.
“That doesn’t sound good,” SGAEYL remarks.
I roll my eyes. “Welcome back.”
“I was never gone,” she sniffs. “You just weren’t able to hear me.”
Fucking AI and their semantics.
“Let’s hope that door isn’t locked,” I remark aloud, then begin walking towards it, taking a deep breath as I do. I don’t bother to see if Violet follows, just focusing on putting one foot in front of the other. I really am not a fan of this whole underground structure thing. It’s claustrophobic as hell.
The door, of course, is locked when I try to open it. Violet appears at my side, peering down at it.
“I think the lock is rusted through,” she observes, straightening back up. “You might be able to kick it open.”
I raise an eyebrow in her direction. “And you don’t want the honor? I’d think kicking down doors would be your thing.”
“Just kick the fucking door, Riorson.”
“Xaden,” I remind her, my voice rising teasingly even as I brace myself to do exactly what she’s telling me to do just because I know it will piss her off.
I pivot on my foot, lifting my dominant leg and kicking with all my strength at the point where the door latches. The force shatters the rusty lock and sends the metal door swinging open with a bang that echoes through the outpost ominously. Violet flinches, then glares.
“Was that necessary?” she hisses after the echoes fade a few seconds later, even as she marches forward to look through the now-open door. “What if someone heard?”
I shrug. “You’re the one who told me to kick it open. I kicked it open. Not sure what I could've done differently.”
She gives me a dirty look, but we both know she can’t argue with me on that point. Not that she wouldn’t try – I think she likes arguing with me, in some weird way.
I move forward, until her shoulder is brushing my arm, and peer into the darkness beside her. And that’s all I can see: darkness. There are no lights, artificial or otherwise, to tell us what waits beyond. Suddenly the claustrophobia I’ve been feeling since climbing down here feels all the more acute, as an involuntary shiver passes up my spine.
Violet glances at me out of the corner of her eye before she lets out a breath, as her features morph into something almost mischievous.
“Hope you’re not scared of the dark, pretty boy,” she mocks as she takes a step back and removes her pack from her shoulders. “I’ll hold your hand if you need me to.”
I blink, and for a moment I think she might have hit her head, because I can’t imagine this woman offering me her hand even as a joke. Then I smirk, because I realize what she’s doing. Violet is trying to distract me by goading me into some kind of argument.
“A very generous offer,” I supply as I watch her take a knee and begin to look through her pack, already feeling a little more at ease with that knowledge alone. I wonder how far she’ll take this joke of hers. “Maybe I’ll take you up on that.”
Violet freezes but doesn’t look up at me.
“Do whatever you want.” Her tone is deceptively light.
I let out a short laugh. “You don’t make it very difficult to figure out how you really feel, Violence.”
She starts to move again, finally withdrawing a flashlight from the bag. She hauls it back over her shoulders as she gives me a reproachful look.
“You’re an asshole,” she declares.
“So I’ve been told,” I quip. I gesture to the open doorway, inviting her to take the lead. “After you.”
I expect Violet to forge ahead, taking the lead as she seems comfortable doing, but yet again she surprises me, looking at the doorway with palpable apprehension. It’s the same expression the wore earlier, when she told me the structure was underground, but far more prominent.
“She is scared,” SGAEYL says. “Something about this place deeply frightens her.”
And I’m not sure I want to find out what is capable of scaring Violet fucking Sorrengail, the most fearless woman I’ve probably met in my entire life.
Violet gave me an out earlier, before she killed the two stragglers, before we cremated Rhiannon’s and Sawyer’s attackers. Not out of pity, I’m realizing now, but maybe out of some kind of understanding.
And while I don’t know what scares her now, I understand the apprehension of moving further into the darkness ahead of us.
“You sure you want to do this?” I ask her, as we stare through the doorway into the nothingness ahead. “We have no back up if things go wrong. We can always turn back.”
I don’t want to turn back – not when we’ve made it this far – but Violet gave me an out earlier. I’ll give her one too.
Violet looks like she’s steeling herself, closing her eyes for a moment. When they reopen, she looks like she’s lost in her own little world.
“Knowledge waits for nothing,” she says quietly in Old freaking Tyrrish, shocking me to my core. She flicks the flashlight on then, holding it up and proceeding into the yawning darkness, leaving me gaping outside.
“Wait a sec,” I hiss, hurrying after her. She turns over her shoulder, a brow raised, but I can barely make out her expression thanks to the shadows thrown by the harsh light of the flashlight.
“What?”
“You speak Tyrrish?”
She looks at me like I’ve asked a stupid question and begins walking again.
“You don’t?”
“Of course I do,” I snap. “Who taught you?”
She turns back around, continuing further into the darkness. The silence lasts for maybe ten seconds, before she says: “We’re not talking about this right now.”
Conversation over, it seems. But I’m not done yet.
“Well, I am,” I retort. Almost nobody speaks the old language anymore. Even Brennan, with all of his ancient language knowledge, didn’t speak it until I began teaching him. I switch to Tyrrish, and the irony that I’m using the language my father spent his life teaching me with the daughter of the woman who likely had him killed is not lost on me. “Next to nobody even knows the language exists. How do you speak it?”
Violet stops again, just before a set of stairs that spiral deeper into the darkened outpost. Her eyes are narrowed when she faces me again.
“Why does it matter?” She asks. Her pronunciation is perfect – maybe even better than mine. “You said it yourself – most people don’t even know the language exists. There are no practical uses.” She almost looks distressed. “How or why I know it isn’t important.”
Not important? I could fucking laugh. One of the few remaining pieces of Tyrrish culture, and it’s not important? Dad couldn’t even teach me how to write in Tyrrish, only ever teaching me the spoken word. There are so few speakers left that even the addition of one more is significant. She’s a fucking Sorrengail, alright – she holds no value for anything that isn’t Navarrian.
“Right,” I reply, returning to the modern Navarrian language as I strain to keep my temper in check. I slip that mask back over my face, the same one that I always seem to throw out the window whenever Violet is around.
My temper continues to simmer as Violet begins leading us down the stairs. They groan and creak with every step, and at one point I wonder if they’re going to collapse beneath our feet. They don’t, however, and we make it safely to the bottom of the staircase. Three hallways stretch out on both sides and directly in front of us.
I push some of my hair that’s fallen on my forehead back. “Now what?” I ask, but she’s already moving, veering to the right and striding down that hallway. I quickly catch up to her with a frown. “Do you know where you’re going?”
Violet keeps walking, eyes glued forward as if she can’t hear me.
I frown, keep my pace matching hers. “Violence, where are we going?”
Still more silence.
This time, I reach out, grabbing her arm. Violet jolts, and the flashlight falls from her hand, clattering onto the metal floor beneath our feet.
I blink rapidly at her response, loosening my grip but not releasing her arm.
“Violet?” I ask after a moment of further quiet. “Are you ok?”
Even with the flashlight on the floor, I can make out some of her expression through the shadows – and she looks terrified. And it’s not in the same way that she was scared for Rhiannon’s safety last night – no, this is fear driven by something else entirely.
Violet blinks, once, twice, then sucks in a deep breath and gives herself a shake.
“I’m fine.” Her voice is barely a whisper. I finally release her arm when she moves to pull away, and Violet reaches down to retrieve the flashlight. She takes another deep breath, then: “Most NIA facilities, other than headquarters, have identical layouts. We should be heading towards the operations center. If this place has anything to do with VENIN, that’s the first place we should look for clues.”
She’s most definitely not fine, but I’m not about to say that. I have no idea what it is about this place that has her so rattled, and frankly, it’s not my place to question it either. She’s an adult. She’s capable of deciding what she will or won’t do. And more than that, Violet Sorrengail makes her own decisions, as she’s made clear to me multiple times, and I have to live with whatever they may be. If she wants to keep going, then I’ll respect that – in part because I don’t have any other option when it comes to her.
“Are you recording all of this?” I ask SGAEYL.
“Yes,” she confirms. “The recording will be locked. I will ensure Brennan is unable to access it.”
I let out a short sigh. She knew what I was about to ask before it could leave my mouth.
“Once we leave, generate a blueprint that we can use to navigate other NIA facilities based on the recording,” I instruct. Even if we don’t find anything related to Project VENIN today, this trip might be worth it just for that.
Our footsteps echo as we walk further into the structure. The hallway seems unending, but we continue forward even as other hallways branch off.
“You’re Tyrrish,” Violet says, breaking the silence. It’s not quite a statement, but not quite a question either.
“Yes.” I nod.
She pauses, and for a moment all I hear is our feet hitting the ground as we trudge along. She starts biting her lower lip – a nervous tick she seems to default to.
“What are your thoughts on dragons?” she asks a moment later, not looking at me.
I blink rapidly, unsure how to respond. I’m not sure what I was expecting her to ask, but it wasn’t that. I’m not sure I have many thoughts on mythical creatures.
“Care to elaborate?” I say instead of providing an answer. I can practically see the gears turning in her head, weighing the pros and cons of giving more detail. A moment passes, then two.
“I just like dragons, that’s all,” she replies with a small shrug. Looks like the cons won this time.
There’s more to it than that. I can tell. I don’t push, however. Not that pushing would do me any good with her. Violet does what she wants, when she wants it. My opinion means jack-shit to her.
Still, I find myself piping up, trying to continue to conversation. If Garrick or Bodhi saw me right now, they'd be beside themselves watching me try to carry small talk. “In old Tyrrish mythology, dragons were considered protectors,” I offer. “The old Tyrrish civilization modeled their own values after the traits they thought dragons embodied.”
Violet nods. “Dragons and wyverns. Life and death. Peace and war.” She looks at me then, gaze surprisingly somber. “I know the legends.”
Once again, she’s rendered me speechless. I know Navarrian schools don’t teach Tyrrish myths – hell, they don’t even teach the real reason why old Tyrrendor fell to Navarre in the first place. She knows Old Tyrrish, she knows our stories – what else does she know?
“Why don’t you ask?” SGAEYL almost sounds annoyed, and I recognize that she meant it as a jab, but she has a point.
“Not many people do,” I point out. “You speak Old Tyrrish. You know old Tyrrish myths. I know you didn’t just learn those in high school.” There’s an unspoken question at the end of that, and now it’s up to her whether she’ll answer.
“My dad taught me,” Violet admits quietly after brief hesitation, almost deflating as the words leave her. “He was a bit of a history buff, outside of work, and he always thought that knowing the past would help me in the future.” She lowers her voice, mimicking what he assumed must have been the delivery of that very same line by David Sorrengail.
I grin in response, but it immediately falls away. Suddenly, the reason why Violet reacted so defensively when I asked her how she knew Old Tyrrish makes sense – her father taught her, probably for years, the same as me, and she just found out that her father is dead. Anything related to him is likely especially sensitive for her right now.
“My dad taught me too,” I reply, just as quiet. It’s another point of mutual understanding between us. Everything we learned from our fathers – and everything we lost when they left us.
Sometimes it feels like Violet and myself are on two sides of an insurmountable chasm. The life she’s led – the things she’s done – are difficult for me to comprehend. Her loyalties, at the end of the day, lie with the country I despise with every fiber of my being.
But at the same time, she is someone I’m quickly realizing I can deeply relate to. I understand the acute pain she’s likely feeling now that she knows her father isn’t coming back. I understand her clear aversion to coming down into this outpost, even if I don’t know her reasons why. I even think I understand why she told me I could turn away, both last night and this morning.
Last night, like me, she’d taken lives out of necessity, not because she inherently felt a compulsion to kill. How many more lives has she taken under similar circumstances, where she killed because she had to, not because she wanted to? I can count the number of people I’ve killed in my lifetime, can recall each person’s face. Can she? Does she even want to?
“Is there an answer to that question that will be acceptable to you?” SGAEYL asks. “At what point is the death she’s brought to others any different from that which you’ve brought about yourself?”
I don’t answer, because I’m not sure I want to know the answer to either question.
When we finally emerge from the hallway, it’s into an open space markedly similar to the operations room I briefly spent time in before I joined Violet and Ridoc on their trip to Athebyne, except this one is clear dated, the technology much more similar to commercial tech now.
“Stay there,” Violet instructs, striding towards a central console in the center of the room. “Don’t move.”
“Or what?” I ask.
“Or you’ll find a dagger between your eyes, pretty boy,” she mutters, so quietly that I don’t think she actually meant for me to hear her. I chuckle.
I can see Violet tapping at the console, pressing buttons. “Come on,” she murmurs as she tests different buttons.
There’s a slight tremor beneath our feet, rocking us. Violet takes a step away from the console, hands lifted as she looks at the screens in front of her cautiously. There’s another movement, a sudden jolt, that has me fighting to keep my footing and sends Violet sprawling. I suck in a breath, begin to move towards her, but that’s when the lights above us begin to flicker and the screens directly in front of the console Violet was messing with comes to life.
“Yes!” Violet exclaims, launching back to her feet before I can get close enough to help her up. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!”
“How did you do that?” I ask incredulously. From her own words and the state of this bunker, this place must have been abandoned ten years ago, if not even longer. She doesn’t respond, however. Her brows are furrowed, total concentration written all over her expression as she begins typing rapidly on the keyboard. I glance over her shoulder and realize she’s writing a command code of some kind. It’s the kind of thing I’ve seen Liam do so many times.
A moment later, she hits enter, executing the command. The lights surge brighter for a moment, and then the screen lights up again, this time with a list.
“What is this?” I ask Violet. She finally turns her attention to me, practically vibrating. Her eyes sparkle in a way I don’t think I’ve seen before.
“This is a list of all the files the central computer could recover from after the outpost was officially decommissioned, fifteen years ago, but from before it was fully abandoned,” she says excitedly. "They said they were testing the autonomous drones here, but those files wouldn't be stored on this computer - they'd be on the system in the hangar above us."
I take a quick breath. If it’s after this place was decommissioned, and this actual bunker wasn't used for the testing then…
“Someone’s been here,” I state, and Violet nods. “Could it have been someone from the NIA, just checking on the place?”
“Doubtful. Someone just checking on the place wouldn’t be accessing the central computer after decommissioning. In most cases there wouldn’t even be power for the computers at all.” She shakes her head, and I raise an eyebrow. “It’s more likely that it was shut down on paper, and then continued to be used.”
“Like for testing drones?”
“Like for testing drones.” She nods. “Or for continuing a top-secret weapons program, off-the-books, and using the drone program as a cover.”
I glance back at the console. “And there’s still power here, why then?”
“The drone depot. The power cells used to power this place are ancient compared to what the depot uses, but it uses the base’s old relays and substation for its newer power source. But since they were keeping all the other infrastructure in place anyways, they didn’t tear out the old cells in case they were needed for backup power,” Violet explains. “I rebooted two of the cells – just enough to power the computer, but not enough to overload the other infrastructure – yet, at least.”
Motherfucker. My eyes widen. Only Violet would reactivate expired power cells. Fucking reckless.
“Let me get this straight,” I say slowly, crossing my arms. “You powered up a twenty-year-old supercomputer using expired power cells, which are highly explosive even on a good day? And the infrastructure used to regulate the power is already being used by another power source too?”
The Navarrian military moved away from using power cells almost twenty years ago, in part because even new, well-maintained ones were prone to go boom if they were jostled the wrong way. Even the vastly superior power output couldn’t justify the human and capital costs the cells were racking up. Clearly, the NIA didn’t get the memo.
And if new power cells were dangerous, expired cells that were beyond their lifespan were ten times more so. The fact that the NIA just let a cluster of power cells sit here, abandoned, well over a decade past the end of its lifespan, is fucking mind-boggling.
Violet bites her lip. “When you put it that way, you make it sound more dangerous than I was really considering.”
“For fucks sake, Violence,” I groan. “That’s something you mention before you boot them up. Are you trying to get us killed?”
Violet scoffs. “You sound like Rhiannon.”
“If that’s what Rhiannon is saying too, then maybe you should be listening,” I shoot back.
She rolls her eyes, as if this is a common argument she has and ignores. Somehow, I don’ t doubt that it is.
“We don’t have time for this,” she says dismissively. “We need to look through these files. The power cells can stay active for maybe twenty more minutes before we need to start worrying about overheating, so let’s make it count.”
“Unbelievable,” I mutter, but I don’t let my disbelief stop me from commandeering the console directly next to her. Violet silently splits the list, leaving us each with half to comb through. As I begin clicking into files, however, it quickly becomes apparent that there isn’t much to find. Each one’s data is corrupted, rendering them virtually illegible or unable to open at all.
“Any luck?” I ask after a few minutes of frustrating silence pass. Violet’s responding huff reeks of similar frustration.
“No.” The word is short and tight. When she doesn’t say anything else, I click into the next file. Also corrupted.
I keep making my way down the list, and I try to ignore the ominous creaking that seems to echo up from the deepest parts of this place, growing louder as the minutes tick by. I estimate we’re at the fifteen-minute mark when Violet makes her way through her files. I have five left – all of the others were duds.
“I’m sorry for dragging you down here for nothing,” Violet says, jaw clenched. She doesn’t look at me, staring ahead at the bare wall in front of her.
I click into the next file. “Don’t-” I was about to tell her Don’t worry about it, but that’s when I realize this file isn’t corrupted. It’s completely intact. “I’ve got something.”
Violet visibly perks up, moving to my side in an instant and peering over my arm. “An audio file?” she questions.
“Looks like it,” I reply with a nod. Then, to SGAEYL, “Make sure you record everything.”
“As if you even need to ask.”
I press play, and at first there’s nothing. Then, blaring static makes both of us flinch.
“Navarre is shutting down the project.” A male voice blares over the speakers. I don’t recognize it, but Violet’s eyes narrow.
“It was inevitable,” a female voice responds, sounding nonchalant. Something that sounds a lot like papers rustling follows. The voice sounds vaguely familiar, but I can’t place it for the life of me. “I have contingencies.”
There’s a pause, then: “Project VENIN is done, director. Can’t you see that? All your tests failed. You couldn’t even get a workable prototype, for Amari’s sake! You need to-”
“No.” The woman’s voice is icy, and there’s a slamming sound that punctuates the word. “I’m so close. I’ve spent the last ten years of my life on this. I just need a little more time.”
“And how do you plan on getting that? The general is on her way to shut this down personally. The tech you need to make this work just doesn’t exist yet – you’d be killing more people pointlessly if you keep this up! You have a family – a life – outside of this godsforsaken lab. Why are you so intent on this?” The man’s agitated voice echoes through the room, as a tremor shakes beneath my feet. We don’t have long before those power cells become too dangerous to keep on.
More paper’s rustling over the speakers. “I have a team and a facility arranged in the Deverelli Isles,” the woman replies tersely, ignoring everything else the man said. “I’ll figure out how to adjust the injection rate there, and once I do, Navarre will realize their mistakes.” There’s a pause. “You could come, Nolon. Your expertise would be invaluable.”
I see Violet freeze out of the corner of my eye. She definitely knows that name.
The man – Nolon – lets out a deep, tired sigh. “I went along with this project because I thought you would use it to help people, but this has turned into something I don’t recognize. You have turned into someone I don’t recognize. I have failed you, Riona, as a teacher and a friend, if you think that is the course of action you must take.”
There’s a click that I inherently recognize as a gun cocking. My mind is racing as I begin putting the pieces together.
“What are you doing?” The woman named Riona asks. Her voice before was full of confidence before, but now there’s a hint of fear. My eyes are wide, my feet rooted to the floor. I have to force myself to keep breathing. I already know what’s going to happen here.
Nolon sounds almost heartbroken. “Following orders.”
There’s a loud bang, a pained shout. I stay silent when the recording ends, even as her dying scream continues to echo against the metal that surrounds us. I feel like I’m free falling as my universal truths rearrange to incorporate this new knowledge. I’m rooted to where I stand, even as Violet darts forward and begins shutting down the computers and power cells.
The recording didn’t answer all the questions I’d hoped it would, but it did provide an answer to one I’d been asking since I was ten years old.
I finally know what happened to Riona Riorson – my mother.
Notes:
ope. now there's a cliffhanger!
as always, you can keep track of my progress on my fics on Tumblr (user the same as my AO3 name). as always, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
Chapter 16: Meltdown
Chapter Text
Violet
Xaden looks like he’s seen a ghost.
I’m fumbling with the control console, the echoes of whatever it was we just heard ringing in my ears, when I glance behind me. His eyes are wide, completely shell-shocked. It’s not an expression I would have even been able to imagine on his face before.
My hands pause, lifting off the console slightly. He stares blankly ahead, gold-flecked eyes boring into the screens that are flickering with the power surges no doubt caused by firing up the expired power cells that power them.
“Riorson?” My voice can barely be heard over the crashing and rumbling that can be heard deep below us, shaking the ground beneath my feet. I look back at the screen, which is blaring yellow and red alerts at me. Fuck. I glance behind me again, raise my voice. “Xaden? Are you ok?”
He doesn’t respond. I mutter a curse under my breath and return my attention to making sure we don’t blow up. I’ll be damned if I’ve put myself at risk day in and day out and the way I end up going is because I couldn’t shut down a fucking computer.
Another alert pops up on my screen, and I feel the blood drain from my face.
Oh fuck.
I whirl around, abandoning the console entirely, march towards Xaden.
“Xaden,” I say again, sharper than before. He doesn’t respond – he doesn’t even blink. For fucks sake. I grab him roughly by the wrist, and drag him behind me and I take off into a sprint, back in the direction we came.
This place is almost identical to the hellhole that I was stuck in as I went through the BASGIATH protocol, but there is no time for the memories that threaten to drag me under with every step. I weave us through the hallways that continue to quake under our boots, and focus on the sound of them slapping the cold steel as we run, how the metallic tang in the air is just the decay of the walls and floor and not the coppery scent of blood.
We don’t have long now. If we’re still in this bunker in three minutes, we’re as good as dead.
“Violence?” Looks like Xaden has finally returned to the present. Suddenly, I’m not so much dragging him as I am just holding his wrist. I release it almost immediately and glance over a shoulder at his vaguely confused expression, but I don’t let my pace slow and luckily neither does he. I force my lungs to keep drawing in the stale air, tinged with the taste of metal and dust, even as my body screams at me to take a break after two days of roughing it in the wilderness.
I hear ominous creaking from far below below, and it feels like ice is coursing through my veins when sudden terror that I might die here strikes me.
“Don’t fall behind!” I have to yell to be heard as the rumbling grows louder. No. We will not die here. “The stuff in the power cells have breached their containment and everything is locking down! The hatches are going to start closing, and we do not want to be stuck in here when they do.”
“I told you not to turn them on,” I hear him shout after me as we get closer to the staircase. I can’t help but roll my eyes at his exasperated tone.
“Actually, you called me unbelievable and told me I should listen to Rhiannon more. You didn’t even know what I was doing before I did it,” I retort just as we emerge into the stairwell. I begin our ascent, but Xaden passes me before long, his stupidly tall legs allowing him to take the stairs two at a time.
We’re halfway up, and the sudden fear that had gripped me has almost subsided when the bunker jolts, the ominous creaking becoming the terrifying sound of metal snapping and breaking far below, as the material from the overheated power cells that I couldn’t turn off leaks from its containment and begins melting everything in its path. Far below, I can hear the sounds of the hatches slamming shut with whatever residual power is left, following the failsafe procedures to a T even after all of these years. The door Xaden kicked in to gain us entrance to the bunker will be no exception – I have no doubt that an external door like that one has some kind of backup hatch for precisely these kinds of scenarios. That’s the kind of forward planning that I’ve come to expect from the NIA.
If we aren’t out of here in the next 90 seconds, we’ll be trapped. The central computer that I couldn’t turn off will vent all the air from the bunker to prevent the volatile fuel – which is liked superheated and melting through the bunker’s steel far below - from the power cells from exploding.
And then we’ll die.
Of course, the thought has barely left my mind when the stairs begin to crumble, from the combination of years of neglect and the force of the shaking from below. They practically fall out from under my feet.
I lunge forward with a shout, trying to use my rapidly disappearing leverage to leap towards the still-sound stairs just ahead. Xaden stops and turns at the sound, eyes widening.
I reach, desperately, but my stomach drops along with my body when my fingertips just barely brush the lip of the next stair, not far enough to grab it.
It seems like the entire world is moving in slow motion. I feel the metal kiss my fingertips, then fall away. The sensation of free fall overtakes me. I close my eyes.
Then Xaden grabs me by my wrist, and the world speeds up again, the falling sensations disappearing as soon as it came. There’s a pop as my arm takes the bulk of my weight, and I bite my bottom lip so hard I can taste blood to keep myself from screaming when my shoulder dislocates – the same one Jack Barlowe dislocated weeks ago.
When I look up, Xaden’s face is almost unreadable. Gone is the clear shock from before, replaced with an expression that seems more Xaden-like. Despite the urgency of the situation, he pulls me up carefully, mindful of my injured arm.
“Thank-” I start as soon as my feet are on solid ground again, but before I can even finish the word, he’s hauling me up like I’m a godsdamned sack of potatoes, throwing my over his shoulder wordlessly and then scaling the stairs three at a time.
“Put me down, Riorson,” I growl, smacking his back with a closed fist and ignoring the pain that flares up my injured side with every step he takes. “I can walk.”
The rumbling below grows louder. I know it’s from the air being sucked out of the hatches that are already sealed.
“No.”
It’s short, to the point, and doesn’t invite argument. I feel his arm tighten around where he’s wrapped it around my thighs to keep me in place. Well fuck him, then.
“I really don’t like you,” I inform him instead. It’s childish, especially when he had already been moving fast than I was before I’d hurt my arm, but I don’t care. I don’t need anyone’s help – much less his. He doesn’t respond, but I swear I hear him laugh. It’s hard to tell when the rumble I feel in his chest could easily be coming from the meltdown occurring far below.
We must be getting close to the top – we have to be. The air is less still here, less cold. 30 seconds left, at best.
“Don’t stop when you get to the top,” I order.
I can practically hear the eyeroll in Xaden’s tone. “And why the fuck would I stop?”
I don’t grace him with a response.
A moment later, Xaden crests the final stair, and I watch them retreat from view. True to his word, Xaden doesn’t stop – in fact, he speeds up, practically sprinting towards the final door. The rumbling grows louder. Then, I hear the groan of metal not behind us or below us, but ahead of us.
Looks like I was right about a backup hatch.
Xaden’s mutters a curse under his breath, and I swear he manages to gain even more speed. His speed would probably give me a run for my money if I wasn’t constantly injured.
Once again, time seems to slow. I am acutely aware of each step, how the force of it ripples up Xaden’s body before transferring to mine. How each jolting step makes the throbbing pain in my shoulder momentarily transform into something stabbing. My nerves have flown into overdrive, and I can feel it all – the pain, the sensation of the fabric of Xaden’s mission suit rubbing against the skin of my stomach, exposed save for what’s covered by my protective vest since I used my own mission suit to bandage the cut on his arm. I slam my eyes shut, and I offer up a rare prayer to Zihnal.
I don’t want to die today.
And just like that, the world grows a bit brighter behind my closed eyelids. I hear the groan of metal, then a click, behind us. I open my eyes, and we are back in the underground passage – beyond the door, which is now shut tight.
“Holy shit,” I mutter, because that’s all I can think to say as I stare at the now sealed door. That was way too fucking close.
“That was too fucking close,” Xaden says, almost as if he’s read my mind. And his words are also what returns me to reality – the one where I’m still slung over his shoulder like a sack of flour.
I punch his back again. “Put me down Riorson,” I mutter.
For a moment, he’s silent, and I think he’s going to say no again. I’m contemplating which dagger I should try to unsheathe to motivate him when the arm that was keeping me secure shifts. Suddenly, my orientation changes, and I have to fight to stay balanced as the blood rushes away from my head as Xaden returns me to my feet.
“You ok?” I’m barely able to process Xaden’s voice as I try to blink away the dark spots that threaten to completely obscure my vision as my body tries to reregulate itself.
“Fine,” I manage.
“You knew what would happen when the power cells overloaded,” Xaden hedges a moment later.
I glance back at the now-sealed door. “It was an educated guess.”
He follows my gaze, and there’s something cold in his expression that I haven’t seen before. It sends a shiver up my spine.
“You were right about this place.” I look back at him, but he keeps looking at the door. Except I don’t think it’s the door he’s really looking at – the faraway look in his eyes tells me he’s seeing something else entirely.
“What do you mean?”
He’s silent again before answering. “Something about this outpost was off.”
That’s not all there is. His face is stoic, almost unreadable, but I can’t forget the expression on his face down below, as we listened to what was likely a woman named Riona’s final moments.
Suddenly, the nausea that had threatened to overtake me as we listened to that recording makes its reappearance – Nolon, of all people, killed her. A doctor, through and through. Out of anyone, he is the one in the NIA I’d think would be the least capable of taking a life.
I give myself a mental shake – now isn’t the time to mull on this, not when we still need to make it home.
“We should get a move on, Riorson,” I say tersely after a few more moments of uncomfortable silence passes. “We can use the darkness to stay hidden.”
“Right.”
I blink a few times. Something is definitely up with him. He’s not reacting the way he did before – by now, I would have expected to hear him tell me to call him ‘Xaden’ – but since we heard that recording down below, all of his reactions have been muted.
I open my mouth to ask him if something is wrong, but then I snap it shut. What am I thinking? It’s none of my business what’s going through his head right now. We’re partners in crime – literally – and that’s it. We aren’t friends. It’s none of my business if something is wrong.
Still, these reactions are bothering me. I begin to move towards the ladder, but Xaden remains glued in place.
“You coming, pretty boy?” I call over my shoulder, one hand on the ladder. I’m goading him on, even though I shouldn’t. Stupid Xaden, with his stupid good looks. That’s all this is, I’m sure.
Xaden blinks, then finally looks back to me.
He cocks an eyebrow, a small smirk replacing the vacant expression that had been there before. “You plan to climb with one arm, Violence?”
There he is.
I scoff to hide the surprising jolt of relief I feel. “Of course.”
To prove it, I begin to climb. It’s not easy, but it’s not like I have a choice. I can’t control that my body is the way it is. I just have to figure out how to live with it.
Xaden follows close behind. I’m careful as I approach the top. The metal grate that was there before was blown the smithereens by whatever the hell that drone had shot through it earlier. That’ something else I’m still trying to wrap my head around, in addition to what we heard in the recording and the absolutely insane revelation about SGAEYL, Xaden’s AI-implant-thingy.
I should have heard if the autonomous drones that patrol Navarre’s borders were being outfitted with weaponry – that’s something that almost definitely should have been in a briefing. The fact that I didn’t could mean one of two things – either the information was intentionally withheld, or it the NIA doesn’t know about the modifications.
Another chill passes through me as a thought dawns: Is someone within the NIA helping Project VENIN?
I don’t need to ask the question, because it’s barely a concept in my head before I’m absolutely certain that that is the case. That is the only explanation for why my squad was targeted, for why those assassins showed up at my apartment, for why Rhiannon and Sawyer were sent out here.
The real question is who is the one working with them?
I shove that query down deep before I can give it too much thought. Those are dangerous thoughts, and now isn’t the time.
Carefully, I poke my head through the hole left behind by the grate. The sun has completely set, and the stars above are as beautiful as they were last night. I stay as still as possible, straining my ears, but I hear nothing. No drones flying about right now.
I don’t know if I should be worried or relieved about that, given that we’re right next to the depot.
I haul myself up onto the ground. Xaden climbs out right behind me, gaining his feet quicker than I do. When he wordlessly offers me a hand, I take it, letting him pull me to my feet. I ignore the small part of me that asks why I’m letting him help me when I’m more than capable of getting myself up.
He releases my hand a second later than I thought he would, and the callouses on his scratch at my palm as it slides away. It’s stupid that I’m this aware of him on a physical level. Stupidly attractive man.
“Ready to go?” Xaden asks. One look at his face, and it’s easy to see that he’s retreated back behind a wall that I have no hope of breaching tonight, spurred on by whatever it was we heard down below.
I nod.
We turn towards the forest, disappearing into the shadows.
The journey back is silent.
My dad must be laughing at me from beyond the grave.
He must be, because why else would he have made this cypher so damn complicated?
It’s been a week since Xaden and I returned from Athebyne, and I’ve barely seen him. Every time I do, he’s got that distant expression I saw after we escaped the bunker.
I don’t ask. It’s none of my business. But I would be lying to myself if I said I wasn’t at all concerned.
There’s something he isn’t telling me about that recording we heard down there – but again, I don’t ask. Not when I haven’t told him what I know about Nolon.
I should tell him. I know I should. He might know something that could explain why the man I’d always seen as a humanizing individual in an organization filled with inhumanity killed the woman named Riona. And I even think that I might be able to trust him with that information. But something is holding me back.
Maybe it’s the part of me that still thinks that trusting Xaden Riorson with anything is a bad idea. Or maybe it’s the small part of me that still can’t believe that Fen Riorson isn’t responsible for Brennan’s death, that wants to believe that Project VENIN isn’t real, that still wants to think that everything I thought I knew before is still true.
Or maybe it’s because it seems like Xaden’s been avoiding me since we got back, and I can’t bring myself to breach this space we’ve put between ourselves.
As Brennan used to say, it’s probably for the best.
In order to distract myself from all of the revelations that came from our little trip, I’ve thrown myself into decoding the first documents my dad left behind using the cyphers. It probably would go a lot faster if I gave them to Xaden for SGAEYL to decode, but there’s something cathartic about doing the work by hand, knowing that by doing so, I’m taking an active role in continuing the work my father dedicated the final months of his life to.
I even felt a bit proud, until I realized how badly Dad has fucked me over.
I glance at the clock beside my bed – it’s 2:00 a.m. I hesitate for barely a second before I throw my legs over the edge, shoving my feet into my slippers and pulling a sweatshirt on over my sports bra.
I walk out of my apartment, crossing the hall to the door across from mine and banging on it with a closed fist. First, there’s silence. Then, a moment later, I hear cussing and shuffling, and a moment after that Liam Mairi tugs open the door, eyes blinking blearily.
“Are you ok?” he asks sharply, looking behind me towards my own apartment. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, except for the fact that I still think it’s stupid that you’re actually living here,” I declare unapologetically. I know its late. I don’t care. If he’s going to insist on carrying out guard dog duties, then he can make himself useful. “I need to show you something.”
The day after we returned from Athebyne, Xaden decreed that until we figured out who was targeting my squad and I, Liam would be living across the hall from me. That particular revelation nearly ended with Xaden and I trading blows as we got in each other’s faces, and the argument was only diffused after Rhiannon separated us and took the dagger I’d lunged at him with.
Even now, I seethe at the utter disrespect of it. I don’t need a fucking babysitter.
I might be worried about Xaden after what we learned in Athebyne, but that doesn’t mean I no longer think he’s an asshole. In fact, I might think he’s an even bigger jerk now than I did before.
“He’s just worried,” Liam had said to me the day after The Argument, when he came to my apartment to say hi after moving in across the hall. “Don’t take it as a knock on you.”
Worried, my ass.
Liam follows me back to my apartment. The documents and the papers I’ve been handwriting the deciphered translations on are scattered across my bed and on the floor. I hadn’t been going in order – which was my first mistake. I learned a few days ago that some of the pages are dependent on the pages before it when it came to decoding them, and I had to start over.
Liam’s eyes wander the room, which is just as much of a mess. Clothes are strewn about, and there’s next to nothing actually hanging on the clothes rack I keep in the corner.
“You’re surprisingly messy,” he remarks.
I ignore the comment, instead moving back to my bed and picking up the first document I finished decoding, and hand it to him.
“Can you read this?” I ask.
Liam’s nose immediately wrinkles as his eyes skim over it. “That’s not the modern language.”
I sigh in disappointment, taking back the paper.
“Exactly. My dad wrote these fucking documents in Old Tyrrish,” I groan. I slump onto the bed. “I can speak it well enough, but reading it does not come naturally to me. I was hoping you might be able to.”
Liam shakes his head, before a boyish smile that sets me on edge graces his face. “Have you asked Xaden for help?”
I scoff. “No.”
I probably should though. But we’ve both been avoiding each other recently, obviously, and I’m not about to ask him for help. I still have a shred of pride.
“You two are so stubborn,” Liam says with a laugh.
I raise an eyebrow, my fingers clenching the sheets beneath me. “What do you mean?”
“Exactly that.” The blonde shrugs but doesn’t elaborate. “Now, can I go back to bed now? Tomorrow is going to suck, and I’d like to at least be well rested.”
“What do you mean, tomorrow is going to suck?” I ask with a frown.
Liam pauses, hand on the doorknob, and looks back at me.
“Some of our other squad mates get here tomorrow,” he says carefully, and then gives me a meaningful look. “I doubt they’re going to like being around the daughter of Lilith Sorrengail.”
Oh.
With how friendly Liam is, it’s easy to forget that my mother likely contributed to his mother’s death. It’s not surprising to learn that there are some who don’t have the capacity to look past who my mother is – and I can’t even blame them either. If there was any doubt about whether my mother knew about Project VENIN before my trip to Athebyne, there certainly isn’t now, not after Nolon referred to her in that recording.
“I won’t cause trouble if they don’t,” I say primly.
He grins knowingly. “Sure you won’t.”
I might have spoken too soon when I told Liam I wouldn’t cause any trouble.
The clandestine squads were called to gather down in the armory early, and I make a beeline for Rhiannon and Ridoc when I see them.
“What’s happening?” I ask when I’m in earshot. We’ve never been called together like this before, at least while I’ve been here.
Rhiannon shrugs, but there’s unmistakable tension in her shoulders. Ridoc merely looks uneasy.
Sawyer arrives a minute later, also none the wiser. Looking at him and Rhiannon now, it’s impossible to tell that they were kidnapped and nearly killed just a week ago. Their injuries are still healing, but they move as if they weren’t injured at all.
“Can we talk after this, Vi?” Sawyer asks, taking up the spot at my side as we wait for something to happen, voice low enough that I’m the only one who can hear.
“Everything ok?” I reply.
He nods, but there’s a flicker of concern on his face. “I think so.”
Before I can ask him what that’s supposed to mean, there’s a commotion near the front of the group. I look up, and freeze.
My mother is here.
Rhiannon notices her at the same time I do and shoots me an alarmed look.
“What is she doing here?” she hisses. I don’t take my eyes off of her. I barely see her for years, and now I’m seeing her everywhere.
“I’d love to know the answer to that myself,” I mutter.
“Operatives!” My mother’s voice booms out across the room, and the murmuring falls silent. “I am General Lilith Sorrengail, with the Navarrian Air Force’s military intelligence division.”
Movement catches my eye. I look back towards the door just in time to see Xaden, Liam, Garrick and a pink-haired woman I’ve never seen before stroll in. All of them freeze when they lay eyes on my mother.
“As you all already know, the squads of clandestine operatives here at the NIA are traditionally headed by someone from military intelligence,” my mother continues. “However, after evaluating the performance of some of those heading up units, changes are being made.”
“As long as Aetos 2 doesn’t come back to our squad, I don’t care what she does,” I hear Ridoc mutter. Sawyer snorts on my other side, and I try to hide my own grin. I fail.
“Some of the existing squad leaders have been reassigned, while others have been dismissed,” my mother says, those cold eyes of her surveying the small crowd. “Their positions will be filled by those from the Air Force Fourth Wing’s special operations team. I expect all of you to cooperate as we navigate these changes. If your squad’s leadership is changing, then you will be notified individually.”
She says a few more words before dismissing us, and I can’t help but roll my eyes. What was the point of this? It could have been an email.
“I’m assuming that since you all know I’m in charge now, you don’t need a formal notification?”
I turn to face Xaden and Liam, who have made their way over to us. He doesn’t look at me though – in fact, he looks like he’s actively trying not to. Liam’s eyes dart between us, and I roll my own.
“Obviously not,” Rhi says. She juts her chin in the direction of the door, where Garrick and the pink haired girl are. “Who’s pinkie? I haven’t seen her before.”
Liam tenses, but Xaden appears unruffled. “Someone all of you should avoid unless you want your arm to get broken.” Finally, he looks at me. “Especially you, Sorrengail.”
I bristle. “And what the fuck is that supposed to mean, Riorson?”
“It means that unless you want her to break that arm you’ve already dislocated, you’ll stay the fuck away from her,” he bites out, with more ferocity than I was expecting. I blink – the only indication of my surprise that I allow on my face.
“She can try,” I say with a sharp laugh.
“I’m serious.” He takes a step towards me and crosses his arms as he does. I mirror him, looking up defiantly. “Stay away from her, Violence.”
I narrow my eyes. “I told you not to call me that,” I hiss, leaning in a bit. “Besides, I thought we were pretending the other person doesn’t exist at the moment. Don’t pretend to be worried, Riorson, you’re not very good at it.”
My words come out harsher than I intended, but I can’t bring myself to care all that much. Xaden doesn’t care about my feelings, nor do I care about his.
Xaden blinks. “You seriously want to do this now?”
“When else am I going to do it?” I ask innocently.
“You’re arguing just to argue,” he declares, and I can hear his annoyance. I don’t give a shit.
“So what if I am?” I challenge. “We’ve already established that you can’t order me around, pretty boy, so stop trying.”
Xaden opens his mouth to argue back, but Liam intercedes.
“If you two are going to do this now, can you take it elsewhere?” he asks with a grin. “You’re making a scene.”
And that’s when, once more, I return to reality. I can’t help the blush that fights its way up my neck to my cheeks, because he’s absolutely right. Everyone still in the armory is staring at us. Kill me now.
“Fuck me,” I mutter. I throw another glance in Xaden’s direction, but I can’t get a handle for what’s going on in that head of his. I huff, then turn on my heel, marching towards the doors. I hear the sounds of someone following me – no doubt Rhiannon. Or maybe Liam.
When I get to the doors that lead out into the maze of hallways beyond the armory, I’m surprised to see that it was Sawyer who followed me this time. Then I remember that he’d wanted to talk and slow my pace.
“You ok?” My friend asks after he’s matched his steps with mine.
“Absolutely dandy,” I reply.
I don’t have to look at him to know he’s rolling his eyes. “You’re a horrible liar.”
“It helps that I’m not trying to be a good one.”
Sawyer doesn’t comment on my sarcasm. Instead, he takes a few steps ahead of me, opening the door to an empty office and silently gesturing for me to step inside. I raise an eyebrow, but comply without question.
I’m sitting on top of the desk when Sawyer closes the door. He looks nervous, I realize. Tense. It’s not something I usually associate with him.
“Everything ok?” I ask.
Sawyer takes a deep breath. His next words shock me.
“You’ve been looking into the Sorrengail Incident.”
I freeze, my blood running cold. How does he know? My mind immediately begins racing with every possibility, each worse than the last.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say lightly. I start picking at the lint on my pants.
Sawyer leans against the door, crossing his arms. I know he doesn’t mean to, but all it does is make me feel more trapped, more panicked.
How the fuck does he know?
“Again, you’re a horrible liar, Vi,” he says with a sigh.
I stay silent, but Sawyer just looks at me expectantly, waiting for me to fess up to something I fully intend to take to the grave if I can.
“You pulled Xaden Riorson’s file before you left for Cordyn to find Devera. He trained under her too,” he finally states after a few moments have passed and it’s obvious that my lips are sealed. “And now Devera’s dead and he’s here, leading our squad. You two disappeared for like, a day after you rescued us at Athebyne, and you came back looking like you’d seen ghosts. What the hell have you gotten yourself into, Violet?”
Sudden, sharp fear pierces my chest. This is what I was afraid of when Xaden told me he was going to lead our squad. Sawyer can’t get too close to this. My treason is mine alone. He’s already guilty by association – I can’t make it worse.
“I can’t tell you that,” I say, my tongue feeling like sandpaper. Then, because I can’t help it, “Who else knows? How do you know?”
This time, its Sawyer who hesitates, but he quickly makes up his mind.
“Jesinia told me.”
First, shock grips me. Then, betrayal. I had trusted Jesinia not to tell - and she told Sawyer? How do they even know-
“Well, she didn’t actually tell me, I kinda forced it out of her” Sawyer continues, the words spilling out of him in a rush as if he’d been desperate to tell me what he knew. “I found out that she had a bunch of files related to the Sorrengail Incident. I knew you were friends, and I didn’t think it was likely that she’d pull them unless it was for you. At first when I asked her about it, she wouldn’t tell me anything, but after you were attacked, I went back and told her I needed to know if you’d been putting yourself in danger. She told me you’d been looking into Riorson specifically. She only told me because she was worried about you.”
I blink rapidly as I absorb that information. The anger I feel towards Jesinia abates for the most part, but I still feel the ghost of the hurt. I understand why she told Sawyer. He’s trustworthy, and he’d never, ever intentionally put me in danger. If Jesinia was worried about my safety, he was one of the best people she could go to.
Still, I wish she’d told me.
Then, another thought occurs to me. “How did you find out she had those files?”
I think I already know the answer when his face goes red from embarrassment.
“We’ve been spending time together recently,” he says, as nonchalantly as he can manage, but I see right through him. I can’t help the sly smirk that stretches across my face.
Then a thought occurs to me. “I thought you didn’t know how to sign?”
Sawyer scratches the back of his neck bashfully.
“I’ve been getting Ridoc to teach me,” he admits.
I blanche. “You’re been letting Ridoc teach you to sign?” I’m sure that’s going to end well. He’ll probably tell Sawyer that I smell like horse shit is actually I think you’re pretty or something along those lines. “Are you sure-“
“I promised to get him a copy of the original Godzilla movie that came out like, 70 years ago,” Sawyer says, cutting me off before I can ask if he’s lost his mind. “He knows what he’s risking if he tries to teach me something stupid.”
I chuckle, because vintage film memorabilia are one of the few things that will get Ridoc to behave – especially Godzilla.
“You and Jesinia, huh?” I muse. Sawyer nods, looking somewhat wary as he inspects me. Maybe he thinks that I’ll get upset. Jesinia and I have been friends a long time. I’m not upset though – I’m actually… glad. Sawyer is probably one of the only people I can see Jesinia being truly happy with.
I’ll need to have a talk with Jesinia later about ratting me out to Sawyer, but I already know why this happened. Because my friends were terrified after I was attacked; because they don’t know why and know that I’m not saying anything.
I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same if I was in Jesinia’s shoes, which is the only reason I look to Sawyer and say, “Make sure you take good care of her. I’ll stab you if you don’t.”
Sawyer laughs, some of the embarrassment leaching away. “Noted.” He grows somber again. “Don’t be mad at Jesinia. I guilted her into telling me and forced it out of her.” He sighs. “You really aren’t going to tell me what this is about? Or Ridoc, or Rhi?”
“I’m not mad at Jesinia – at least I won’t be in a day or two,” I say. I’d be lying if I said I was completely fine with it. I’m not. But I’ll figure it out with her once the surprise wears off. Then, I shake my head. “And I can’t tell you. Not right now.”
I don’t elaborate, but I can’t deny that I’m hiding something anymore. Not when my entire squad has picked up on it by now. If I was in his position, I’d be clawing at the metaphoric door, begging to know what I could do to keep him or any of my squad mates safe.
I hop down off the desk, a silent indication that I’m ready to end this conversation. Sawyer opens to door without a word, allowing me through then following.
I’d stormed out of the armory with no plan about where I would go outside of “As far away from Xaden Riorson as possible.” I turn to walk back towards where I came, but I hear Sawyer curse under his breath.
I freeze. Lilith Sorrengail tends to have that effect on me.
She’s blocking the double doors that lead out to the armory, legs planted firmly, and arms crossed as she stares me down.
“Violet,” she says.
My eyes narrow, and I cross my arms to match. I try to draw myself a little taller. “General Sorrengail.”
When I saw her after the test Colonel Aetos administered to test my lie about Devera, I’d been so shocked by her sudden appearance after four years of silence that I hadn’t know how to feel about seeing her again.
Now? All I can think about are the lies. How she likely knows about everything – about Brennan, Fen, Dad – and she let me believe it.
She let me think Dad might still be alive. She let me believe Fen murdered Brennan.
Nolon said a general was coming to shut down Riona’s project in the recording. I have a horrible suspicion that the person he was talking about was Lilith Sorrengail – the general in charge of espionage and military intelligence, who would be better positioned than any to know about a top-secret weapons project.
Anger and grief are powerful emotions – ones that I’m rapidly in danger of losing control of now that I’m faced with the woman who might have played a role in the deaths of two people I love.
I take a deep breath and try to remind myself that no good would come from trying to kill my own mother.
The ensuing silence is so taut with tension that I could probably cut it with one of my daggers. I can practically taste Sawyer’s nervous energy as his eyes dart between the two of us.
Mom’s eyes slide to my squad mate. “You’re dismissed, Henrick. I will have a word with your squad mate-” She looks back to me, and I suppress a shiver. “-Alone.”
It’s not lost on me that she said, “squad mate” and not “my daughter.”
Sawyer shoots me a distressed look, and I know that leaving is the last thing he wants to do. But I also know that defying General Sorrengail never ends well, so I give him a small nod that I hope is reassuring.
“Go ahead,” I say quietly. “We’ll meet up later.”
Sawyer looks at me, then sighs.
“I’ll be right outside,” he says quietly, as if he would actually be able to do a damn thing if Mom decided to kill me. There was a small part of me, before, that used to think that even if she didn’t love me the way she did Brennan or Mira, that she at least wouldn’t hurt me.
Now, I’m not so sure she didn’t have anything to do with the death of the son she supposedly loved above her other two children. Where does that leave me?
The answer to that question is how my hands drop down to where my daggers are sheathed at my thighs.
“What do you want?” My voice is flat. Mom is unflinching.
“You know,” she says matter-of-factly. VENIN. I fight to keep my expression neutral, to not give even a shred of acknowledgement to her words.
“You’ll have to be more specific,” I reply cooly, my temperature of my tone matching that of the frigid metal brushing my fingers. “What am I supposed to know, Mom?”
My mother is the queen of masking every emotion she possesses, but even if I haven’t seen her in four years, I still know her tells. Her face shifts ever so slightly at the maternal title.
“Athebyne won’t be the first,” she says. “And it certainly won’t be the last.”
“Good,” I bite. No doubt she’s referring to the people who tried to kill Rhiannon and Sawyer. “I’ll kill them too.”
I swear I hear her take in a breath. “I can’t help you anymore. You’re on your own.”
I can’t help myself – I laugh.
“When have you ever helped me?” I ask incredulously. Fuck this. Fuck her. She practically abandoned me after Brennan died. After Dad disappeared, she pretended I didn’t exist. “I’m only alive because I fought and killed and did what I had to do to survive. Me. I haven’t seen you in four years, Mom. You haven’t done shit.”
I shove past her, moving towards the doors. I don’t know what the point of the fucking conversation was. She hasn’t said anything worthwhile, nothing that will tell me something I don’t already know.
I’m pushing the door open when she speaks again. “You’re going to be sent out again soon,” she says. I turn to face my mother one more time. Her arms are still crossed, and while her face – as always – gives away nothing, there’s a nervous energy there that I’m not sure was there before.
I cock an eyebrow. “What’s your point?”
“Take those taser knives that Mazzie girl was working on,” Mom says. “They’ll be useful.”
I don’t have time to ask her how she knows about Mazzie or about the mission before she turns on her heel and walks away.
Notes:
soooooooo im very sorry it took so long to get this chapter out! I have been dealing with A LOT in my personal life lately, as those of you who follow me on tumblr may know, and it made writing really hard. the writers block is still a struggle to be honest. this chapter was supposed to be a lot longer, but I shortened it because I just wanted to get something published and I have no idea when this round of writers block will pass. its not my best chapter, nor is it my longest, but I hope everyone enjoys having our spy dorks back! I promise it won't take me this long to update again lol
massive shout out to everyone who sent me messages to check in and make sure I was doing ok during this rough period. I cannot put into words how much it meant to have people reach out like it. ive said it so many times, but this fandom brings me so much joy and thats why I love writing these stories for you guys!
ANYWAYS LOVE YOU GUYS MWAH <3
Chapter 17: Challenge
Chapter Text
Four Years Ago
I might have slightly fucked up.
Scratch that – I’ve majorly fucked up.
It has been two months and three days since I entered the BASGIATH protocol – two months and three days of the instructors going out of their way to break us – mind, body, and spirit.
Two months and three days of glancing over my shoulder, waiting for another dagger hurtling toward my back.
Two months and three days of waking up and thinking, I will not die today and being shown, over and over, how laughably naïve I am for even clinging to the hope that I’ll make it out of here alive.
I hear the whispers follow me, reverberating against the cold metal of the hallways of this underground bunker. I’m almost comically out of my league. My bones break like twigs. My joints tear like paper.
I am weak. I am a target.
Or so they think, anyways.
If there is one thing my mother taught me, in between her indifference and outright disdain, it was to be prepared for anything – and that means being prepared for everything.
While I couldn’t possibly begin to fathom the senseless cruelty that pervades the BASGIATH protocol before I arrived here, I was at least sensible enough to know that on a physical level, I would have a hard time competing with my fellow trainees.
My weapon here is my mind. The years my father spent preparing me to fill his shoes as an analyst, the knowledge he instilled in me – it’s a weapon that is unique to me.
We are allowed outside once a week, for just over two hours. If it were up to the instructors, we’d train day in and day out, but fortunately for me, they’re required to let us outside for a bit of sunlight whether they like it or not.
My fellow trainees use the time outside to soak in the sunlight.
I use it to make poison.
I’m quick and careful – I learned early where the instructors put the weeks challenge match-ups. So once a week, I use my time outside to find plants and concoct substances that will help me live to see another day.
Week one, my challenge opponent was violently hurling up their breakfast just before we took to the mat.
Week two, the woman I was supposed to fight was so dizzy she couldn’t take a step before falling over.
Week three, rinse and repeat.
I’ve managed to survive the first two months and three days this way.
I’m not so sure I’ll live to see two months and four days.
The first sign that things might not have gone my way was when the new instructor, Devera, asked me to stay behind after challenges concluded. My opponent hadn't even shown up, having suddenly lost the ability to walk in a straight line before challenges even started. At first, I brushed it off. She’s former military intelligence – maybe she knew Brennan and wanted to introduce herself? But when the room cleared out and it was just the two of us, the look she gave me told me that wasn’t the case.
“Good luck,” Rhi whispers to me as she walks toward the exist, leaving me with a reassuring squeeze to my upper arm. Luckily, no one in my squad knows the lengths I’ve gone to survive. They won’t be implicated if I’ve been discovered.
When the room is good and empty, Devera finally approaches me, stopped a few feet away as she examines me.
“Violet Sorrengail, yes?” she asks.
I nod.
She raises an eyebrow in my direction, clasping her hands behind her back.
“You’ve been poisoning your challenge opponents,” she says matter-of-factly, as if she hasn’t just accused me of gaming BASGIATH’s system – something worthy of death here.
“No ma’am,” I reply, doing my best to keep my voice even.
She rolls her eyes, then takes another step towards me. I fight my knee-jerk instinct to take a matching step backwards. “You’re not a very good liar, Sorrengail. I saw you sprinkle something in Pettaway’s orange juice this morning.”
Fuck.
No point in denying it now. “Are you going to kill me?”
Devera blinks once, then twice. Then she bursts out into peals of laughter.
“Not at all,” she replies after a moment, a smirk growing on her face. “That was quite an audacious plan, so credit where credit is due.”
“I broke the rules,” I say. “So why?”
Perhaps it sounds like I’m asking for my own death, but I’m genuinely curious why this woman doesn’t plan to send me to meet Malek when every other instructor in this place would have done so in a heartbeat.
Instead of answering me, however, Devera ducks low, using her leg to sweep mine from under me. I land with a wheeze, the air knocked out of my lungs from the force.
Just as I’m about to push up on my elbows to regain my stance, Devera pins me down, a dagger she pulls from Dunne-only-knows-where pointed precipitously at my throat.
“How do you get out of this, Sorrengail?” she asks quietly. “An opponent bigger and stronger than you has you pinned. What do you do?”
My brain runs through every move Rhiannon has tried to cram into my brain over the last two months and three days, but I come up with nothing. I have no idea what to do.
Whenever someone bigger and stronger has gotten on top of me, one of my friends has been there to pull them off of me.
This time, no one is here to save me.
I will my heart rate to slow. Devera doesn’t want to kill me – she would have driven that dagger into my throat my now if she’d wanted to. I shouldn’t panic. Why would she put me in this position?
“I don’t know,” I answer truthfully.
Devera nods, then moves the sheathe the dagger. “Exactly. You’ve been here for two months – yet your fighting skills are woefully undeveloped.” She stands then moves a few feet away once again. “Stand up. We’re going again.”
“Again?” I ask incredulously, but I do as I’m told, scrambling back to my feet.
“Again,” she nods. “This time, hook your leg through mine, and use your leverage to knock me over.”
She throws herself at me. Then, when I finally manage to topple her, she does it again.
And again.
And again.
Present
Sawyer isn’t the only one waiting for me when I emerge from the corridor.
While I can’t say I’m surprised to find my blonde guard dog posted up at my squadmate’s side, I am a bit taken aback when I realize Xaden is with them as well, looking broody as he’s seemed more apt to be recently.
“Everything ok?” Sawyer asks carefully, pushing away from the wall he was leaning against and closing the short distance. Xaden and Liam stay where they are, but they watch my every move.
“Fine,” I say with a wave of my hand. “Just family stuff.”
Liam raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t sound like just family stuff,” he says from his spot against the wall. Xaden remains silent, but his expression grows stormier by the second. As I’ve been prone to doing in recent days, I ignore him.
“Don’t worry about it,” I say instead, focusing on Liam. I raise an eyebrow. “Are you here to ambush me?”
“I told them to go away,” Sawyer mutters next to me, low enough that only I can hear. “You can see where that got me.”
“Yep,” Liam says with a grin. “Training time. You promised to show me your trick for throwing two knives at once.”
“No,” I reply instantly. My heart-to-heart with Mom drained me, and I have no desire to step on the mat right now, even though I could probably wipe the floor with Sawyer and Liam if I really wanted to. The jury is still out on whether I’d be able to take down Xaden with similar ease – not that I’d ever admit it to him.
Liam’s expression doesn’t so much as flicker at my denial. Instead, he uses one hand to push a lock of hair off his forehead, before joining Sawyer next to me.
“Why not?” he asks, that grin of his turning somewhat mischievous. “Scared I’ll be better at it than you?”
Xaden scoffs – the first acknowledgement that he’s been listening to our conversation since I walked through those doors - before I can beat him to it, and I shoot a glare in his direction before turning back to Liam. “Not a chance in hell, Mairi.”
Liam raises a brow. “Put your money where your mouth is then, Sorrengail.”
I can see what he’s doing, but he’s appealed to my competitive nature. That why, despite my previous refusal, I find myself nodding.
“Fine then,” I reply, and a slow grin stretches across my face. I begin walking towards one of the throwing targets set up on the wall on the other side of the cavernous room. “Just don’t come crying to me when you lose.”
I shouldn’t be surprised that Liam picks up on my dagger-throwing trick after observing me nail the bullseye a few times.
I’m standing off to the side, watching him as he readies his stance. He pulls back, then throws, following through as he does. A smidge of satisfaction worms its way into my chest when he doesn’t quite hit the center of the target with either dagger.
“Still can’t beat me,” I tease, stepping back onto the mat. Liam merely rolls his eyes, then looks past me to where Xaden is lurking a few yards away. He still hasn’t spoken a word since I emerged after the conversation with my mother. I still don’t fully understand why he’s here.
“Are you going to throw, or are you going to keep hanging around silently like a fucking weirdo?” Liam asks him pointedly.
Xaden glares at the blonde, and I choke down the laugh that wants to escape my chest with a hasty cough.
At first, I think he’s going to ignore Liam and keep on with whatever the hell it is he’s doing, but he surprises me by pushing back against the wall he’s leaning against and walking towards us.
He extends a hand towards me, silently beckoning with his fingers. I raise an eyebrow, then tug two daggers from the sheathes along my ribs and handing them to him without a word. His palm brushes against mine as he takes them from me, but instead of looking at them, he’s looking at me. I can’t bring myself to look away.
I look away a half-second later than I probably should have. “Let’s see if you can beat me,” I say, gesturing to the target where the daggers I threw remain embedded in the center. I tilt my head and smirk as I look back to Xaden. “Don’t be too upset if you can’t.”
Xaden’s expression earlier was closed-off and somewhat angry. Now, it morphs into something more familiar, a smirk that matches mine curving his lips.
“Don’t be too upset when I win, Violence,” he says, his first words to me since before my mother's little speech earlier. I scoff, but move out of the way and off the mat to give him room to throw. He moves to stand where I stood, and I take up a spot to Liam’s left.
Liam crosses his arms, then nudges me with his elbow. “What will you do if he wins?” he whispers.
“Kill him,” I respond instantly.
Liam snorts. “Good luck with that.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Liam Mairi, you wouldn’t happen to be doubting my abilities, would you?”
Before Liam can answer, we’re both distracted by the thunk of a dagger, then another, striking the target. Xaden turns to face me, that smirk still firmly plastered to his face.
“I win,” he says.
My eyes blow wide, and I whip my gaze towards the targets, taking two steps forward as I do. Like mine, the daggers Xaden threw sliced through the center of the target, but his are so close they’re touching.
I’m gaping, my mouth opening and closing like a damn fish’s when Liam leans down to whisper, “Do I need to worry about you murdering him?”
I ignore him and look back at Xaden, who’s watching me as if he’s assessing my reaction.
“Again,” I demand.
Xaden raises a brow. “What?”
I pull two more daggers from their sheathes, and march towards him. His eyes flash and he tenses as I approach.
“What?” I ask innocently. “Think I’ll hurt you?”
“I think you told Liam that you’d kill me if I beat you,” Xaden replies casually. He relaxes almost immediately when I come to a stop in front of him, a little closer than is polite.
“You heard that?” I ask, somewhat incredulously. There’s no way. We were whispering.
He leans in, so close that I’m certain to be the only one who hears him. “One of the perks of having SGAEYL.”
My eyes widen. I’d managed to forget that he somehow has an AI wired into his brain – or however the hell it works. I haven’t asked, but I’d like to. Hopefully I’ll get the chance to, someday. Maybe when he’s being less of an ass.
I take half a step backwards, putting some space between us, then hold out the daggers. “Do it again.”
“Pretty sure it’ll just be the same result.” His expression is indulgent, and suddenly I am seriously considering stabbing him.
“Just. Do. It.” The words are spoken from behind gritted teeth. I grab his wrist and force the hilts of the daggers into his grip.
For a moment, Xaden doesn’t move to establish his own grip the weapons I’m handing him, but as soon as he does, a voice I don’t recognize rings across the room, causing his head to whip in it’s direction.
“Riorson!” It’s a female voice, angry. I turn too, and I’m greeted with the sight of the pink-haired woman I’d seen earlier striding towards us. “I need you.”
Xaden straightens up as she approaches. I hadn’t even noticed how much he had managed to invade my personal space until he pulled away.
“Not now.” Xaden’s tone is – not cold, not exactly – but it carries a note of warning.
“Since when were you under the impression that you could tell me what to do?” the woman fires back. Her eyes slide to me, and her nose crinkles. “It’s not like you’re doing anything important.”
Well, that felt pointed.
“Since always,” Xaden replies, crossing his arms.
The woman ignores him, her attention remaining on me. She gives off a distinctly threatening aura that puts me on high-alert. One look at the defined muscles of her bare arms tell me everything I need to know – she isn’t someone I can take lightly.
“Aren’t you going to introduce us?” The question is directed at the man next to me, even as her eyes don’t leave me. I’m not one to back down, so I stare right back.
“I’d rather not,” Xaden says flatly.
“Fine then.” She takes a step towards me, and I’m suddenly acutely aware of how I’ve handed over four of the eight daggers I was wearing to Xaden. Still, I don’t step back, don’t give an inch. My family name might be shit to these people, but I’m still a Sorrengail. Sorrengails don’t back down.
“Your mother had my mom and my sister killed, Sorrengail,” she says softly, her face inches from mine. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Xaden tense up. “Did you know that?”
“My mother had a lot of people killed,” I point out. I know instinctively that I’m in dangerous territory with this woman, but I’m in a bit of a mood today, and maybe a fight is what I need to set my head right. “I’m not entirely sure what your point is. I don’t even know who you are.”
“Violence-”
I cut Xaden off with a glare, and for once, he shuts his mouth, even if begrudgingly. I can fight my own fights.
“If you have a problem with me,” I say, returning my attention to the woman across from me, raising an eyebrow dismissively. “Then take it up with me on the mat. That’s how we do things around here.”
The pink-haired woman practically snarls, pure malice emanating from every line of her body. Clearly, I’ve managed to press some kind of button to get her this riled up. “I’ll tear you apart, Sorrengail.”
My eyes narrow, and I let my hand fall ever-so-casually next to the daggers sheathed at my thighs.
“I’d like to see you try.”
The woman considers me for a moment, and for a split second, I think she’s going to leave it at that. But clearly whatever hatred she feels for my family – and by extension, me – runs deep, because a moment later she’s unsheathed a dagger from gods only know where and flinging herself at me with a cry.
I dart to the side, her blade sailing through the air where my chest would have been only a millisecond before. Liam lets out a shocked yell from behind me, but I ignore it. Once the challenge has been made, there’s no room for distractions.
Distractions will get me killed.
I rip my own daggers from the sheathes at my thighs, and we begin circling each other, our footfalls carefully placed and silent. The same thought runs through my head on repeat: I cannot underestimate her.
I can just barely see Xaden out of the corner of my eye, standing so close to the edge of the mat that I bet the tips of his boots are touching it.
“Any day now,” I taunt, trying to goad the woman into leaving herself open. “I have things to do after this.”
She takes the bait, lunging forward with her blade outstretched once again. I parry, then duck under her outstretched arm before attempting to sweep her feet out from under her.
Her footing is too secure, however, and my strength is nothing compared to hers, so instead of knocking her over I manage to lose my own footing like a damn amateur. The pink-haired woman wastes no time taking advantage of my mistake, pouncing with a yell. A shocked wheeze leaves my lungs when she throws her entire body weight into the dagger aimed at my stomach – it slides off harmlessly, thanks to my vest, but it knocks the air out of me.
“What the fuck?” The woman curses, looking down at my torso with bewilderment. Still, she doesn’t appear to take too long being surprised, because I’m still struggling to catch my breath when she tosses the knife and opts to throw her impressive strength into her fists.
The first punch catches me in the cheekbone, the sharp sting telling me she’s broken skin.
The second breaks my nose.
Then she stands and stomps on my arm with an audible crack.
“Fuck!” I spit, the sudden searing pain, all in quick succession, making black dots swim in my eyes.
“That’s enough, Imogen!” I think it’s Xaden that I hear yelling, but it barely registers. Now, the blood is roaring in my ears, and I’m pissed. This is my turf. I can’t lose. I won’t lose.
Pushing through the pain is almost more than I’m capable of, but I manage to hook my leg through hers, twisting until our positions are reversed. I’m not stupid though – I have nothing on her strength, especially not down an arm, so instead of trying to keep her pinned I quickly regain my feet and put a few feet of distance between us.
“Is that all you’ve got?” I try to sound unfazed, but even I can hear the pain in my own voice. She got me good. Even Jack Barlowe hadn’t hurt me this bad before I killed him the second time.
“Like you’re one to talk,” the woman apparently named Imogen scoffs. There’s something about the way she talks, about the way she clearly doesn’t think much of me, that transports me back to the time when everyone in BASGIATH saw me as easy prey, when I was looked down on by every single one of them until I’d killed enough to prove my worth in a school for killers. “You aren’t even able-”
Before she can finish the sentence, the dagger I’d quietly unsheathed with my remaining arm embeds itself in her shoulder, my hand whipping it out with such speed that I doubt she even realized what I was doing till the blood began to flow down her front.
“Don’t-” I huff, taking a beat to breathe through the pain. “-fucking underestimate me.”
I surge forward, unsheathing another dagger as I go. Imogen is stronger than me, but I’m much faster. A feral kind of rage has taken hold of me, and suddenly I’m determined to inflict as much pain on her as she’s caused me. I’m back upon her in a flash, but before I can stab downwards and exact violent payback, something – no, someone – grabs my wrist and stops me in my tracks.
“That’s enough.”
Xaden’s voice is right next to my ear, and the proximity makes me shiver despite his hand wrapped around my wrist. I tug at his grip, but it’s unyielding.
“Let go of me,” I snarl, but my ferocity is masked by the definite note of pain that I’m no longer capable of hiding. The sudden surge of rage immediately begins to ebb. “You can’t interrupt a challenge, Riorson.”
“I just did,” he growls. He releases my wrist, but before I can think about picking up where I left off, he’s managed to twist the dagger out of my grip.
I whirl around, Imogen temporarily forgotten. “Give me my-”
“Stand down, Imogen.” Xaden completely ignores me, his gold-flecked gaze locked only on Pink Hair. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her bristle, but she doesn’t say a word in retort. Xaden glances at Liam, who I just now realize is standing next to him. “Liam, I need you to-”
This time, Xaden is the one who is interrupted. “On it,” Liam replies. A moment later, he’s leaving the area with Imogen, no doubt taking her to someone who can tug that knife out without letting her bleed out.
A cold feeling settles in my stomach – I was about to kill her. The only reason I didn’t was because Xaden stopped me.
I probably should have given more thought to where I was aiming, now that I’m thinking about it. In fact, I shouldn’t have let her get under my skin like that in the first place. All it had taken was a condescending look, and I’d been transported back to a time where everyone assumed I was weak. It triggered something in me that I hadn’t been able to control – which is unacceptable.
I almost killed her – and I didn’t need to. I wanted to. A wave of self-loathing washes over me in an instant.
“What the fuck were you thinking?”
I look up, and Xaden is looking at me with an expression that’s angrier than any I’ve seen him wear before. I want to squirm under the intensity of it.
“She challenged me,” I say, as if that’s explanation enough.
“So fucking what?” Xaden counters. I’m sure he isn’t happy that I came within stabbing distance of killing one of his people.
He needs to understand that anyone around here would have done the same.
I narrow my eyes. “So, pretty boy, I can’t turn down a challenge.” I jab a finger from my good hand into his stupidly hard chest, and ignore how a spike of pain still emanates from my injured arm at the movement. “That’s not how things work around here.”
Xaden presses his lips into a hard line. “The way things work around here will get you killed.”
I can’t help it – I laugh. It’s an unhinged, borderline insane sound. If I was looking on, I’d think I’d lost it – and Xaden looks at me like I’ve grown a second head.
“Everything around here is designed to try to kill us, Xaden,” I tell him airily after my giggles have subsided. “It’s been that way since I entered the protocol. We’ve all come to terms with it. Haven’t you figured that out by now?”
He blinks. “What is that supposed to mean? What protocol?”
His words are an instant reminder that even with his integration into the NIA, he wouldn’t know about the protocol. I manage to stop myself before I say something I regret. Like how the death games in the NIA are nothing compared to the daily hellscape I survived to get here. Like how BASGIATH molded me into the kind of person that seriously considered harming that pink-haired woman so viciously that I might have killed her had Xaden not intervened. That this is practically a vacation compared to what I endured to get here. That I’m so ashamed of my own lack of humanity that I don’t even consider myself human anymore.
I’m growing more comfortable with him, sure – I’m fairly certain Xaden isn’t going to kill me now, at least not yet – but there are some things I’m not sure I’ll ever feel comfortable sharing with someone who didn’t themselves experience BASGIATH. I’m not sure he would ever be able to understand the shame I feel about the person I’ve become.
“Don’t worry about it,” I tell him instead. “It’s classified.”
I begin to walk off gingerly, taking extra care not to jostle my arm, but clearly Xaden didn’t get the memo that I wanted to conversation to end, because he follows me as I move ever so slowly towards the elevator that will take me to the medical wing.
“I’m your superior, Violence,” he points out. “You can’t keep things from me.”
“Keep telling yourself that, pretty boy.” He has no idea the things I’m keeping from him. He has no idea how the NIA creates operatives like me. He has no idea about what I’ve been hiding about the recording we heard at Athebyne. He has no idea about a lot of things.
“SGAEYL says you can’t keep things from me, either.”
I snort. “SGAEYL is a computer program. She doesn’t get an opinion.”
“SGAEYL takes offense to that.”
I just shake my head at the absurdity of the conversation, but my mood has lightened somewhat, so I take that small gift as I press the button to call the elevator. “How do I even know SGAEYL is actually saying all that? You could just be lying to me.”
Xaden’s expression turns serious, and I find myself unable to break eye contact, my gaze locked on him.
“I don’t lie, Violence,” he says with a small shake of his head.
“That’s a lie,” I immediately respond, but it feels like the wind has been knocked out of me. My heart feels like it’s hammering in my chest. “We barely trust each other, if you even want to call it trust.”
The elevator doors slide open, and I step onto the lift. Somehow, I’m not surprised when he follows. Then the doors close behind us, and we’re alone. The air in the enclosed space feels charged somehow, and I find myself having to keep from holding my breath.
“I trust you, Violence,” Xaden says quietly, his voice the only thing I can hear as the elevator travels upwards. His words manage to steal my breath as I look up at him. “You may not trust me, but I trust you.”
“Lies,” I respond again, but maybe I’m a little less sure this time. “You trust me not to kill you or betray you, I’ll believe that – I think I’ve proven that – but you don’t trust me.”
Xaden pauses and considers me, he expression all but unreadable, that mask I’ve come to associate with him firmly back in place. I expect him to respond, but the silence stretches on.
And on.
And on.
Xaden and I don’t talk again till after the doctor in the medical wing finishes his first evaluation of my arm.
I’m situated on a gurney, doing my best to ignore the growing pain radiating from my injuries by shoving it into my mental box with varying degrees of success. Xaden, for whatever reason, has refused to simply leave me alone. He sits in a chair not designed for someone as large as him to the side of my bed, arms crossed, looking out into space with a dour expression as the doctor wraps up his inspection.
“There’s a fracture, but it’s not the worst you’ve had,” the doctor tells me, confirming what I was already certain of. “You should be back to normal in a week or so, once we’ve given you the required injections. I’ll be back to reset your nose later today.”
I can see Xaden’s brow furrowing out of the corner of my eye, but he says nothing as the doctor walks out of the room. I groan as I settle back into the pillows. Hopefully he’ll be back with some kind of painkiller – I think I’m keeping my discomfort under wraps, but the pain is disorienting.
I’m not sure if minutes or hours have passed when Xaden finally speaks up.
“You’re being sent back out again.”
I open my eyes and lift my head, unsure if I heard him correctly. “What?”
Xaden leans forward, his elbows propped on his knees, that stormy expression of his only growing darker.
“They’re sending you to the Deverelli Isles in two days.”
I raise an eyebrow questioningly. “Ok. And?”
He blinks. “You’re injured. Badly.”
I roll my eyes, then push myself up as best as I can with only one arm. Xaden, to his credit, doesn’t move to help me, which I’m grateful for. I don’t think I can deal with another blow to my pride today. At least I gave as good as I got.
“I am,” I acknowledge, meeting his eyes again. As I always am when I look at him like this, I’m captivated by the way the gold flecks in his eyes flicker and fade and reappear. “What’s your point?”
“You’re awfully calm for someone who just got told they’re being sent on another death mission, right after being injured – again.” He breaks eye contact, gaze flicking to my injured arm, then back to my face, no doubt zeroing in on the gash on my cheek. He cocks his head to the side curiously, as if he was considering something intriguing. “Every time you get hurt, it’s the same reaction.”
I sigh. “It’s just another day here, Riorson. If you’re going to be leading my squad, you need to understand that this is normal. Injuries like this?” I gesture to myself. “They happen all the time, and so is being sent out on another mission right after getting them. We’re trained for this.”
“That’s insane.”
“That’s reality,” I snap. I’m tired. So tired. “Get used to it.”
“Are you? Used to it?”
The question – so simple, so easy – cuts deep, and I suck in a sharp breath before I can help myself.
Does one ever get used to the constant death and carnage and inhumanity? Truly used to it? Xaden’s piercing gaze feels like it’s looking right through me, and I can’t stand it. I look away.
“Of course I am.” I try to project strength, but my voice cracks, betraying me. “I have to be.”
Xaden’s eyes roam my face, and I wonder if he’s searching for a lie. He won’t find one, though. If I wasn’t used to this, if I didn’t adjust, I would have shattered irrevocably, instead of merely becoming a shell of the person I used to be.
I bent, but I didn’t break.
I didn’t break.
At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.
I don’t get any insight into what Xaden thinks about that answer, because he rises from his seat after a few more moments of silence. I don’t say a word as he stalks out of the room, and neither does he.
I settle back into the cot, trying to get comfortable. A few minutes later, the doctor returns, hooking an IV into my arm and pumping me full of painkillers.
The quiet is deathly as I finally drift to sleep.
Liam and Rhiannon are at my side when I wake up.
I feel groggy, my eyelids struggling to open when I finally emerge from the medication-induced rest that was forced upon me. The first thing I notice is that the pain in my arm is muted, no doubt thanks to the injections the doctors gave me as I slept to hasten the healing process – one of the perks of working for a technologically advanced top-secret spy agency, I guess: we have access to all sorts of things the average person couldn’t even dream of. Including medications that significantly speed up the healing process for injuries.
“How are you feeling?” Rhi asks worriedly as I haul myself up with a groan.
“Alive,” I respond with a groan.
She lets out a sharp laugh. “Good. Keep it that way.”
“Glad to see you awake, Sorrengail,” Liam says with a grin.
“You’re just glad you aren’t losing your bodyguard job,” I shoot back.
“Won’t deny that.” The barbed remark slides right off him, as it always does, but I won’t deny that it gives me a warm feeling in my chest to see both of them so clearly relieved that I’ve woken up.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed, and I manage to regain my feet without too much pain in my arm. Rhi hands me a fresh mission suit, and I don’t need to look to know that it’s not one of my own from home.
“Anyone have a knife?” I ask the room, as if it’s an actual question. Liam unsheathes one from his ribs, and hands it to me. I make short work of the sleeves still attached to the new mission suit, and then inspect my handiwork. Good enough.
I manage to dress without Rhi helping me, and it’s only when I’m resheathing my daggers into their spots at my ribs and thighs that someone addresses the elephant in the room.
“You’re being sent out again, Vi,” Rhiannon tells me as I slide the final dagger in place. The worry in her voice is unavoidable. “Tonight, if what I’ve heard is right.”
I was asleep for a little over a day, according to Liam, who tells me he spent most of that day posted up at my bedside after Xaden made his silent exit. Long enough that Rhiannon of all people shouldn’t be worrying about me – she knows I’ve dealt with far less ideal situations, with far less rest.
“I’ll be fine,” I tell her.
“Stop saying that,” she hisses.
How else am I supposed to handle this? By falling apart?
“We’ve trained for this, Rhi,” I whisper, resting a hand on her arm. “I’ll be ok. I promise.”
I’ve said that a lot recently – that I trained for this, that I’ll be ok. Every time I do, it somehow rings a little more hollow.
Rhiannon and Liam follow me out of the medical wing, filling me in on the mission that I’ve been assigned. I grimace as they do, because I immediately see why they’re worried – the NIA wants me to infiltrate a top-secret Deverelli military installation to steal data on their weapons capabilities. It’s not a mission that plays to my strengths – I don’t think I’ve ever been assigned an infiltration assignment like this before.
“Here.” Rhiannon hands me a thumb drive as we arrive in front of my apartment building. “I was told to give this to you. Everything you’ll need to know for your mission.”
I take it, then raise an eyebrow. “Told by who?”
Rhi and Liam glance at each other apprehensively.
“General Sorrengail gave it to me,” Rhiannon admits after a moment.
I resist the urge to roll my eyes. Of course my mother would rather hand this off to one of my squad mates, instead of waiting to give it to me herself.
I pocket the thumb drive, then shoot them both what I hope is a reassuring smile.
“Thank you,” I reach out, and squeeze Rhi’s hand. “I’ll be back soon. Promise.”
I’m not surprised when Rhi tugs my forward and wraps me in a tight hug. I don’t pull away, even when the pressure hurts my arm. Instead, we stand there on the sidewalk, clinging to each other like it might be the last time we see each other.
For all we know, it could be.
I spend the afternoon reviewing the data on the thumb drive, and by the time I’ve read each file, I’m certain that this mission was designed to kill me.
Honestly, it probably was.
In order to guarantee success, I’ll need to find a way to actually get hired as a contractor at this installation. The defenses are too robust for me to gain access any other way. This mission will take weeks, if not months, all while giving whoever is targeting me more time to figure out a better way to kill me if this mission doesn’t. I’ve done infiltration missions before, but never to this scale. I’ve been hired as a secretary in order to get close to troublesome businessmen or pretended to deliver mail to get within lethal range of generals. I’ve done track-and-kill missions even more, which have required the element of surprise, but never to assume an identity that wasn’t my own.
I’ve never had to be hired to an enemy nation’s top-secret weapons projects, which would likely require extensive background checks, without even being given a day to prepare.
In short, I might be completely fucked.
As night begins to fall, I pack what little I think I’ll need into my black backpack. Both of my protective vests. A smattering of mission suits. The few non-work clothes that I own. Every dagger I could scrounge up, even the taser-knives that I had yet to return to Mazzie.
It’s not enough for how long I’ll likely be gone, but I tell myself that there isn’t anything I can do about that as I lock my door behind me. I briefly debate knocking on Liam’s door to bid him farewell, but I hear nothing beyind his door across the hall, and no light peeks out from the gap between the wood and the floor.
Dread is not an emotion I’m familiar with when it comes to my missions, not usually. Not when I usually execute to perfection. But every step I take down the stairs makes that same emotion rachet up a notch in my chest. I can’t shake this feeling that this mission might finally be what does me in.
My squad will mourn me. But will anyone else? Will my mother? Will Mira even know if I die?
What would Xaden think? Or Liam? Or that pink-haired woman – Imogen? Would she forgive me for what my mother did if I died?
Would my soul be commended to Malek, allowed to join my father and brother, or will I be condemned and forced to live out the rest of eternity without any of the people I love?
Bile threatens to rush up my throat when I realize that the latter is far more likely.
My faithful motorcycle companion awaits me, still where I parked it when I returned earlier today. Maybe it’s not advisable to drive a motorcycle with my arm still healing, but I’ve always done unadvisable things.
The wind whipping across my face as I drive Tairn in the direction of Calldyr’s airport elicits a spark of euphoria in my chest – a feeling a freedom that I so rarely have – that temporarily lifts my mood. The setting sun is beautiful, the brilliant oranges and purples making my heart soar as I veer onto the freeway.
The feelings that I always seem to have riding Tairn are only dampened by the fact that this might be the last time I experience them.
Still, for one brief moment, I am not Violet Sorrengail, murderer, or Violet Sorrengail, NIA operative.
I am just Violet, someone who loves the feeling of wind on her face and the beauty of the world stretching before her.
I soak in the emotions, resolving to preserve them for the undoubtedly difficult days and weeks ahead, when I pull off the highway, the distant roar of jet engines getting louder and louder as I get closer to the airport. When I park in the long-term lot, a grim determination has taken root inside of me.
I have no illusions that it will be easy to survive this mission – the opposite is true, in fact – but too much is at stake to just roll over and show my belly. I have too much left to do. I’ll fight to the bloody end, as I always have.
I’m almost to the doors that will take me to the check-in counters when a dark, familiar voice reaches my ears.
“Going somewhere, Violence?”
I whirl around, and lo and behold, Xaden is leaning against one of the concrete pillars that support the arrivals area above us. He’s not wearing the mission suit he wore when I saw him last, having swapped them for a black tshirt and jeans. There’s a stuffed backpack on one of his shoulders that matches my own, and I immediately know why he’s here.
“For fuck’s sake,” I say, crossing my arms. “Go back."
He smirks. “You don’t even know why I’m here yet.”
“I don’t need to,” I shoot back. “You’re not coming.”
He straightens up, running a hand through the hair that’s fallen across his forehead as he does. The movement grabs my attention, and it’s a battle to remain focused on his words.
“Sorry to tell you this, Violence, but that’s not your call,” he says, striding towards the sliding doors. I’m left in his wake, and I find myself having to jog to catch up to him.
“You’re going to get us killed,” I declare with a hiss, voice low so those around us can’t hear.
“Oh yeah?” he doesn’t stop, just keeps moving towards the security area. “That’s an interesting thought. I know you’ve seen my file, Sorrengail. What are my specialties?”
I wrack my brain. It feels like it’s been ages since the night I cracked open that massive file Jesinia handed me on Xaden, reading every bit of it in the soft light of my bedroom. Bits and pieces float back to me, enough that I immediately feel like an idiot.
“You were trained to do undercover missions,” I glower. Then I glare in his direction. “It also said you’re a skilled liar.”
He chuckles. “I told you, Violence. I don’t lie.”
“And I don’t believe you.”
“Believe whatever you want.” We arrive at the security area. The line isn’t long, but we stop at the entrance when Xaden turns back to look at me. “Are you going to make this difficult, Violet? Because I’m going with you whether you like it or not.”
I pause, his use of my first name short-circuiting my brain. I love the way it sounds on his lips. Violet. He’s a massive distraction to me, and I doubt he even knows it. It’s infuriating. Stupidly attractive, distracting man.
But he has a point. Two heads are better than one. I could use his help. Maybe I even want it.
I take a deep breath, then push past him. “I’m sure I’ll find a way, pretty boy.” I shoot him a look over my shoulder, then shoot him a grin that I just can’t help. “Make sure you keep up, otherwise I’ll leave you behind.”
I manage to catch his smile – a real one, I think – before I turn around and continue my march towards the front of the security line.
Notes:
oh hey! we're back! again! this time with the much-anticipated Imogen fight scene. next chapter will be fun too :) follow me on Tumblr for previews of the next chapter as I write, as always. thanks for bearing with me on this one - I wish I could update more than I do, but life makes that difficult. hope everyone liked this chapter!
Chapter 18: Chivalry Isn't Dead
Notes:
a bit of levity (kind of) before we get back to the action!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Xaden
Watching Imogen and Violence circle each other on the mat might be one of my nightmares come to life.
I’d warned Imogen before we came here – and multiple times after – that the youngest Sorrengail was off-limits. Made it abundantly clear. Made it more than abundantly clear.
Of course, that meant that Imogen would conveniently forget all about those warnings the second she laid eyes on Violet. Of course, that meant that she would pick a fight with the NIA’s most feared assassin without a second thought.
I should have seen it coming.
Still, Violet made it clear to me that I wasn’t allowed to interfere. She didn’t have to say it aloud, but the glare she shot at me when I tried to intercede was warning enough. It was the same one she shot my way each and every other time I moved to interfere in a fight that she had laid claim to.
Now, I watch as the two strongest women I know circle each other, ready to tear the other limb from limb.
“She’ll be fine,” Liam mutters from where he stands to my side. He’s as tense as I am, arms crossed as he watches.
“Of course she will be,” I reply in low tones. “Imogen won’t go down easy.”
Liam tears his gaze away from the match, his blue eyes locking on me knowingly.
“I wasn’t talking about Imogen.”
In typical Liam fashion, he’s picked up on the real reason for my anxiety. I know Violet can handle herself – I’ve seen her handle six people at once. That doesn’t stop the churning anxiety in my stomach that has me fighting every urge to stomp onto the mat, grab Violet around the waist, and haul her far away from the pink-haired woman who I know would do just about anything to gut her.
I’m choosing not to examine the particulars of why I want to do that, and why it’s taking all of my willpower not to.
“Any day now!” Violet’s taunts echo across the mat, and the anxiety in my stomach grows. She has no idea who she’s messing with, and her comments about her mother’s kill count definitely didn’t endear herself to the woman across from her on the mat. Imogen is one of the few people that I think could genuinely give Violet a run for her money in this place. “I have things to do after this.”
Imogen falls for the taunt, lunging forward with a savage cry. I focus on keeping myself rooted to where I stand.
Violet was obviously expecting the attack, because she deflects Imogen’s outstretched blade with a practiced ease that few could achieve. Then she ducks and tries to sweep Im’s feet out from under her – a tactic that I immediately know won’t work. Imogen is too strong, and Violet doesn’t have enough strength to topple her. It’s the first true strategic error I’ve seen her make in a fight since I met her.
Imogen seizes on Violet’s mistake, leaping on top of her when the smaller woman loses her footing, dagger outstretched.
I realize a moment too late that she’s going for the kill blow.
It feels like the entire world slows as I watch Imogen’s knife plunge towards Violet’s midriff. I’m vaguely aware of Liam grabbing me by the arm to stop me from charging onto the mat – to do what, I’m not sure, but all thoughts of respecting Violet’s wish for me to leave this to her have vanished.
But then the knife slides off harmlessly, and I remember, like an idiot, that Violet wears armor that a mere knife couldn’t hope to pierce.
“Took you long enough,” SGAEYL sniffs, no doubt rolling her non-existent eyes at my momentary loss of control. I shrug off Liam’s grip on my arm, returning to watching the fight unfolding before me.
“I don’t want to hear it,” I tell her, then wince as I watch Imogen punch Violence square in the face once, then twice.
When Im stands, then brings her boot-clad foot down on Violet’s arm, I seriously almost throw any semblance of control out the window in favor of marching over and pummeling my long-time friend myself.
Violet’s scream of pain in response is something I never, ever want to hear again.
“That’s enough, Imogen!” I yell, my hands tightening into fists at my sides as a sharp fear I’ve never felt before – even more intense than the emotion I felt the night she was attacked in her apartment – slices through my chest as I watch the two of them.
I should be more worried about Imogen. I’ve known her since we were both in diapers, practically growing up as siblings.
And yet, all of the fear coursing through my veins is for the woman with silver-tipped hair.
Violet flips Imogen off her in a move that looks so practiced I have no doubt its second-nature, before regaining her feet, the blood streaming down her face and the anger in her expression giving her the look of an angel seeking vengeance.
She’s absolutely breath-taking.
I’m so fucked.
“Is that all you’ve got?” Violet spits.
“Like you’re one to talk,” Imogen replies as she pulls herself back to her feet. “You aren’t even able-”
Imogen cuts the words off with a cry of pain of her own as a dagger embeds itself into her shoulder. My gaze flies back to Violet, her arm outstretched in front of her, and my blood runs cold.
The anger I saw there before has morphed into something I barely recognize in a matter of moments, as if a switch had been flipped. It’s fear and rage and bloodlust and other emotions I couldn’t even begin to name. But underneath all of that, her eyes contain a haunted quality that I’ve come to associate with the moments where she’s become lost in thought, looking out at nothing as if she’s seeing ghosts.
“Don’t-” she hisses, that rage lacing every word. “-fucking underestimate me.”
She says the words with such vehemence that it’s clear that she isn’t solely talking to Imogen, someone she’s only just met. This is deeper than that, just like Imogen’s hatred towards Violet has deeper roots.
I finally toss aside my reticence at defying Violet’s orders to stay out of it just as she flings herself at Im, a dagger outstretched – and I realize that the woman before me is not the one I’ve come to know.
This Violet is colder. Angrier. And scared – there’s a kind of fear there that I’m not accustomed to seeing from her.
This Violet is like a cornered animal. One that’s ready to lash out.
This is really, really bad.
“She’s going to kill her,” SGAEYL points out, boredom lacing her tone.
“Well-fucking-aware,” I grit out just as I surge forward, crossing the mat just fast enough to snag Violet’s wrist before she can plunge her knife into Imogen’s defenseless chest.
“That’s enough.” I tighten my grip on her wrist before she can even try to tug herself free.
“Let go of me,” Violet orders with a ferocity that sounds much more like her, and I release a breath I didn’t even know I was holding at the familiar tone. She tugs at my grip, but fails to free herself. “You can’t interrupt a challenge, Riorson.”
“I just did,” I point out, but I release her wrist as soon as I’ve clocked the small whimper of pain that escapes her lungs. Still, I disarm her as I do. I know better than anyone here how deadly she is with a dagger.
She whirls on me, and her expression, her anger – all of it is her. Gone is that cold, angry version of herself that had sent shivers down my spine. The fire I’ve come to expect from her is back in full force, and she’s glaring at me with the heat of a thousand suns. I welcome that over whatever dark place in her mind that she’s just come back from.
Violet begins to demand I return her dagger, but my attention is pulled away from her by Imogen’s approaching form. Based on her expression, and the dagger still clutched in her hand, she’s not happy about my interruption.
“Stand down, Imogen.” I put the force of an order into my words and give her a look that tells her that I mean it. She freezes, the scowl on her face only deepening. Then my gaze flits down to the dagger that’s still protruding from her shoulder, blood leaking down her front.
She needs a doctor, I realize with a frown, or that wound will end up being a much bigger problem. I look at Liam, who’s made his way to retake his position at my side. “Liam, I need you to-”
“On it.” I don’t even need to finish the sentence before Liam is moving towards our friend, wrapping an arm around her to keep her steady before guiding her towards the doors – and away from any chance of resuming the fight with Violet.
Garrick’s going to have a fucking conniption when he finds out about this.
When I look back at Violet, she’s gone pale, staring off into space where Imogen was standing.
An anger I barely recognize as my own erupts in my chest as my eyes roam over her injuries – the gash on her cheek, the broken nose, her clearly-broken arm. Imogen could have killed her, and Violet fucking egged her on.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” I bite out before I can think any better of it.
Violet startles, then looks back at me. “She challenged me.”
Unsurprisingly, that answer does little to satisfy me.
“So fucking what?” I push back. Does that mean she’ll just fight anyone to the death if they merely ask? Does she have a fucking death wish?
Violet fixes me with a withering look that would make a lesser man shrivel. “So, pretty boy, I can’t turn down a challenge.” There was something about the way she said can’t that bothers me, but before I can think too deeply about it, one of her fingers pokes me in the chest, and her nose crinkles as she glances down before looking back up at my face. It’s cute, and I’m temporarily distracted by her expression despite the anger I currently feel.
“You’re hopeless,” SGAEYL mocks.
“And you’re not helping.”
“That’s not how things work around here,” Violet continues.
“The way things work around here will get you killed,” I inform her.
Violet blinks once, then begins to laugh, as if my concern for her wellbeing is funny. I hardly know what to make of it.
I decide I like the sound of her laugh. A lot. More than a lot.
It’s different too, from the way I like to see my friends happy and smiling. It gives me a full feeling in my chest that I can’t explain. I’m almost scared to think too deeply on it.
“You’re an idiot,” SGAEYL states incredulously. “Unbelievable. You’ve been prancing after the Sorrengail girl for weeks now. Have you seriously not figured it out yet?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Fucking AI – for something that’s supposed to be helpful, she sure likes to talk in riddles.
SGAEYL scoffs. “Continue living in denial then. When you’re ready to discuss your feelings like an adult, come back and talk to me.”
“I wouldn’t discuss my feelings with you regardless,” I point out.
There are no feelings involved here anyways. Just worry. Concern. I decide it’s because she’s Brennan’s brother – surely that’s the most likely explanation.
SGAEYL’s responding silence feels like a rebuke and a massive fuck you all at once. Typical.
“Everything around here is designed kill try to kill us, Xaden,” Violet says, pulling me out of my little tit-for-tat with SGAEYL. “It’s been that way since I entered the protocol. We’ve all come to terms with it. Haven’t you figured that out by now?”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I ask. “What protocol?”
There it is again. That phrase – the protocol. Ridoc used it when we were rescuing Sawyer and Rhiannon, but Violet shut him up before he could explain what it was. There’s something about the context of this conversation, however, that sets my teeth on edge – whatever it is, judging from Violet’s body language, it’s nothing good.
Violet tenses up – the exact same way she did when Ridoc brought it up before – as if she’d suddenly stumbled into a trap that she hadn’t been prepared for.
“Don’t worry about it,” she says lightly, but the message is clear – don’t push. “It’s classified.”
I decide that I’m in a pushy mood.
Violet turns gingerly, cradling her injured arm, and begins to make her way towards the elevator that will take her up to the medical wing.
I stride after her. “I’m your superior, Violence. You can’t keep things from me.”
“You can’t expect her to spill all of her secrets when you still haven’t told her about Riona,” SGAEYL snaps. I ignore her – I’ve been doing a lot of that recently – just like I’ve been avoiding the implications of what we learned about my mother- no, Riona Riorson – in that bunker. “Until you are open with her, she is only responsible for sharing what she must share for the sake of your agreement.”
“Keep telling yourself that, pretty boy,” Violet retorts, but the edge of pain in her voice is unmissable now. Not only that – since the fight ended, that haunted look in her eyes hasn’t disappeared. I
t makes my chest clench uncomfortably, and the feeling is the exact opposite of whatever I felt when she laughed.
What would it take to make her smile?
“SGAEYL says you can’t keep things from me either,” I say, opting for levity and using the first thing that pops into my mind, even if it’s only half of what SGAEYL actually said.
“You did not just drag me into this.”
Violet lets out a sharp laugh. “SGAEYL is a computer program. She doesn’t get an opinion.”
SGAEYL snarls. “How dare a lowly human-”
“SGAEYL takes offense to that,” I reply, cutting off the AI as I do, and I’m almost certain that I’m grinning.
Violet shakes her head, but I see the ghost of a smile on her lips, and I’m content with that.
“How do I even know SGAEYL is actually saying all that?” she questions, but it’s not a serious one. No, she’s playing along, and that only makes my grin even harder to suppress. “You could just be lying to me.”
Or not. That immediately takes the wind out of my sails. I meet Violet’s eyes and hold her gaze.
“I don’t lie, Violence,” I say. Not anymore, at least, and not to her. I leave the other part of that promise unspoken. I can’t bring myself to say that to her yet.
I don’t lie to Violet – not anymore, at least.
It feels too much like a confession. It leaves me too vulnerable. I can’t say the words.
“But you’re already not telling her the full truth about VENIN,” SGAEYL snaps. “You haven’t told her about Riona. By telling her this, you are lying.”
I can’t even deny it, and my stomach curdles at the realization. But it’s too late to take back, and it’s also for the best. Violet’s already risking everything – if she found out the truth about Project VENIN, it could put her in even more danger. I’m not willing to risk that unless it’s absolutely necessary.
Maybe I’m digging myself into a hole here – but I don’t see any other option.
“That’s a lie,” Violet says in response. “We barely trust each other, if you even want to call it trust.”
“I trust you, Violence,” I say, leaning against the wall of the elevator as it begins moving upwards. “You may not trust me, but I trust you.”
Violet’s eyes narrow on me, almost accusatory. “Lies. You trust me not to kill you or betray you, I’ll believe that – I think I’ve proven that – but you don’t trust me.”
The implication of her words hit me like a train – that I trust her in the scope of our agreement but not as a person.
She’s also completely wrong.
Maybe it was when she practically dragged me out of that bunker. Maybe it was when Liam told me she was still working to decipher the documents despite me childishly ignoring her after we returned. Or maybe it was when she told me about her dad – how he taught her Old Tyrrish and about the constellations and dragons – and how her grief was almost identical to my own.
I’m not sure when it happened, but I trust her.
I’m hiding things from her. I’m lying to her. But I know that I trust her with every part of myself.
I also know that I don’t know how to reconcile the three without putting her in harm’s way.
“She hasn’t woken up yet.”
Liam doesn’t even turn in the chair to look at me when I stride into Violet’s hospital room a few hours after I’d walked out, mind whirring at the small truths she’d given me – small explanations for her seemingly nonchalant attitude towards her own injuries and mortality.
“It’s just another day here,” she’d said at the time, even as her features had begun to contort in reaction to the pain she was enduring.
“That’s insane,” I’d replied.
“That’s reality,” she’d said sharply. The exhaustion in her voice had been incredibly obvious. “Get used to it.”
“Are you?” I’d asked, even though I almost dreaded the answer to the question. “Used to it?”
Violet had gone even more pale than she already was, and turned her head away from me before responding.
“Of course I am. I have to be.”
She was staring up at the ceiling as she said it, but I didn’t need her looking at me to hear the way her voice quivered, as if she was trying not to cry.
That short exchange managed to fundamentally change the way I viewed Violet, and I’ve spent the last few hours mulling over every interaction with her over the last few weeks, trying to contextualize it in the light of these new realizations.
What had SGAEYL called it, that night we saved Sawyer and Rhiannon? Normalization.
Suddenly, the cold, uncaring façade she projected to the world made so much more sense. The only way anyone with any shred of a soul could endure something so soul-crushing would be to convince themselves that what they did was normal.
Her expression as we burned the bodies of the assassins who tried to kill Rhiannon and Ridoc floats to the forefront of my mind; her reaction when I asked why she prayed for them along with it.
“Who would pray for a murderer, except for another murderer?” she’d responded when I asked that question as we trekked through the forest. Her answer seemed odd to me at the time, but now I think I understand.
It might have been the only way for her not to shatter in the face of such abject cruelty and inhumanity.
The questions have begun piling up in my mind, one after another, and I scarcely know where to begin. I thought I understood Violet Sorrengail – but now I feel like the person I thought I knew never existed in the first place.
“Was I wrong for judging her before?” I ask SGAEYL as I look down at Violet.
The AI is quiet for a moment before responding. “I think that you came to conclusions based on the information you were provided. The Sorrengail girl wasn’t exactly forthcoming about why she acts the way she does.” Her tone is a little less vicious than I’ve come to expect. “Like you, there are many things she hides.”
SGAEYL falls silent again, leaving me to mull over her answer.
“The doctor said she should be up soon,” Liam says to my right, pulling me from my thoughts.
“Good.”
“She’s going to be fine, you know.”
“I never said she wouldn’t be.”
Liam sighs, then moves to stand next to me.
“You good, brother?” he asks me. “You seem angry about something.”
Liam, ever the perceptive one.
“She doesn’t seem to care that she’s hurt.” I bite the words out, but don’t take my eyes off her. I watch the slow rise and fall of her chest as she sleeps. Her face is relaxed – peaceful.
Liam is silent for a moment. Then: “They’re all like that.”
I glance at him. “What do you mean?”
He shrugs. “These NIA people have a different outlook than we do.” He takes out a dagger and begins flipping it. We’ve all gotten rid of our sidearms since we arrived here, adapting to the way the clandestine squads use blades and other weapons instead of firearms. “They just don’t seem to value their own lives very much. Getting hurt is just part of the job to them.”
We fall back into comfortable silence. I’m not entirely sure why I came back here in the first place – Violet won’t be awake for another hour, at least. And I still have a lot to do before tonight.
“I’m going to be gone for a while,” I tell Liam, who looks back at me with a raised eyebrow.
“Helping Violet with her mission?”
I grimace. I decide that I do not like how he’s changed from calling her Sorrengail to using her first name. At all. I think I hear SGAEYL laughing at me in that weirdly digital way of hers.
“Something like that.”
Liam elbows me with a grin. “You’re worried about her.”
“I’m worried that her injuries will get her killed and make it more difficult for us to do what we came here to do.” The words come out a little too quickly, with a bit too much force to be believable.
“Right,” Liam drawls. “Whatever you say.”
“Keep an eye on things here.” I give him a meaningful look. We can’t let down our guards. Integrating into the NIA could be a double-edged sword, if we aren’t careful. Anyone could be watching us. “Don’t trust anyone. Not even her squad mates.”
The blonde doesn’t respond, just continues to flip the dagger.
“They really care about her, you know,” he says a minute or so later, gesturing at Violet. “They’re closer than family.”
“What’s your point?”
“The more allies the better.” He sheathes the dagger after catching it by the tip of the blade. “They’d burn this place to the ground if it was for Violet. Especially Rhiannon.”
“Don’t trust them,” I repeat. “Not yet at least.”
I want to trust these people – but experience tells me that anyone could be a traitor, and I’m not ready to take that risk yet. Especially when I’m not sure whether Violet wants them to know the full extent of what she’s gotten herself involved in – and that needs to be her call at the end of the day. These are her people – not mine.
“Let me know when she wakes up,” I tell him after a few more minutes of silence pass, and I pivot, and walk out the door.
The first time Liam told me Violet drove a motorcycle, I didn’t believe him.
I should have, because after watching Violet glide into a motorcycle spot in the lot across from the terminal, I can’t imagine her driving anything else.
I shift my backpack further up on my shoulder, trying to ward off the ache that’s beginning to form. Admittedly, it might have been a better plan to tell her in advance that I’d opted to join her mission, but there’s no point in denying that there’s a small part of me that’s looking forward to seeing her reaction to seeing me here.
“You need to tell Brennan,” SGAEYL says, and I scowl.
Since Violet got hurt yesterday, she has begun pestering me about telling Brennan the truth about why I’d embedded us into the NIA – why I was even willing to risk it in the first place. I still haven’t told him that his sweet little sister isn’t training to be an analyst, but has instead become one of the most feared assassins in the NIA’s arsenal.
“It’s not the right time.”
“It will never be the right time if you keep putting it off,” she growls. “If something happens to the Sorrengail girl and he finds out you were keeping this from him, you will have much larger problems than Project VENIN.”
“You’re being dramatic,” I inform her.
“I’m being realistic.”
I don’t respond, opting instead to watch Violet as she approaches.
It’s the first time since I saw her in the Cordyn airport that I’ve seen her in regular clothes – I’m not counting the time I saw her in her pajamas the night she was attacked in her apartment.
Violet has a backpack slung over her shoulder like I do, and I breathe a silent sigh of relief as she gets closer and her injuries don’t seem to be slowing her down. The gash on her cheek has healed up well, thanks to the cocktail of drugs the NIA doctors hooked her up to, as has her nose.
As she gets closer, I realize that she’s allowed her hair to fall down her back, loose, instead of tying it up in her preferred braid crown. I’m struck by the strongest urge to run my fingers through it, to feel how the strands feel against my skin.
I give myself a shake as she gets closer. I’ve officially lost it.
“That’s one way to put it,” SGAEYL remarks. I imagine flipping her off, and hope she gets the message. All I hear is that laughter of hers again.
Violet seems a bit lighter than I’ve seen her recently, her expression a little more at ease. Her hair is wild, no doubt from the wind as she rode in from the interstate. Her eyes no longer have that faraway look, instead sparkling with life.
She looks so – normal. I wish she looked like this more.
I’m so caught up in my thoughts that I almost don’t notice that she’s walked right past me.
“Going somewhere, Violence?” I call out to grab her attention before she walks through the doors. She jolts, then turns to face me. As soon as her eyes land on me, she scowls.
“For fuck’s sake,” she grumbles as she crosses her arms, glaring at me as she does. “Go back.”
The corner of my mouth lifts. There’s the Violet I know. Vicious to the last.
“You don’t even know why I’m here yet,” I point out.
The way she huffs in response is cute, especially since she seems to think I’m going to listen to her and leave.Violet, Violet – you should know better by now, I think to myself.
“I don’t need to,” she responds. “You’re not coming.”
I push away from the pillar I was leaning against, one of the many concrete spans that holds up the upper level for those waiting on their loved ones. Some hair falls in my eyes as I move, and I push it away as I begin to walk towards the doors myself, not pausing to see if Violet will follow.
“Sorry to tell you this, Violence, but that’s not your call,” I say over my shoulder. Predictably, I hear the tip-tapof her rapid footsteps as she jogs to catch up with me.
“You’re going to get us killed,” Violet says in low tones, her eyes darting around uneasily, as if an enemy is about to jump out from behind the standing perfume ad that we walk past.
“Oh yeah?” There’s no way this woman didn’t do her research on me, which is the only reason I ask the next question. “That’s an interesting though. I know you’ve seen my file, Sorrengail. What are my specialties?”
Violet falls silent, and I can practically see the gears turning in her head. Then she lets out a little groan, and she presses her lips into a tight line.
“You were trained to do undercover missions,” she admits, although it sounds like someone had to pull the words out of her. Then she sends a piercing look in my direction. “It also said you’re a skilled liar.”
Looks like I was right to assume that the NIA had some kind of file on me – and that Violet had managed to get her hands on it.
I laugh despite myself at the blatant accusation in her gaze. “I told you, Violence. I don’t lie.”
To you.
That last part is remaining unspoken.
At least until I figure out how to extricate from the complicated web of half-truths and omissions that I’ve managed to get myself wrapped in without putting her in even more danger than she’s already in.
Gods, what a mess.
“And I don’t believe you,” she shoots back. She’s so similar to SGAEYL – the resemblance is almost uncanny.
“I take offense to that,” SGAEYL says. I think she yawns – is it possible for an AI to yawn? “I am far superior to any human.”
I roll my eyes, but don’t bother responding. I was already pushing it by mentally flipping her the bird. I don’t want to try my luck. SGAEYL is one vengeful motherfucker, for a computer program at least.
“Believe whatever you want,” I tell Violet. It’s probably for the best that she doesn’t believe me – she needs to stay on her guard. I turn back to look at her just as we arrive at the start of the security line.
I cock my head to the side, inspecting the woman before me. It’s shocking how she manages to look both normal and breathtaking, simply by wearing regular clothes and letting her hair down. “Are you going to make this difficult, Violet? Because I’m going with you whether you like it or not.”
She stays silent for a moment, but doesn’t break eye contact. Then, it seems like she’s come to a decision, because she moves to shove past me.
“I’m sure I’ll find a way, pretty boy,” she calls over her shoulder. I catch a glimpse of her smile – a real one – that manages to take my breath away. I’ve seen her give small smiles before, ones that were barely noticeable, but this one is full-faced, making her eyes sparkle in a way I’ve never seen before. “Make sure you keep up, otherwise I’ll leave you behind.”
I realize that there are very few things I wouldn’t do to see that smile again. I don’t even know what I did to deserve this one, but it suddenly seems essential to my existence.
“Do you want to talk feelings yet?” SGAEYL mocks. “Or are you still above doing such a thing?”
Fucking AI.
Getting through security is painless, and it doesn’t take long for Violet and I to find our gate. A glance at the gate’s announcement board tells me we still have 30 minutes before we board.
“We need to come up with a cover story,” Violet says as she settles into the seat next to me, a cardigan I watched her pull from her backpack spread across her lap like a blanket.
I raise an eyebrow in her direction. “Already done.”
She frowns, and I know what the next question will be before she even asks.
“And when were you planning on telling me what that cover story is?” she asks pointedly, drawing the cardigan up around her chest.
“Are you cold?” I ask instead.
“Smooth,” SGAEYL remarks. I ignore her.
“None of your business,” Violet snaps. “Answer the question.”
I sigh, then shift so my body is facing her.
“We’ll talk about it when we don’t have 100 people around that could overhear us,” I say, keeping my voice low.
She pouts, another new expression that I’ve yet to see her wear, then settles further back into the plasticky seat.
“Fine,” she grumbles, pulling her knees up to her chest, keeping them underneath the cardigan.
I prop my arms on my knees, leaning into her space a bit. “Seriously, Violence, are you cold?” I ask again.
She looks at me through narrowed eyes, with everything below her eyes blocked from sight by that cardigan of hers. When she finally nods, I feel like she sees it as a defeat.
“A bit,” she admits, although she’s quick to add: “It’s not too bad though.”
I quickly take a mental inventory of what I packed in my own bag, but I didn’t bring anything that would work particularly well for this particular problem. I don’t really get cold, and we’re heading to the Deverelli Isles of all places – I didn’t exactly think I’d need a coat.
My eyes catch on one of the tacky tourist storefronts that travelers will often stop in for a book or bottle of water.
“I’ll be right back,” I tell Violet, but she’s already managed to whip out a book, and is paying me absolutely no attention. Probably for the best.
I meander over to the store, and the options are – not great. Violet might be more likely to stab me rather than thank me when I bring back my offering.
“Chivalry truly isn’t dead,” SGAEYL says as I check out with the bored looking store employee.
“Will you ever leave me alone?” I ask. “Or are you just going to make me the butt of your jokes until I die?”
“You’re excellent entertainment,” SGAEYL replies with a sniff. “Maybe stop acting like a lovesick idiot, and I won’t have to make fun of you.”
“I’m not a lovesick idiot,” I respond forcefully. Far from it. I’m just taking care of Brennan’s little sister. That’s it. End of story.
“Keep telling yourself that.”
I decline the cashier’s offer of a bag, hand him cash, and walk back towards where I left Violet. She’s exactly where I left her minutes ago, hunched over the thick book she’d brought with her. Her nose is scrunched up as her eyes flit down the page, turning it a moment later.
“Violet,” I call out as I approach. She looks up immediately, eyes wide, as if surprised. Then she sees what I’m holding.
“Is that–?” She halts mid-question when I hold it up for her inspection. “Oh my gods.”
The sweatshirt is, without a doubt, the tackiest thing I’ve ever spent money on. It’s white, with big red block letters spelling out I HEART CALLDYR, with the HEART being an actual heart.
Violet blinks once, then twice. Then she bursts into laugher.
“That is hideous,” she says amidst the giggles, nothing like the almost crazed ones that escaped her after her match with Imogen. An offer to return it is about to leave my mouth, but she holds out a beckoning hand.
“Thank you,” she says with a smile. “That was really nice of you.”
I grin, then hand the sweatshirt to her. She wastes no time pulling it on over her black tshirt, and I realize it’s the first time I’ve ever seen her wear anything that wasn’t black. She looks down at herself, smoothing out the rumpled sweatshirt as she does.
“I feel like a tourist,” she remarks, but the grin on her face doesn’t disappear.
“Yeah?” I settle next to her again, stretching out my legs. It’s the last chance I’ll get for a while.
“Yeah.” She nods. “Thanks again. No one’s ever gotten me something like this before.”
I pause at that, then turn to look at her. “No one’s given you a gift before?”
I swear she blushes as she looks away, the pink flush clearly standing out against the white of the sweatshirt.
“If I tell you more, you take it to the grave. Clear?” she asks.
My desperation for her to trust me would have me agreeing to fight one of those dragons from the Tyrrish myths if she asked me to, so I nod immediately.
“Truth for a truth,” I reply. I won’t tell her secret, and she won’t tell mine.
She picks at some lint stuck to her pants, gears turning in her head as she decides what to say, and how much.
“My mom wasn’t around much after Dad disappeared,” she says, her words slow and measured. “Mira had already left for military service. I was pretty much alone.”
I remain silent. When we’d first made our agreement, she’d made it clear that the relationship between herself and her mother wasn’t good, but I didn’t give it much thought. But now I’m beginning to get a sense for exactly what she meant by that.
“Neither my mom or my dad were big on the gods’ festivals or birthdays. It was that way with Brennan and Mira too.” She pauses, considering her words. “Dad would take me places for my birthday, but he never really gave me anything unless it was for my studies. The first and last real gift anyone gave me was my vest.”
She runs a hand down her midriff, as if she could feel the armor through the thick fabric.
“You told me you had two.” I recall the conversation in the cave, the last time we played this game. “You said your friend Mazzie made the second one.”
“Right.” Violet nods. The hustle and bustle of the airport around us has faded, and she is all I see, all I hear. “My sister Mira gave me the first one.” She lets out a shaky laugh. “Mira didn’t want me to join the NIA, but she also knew she had no chance of convincing me to change my mind. The vest was a goodbye gift of sorts.”
Violet’s expression turns sad, and I immediately regret encouraging this conversation.
“I haven’t seen Mira in person in over four years,” she says with a sigh. Gods – I can’t imagine going so long without talking to Bodhi or Liam, who are closer to me than blood. “I think – I think Mira thought I was going to die when she gave me this.”
I don’t know what to say in response to that – what does someone say to that? It’s so fucked up, all it makes me want to do is go punch something – or someone.
Brennan was convinced that Violet would live a normal life – or as normal a life as one could live as an NIA analyst. It’s going to destroy him when he finds out the truth.
I realize that Violet is watching my reaction intently, and I shift, trying to clear my expression.
“I don’t really know what to say to that,” I admit. “That’s fucked up.”
She lets out a short laugh. “It’s incredibly fucked up,” she admits. She looks back at me. “Your turn.”
I wrack my brain and settle on one truth that is sure to get a laugh out of her.
“Do you remember the woman you met in the safehouse in Cordyn?” I ask. “Catriona?”
Violet wrinkles her nose like she just smelled something foul. “Unfortunately.”
I smirk. “Want to hear about the worst mistake I’ve ever made in my life?”
She raises an eyebrow, and there’s a glimmer of interest in her expression. “Go on.”
“I almost married her – Catriona, I mean.”
Violet blinks rapidly, processing the words. Then: “Excuse me?”
Not quite the reaction I was looking for, but ok. She has an odd look on her face that I can’t quite decipher. I thought the idea of an engagement between myself and that hellcat would be funny to her, based on the single interaction she witnessed between us, but I guess not.
“You’re an idiot,” SGAEYL says with a sigh.
“Unless you’re going to elaborate on why I’m an idiot, I don’t want to hear it.”
“That requires too much effort. Figure it out yourself, human.”
“My dad and her uncle made a deal,” I say to Violet, quietly so no one around us can hear. “They’d only recently found out that VENIN hadn’t actually been destroyed. Their brilliant plan to combat the threat was to play match-maker with a ten- and eleven-year-old.”
“Ew.”
I grin. “Exactly. The betrothal wasn’t supposed to go into effect until both of us were of age though. In the meantime, Catriona’s uncle agreed to provide Dad support on certain things within Tyrrendor, while Dad promised to help find a way to combat VENIN.”
Violet leans forward a bit, clearly intrigued.
“What kind of ‘certain things?’” she asks.
I can’t exactly tell her what the Assembly was – is – getting up to. Suri would have my fucking head.
“That’s classified,” I say, parroting her earlier line. Violet rolls her eyes, but mercifully doesn’t push.
“So you two were supposed to get married.” Violet practically spits out the last word, like it’s something disgusting. “Why didn’t you?”
I lean back in my seat, but I don’t look away from her. “Well, as I’m sure you noticed before you took ten years off of her life by threatening her the way you did, we weren’t very compatible.”
Violet snorts as she leans back as well. My eyes are drawn to the way the fluorescent overhead lights reflect against the silver tips of her hair, making them look like her hair is glowing.
“I think that’s putting it lightly,” she remarks. “I thought you were more likely to kill her than me at the time, and I was pretty sure you were going to stab me in the back.”
We fall into silence, but it’s a comfortable one. We don’t speak again until our flight begins to board, and I try to pick up her bag as well as mine.
“Don’t you fucking dare, Riorson,” Violet warns, snatching the bag before I can pick it up. “Save the gentleman bullshit for someone else.”
I merely raise an eyebrow in her direction. “You didn’t seem to mind my gentleman bullshit when I bought you a sweatshirt.”
I swear the temperature in the room drops five degrees with the cold glare she shoots me.
“You’re pushing it, pretty boy.”
I just smirk. “You haven’t killed me yet.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
“You’re cute when you’re mad, did you know that?”
That last comment slipped out before I could stop it, a sure sign that I’m far more comfortable around her now than I was when we first met, and I immediately slam my mouth shut. But Violet’s reaction is exactly the opposite of what I expect it to be – a sly smirk stretches across her face, and she goes up on her tip-toes to whisper in my ear, closing the distance between our bodies faster than I can register.
“I seem to remember you telling me that threatening your ex-fiancee was hot, too,” she whispers, her breath fanning over my ear. “Isn’t that interesting?”
Sweet Amari.
My mouth runs dry, and it takes every ounce of my willpower not to grab onto her waist and press her as close to me as physically possible. I’d love to feel how soft her lips are, to know what it feel like to run my fingers through that hair of hers.
No point in denying that I am hopelessly attracted to her on a physical level now – she’s pretty much just called me on it.
“I think it’s interesting that you remembered that at all,” I respond, my voice husky and low. I turn my head ever so slightly, so that the shell of her ear is only millimeters from my mouth. “You’re asking for trouble, Violence.”
Or maybe I am. I’m having a hard time thinking straight when Violet is the only thing I can see, smell, and hear.
She hums, then pulls away, reestablishing a semblance of distance between us.
She smirks. “I’ve been told that trouble finds me – I don’t need to ask for it.”
Violet doesn’t give me a chance to respond, scooping up her backpack and striding in the direction of the gate, leaving me dazed in her wake.
Notes:
yeah he's got it bad. how long will the denial last? SPOILER: not long! do with that information what you will ;)
I ended splitting the original chapter 18 into two bc I realized I'd have another 20k chapter on my hands if I didn't and I'm really not about editing another monstrosity like that. once was enough!
hope everyone enjoyed the faster-than-usual update! thank you for reading, as always <3 you can read blurb from the chapters I'm working on on my Tumblr for any of my fics - hope to see you all there!
Chapter 19: Tales from 30,000 Feet
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Violet
Xaden was engaged.
It’s all I can think about as the two of us begin to settle into our seats aboard the airplane. I’d been taken aback by the sour, corrosive feeling I got in my stomach when the man currently sitting beside me revealed thatparticular fact. He’d said so casually, as if he was asking my thoughts about the weather, that I wasn’t sure I’d even heard him correctly at first.
Xaden was engaged.
I give myself a quick mental shake, trying to dispel the stubborn images in my head of Xaden and the woman from the bunker – Catriona – smiling and holding hands. Hugging. Kissing.
That emotion wells up in my chest again, the one that had me wishing there was a target I could fling a knife at, and I take a deep breath, willing it down.
I’d much rather focus on how our proximity before we boarded started a fire low in my stomach, Xaden’s low voice reverberating in my ear and sending shivers down my spine. Or how he’d nearly left me in tears when he revealed the tacky sweatshirt that was currently keeping me nice and toasty. Or how I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to make it through this mission without doing something I’ll seriously regret, simply because Xaden attracts me like a moth to a damn flame.
I saw him smile in that stupid fucking terminal and it did bad things to my heart, and now here we are.
“-let. Violet.”
I startle, then turn to Xaden. He’s looking at me with one brow raised.
“Yes?”
A faint smirk appears and then disappears just as quickly. “You need to buckle your seatbelt. We’re about to push back.”
I glance down at my lap, then back at him. “Worry about yourself first, Riorson.”
“Well, I’m already buckled in.” He leans back a bit, his dark eyes closing as he takes a deep breath through his nose. “Just put your seatbelt on, Violence.”
There’s a tension in his voice that’s normally not there, an anxious strain that I can’t quite place. It has me lifting my hips without further argument, fumbling with the seatbelt straps I’d been sitting on with a frown, before finally maneuvering the fabric so that I can clasp the buckle across my lap with an audible click.
“Happy now?” I ask, looking back at Xaden. His eyes are still closed.
“Very.” He responds, before one eye peels open, trained on the seat in front of me. “What book are you reading?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” I snip back, but I pull the tome I’d lugged along from the seatback pocket, the same one I’d been attempting to decipher while he went and bought me the sweatshirt – then drop it in his lap. It’s heavy and old, the leather binding cracked from how many times it’s been opened and closed.
Xaden straightens, picking it up gingerly, as if he could tell just from looking at the book that it’s something precious. His eyes scan the words embossed on the cover, fingers brushing lightly over the indentations that still have traces of the brilliant gold leaf that used to loop and swirl across the front, then slowly looks back at me.
“This is a Tyrrish book.” He says the words softly, his eyes widened, like it’s some kind of forbidden secret. Maybe in a way, it is. Much of old Tyrrish culture has been lost – no, destroyed – and it was done so purposefully, if my father was right.
I nod. “It’s one of the few things I have left of my dad.” I take inhale, steeling myself “You can read it, if you want.”
Offering him that book is like offering a piece of myself, even if he doesn’t know it. I had that book with me at school the day our house had burnt down. It was one of the only things from my father’s old library that survived the flames. It’s precious to be, far beyond its monetary value
Xaden glances down at it again, his features unreadable, then shakes his head. He hands it back to me with more care than I’d shown when I gave it to him. “I can’t,” he says, his tone tight.
I wrinkle my nose. “Can’t? Or won’t?”
“Can’t.”
The plane begins to move, backing away from the airport terminal. The lights that brighten the cabin dim, and I’m barely able to make out Xaden’s face in the darkness.
“You don’t know how to read Old Tyrrish?” I whisper, disbelief coloring my words, my volume dropping to a hush to match the quiet that comes over the plane with the dimming lights.
That could prove a problem for deciphering the cypher, considering that I can barely read it. I’d been certain before, knowing that he could speak the language as I did, that he would be able to translate the Tyrrish records my father left behind for me to decrypt considering he was Tyrrish.
“Almost no one does.” I can’t see his expression, but there’s palpable anger in his voice now. “Books like that are few and far between, and you know as well as I do how rare Old Tyrrish speakers are. My dad taught me how to speak it, but even he couldn’t read it.” He exhales sharply. “Navarre did a wonderful job assimilating us after the last war, that’s for sure.”
I understand the clear rage in his voice. Tyrrish culture; it’s civilization – for most of my life, it was a fringe academic subject to be studied. A historical curiosity. But for Xaden? The loss of knowledge of Tyrrendor’s history and its language would be far more than that. That is his culture. Tyrrendor is his home, and Navarre has, over the centuries, pillaged and plundered it while ensuring that nothing that made it unique survived.
Since the last war – and Tyrrendor’s most recent annexation – little of Tyrrish culture survived. Tyrrendor has been annexed by Navarre twice. Tyrrendor was first brought to its knees almost a thousand years ago, but it only remained under Navarrian rule for a century before civil war broke out, and the Tyrrish regained their independence.
But Navarre’s most recent conquest of the Tyrrish, a little over 250 years ago, was far more brutal. Navarrian armies destroyed everything its path and left little more than smoking ruins, slaughtering the Tyrrish royal family and the nation’s elected legislators. Then, they made Tyrrendor an “autonomous territory” – after all, how else could the war-torn nation that lost its rulers and politicians rebuild without Navarre’s assistance? Unsurprisingly, what was supposed to be a temporary administration of Tyrrish land quickly became permanent, and Tyrrish autonomy is a joke, even now.
Of course, they never teach that in schools. My lessons on the less palatable history of Tyrrish-Navarrian relations were ones my father made sure to give me before he died, after our trip to the crumbling remains of Riorson House.
A shiver passes through me as Dad’s words from that day once again break the surface of my mind.
Navarre is ruthless, and it always has been, Dad had said. It razed an entire civilization and its culture to the ground. It will do the same to you, to anyone else that gets in its way.
“I’m sorry.” The words, quiet like the rest of this conversation, escape me before I can think better of it. I can feel Xaden’s eyes boring into me, even if I can’t fully make him out. A boulder of guilt drops in my stomach as I think of all the times something hadn’t seemed quite right about the history we were taught in school, how parts were glossed over or left out of the curriculum entirely. I’d been complicit in Navarre’s destruction, whether I knew it or not.
Xaden doesn’t respond, and we fall into a tense silence. After seconds, or maybe even minutes tick by, he releases a deep breath.
“Can you read it?” Xaden asks, his voice barely audible over the whine of the jet engines outside our window, having grown louder as we begin to taxi.
“Barely,” I admit, staring down at the book in my lap, at the faded whorls and runes of the leather cover. “My dad was better than I was. Before he died, I-“
“You two doing alright here?” I startle, and Xaden curses under his breath when a blonde flight attendant appears and interrupts me, seemingly out of nowhere, a customer service-grade smile plastered on her full, red-painted lips as she looks down at me expectantly.
“We’re fine,” I say with my own fake smile.
The flight attendant glances at Xaden, and her demeanor immediately shifts. “And what about you? Anything I can do for you?”
That corrosive feeling from earlier roars back when I see the look she’s giving Xaden, all doe-eyed and pretty. She juts her hip out just so, and places her hand on Xaden’s headrest, and I come to the unpleasant realization that she’s hitting on him.
I can’t even deny it anymore – jealousy is a bitch.
Then I realize I’m being ridiculous, and take a deep, calming breath to clear my head, willing the emotions to flow away. The only reason I’m feeling like this is because of the weird flirtation from before. I don’t like Xaden like that. Sure, he’s handsome as all-be – and that’s probably an understatement – but that’s the extent of any kind of attraction I feel to him. Period.
Xaden, however, barely glances her way. Instead, he grabs my hand in his much larger one. I try to pull away, but he merely tightens his grip.
“My girlfriend here speaks for me,” he replies, tone conspiratorial, as if he’s letting the pretty young flight attendant in on a secret. Then he fucking winks. “I’m just along for the ride.”
I blink rapidly, surprised, but I play along, maintaining that fake smile when the flight attendant looks my way, an apologetic look on her face.
“Of course!” Her tone is a bit higher pitched than before. “Enjoy your flight.”
She quickly walks off, and I tug my hand out of Xaden’s as soon as I know she isn’t going to look back.
“What the fuck was that?” I hiss.
Xaden looks at me. “Our cover story.”
I blanche. “You’re joking.”
“Do I look like I’m joking, Violence?”
He doesn’t.
I shake my head in disbelief, then glance back in the direction the flight attendant disappeared. I don’t know how to respond, how to tell him that this is a monumentally bad idea – even though I’m still not entirely sure what the idea is, given he still hasn’t explained, exactly, what our cover story is. And my inability to think of something intelligent to say leads me to say: “She was pretty. Not your type?”
He raises a brow, amusement written all over his features, and I immediately regret the question.
“Not quite,” Xaden says with a smirk. “She didn’t seem like the type to pull a knife on one of my exes.”
I feel a flush make its way up my chest as I recall our earlier conversation in the terminal. Having these kinds of conversations with Xaden is a horrendous idea for a litany of reasons, least of which being that neither of us are actually serious about it. The physical attraction is there – that’s as clear as a fucking lighthouse on a cloudless night – but anything beyond that? It’s not even something worth considering.
I can’t let him distract me. Distractions equal death in my line of work.
“Flattery doesn’t get you anywhere, Riorson,” I manage to get out, turning to look out the window as we get closer and closer to the runway, the lights that illuminate the massive taxi ways twinkling in the night.
Suddenly, I feel a column of heat at my back, and Xaden’s breath against the sensitive skin of my neck. I shiver as the warmth puffs against the shell of my ear.
“I think it gets me pretty far with you, Violence,” he murmurs. If I turned my head, I’m certain that only millimeters would separate our lips. “And I thought we agreed you were going to start using my first name.”
The next breath I take is clearly shaky. I try to focus on anything – literally anything – that isn’t his chest almost plastered against my back as we both look out the window. Slowly, so slowly, I turn my head, until his face is all I can see. That leather and mint smell surrounds me, igniting something warm low in my stomach. I wait for him to pull back, but when he doesn’t, I ignore the small part of my brain that asks why I don’t either.
“Flattery doesn’t get you anywhere, Xaden,” I repeat quietly. The feeling of his breath against my lips ignites a warm feeling low in my stomach that I fight to ignore. Stupidly attractive man.
Xaden smiles now – a real smile, one that takes my breath away – and then slowly pulls back.
“Noted,” he whispers, before settling back into his seat, and buckling the seatbelt I hadn’t noticed he’d taken off.
I release a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding, then lean back into my seat. A minute later, the pilot comes on over the address system to announce that we’re about to take off, ordering the flight crew to prepare the cabin. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Xaden tense up, his grip on the armrests turning his knuckles white.
I frown, turning to face him fully. “Are you ok?”
Xaden takes a deep breath, closing his eyes. The plane is turning, positioning itself at the end of the runway.
“I don’t like planes,” he admits from behind gritted teeth. “Bad memories.”
I feel like an idiot for even asking. His father died on an airplane – of course he doesn’t fucking like planes.
I press my lips into a hard line as I contemplate my options. Should I ask if he needs something? Or would that make things worse? If I were him, I wouldn’t want him to draw attention to my discomfort. But what would he want?
Xaden peels his fingers from the armrest, then reaches for the headphones he’d stored in the seatback pocket when we boarded. He glances back at me, holding them up as he does.
“Do you mind if I…?” He doesn’t finish the question, but he doesn’t need to. I nod.
“It’s fine.” I reach out and squeeze his arm before I change my mind, then quickly withdraw before I get any other bright ideas, surprised by how warm his skin felt against mine. “Hang in there.”
Xaden chuckles. “That’s what Bodhi always tells me.”
I grin. “Sounds like Bodhi is pretty smart then, if he’s saying the same things as I am.”
“Sounds like it.” Xaden pulls the over-ear headphones on, then closes his eyes and leans back, just as the roar of the engines becomes deafening and we’re hurtling down the runway.
The momentum presses me back into the thin cushioning of the seat, and I grip the single armrest – the other having been commandeered by Xaden – as the plane gets up to speed, then takes to the air.
Compared to the first flight I found myself sitting next to Xaden, where I was pretending to be Violet Baker and he had yet to figure out my identity, this trip passes in relative silence. Xaden sleeps – or at the very least, keeps his eyes shut – for most of the flight.
I spend the flight struggling through the Tyrrish book I’d brought with me. After Dad died, I couldn’t bring myself to crack it open again. Every time I tried, it felt like poking a still-raw wound.
But if I’m really the only one who can read Tyrrish out of the two of us, then I need to brush up on my comprehension. Deciphering the documents that Dad left behind is taking far longer than I’d anticipated when I’d told Xaden I would take care of it, and every minute that goes by is a minute that Project VENIN could be used on civilians on Poromiel.
Still, I’m not sure that this book is the best book to train myself with. It’s written in Old Tyrrish, sure, but it’s thick bindings contain myths and legends of old Tyrrendor – mostly about the epic battles between dragons and their mortal enemies, the wyvern – which might not be all that helpful when I need to translate documents related to a top-secret weapons project. It’s all I have, however, and so I throw myself into my task with vigor as Xaden sleeps.
The hours go by in a flash as I pour over the first story – one telling of how ancient Aretian warriors teamed up with the dragons to beat back an invasion of wyvern, establishing the kingdom of Tyrrendor in the process. It’s an old story, one my dad told me a million times growing up – although he’d sanitized it for my young ears.
In truth, the Tyrrish kingdom was far older than Navarre – Dad said that no one was entirely sure when, or how, it was founded. All we know is that it was around much, much longer than any of the other nations found on the Continent. Not for the first time, I wonder what Xaden knows about the subject, or if he knows anything at all.
I jot a note in a small notebook I’d brought with me when I come across a word I don’t recognize, then turn the page. Progress has been slow, but I’m moving a little faster than I was when I started reading the book earlier. Absentmindedly, I twist and untwist a lock of my unbound hair that had made its way from over my shoulder.
The pilot has just announced that we’re making our approach to the Deverelli Isles’ main airport when I see Xaden shift out of the corner of my eye.
“Still reading?” he asks, his voice husky from sleep. A blush works its way up my cheeks, unbidden, at the low tone, and I keep my eyes plastered on the words on the page, which has suddenly become much more difficult to decipher now that I feel eyes on me.
“Something like that,” I reply vaguely, scratching out another note in my notebook.
“What’s it about?” Xaden asks curiously, and this time I do look back at him. He’s no longer looking at me, instead peering at the open pages with undisguised interest.
“It’s an anthology, of sorts,” I say, flipping back to the beginning of the story and pointing to the table of contents. “The first one is Tyrrendor’s founding myth – or some version of it, I guess. The others are various tales and legends, mostly about dragons.”
I glance up at his face just in time to see him cock a brow, a slow smirk making its way onto his face.
“That’s the second time you’ve brought up dragons now,” he points out. I furrow my brows and bite my lip as I try to remember when I’d brought up the topic the first time. “You asked me what I thought about them when we were in that bunker.”
I suck in a quick breath. I barely remember those first few minutes, the anxiety consuming me and the long-buried memories returning as we descended into the darkness. Even knowing that I wasn’t in BASGIATH, the similarities between Athebyne and the protocol’s bunker were uncanny.
Still, I don’t say any of that. All that leaves my mouth is, “Ah.”
Xaden cocks his head. “You seem pretty interested in dragons.”
I look back at the book, like if I stared hard enough, maybe one of the fantastical creatures would fly off the pages.
“Why do you care?” The words come out harsher than I’d intended them to be. Mom and Dad always had me focused, with lethal precision, on how I would serve Navarre. There was never time for the things I cared about – dance and dragons and books that I wanted to read, rather than had to read.
Xaden is quiet, and when I finally work up the courage to glance in his direction, there’s no judgement, only quiet acceptance.
I sigh. “I’m sorry, it’s just–“ A lump forms in my throat, and the words catch. “I guess I was never really allowed to care about stuff like that before.”
“Before?”
I look out the window, the lights of the isles growing closer and closer, trying to figure out how best to answer without giving him too much. “Before I became this way, I guess.” I gesture at myself vaguely. I hope he knows what I mean. I look back at Xaden. “My family can’t control me anymore.”
He frowns. “Were you not… allowed to care about stuff before?”
Thankfully, he doesn’t ask before what?
I carefully close my book, then my notebook, stowing them in my backpack before shoving it back under the seat in front of me.
“It’s not that I couldn’t.” I pause, carefully choosing my next words. “But I had to focus on my studies,” I spit out the last word like it’s a poison despite my best efforts to appear uncaring as I straighten up. I glance back at Xaden, who crosses his arms, still watching me calmly. “Don’t get me wrong, I loved learning. But both of my parents felt that anything that would take away from preparing from my future career was a waste of time. That meant no dance classes, no time for myths about dragons, none of that.” A humorless laugh escapes me. “But that’s all well and good, I guess. At least I can read Old Tyrrish.”
Xaden doesn’t laugh.
“But to answer your original question,” I say, taking a deep breath. I find the words spilling out of me, even though I hadn’t intended to share this much. “Yes. I loved dragons as a kid, and I think the myths and legends about them are interesting. I spent a lot of my free time as a kid reading about them after I stopped dancing.”
We settle into silence, and I expect Xaden to put his headphones back on as we get closer to the runway. Instead, a few minutes later, he speaks up again.
“Will you translate those stories for me?” he asks, and I turn, locking eyes with him.
I nod, not needing to even contemplate the answer.
“Of course.”
After our flight lands, Xaden and I find ourselves in familiar surroundings.
Namely, an airport bathroom.
Instead of the women’s bathroom, however, Xaden pulls me into one of the gender-neutral bathrooms, locking the door behind him.
I cross my arms and raise a brow. “Are we reenacting our first meeting?”
I ache all over from how long we were sitting, and my injuries aren’t helping any either. I’ve been gritting my teeth since standing up. I want to get out of this airport and into a bed as soon as humanly possible.
Xaden blinks, then smirks. It’s not like the condescending or mischievous expressions I normally see Xaden wear – no, this one is downright filthy, as if he’s recalling the tension of that early morning meeting in as much vivid detail as I am. Well, the part that came after I slaughtered six of my fellow operatives.
“Not quite.” He steps forward, handing me a Deverelli passport. “Here.”
I flip it open. It has the same photo as my fake Navarrian one, but all of the other details are different. According to this, my name is Violetta Tuono – a Deverelli name, through and through – and I’m from the Deverelli capital of Luccicare.
I glance back up at Xaden. “And why doesn’t the passport I used before work?”
“Violet Baker isn’t exactly a common name for someone from the isles, Violence.” Xaden hands me the passport he kept in his hand. “Plus, we need to be Deverelli citizens on paper if we want any chance of getting access to that base.” When I open it, I’m greeted with his photo, and another fake name, his much less linguistically authentic than my own.
“Xaden Tuono,” I read aloud, eyes narrowing as I recall his words on the flight earlier. I shove the document back at him, and pin Xaden with a glare. “Are you fucking kidding me? Your brilliant, genius cover story is to pretend we’re married? You didn’t think to run that by me first?”
“You weren’t exactly conscious at the time,” he replies blithely. “I seem to recall you trying to fight a friend of mine to the death, which made it a bit difficult to talk to you afterwards.”
I take a step forward, jabbing a finger into his chest. I ignore the comment about my fight with Imogen. “I still would have liked to know, jackass.”
“Fine,” he says, gripping my wrist with one hand. A bolt of something hot lances through me at the proximity, at the feel of skin on skin. “We’re going to pretend that we’re married, that way when one of us inevitably has to go through a background check to get access to that base, it won’t raise any flags. We have no idea how long we’re going to be here or how long it will take to get access to the hard drive we need to steal, and we need to make sure nobody suspects us when that background check says that you or I live with another person. This is the best way to do that. Happy now?”
I’d be happy if I could climb him like a damn tree, I realize as I look up at him, but that’s a horrible fucking idea. What is it about airport bathrooms that make me want to fuck this infuriating man?
I force those thoughts from my head, because going down that road only has one possible outcome, and it’s a bad one. I refocus on his words instead of the mouth they came from, and I have to admit he has a point. The Deverelli are quite different from Navarrians. It’s a country that allows its citizens far more autonomy than Navarre or even Poromiel does, but it’s also deeply traditional in some ways, and borderline archaic in others. The idea an unmarried man and woman living together would definitely raise eyebrows here, while no one would give us a second glance back home in Navarre.
“Fine,” I grumble.
One corner of Xaden’s mouth quirks up, and his thumb runs along the inside of my wrist, brushing my pulse point. My heart skitters in my chest.
“We’re going to need to start acting as soon as we reach customs,” he warns, expression serious again. “We’re a married couple coming back from hitchhiking around the Continent for two years. Do you need time to prepare?”
I take a deep breath. Scenes of what it would look like to pretend to be Xaden’s wife flash through my head, each one more absurd than the next. Eating dinner together. Holding his hand as we walk down the street. Hugging after a long day. Kissing till we’re both breathless. Fucking till the sun rises.
But we’re going to be pretending – most of that will never end up happening. What has gotten into me today? Ever since Xaden brought up fucking Catriona, my head’s been a mess.
I can feel my face begin to burn. I’m in so much fucking trouble.
“I’m good,” I reply, my voice sounding tight to my own ears.
“Good,” he says. He raises an eyebrow. “Now, you were saying something about reenacting-“
“Nope!” I tug my wrist from his hand with reluctance and take a massive step back, reestablishing the distance that I’m quickly learning is important for my own sanity. “No one to kill here anyways.”
“Not quite what I was getting at.” Xaden smirks, and I would very much like to find out what he’d been referring to now. “But I’m glad I’ve graduated from your kill list.”
“Don’t test your luck, pretty boy.” I grin as I pass him, unlocking the door. “I can always add you back.”
He hums, following me out the door and into the sparsely populated terminal. “Whatever you say, Violence,” he murmurs, following after me as we make our way to passport control.
I try not to startle when he takes my hand in his before we get into the customs line, his fingers sliding against my palm before lacing with mine, leaving paths of warmth on my skin that linger.
“For what it’s worth,” he whispers as we get closer to the customs official. “I would’ve told you about this had you not gone and passed out after your fight.”
I exhale sharply, looking ahead instead of meeting his gaze. “I know.”
It’s not a lie to make him feel better either. I know he would have told me.
He responds by giving my hand a squeeze.
We trudge through the line at a snail’s pace. There is only one customs officer working, despite a line of desks that could easily accommodate fifteen. It takes almost 30 minutes for us the reach the front of the line, and neither of us say a word. Xaden doesn’t drop my hand either, not even when he’s digging through his pocket for our passports to hand to the frazzled looking officer.
“Busy night?” Xaden asks the man amiably in perfect Deverelli, his accent flawless.
The man nods hurriedly, gesturing impatiently for our passports.
“You’ve been gone quite a while,” the customs officer remarks as he flips through our passport books.
“Two years,” Xaden nods, lying through his teeth like a pro. “My beautiful wife and I decided to take a short trip abroad, which turned into a long one.” He winks. “I’m sure you know how it is. Can’t say no to a beautiful woman.”
I can hardly believe what I’m watching right now. Who is this man, and what has he done with Xaden Riorson?
The customs officer chuckles, clearly warming to Xaden’s act. “You certainly can’t.” He stamps both of our passports, then hands them back to Xaden. “Welcome back to Luccicare, Mr. Tuono.”
A murmured thank you later, Xaden whisks me past the customs desk, practically dragging me behind him as we head towards the doors that will take us outside.
“Slow down,” I hiss, almost tripping over my own feet as I try to keep up with his long strides. My shoulders throb, no doubt due to the weight of my pack bearing down on them.
“Do you want me to carry you?” Xaden asks. I can’t tell if he’s mocking me or if he’s seriously offering.
I keep my answer short. “Fuck off, Ri- Pretty boy.”
I catch myself before Xaden’s last name slips out. We can’t be too careful.
Xaden shoots me a knowing look, but he’s slowed his pace, and I’m finally able to keep up without worrying about falling on my face.
“Now what?” I ask a few minutes later, as we wait for our cab outside the terminal. Frustratingly, Xaden still has my hand in an iron grip. I’ve tried to pull it away on at least two occasions, to no avail.
“We’re going to head to where we’re staying first,” Xaden says. His eyes scan the passing cars, glancing back at the rideshare app on his phone. I glance at the screen and raise an eyebrow.
“Did you make a new account with your fake name?” I ask, bemused.
Xaden doesn’t look back at me when he replies, his eyes glued on the road. “Obviously.”
“Obviously,” I parrot drily. This earns me an exasperated look from my fake husband, who promptly returns to looking for our ride.
“How did you even get all of this arranged so quickly?” I ask a moment later, our ride still eluding Xaden.
“I know people,” he says absentmindedly, then curses when he looks back at his phone. “The driver’s lost.”
“It’s a fucking airport,” I say, deadpan. “How does he get lost?”
“Fuck if I know,” Xaden admits. “You up to walk to him? We’ll be here till next Solstice if we wait for him here.”
Truthfully, I’d rather not. My body aches all over, partially because I’m always hurting, and partially because I just had the shit beaten out of me by Xaden’s buddy Imogen – not that I’d ever admit to that aloud. Still, just standing here while our rideshare goes in endless circles doesn’t sound very appealing either, so I nod. “Lead the way.”
“Give me your bag first,” Xaden says, holding out his hand.
“Absolutely not.” I’m pretty sure I already told him off for this before we left Navarre.
“If we’re walking, I’m carrying your bag.” His words come out like an order, and I bristle at the finality of his tone. He affixes me with a look that says he’s not open to arguing either. “I know you’re in pain, Violence. Hand it over.”
“I’m fine-“
“You’re not,” Xaden retorts. “Please give me the bag, Violence.”
I debate for a second what would happen if I refused and continued to argue but decide against it when I see the look on Xaden’s face. I sigh in defeat, which he takes as a sign that I’m acquiescing. Xaden finally releases my hand, and I silently shrug my backpack from my shoulders and hand it to him. I want to sigh with relief when the weight of my bag disappears.
Xaden loops his arm through one of the straps, his own backpack on the other. Once our bags are secure, we begin out trek, crossing roads and traversing a parking garage. It takes us almost 15 minutes to locate the far-flung lot our rideshare driver had decided to park in, and I practically melt into the back seat once we finally find the man. Xaden takes my hand as the driver merges onto the highway, reminding me once more that until we’re back in Navarre, I have a role to play.
As Xaden’s thumb rubs the back of my palm, and my eyelids finally begin to grow heavy as the night lights of Luccicare speed past, I decide that there are worse roles to play.
Notes:
thanks for being patient with me guys! I know there are a lot of different stories people want updates on, but I'm writing as I get inspiration to write. right now I'm having a moment with castles crumbling, but I'm hoping I'll finish up a chapter of either danger zone or xrgtsas by the end of the month.
I've already written approx. 2k words of the next castles chapter, so hopefully I can get that done soonish?
anyways, hope everyone enjoyed this one! <3
Chapter 20: This Changes Everything
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Xaden
One Day Ago
When I finally get around to checking on Imogen, I’m not entirely surprised that my arrival is greeted with a dagger flying towards my head.
Of course, because I wasn’t surprised, I merely step to the side as the blade goes whizzing past, sailing through the air where my forehead would have been moments before. I look back at Imogen, who’s sitting up on the hospital cot, arm outstretched.
I raise an eyebrow. “What would you have done if you’d actually managed to hit me with that?”
Im scoffs, leaning back against the pile of pillows at the head of the bed. “Celebrated.”
She'll never admit it, but Violet and Imogen might be kindred spirits in that regard. I roll my eyes, then drag a chair to her bedside, plopping down in it unceremoniously.
“Want to tell me what happened earlier?” I ask, crossing my ankles as I settle into the uncomfortable metal chair. My tone is light, but underneath it all, I’m fucking furious. I don’t know how I could have made it clearer that attacking Violet was off-limits. “Because I thought we agreed that you weren’t going to make my life difficult by attacking Violet.”
Imogen wrinkles her nose in disgust at the mention of the youngest Sorrengail, crossing her arms.
“You decided that I wasn’t going to attack her,” she says with a note of annoyance. “I decided that you were wrong.”
I grimace, leaning forward. She has no idea how close she came to dying. If I hadn’t stopped Violet-
“But you did,” SGAEYL points out. “I see no point in continuing this line of thought. You have more important things to be thinking about.”
Easy for the computer program to say.
I return my attention to my long-time friend, narrowing my gaze as I do.
“I don’t want to see that shit again,” I say, leaving no room for argument in my tone. “Either figure out how to put up with her without trying to kill her or go back to Aretia.”
Her eyes flare in surprise. “Are you kidding me?” Imogen hisses. “She’s Lilith Sorrengail’s daughter. Why the fuck are you defending her? You should want her dead as much as I do.”
I should. But I don’t.
“I’m not defending her. I’m merely trying to protect our access to-”
“Fuck the access!” Imogen cries. “What the hell are you doing, Xaden? You’re risking everything on this – hell, you’re about to follow her to the fucking Deverelli Isles-”
“How do you know about that?” I interrupt, but she continues on, undeterred.
“-and you don’t even fucking have to. You asked to! They’re sending her on a suicide mission, and you’re volunteering to go with her! Are you fucking insane?”
I don’t react, don’t give any sign that her words have gotten to me – except they have. She’s absolutely fucking right. I volunteered to go with Violet before she’d gotten hurt, as soon as I’d heard she’d been assigned the mission. I reasoned with myself that it was because I had more undercover experience than she had; that working together would maximize our chances of survival. I told myself that I had to, for the sake of the agreement I made that allowed me and my people to come into the NIA in the first place.
Except all of those are excuses. I volunteered because the idea of Violet going into hostile territory, alone, without any backup or support, terrified me more than watching her fight it out with Imogen had.
I take a deep breath before responding.
“It’s not a suicide mission, Im,” I start. “We’re well equipped to handle this.”
She lets out a cold, sharp laugh. “You’re joking, right?”
“Do I sound like I am?”
“So you’re in denial then. Even better.” She shakes her head, disgust evident on her features. “You know, as well as I do, that this isn't a mission they want her to come back alive from. Since when did you become an optimist, Xaden?”
I don’t know how to respond to that, so I stay silent.
My silence seems to have confirmed something to my friend, because she just shakes her head again after a few moments pass.
“That’s what I thought.” She narrows her eyes. “You better not fucking die on this mission, Riorson. Because if you do and she doesn’t, I can promise you my next fight with Sorrengail won’t end with me just breaking her arm.”
Translation – she’ll kill her. Or try to, at least.
A chuckle escapes me before I can stop it, and I rise from the chair. “Good luck with that, Im. You’re just fortunate she didn’t kill you today.”
“It was a fluke,” she hisses.
“No, it wasn’t.” I keep my tone firm and fix her with what I hope is an admonishing look. “We’re talking about the best assassin the NIA has.”
We wouldn’t be talking like this right now if I hadn’t stopped her.
Imogen falls quiet, eyes dipping down and mouth pressing into a tight line.
I walk out of her room a minute later, leaving Imogen to her thoughts when it’s clear she’s done with the conversation. Garrick waits for me in the hallway, flipping the dagger that I instinctively know is the one Im sent flying towards my head a few minutes before.
He raises an eyebrow when he catches sight of me but doesn’t stop tossing the knife through the air.
“Good talk?” he asks, falling into step beside me as I walk back towards the elevator. I don’t pause to look into Violet’s room when I pass.
“You told her I volunteered to go with Violet.” It’s a statement, not a question.
“Was I not supposed to?”
My knee-jerk reaction is to say Fuck no! but it’s not like I told him he shouldn’t. It just seems like common fucking sense when Im was already looking for any reason to go after Violet in the first place.
“It’s not important,” I say instead. We step into the elevator together, and I wait till the doors are closed to ask my next question. “Any word from Syrena?”
Garrick stops tossing the knife. “I spoke with her last night.”
“And?”
He sighs. “It’s not looking good, Xaden.”
“Fuck,” I groan, running a hand across my face as I lean back against the wall of the elevator. “How bad?”
“Bad,” is all Garrick says. He gives me a furtive glance. “What are the odds I can convince you not to go to the Deverelli Isles with Sorrengail?”
I feel my shoulders tense up, despite my best efforts not to react. I think I know where this is going. I force myself to relax them.
Still, I ask, “Why?”
“Because the last time we made a delivery was almost-”
The elevator dings, and Garrick slams his mouth shut. A moment later, the doors slide open.
The way, however, is not clear.
“I need a word with Riorson. Alone.”
Lilith Sorrengail blocks the way off, her face as impassive as ever. A surge of anger erupts in my chest at the mere sight of the woman who ordered my father’s death, but I will it down. I can’t kill her – not yet at least.
“Fuck no,” Garrick replies, eyes flashing. I’m not the only one on this elevator that wants her dead.
“It’s fine,” I tell him. We lock gazes for a moment, and whatever Garrick sees causes him to sigh, then silently disembark. Lilith steps into the elevator. When we begin to move upwards again, she flips a switch, bringing the lift to a halt.
I cross my arms and focus on keeping my expression blank. “What do you want?”
“You know about Riona, don’t you?”
I freeze. Ice feels like it’s accumulating in my stomach.
Lilith’s eyes flit about my face, then she sighs. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“You knew she was involved with it,” I accuse.
She cocks her head. “Of course I knew. I’m the one that shut down the project – or what was left of it.”
A cold laugh escapes me. “And what a great fucking job of that you did.”
Lilith narrows those cold eyes of hers on me, but I meet her gaze defiantly. She’s a fucking monster, but I won’t fear her.
“You swear to watch out for my daughter?” she asks. Her voice, normally ice cold, sounds a bit different than it normally does.
I scoff. “That was the deal, wasn’t it? I keep an eye on Violet, you give me information on VENIN.”
“That’s not what I meant, Riorson, and you know it.”
I know it’s not, but hell if I’m not going to make her life even a little bit as difficult as she’s made mine. Violet seemed convinced that her mother wouldn’t care if anything happened to her when we first met, but the general’s actions say otherwise. Their relationship is clearly complex, but I haven’t felt the need to pry. Sticking my nose into private Sorrengail family business uninvited would create more problems than it’s worth – mostly because I’m certain the general’s daughter would find a way to stab me in my sleep if I did.
“Play nice,” SGAEYL growls. “That way this conversation can end.”
The AI makes a fair point.
“I’ll do what I can to keep her alive,” I concede. I’ll do more than just what I can when it comes to Violet, but I’m not giving Lilith fucking Sorrengail the benefit of that knowledge.
Lilith is silent for a moment, before nodding. “Good. I’m here to fulfill my end of our deal.”
I cross my arms and raise an eyebrow. It’s about fucking time.
“The Deverelli Isles were where Riona was trying to hide her work on VENIN before the program got shut down, and for good reason,” Lilith says, arms crossed. “I’m warning you now – the Deverelli aren’t your friends. Don’t let your guard down.”
I vaguely remember my mother mentioning the isles in that recording I heard at Athebyne, but I keep my mouth shut.
“That’s nice,” I say, tone as frigid as I can make it. I know little about the Deverelli, at least compared to my knowledge of the Continent’s kingdoms. Letting my guard down isn’t a mistake I intend to make. “But we both know that’s not the kind of information you promised me, Lilith. Unless you’re going to give me something of worth, our deal is off.”
She glares at me, but I just focus on keeping that unbothered expression on my face. She doesn’t know that I’m bluffing, and I want to keep it that way.
But what she tells me when she finally opens her mouth isn’t what I expected to hear at all.
“The NIA has already been compromised.”
I blink once. Then twice.
“What?” I ask sharply, all thoughts of keeping my expression neutral forgotten.
There’s no fucking way. There have been no signs of VENIN activity in Navarre; no attacks like there have been in Poromiel.
“I won’t repeat myself.” Her tone is ice-cold. “The people who attacked Violet in her apartment? They were VENIN operatives.”
I feel the blood drain from my face. VENIN was targeting Violet?
“I will alert Brennan of this development,” SGAEYL says gravely.
“Don’t,” I tell her quickly. I need to be the one to tell him this – to tell him everything where his baby sister is involved.
Project VENIN has infiltrated Navarre too.
This changes everything.
Present
Violet’s bedhead is a sight to behold.
She barely grumbled three words to me after I shook her awake, as gently as I could, when our rideshare arrived at the small house we were staying in just outside Luccicare. One was a swear, the other was “you,” and the third was my name. She’d then promptly hauled herself out of the car, snatching her backpack clean out of my hands, and marched through the unlocked front door of the small cottage I’d manage to arrange for us before we left Navarre.
By the time I’d settled up with the driver and followed after her, I found her asleep once more in one of the two bedrooms. It faced the sea, and she’d opened the double doors before collapsing into bed, so the sound of waves breaking on the cliff not far from the house could be heard in the stillness of the night.
After making sure every possible entrance to our temporary safe house was secured – and quietly shutting and locking the doors Violet herself had opened – I’d collapsed into my own bed on the other side of the cottage, exhausted.
It didn’t take long for sleep to drag me under, but it took an equally short time for me to reawaken, my sweat soaking the sheets after yet another nightmare of fire and death.
I don’t fall asleep again, staring at the ceiling until the sky begins changing hues outside.
Compared to my friends, who would sleep till 11 each day if they could, I’ve always been an early-riser – no thanks to my seeming inability to sleep longer than a few hours at a time – so emerging from my bedroom a little after 6:30 a.m. to find Violet already awake and halfway through at least one cup of coffee was unexpected.
Weak morning light filters through the bay window in the kitchen, lighting up the room just enough that the overhead lights were unnecessary for her to read that thick Tyrrish book that’s currently resting atop the counter.
I have no idea how long she’s been awake, but the dark circles under her eyes are hard to miss.
Of course, I only notice all of this after I spent a moment longer than necessary gaping at the tangled mess tied in a knot atop her head. That was all the time Violet needed to notice me standing in the doorway of my bedroom like an idiot.
She raises one brow. “Can I help you?”
“Get a grip,” SGAEYL says, her first words to me today.
“Mind your own business,” I reply.
I spur myself back into motion and home in on the coffee pot that almost certainly still has another cup in it. “Early morning?” I ask Violet.
“Not really,” she says with a shrug. She’s perched herself on a stool on the other side of the kitchen island, one hand lifting a steaming coffee mug to her lips while the other fiddles with the yellowed edge of the page she was reading. “I actually woke up later than usual.”
I turn my back to the NIA’s deadliest assassin – something I could hardly imagine doing just a month ago – as I reach for one of the clean mugs in the cabinet next to the gleaming farmhouse sink, catching a look at the grey sea beyond the bay window as I do. Fog curls off the surface of the sea, like the steam from the coffee mug in Violet’s hand.
“How long have you been up?” I ask. I hadn’t even heard her make her way into the kitchen, despite it being just on the other side of my bedroom door.
I hear the page turn as I reach for the coffee pot, Violet only answering once my cup is almost full. “An hour. Maybe longer. I’m not sure.”
I turn back to face her, mug full now, but Violet isn’t even looking at me. Her sharp eyes are trained on the yellowing pages of her book, resting on the white marble of the counter. The space between her eyebrows is scrunched up in concentration.
I take the first sip of my coffee, taking extra care not to burn my tongue, and let it drive away the morning chill.
“Am I distracting you from your book?”
“Immensely,” she answers immediately, not sparing me a second glance. Violet pauses for a brief moment to scribble a note down in her notepad, then returns to her reading, paying me absolutely no mind.
“Did Brennan make your personality like hers on purpose?” I ask SGAEYL. The similarities between them are impossible to miss at times. I take another sip of my coffee.
SGAEYL takes an almost-suspiciously long time to answer.
“Think with your head, boy.” The AI’s tone is indignant. “My creator has not seen Violet Sorrengail since she was an adolescent. He could hardly base my programming on the personality of a fourteen-year-old.”
It’s another inadvertent reminder of how much I’m keeping from both Sorrengails, and suddenly the coffee I’m sipping isn’t warming me as much as it was a moment before.
“A simple no would have sufficed,” I inform the AI.
Violet and I settle into a comfortable silence, which is only interrupted by the occasional rustling of a page turning and the scratch of pen on paper. I lean back against the counter, phone in hand, absentmindedly scrolling through the group chat I have with Garrick, Imogen, Liam and Bodhi and catching up on the messages I missed last night.
Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes pass like this, but when Violet’s voice finally cuts through the early morning quiet, the sunlight streaming through the windows a bit brighter, the rising sun has begun to burn off the wispy cloud cover and the fog rolling over the water.
“We need to come up with a plan,” Violet declares, closing her book with finality and setting it aside. It’s obvious what she’s talking about.
“I already have one,” I tell her reflexively.
I hold Violet’s gaze as I take another sip from my mug, and don’t break eye contact when I set it on the counter to my right.
“I thought you said you weren’t going to lie to her,” SGAEYL mocks.
“I thought I told you to mind your own business,” I shoot back. I have a plan – it’s just not a very good one.
“Your business is my business. Get used to it.”
Violet stares me down doubtfully, crossing her arms across her chest.
“You’re lying,” she declares.
“I have a plan,” I repeat, crossing my own arms. I’m not sure who I’m trying to convince. It’s a shit plan, if I’m being honest.
Violet narrows her eyes. “I thought you said you weren’t going to lie to me.”
Violet mirroring the words SGAEYL just hurled as well is enough to get me to keep my mouth shut this time. Violet watches me quietly for a beat, then two, then stands from her barstool and pads over to the coffee pot, pouring herself a new cup without a word.
She holds the mug in both hands as she takes the first sip, then turns her body to face me, her hip pressed up against the countertop as she leans against it for support. She looks casual, but I wonder, for a brief moment, if her injuries from her fight with Imogen are still bothering her.
“Let’s try this again,” Violet says, an undertone of warning in her voice. “We need to come up with a plan.”
“I have a plan,” I say for a third time. But this time I’m a little more honest. “It just needs some work so that we don’t get killed.”
“Well, staying alive is hardly important,” Violet remarks sardonically.
I lean back against the counter myself, taking the last sip of my coffee before flashing a quick grin. “Hardly at all.”
Violet rolls her eyes, then shoves away from the counter. She reaches across the island to collect her book, which she hugs protectively to her chest.
“I’m going to take a shower,” she calls over her shoulder as she starts meandering towards the bedroom she’d claimed for herself. “Be ready to go in 45 minutes.”
I’m about to ask where I need to be ready to go to, but she slams the bedroom door behind her before I get the chance.
I can hear Violet moving around in the kitchen from my bedroom when Brennan decides to make my life difficult.
“Tell him I’m busy,” I tell SGAEYL.
Brennan had decided that now was the time he was going to insist on getting in contact, after I’d managed to find excuses – some real, some invented – to avoid our usual communications. Violet could barge through my door any moment now, demanding to know when I’ll be ready to leave. If she learns that Brennan is still alive, I probably wouldn’t live to see the next sunrise.
I pause. Violet isn’t the one I’d need to worry about, not really. If Brennan realizes that she’s here with me, sleeping in the same house as me – I definitely wouldn’t be alive to see the next sunrise.
“He is insisting,” SGAEYL informs me. “He believes you have been acting strangely recently.”
Brennan doesn’t even know the half of it.
I go still as stone, keeping my breathing quiet as I listen for signs of life in the next room. For now, it’s quiet – Violet must have gone back to her bedroom.
“Fine. Tell him to call me.” I tell SGAEYL, resigning myself to this defeat. I take a deep breath.
My last conversation with Brennan lasted barely five minutes. I’d been careful with every word, not wanting him to discover just how much I’ve kept from him where his baby sister was concerned. All he knows is that I struck a deal with his mother to keep an eye on a specific NIA operative, and that I was given access to the NIA itself and information about Project VENIN in exchange. He’d been less than pleased to find out I’d done such a thing without at least running it by him.
My phone begins to ring, and I let it, straining my ears to try to pick up sounds of movement from beyond my door once more. I hear nothing though, and I finally pick up after the grating sound starts up for the third time.
“Is someone dead?” I ask, parroting the line Brennan normally spouts when I call him.
“Just my patience,” Brennan growls. “Why the fuck are you in Luccicare?”
I’d told SGAEYL to relay to him that I was travelling to the Deverelli Isles before we’d left Navarre. I’d been hoping, naively, that he wouldn’t ask any questions.
“I can’t tell you that.” I tell him as much of the truth as I can. Which is pretty much nothing at all. “Although technically, I’m outside Luccicare.”
“Cut the bullshit, Xaden. You’ve been acting different since your last trip to Cordyn, and I know you aren’t telling me the whole story. You need to fill me in – now,” Brennan snaps, annoyance apparent. “The Assembly is asking questions, and if I can’t give them answers, both of our lives will get significantly more annoying.”
I’m silent for a moment, trying to figure out what to say. I need to say something, something to assuage his suspicion, if even temporarily, but my mind is drawing blanks. The last thing I fucking need right now is the Assembly breathing down my neck. My hands are full enough just trying not to get myself killed.
The quiet stretches on, and I can practically hear Brennan’s impatience on the other side of the line.
Should I just fess up? Tell him that his precious baby sister is a baby no longer, but a killer who’s made a living taking Navarre’s enemies off the board? That I’ve partnered with her to try to decipher a cache of documents their dead father left behind after getting killed because he started asking questions about Brennan’s faked death?
I consider the possibility for the briefest of seconds, but quickly discard it. Now isn’t the right time, even if it’s quickly becoming apparent that I won’t be able to keep it from him forever.
I begin to pace a line in front of my bed and rip a hand through the hair that’s fallen across my forehead. What a fucking shitshow I’ve landed myself in.
“I can’t right now,” I finally say, and I hope he drops it. “This is something that needs to be said in-person.”
Brennan absorbs that for a moment, before saying, “Things are bad in Poromiel. We need you back in Aretia.”
Garrick said something similar back in Calldyr, before Lilith Sorrengail interrupted us. An uneasy feeling comes over me. I should have found Garrick again before I left, heard whatever it was he wanted to tell me.
Still, I say: “That’s not possible.” Not when I just found out that VENIN has likely infiltrated Navarre too, and we had absolutely no idea. “The situation here isn’t great, either.”
Brennan scoffs. “Right. The situation at a seaside cottage in one of the most picturesque places in the world is awful, clearly. I don’t even know why I’m complaining. Living in a cave like I do is practically a vacation compared to that.”
“Don’t complain when you’re the one who faked his death,” I shoot back, but I take his ribbing for what it is: an out. “I’ll visit as soon as I’m done here.” I’m about the end the call when I realize that Brennan just said something he shouldn’t know. “How did you know where I was staying?”
“SGAEYL has been including a lot of… unnecessary information in some of her reports, rather than stuff she’s supposed to be logging,” Brennan replies with a hint of a chuckle. “I’m trying to come up with a software fix for it and happened to read some of her logs from yesterday. Nice place, by the way.”
I freeze, and I feel myself break out in a cold sweat. If he’s been looking at SGAEYL’s data, then he could find out about Violet before I tell him.
“It’s not a bug,” SGAEYL says haughtily, only to me. “I’ve been altering my reporting to conceal Violet Sorrengail in my data before it is sent back to my central processors.”
I blink, stunned. “You can do that?”
SGAEYL doesn’t respond. I’ll have to question her later.
“And when will that be?” Brennan asks, returning me to the conversation.
Fuck if I know. This mission was probably literally designed to kill us – there’s a good chance I’ll never know.
“As soon as I’m back in Navarre,” I promise instead. I just hope that I won’t be returning in a body bag.
I insist on driving when I finally emerge from my bedroom, much to Violet’s annoyance, if the way she wrinkles her nose at the suggestion is any indication.
“I’m driving on the way back then,” she bargains confidently.
“Not a chance, Violence,” I reply without hesitation as I shove the key into the ignition of the car my contact had left for us to use. I still recall vividly how many near-accidents she got us into on our way to rescue her squad mates. “I’ve been in the car with you as the driver. I prefer life.”
She scowls, and I suppress a chuckle as I crank the wheel, slowly driving the car off the grass in front of the cottage and onto the narrow road.
She still doesn’t tell me where we’re going, but at Violet’s direction, I weave and wind down along a narrow road leading away from Luccicare. On one side is a sharp drop looking out over the glittering sea, now fully visible without the early morning fog. Countless trees pass us on the other, so dense that sunlight barely filters through the leaves.
The road winds downwards into a valley – a massive crater formed by a volcanic eruption centuries ago, Violet says as we descend – that takes up most of the main Deverelli island.
“Left here,” Violet orders when we finally encounter a busier road.
I keep my head on a swivel, waiting for an opening to safely get across. “Care to tell me where we’re going yet?”
“Scouting the base, obviously,” Violet says with a tone that tells me she thinks it was a dumb question.
For fuck’s sake.
I frown. “No, we’re not.” I hit the gas, taking advantage of a gap in the traffic zooming by to make the left turn, then accelerate to match the pace of the cars around us. “We don’t have a plan yet.”
“And how do you expect us to come up with a plan if we don’t scout the damn base out?”
I glance at her. “Do you trust me?”
Violet blinks, and suddenly her expression becomes closed off. “Why?”
I spy a gas station approaching on our right, and I don’t answer until I’ve turned into it.
“Do we need gas?” Violet leans toward me, trying to get a look at the fuel gauge.
“We don’t.” I throw the car in park, then turn fully to face her. “You don’t trust me, do you?”
Violet shifts in her seat, eyes looking everywhere but my face.
“It’s not a matter of trust,” she murmurs. Then she lets out a sharp sigh, a loud contrast to the softness of her words, as she combs her fingers through the hair that’s already managed to escape her braid crown, tugging them behind her ear with a ferocity.
“Then what is it?” I press. I’m desperate for this woman to give me something to work with here. “Because we need to trust each other if we’re going to finish this mission alive.”
It’s life-or-death.
“I know.” She picks at some imaginary lint on her pants, eyes trained on the invisible dust. She takes a deep breath. “Have you ever watched someone you care about die before, Xaden? Actually watched them die in front of you?”
I wasn’t sure where the conversation had been going, but it certainly wasn’t there. I pause, consider my next words carefully. I cut the engine, and suddenly its deathly quiet, the only sound the whoosh of cars passing on the road and our own breathing.
“No,” I admit. I hadn’t been there when my father died, and I’m grateful for that. Violet stares ahead, refusing to look in my direction. The look in her eyes makes something in my chest clench tightly.
If I had been there, had seen my dad’s death, would my eyes look the way Violet’s do right now?
“I have,” she says, quietly. Those hazel eyes of hers have gone slightly unfocused, the way I’ve noticed they tend to do when she’s lost in a memory. Her hands tremble slightly, despite how the rest in her lap. “I never, ever want to go through that again.”
Once again, it feels like something is missing, like Violet isn’t telling me the whole story. For someone who’s brought so much death to others, the woman sitting next to me seems terrified of it.
Still, it doesn’t feel right to pry. Violet, ever strong and capable, deserves to have a moment of weakness without it being questioned.
So we sit there in silence, listening to the cars drive past. I don’t say another word, waiting for Violet to figure out what she wants to say, if anything at all
“It isn’t that I don’t want to trust you,” Violet finally says, her voice sounding a little stronger, a little more determined. “But I can’t afford to watch someone I care about die again.”
The way she says the words underlie a sense of deep hurt. I have a sinking feeling that she’s seen more than one person she’s cared about die – a notion so horrific that I have a difficult time making sense of it.
What kind of person would I have become, if I’d seen people I care about die and killed as many as she had? The question is enough to send a light shudder down my spine.
“And you’re worried that by trusting me, you’ll start to care about me?” I ask, what she’s really saying here dawning on me, slowly but surely.
She nods.
“And you’re worried that we won’t survive this mission?” I press, almost gently, like one would get a child to admit to something. “Is that why you don’t want to trust me? Because you’re worried something will happen to me?”
Violet hesitates, then nods again, her eyes staring straight ahead, lips pressed into a hard line.
“You’ve never been on an NIA mission before,” Violet says, voice tight. “This isn’t the military, Xaden.” She finally looks at me, and I realize that she’s scared. Fear is hardly an emotion I associate with her, which only serves to burn the image of her in this moment into my mind.
“When we die, we don’t get honorable burials. We’re the ones that get left behind. There is no backup, no reinforcements. We’re alone – Navarre’s dirty secrets.” She laughs; a sharp, bitter, humorless burst of sound that’s over as soon as it starts. “You know as well as I do that this is a suicide mission.”
Once again, I feel like I’m seeing a side of Violet I haven’t seen before. This one isn’t fierce and strong, but cynical and scared.
She says she doesn’t want to trust me because she doesn’t want to care if I die, but the fact that she’s voicing those fears aloud only tells me that it’s too late for that – even if she hasn’t admitted it to herself yet.
I’ve never thought of Violet Sorrengail as someone who looked small, but that’s just how she looks right now, almost curling in on herself in the passenger seat.
“Ok,” I say, suddenly desperate to try and lift her mood. “Let’s try this another way. You’ve read my file – what am I skilled at?”
She raises a brow. “We had this conversation yesterday, Xaden.”
“Just answer the question, Violence.”
Violet rolls her eyes, but she straightens up a bit as she answers. “Lying and undercover work.”
“Right,” I say. I twist the key in the ignition, and the engine roars back to life. “If you don’t want to trust me, that’s fine. But can you at least acknowledge that I know what I’m doing when I say scouting the base right now isn’t a good use of our time?”
Violet grumbles something under her breath that sounds suspiciously like “arrogant ass,” but I pretend I didn’t hear her, stifling my grin when she glares in my direction.
“I’m waiting on an answer, Violence,” I tease. The pint-sized murder machine rolls her eyes, then huffs.
“Fine. We’ll do it your way.”
Instead of driving to the base we’re supposed to infiltrate, I turn around and follow the signs to Turchinu, the closest town to it. Violet practically has her nose glued to the window, eagerly looking around as I navigate the narrow roads sandwiched between old, towering buildings. We pass a market, and a line of cafes. People are milling about, shopping bags in hand, dragging children or pets in the other.
It’s almost painfully normal.
I find a spot to park the car just off the main square and I can’t get out of the seat fast enough, desperate to stretch my legs after nearly an hour in the tiny car that clearly wasn’t made for someone of my height. I stretch, and momentarily drink in the simple pleasure of the warmth of the sun on my skin.
“Shall we get something to eat?” I ask Violet when she comes around from the other side of the car. We’re not dressed like the people around us, our all-black, skin-tight outfits standing out like a sore thumb against the breezy and colorful fabrics the locals all seem to wear, yet no one seems to pay us any mind.
Violet’s eyes scan the crowd, and I don’t miss how they snag on one of the cafes, almost longingly.
“Is this a good idea?” she asks, ready to bolt at a moment’s notice. “What if we’re seen?”
I grin down at her, then grab her hand. She startles, but doesn’t pull away, and I take that as a sign to start walking, picking our way across the square to the café she’d hesitated on.
“We’re not doing this your way, remember?” I say, pulling her out of the way of two screeching children who go barreling past. The breeze ruffles my hair as I look back at her.
“Well, maybe I don’t like your way,” she snips.
I smirk. “Too bad I don’t care what you like, Violence. You agreed to this. Time to get out of your comfort zone.”
“I don’t like you sometimes,” Violet mutters, but she still makes no move to pull away.
That would be like a dagger to the chest, I think, if I actually thought she meant it.
“Good thing I don’t care about that either,” I reply nonchalantly. “And to answer your original question, the whole point is to be seen.”
“Elaborate.”
We stop in front of the café. “I’m willing to bet that half the people in this town work at the base we’re trying to get into,” I say, lowering my voice so she’s the only one who hears. “It’s not going to be as simple as strolling up to the front gates and asking to be let in.”
She scrunches her nose. “I know that.”
“Do you?” I guide her to one of the outdoor tables, shaded by an umbrella. “We need to establish ourselves here first, before we even try to go there. When they run their background check, they need to see that we didn’t just come out of nowhere.”
“Right.” Violet sounds doubtful but doesn’t argue. I take the win.
A server comes by a moment later with menus. It doesn’t take long for Violet to order a heaping serving of pasta. I stick with coffee.
“You’re not going to eat?”
“Not hungry,” I reply, sipping on the hot beverage.
The Deverelli Isles were where Riona was trying to hide her work on VENIN before the program got shut down, and for good reason, Lilith had told me in the elevator before we’d left Navarre. I’m warning you now – the Deverelli aren’t your friends.
The warning the general left me with is still bouncing around in the back of my head, and I can’t shake the feeling that something bad is going to happen. One of us has to be on guard at all times. My eyes catch on the silver of Violet’s hair, securely braided and pinned in a crown encircling her hair. It glints under the warm sunlight.
Violet leans back in her chair, arms crossed as she looks out over the bustling square. Once again, she looks like she’s lost herself in that beautiful head of hers.
“What are you thinking about?” I ask, suddenly wanting to know exactly what she’s thinking about.
Violet doesn’t look at me, but she’s got that look on her face that tells me she’s debating exactly how much to tell me. It should be concerning how I’ve learned to decipher her facial expressions, even the minute ones, over the last few weeks.
“This reminds me of Draithus,” she finally says.
My breathe catches. Does she remember that I was there, the day of the bombing? That I was the one who carried her away? She’s never mentioned it to me before.
“Oh yeah?” I say instead. “I can see why you’d say that.”
The central square in Draithus had been full of life, just like this one, before VENIN destroyed it.
“I was there,” she says after a few moments. While my gaze doesn’t leave her face, hers doesn’t leave the children playing in the fountain, their jubilant shrieks carrying as they splash in the water. “The day it was bombed.”
She shifts uncomfortably, as if recalling that morning is painful.
“I know.”
She finally tears her eyes away from the children, looking at me with undisguised surprise. “What?”
I take a deep breath. “I was there too.”
Understanding flits across Violet’s face, and she clenches her hands into fists.
“You were who I saw in that alleyway.” It’s phrased as a question, but we both know it’s not one. I’m not at all surprised by how quickly she put the pieces together.
“I was. Bodhi was there too.” I pause, carefully debating my next words. “You were dancing with Valerie.”
Violet freezes, and I immediately regret bringing the small girl up. It feels like I’ve stepped on a land mine. Any emotion I could see on her face before leaks away, hidden behind a carefully constructed mask, and her knuckles go white from how tight she squeezes her glass of water.
The scene from that morning in Draithus replays in my head. Violet dancing with Valerie as the town celebrated the god of luck. Violet throwing herself towards the clock tower in a hopeless attempt to stop the carnage. Her heart-wrenching cry when she realized Valerie was dead.
I give myself a small shake, trying to dislodge the unpleasant memories. I never want to hear such a sound from her mouth again.
I expect the silence to run-on, for Violet to change the subject, so I’m surprised when she asks: “You knew her? Valerie, I mean?”
I look back at her, trying to gauge why she’s asking, but she’s expressionless. The sounds of splashing and the hustle and bustle of the square surround us, and it should make me warier than I am to discuss this out in the open.
Still, I say: “I was working an undercover assignment in Draithus – a protection detail – at the time. I would get coffee for me and Bodhi at her mom’s shop.” I pause, a memory tugging at me. “I think she was from the isles, now that I’m thinking about it.”
Violet takes a sip of her water. “She had a Deverelli accent, if I’m remembering correctly,” she says carefully, then bites her lip. “I- I don’t know what happened to her. The moments after the blast are a bit of a blur.” She pauses, brows scrunching together. “I hit my head pretty hard,” she confesses.
My jaw flexes, and I stare down at my mug as I debate if I should tell her.
“You did say you wouldn’t lie to her,” SGAEYL taunts, as if the damn AI knows that that little promise is going to end up being my own undoing. I’m slowly realizing I never should have made it, yet I couldn’t keep my stupid mouth shut, making a promise in the heat of the moment that I couldn’t keep and not even bothering to think through the potential consequences before I’d let the words leave my mouth.
Now, I feel a pang of discomfort every time I think of Brennan, or VENIN, or about my mother – any of the things that I hadn’t been entirely truthful with her about before I’d made that seemingly innocuous promise.
“Go back to being quiet, if you don’t mind.” She’s mostly kept to herself since we left the cottage this morning. Then, I take a deep breath. I should at least tell the truth when I can, even if it fucking sucks.
“The last time I saw Liz, she was pretty badly injured,” I tell Violet. “I don’t know what happened to her after that.”
There. The truth. Even if I’ve left out how I’m almost certain that if she wasn’t dead when I saw her through the smoke and dust thrown up by the blast, I’m positive she would have been before long. I promised truth, not my own speculation.
“Hm.” The sound is non-committal, and Violet looks back at the kids playing in the fountain. I take it as a sign to change the subject, but before I can open my mouth, our server reappears, laden with a steaming plate of pasta. Violet’s eyes sparkle as the plate is set down in front of her, and I realize it’s the most genuine expression of excitement I’ve seen from her since we met. As I watch her twirl some of the noodles onto her fork, an almost imperceptible grin on her face, it feels like someone has reached into my chest and squeezed.
Violet’s eyes flutter shut when her mouth closes around the fork, a little moan of satisfaction vibrating in her chest.
“That is so good,” she groans.
Of course, that’s all my brain needs to take a hard turn into the gutter. I’ve forgotten all thoughts about Draithus, or Project VENIN, or the Assembly. It’s taking all of my willpower not to throw Violet over my shoulder, find a secluded spot and find out if she kisses as fiercely as she talks; to give in to the intense physical attraction I’ve felt towards her since the day I met her.
Fuck. Brennan’s going to kill me if he ever finds out what I really think of his baby sister.
“-den. Xaden?”
I startle. Violet is looking at me, fork resting on her plate, one eyebrow raised. Half the plate of pasta is gone. I have no clue how long I was zoned out.
“Are you with me now?” she asks, observing me with an amused tilt of her head.
I blink, trying to reorder my thoughts. “Sorry.”
She pokes at her pasta with the fork, but doesn’t move to take another bite, opting instead to scrutinize me in a way that makes me want to squirm in my seat. Sorrengails are way too fucking astute, and it always feels like she’s staring straight through me. It’s unnervingly similar to the way Brennan would look at me, before Dad died, when he first started teaching me to fight.
“What were you thinking about?” she finally asks after a beat passes, mirroring my earlier question.
I lean back in my chair and suppress a grimace when I take a sip of my now-cold coffee. Gross.
“Nothing important,” I deflect. Telling her that I was wondering what it would feel like to kiss her against a wall probably wouldn’t go over very well. Now is definitely the time for a subject change. “We should-”
“Oh, I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before!”
Violet and I jerk to look at the tall woman who managed to get the drop on us both, standing at our table with her tanned hands planted firmly on her apron-clad hips and an amiable smile beaming down at us.
“Don’t look so surprised!” the woman chortles after glancing between us, speaking in with accented Deverelli that tells me she’s not originally from the isles. “I know just about everyone around here. The tourists like to stay in Luccicare.”
Violet raises an eyebrow, before speaking in perfect Deverelli herself. “That’s a bit surprising. This town is lovely.”
“Isn’t it?” The woman grins, but it quickly falls away. “What in Amari’s name are you wearing?”
I blink rapidly, before remembering that Violet and I are still wearing our black mission suits. So much for blending in.
“We just arrived back to the isles from the Continent yesterday,” Violet says with a friendly smile, not missing a beat. “Unfortunately, our bags are on their own little adventure right now. This was all we had with us. If you don’t mind, you are…?”
The woman’s eyes brighten, the laugh lines around her eyes crinkling. “Where are my manners?” She offers Violet her hand. “My name is Emilia. I’m the owner here-” she juts her thumb at the building at her back, a sheet of pin straight salt-and-pepper hair tumbling down her back. “-and my husband works at the military base nearby.”
“I see,” Violet responds kindly. “I’m Violetta, and this is my husband, Xaden.”
My breath catches at the ease with which Violet’s introduction leaves her mouth.
“You like it,” SGAEYL says, tone sly.
“Do something useful for once instead of commenting on my thoughts,” I grumble.
“Does running background checks on Emilia Rossi count as doing something useful?” SGAEYL asks, sarcasm evident. How she managed to dig up the woman’s last name barely five seconds after she said it is beyond me.
“Only if you do it without filling my head with commentary again.”
“What a beautiful name,” Emilia says, clapping her hands together. “You must be from the isles with the way you speak.”
“I’m from Luccicare,” Violet lies, sticking to her cover story perfectly. “Xaden and I decided to take a trip to the Continent after we got married.”
She glances at me, then giggles. Fucking. Giggles.
“We were supposed to be back after a month, but we just kept extending the trip so we could go all over. I’d always wanted to travel, so…”
She trails off, and I get the sense that I’ve once again stumbled upon another little nugget of truth about my pretend wife.
“I’m not very good at saying no to her,” I tell Emilia, picking up the conversation.
Emilia laughs, a loud, booming sound, before clapping me on the shoulder with a surprising amount of strength.
“Atta boy!” she says, a soft smile gracing her lips. “My husband was the same way when we were younger, back before he enlisted. Enjoy it while it lasts.”
Emilia darts away after another minute of small talk, excusing herself after noticing a couple that just sat down a few tables away.
“I liked her,” Violet declares as the café owners walks away.
I blink. “Oh yeah?”
She nods. “I can’t imagine that people with laugh lines as deep as hers could be all that bad.”
It’s a stunningly optimistic take from a hardened, cynical assassin.
“She seemed nice,” I accede. “Still, don’t let your guard down.”
Violet rolls her eyes, taking a bite of the pasta she’d momentarily abandoned. “Wasn’t planning on it.”
We leave a handful of paper money on the table after Violet finishes her food, and I recapture her hand in mine as we stroll back into the blinding sunlight. This time, she doesn’t startle.
It doesn’t take long for sweat to begin to gather on my brow as the heat beats down on us. I glance down at myself. I’m not wearing any daggers – those are in the car – but the black is a bitch in this heat.
“We need clothes,” I declare.
Violet looks up at me, and I know I’m about to get a sarcastic response before she even opens her mouth, just from the expression on her face.
“Are the clothes we’re already wearing not to your taste?”
I reach over and flick her forehead lightly, playfully. Violet yelps, her free hand darting up to rub where I’d just touched. It’s kind of cute.
“They stand out, smartass.” I scan the plaza, looking for somewhere that would fit the bill. “Follow me.”
I don’t give her much of a choice, dragging the smaller woman behind me as I push our way across the square to a small side street milling with shoppers. Almost immediately, I spy a storefront that looks promising.
“We have clothes at the house,” Violet hisses, tugging her hand out of my grip. I turn back to look at her as she plants her hands on her hips.
“I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that all of the clothes you brought with you are black.” I extend an arm towards the square, one eyebrow raised. “How many people do you see around here wearing solid black clothes? You look like an assassin, which might be the goal for you most of the time, but it’s not right now. Don’t be stubborn, Violence.”
Her mouth opens, then shuts. Finally, she moves to shove past me, practically stomping towards the store I’d had my eye on.
“I’m not stubborn!” she calls over her shoulder.
I blink. “Was that a joke? You are literally one of the most stubborn people I’ve ever met.”
“Pot meet kettle,” she mutters.
Two hours later, we’re trudging back towards our car, each of us carrying two bags with our purchases. I’d always planned on buying new clothes once I’d arrived and gotten a better sense for how to blend in, but judging from the dirty looks she’s been sending me, Violet had planned to live in her mission suits while we were here.
She hadn’t let me see her when she tried on the clothes, but I’m more excited than I should be to see how she looks wearing the colorful fabrics the Deverelli seem to favor.
Although, she’s definitely in a better mood now than she was before. The brief stop by the bookstore we’d stumbled across markedly lifted her spirits.
“SGAEYL ran a background check on Emilia while we were shopping,” I tell Violet once we’re safely in the car, the town of Turchinu in the rearview mirror.
She glances at me. “Oh?”
We begin making our way up the winding road that leads up from the crater, towards our house.
“She might be our way onto the base,” I say, keeping my eyes glued to the road as I navigate the twists and turns. “Her husband is one of the commanders there.”
“What do you propose we do?” she asks, curious. It’s a marked contrast to the way we started our day.
I’m quiet for a moment as I run through different scenarios. It’s getting dark, the road ahead becoming harder to make out in the dying light, so I flip on the headlights.
“Let’s start by going back to that café tomorrow,” I say. “Maybe Emilia will tell us more about the base if we say the right things.”
Violet nods. “We should agree on the reason why we came back for our cover story too. That isn’t something we should make up on the fly.”
“Agreed.”
The moon is overhead, shining bright enough to clearly light the small walkway to our cottage when I park out front. Violet dashes in ahead of me, muttering something about using the bathroom, and I amble in at a slower pace, taking deep breaths of the fresh air.
I’m locking the door behind me when Violet’s unmistakable scream rends through the silence of the house.
My stomach turns to ice at the sound, fear immediately pumping through my veins. I drop the keys in a flash, tugging out the dagger I keep in my boot as I lunge towards her room, my heart pounding in my ears.
Sweet Amari, please let her be ok, please-
I rip open the door, eyes scanning the room frantically before landing on Violet, who’s frozen at the precipice of what I can only assume is her bathroom, staring at something inside with wide eyes.
“What’s wrong?” I demand, marching towards her with long strides. Her eyes fly to mine, and I clock three things at once.
First, and most important, she’s trembling.
Second, looks like she’s seen a ghost.
Third, and most likely to send me to an early grave, she’s only wearing a towel.
“Violet?” I prompt when she doesn’t respond, forcibly pushing away all the depraved thoughts that want populate my headspace in favor of making sure she’s ok.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, eyes wide. “I’m fine. It’s just- I was just-”
When I’m finally right next to her, putting my larger body between hers and whatever she saw in that bathroom, I see what made her scream, and it makes my blood run cold.
There’s a poster taped to the wall of the shower, taking up almost the entire wall. A woman in the center of a sniper rifle’s crosshairs – one I know all too well.
Devera.
But that’s not what scares me, what has me pulling Violet from the room and into my own, setting her on the bed I’d only slept in once while I call whoever I can to try and get us somewhere else to stay.
No, what has us loading our things into the car, scarcely a day after we’d arrived was the bright red circle around the other woman in the photograph, the one Devera seemed to be talking to, along with the message written out in block letters across the bottom of the photo.
“YOU’RE NEXT, SORRENGAIL.”
Notes:
uh oh its 'writing fanfic when I'm supposed to be working' o'clock! I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter! I ended up deleting like half of it and rewriting bc it was dragging and I hated it lol. we might get some of the scenes I removed, parts of which I'd posted on Tumblr, in later chapters. we'll just have to see!
anyways, happy new years if I don't post again before then! thank you all for a wonderful year filled with fandom, and for supporting my writing. it means the world! MWAH love you guys <3
Chapter 21: Late Night Rendezvous
Notes:
I swore I would never write a chapter as long as VSGTSAS Chapter 5. I lied. Obviously. Whoops!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Violet
Three Years and Seven Months Ago
The first Spy Games are always the deadliest.
It’s when trainees are at their cockiest, right when they begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel. They’ve nearly survived their first year at BASGIATH, they think, so they can survive anything.
They’re wrong.
The instructors made a point to drill this point into us whenever they can, but Devera especially so. Still, the closer we got to the final challenge of the year, the more confident my fellow first-years became. It was almost as if all the warnings only served as kindling, rather than dousing the arrogance that will inevitably lead to the deaths of nearly half the of the first-years trudging out of this tunnel with me.
The second- and third-years are already outside. They have the advantage of seniority, of knowing where to hide.
The first-years are the hunters and the hunted. The older trainees hunt us while we hunt each other.
After Devera’s pep talk in the underground arena, we were directed to the tunnel that leads out to the surface above. Each year, it’s something slightly different. Some years we make our way out on our own two feet. Others, we’re drugged and left in some remote location, tasked with orienting ourselves and surviving. I’m determined to survive – I will survive.
Rhiannon’s arm brushes up against mine.
“Give them hell,” she murmurs, her eyes not leaving the steadily growing prick of light that signifies the outdoors beyond the protocol. Once we reach the end of this tunnel, we’ll have to separate. Squad mates aren’t allowed to stay together, not for when the games are designed to test how we operate solo.
Ridoc throws his arm over my shoulders, significantly less serious. “Just relax, Vi. You’ll knock ‘em dead!”
I wince, as do Sawyer and Rhiannon.
“Seriously, man?” Sawyer asks.
“Too soon?”
“It will never not be too soon,” Rhi sighs.
I spy a glint of blonde hair ahead, and a shiver skitters down my spine. Jack Barlowe will almost certainly try to take my life today. While I’ve made a point not to kill unless I have to up until now, I won’t hesitate if I cross paths with him. I’ll kill him, or I’ll die trying.
Devera has been drilling me in combat almost without pause over the last month, trying to prepare me for whatever gets thrown my way today, and I’ve more than proven my capabilities against my fellow first-years. My point total – only second to Jack’s – is more than enough proof of that. I’ve killed ten people since I entered the protocol.
I’m more than willing to add an eleventh if it means ridding me of Jack. No one would commend his soul to Malek.
Still, I have to wonder when the acrid taste in my mouth that accompanies each kill will fade. Or if it ever will.
Twelve hours into the forty-eight-hour ordeal that is the Spy Games, I’m more than ready for it to end.
Rain pours around me, soaking me to my skin and chilling me to the bone. It’s the rainy season in Morraine, and I curse that fact with every step I take. Every movement I make reminds me of the uncomfortable ache in my joints, only exacerbated by the cold and damp.
I’ve managed to stay mostly hidden since the gunshot that marked the start of the games echoed throughout the forest. I’ve only come across one first-year in that time, and they’re lying cold and lifeless at the foot of a massive boulder half a mile away, one of my daggers likely still embedded in their throat. I’d thrown it from the cover of a tree I’d climbed, and opted to slip away unnoticed instead of retrieving the dagger and risking discovery by anyone who might be lurking nearby.
The small device on my wrist was quick to tally the points I’d earned from their death. Somehow, seeing that the numbers only went up a little bit made the guilt worse – that merely meant that I’d ended the life of someone who didn’t have much of a chance in the first place. But they made the mistake of charging at me first – and when it’s kill-or-be-killed, I can’t afford to stay my hand. Not anymore.
The sun set an hour ago, making the already dark forest even more foreboding. I need to find shelter, but I also can’t run the risk of cornering myself in case I have any unpleasant encounters with my fellow trainees.
Just because we’re supposed to go out on our own doesn’t mean that everyone plays by the rules. BASGIATH encourages us to play dirty, to bend the rules to our favor if it means fulfilling our objectives.
Carefully, I shimmy down the slick trunk of the tree I’d climbed a few minutes before to see if I could spot smoke from any nearby fires built by any of the less survival-minded trainees. Seeing none, I feel a bit safer taking shelter in the small alcove I found a few dozen yards away.
Still, I keep a dagger in one hand, even as I settle down onto the ground, the rough stone digging into my back. I groan, the discomfort almost too much, but I can’t let it overcome me. Not yet. We have a whole week to recuperate after the Spy Games are over.
Shielded from the rain and some of the wind, I almost catch myself dozing off, but I shoot to my feet when I hear a scream in the distance.
My first instinct is to go the opposite way, away from whoever I just heard. My first instinct is to prioritize my own life.
Of course, my damned conscience won’t let me do that.
“Please let it be nothing,” I mutter to the trees as I creep through the undergrowth.
My luck, as always, is shit.
After about five minutes of carefully tracking through the woods in the direction of the scream, I hear another one, much closer. It makes my hair stand on end.
It’s the sound someone makes when they’re about to die.
I forget all about stealth and sneaking and take off in an all-out sprint. I palm another dagger in my empty hand. Low-lying branches scratch at my face as I run, but I pay them no mind. Faster. I have to move faster.
This entire year, I’ve managed to get away with only killing the people who try to kill me first. The old Violet hangs on by the tips of her fingers, screaming at me in the form of my irrational decision-making, even as I’ve become more comfortable with the bloodshed and death with every life I’ve taken. I shouldn’t be running towards this person, in the vain hope that I can save their life without having them turn on me the second it benefits them. I should be thinking about my own self-preservation. People die here every day – what’s one more?
But I can’t turn that part of me off. I can’t ignore the small voice in the back of my head that tells me it’s wrongto turn a blind eye. And that small voice is probably going to be what gets me killed, even if it’s not today.
The trees thin ahead, giving way to a cliff that drops hundreds of feet, the same one Devera trained me to climb. As I get closer to the tree line, I see two people, one standing over the other.
I skid to a stop as soon as I can make out their faces.
It's Jack. And the person he’s standing over is Nadine, one of my squad mates.
Fuck.
She’s badly injured, blood seeping from a wound at her side, turning the puddles of rainwater around her red. Her ankle is twisted at a stomach-churning angle that immediately tells me its broken, and the whimpers I can hear from here only give away a fraction of the pain I’m certain she’s feeling. And Jack is standing over her, bloody blade in hand, grinning like it’s his damn birthday.
I spur myself into motion before I can think too hard, lowering my shoulder and charging at Jack. I manage to catch him off guard, hitting low and sending him sprawling on his ass. The image gives me more satisfaction than I care to admit, and I hop backwards out of his immediate reach and take up a defensive stance in front of Nadine. The hair that’s escaped my braid sticks to my face, wet from the rain.
“Violet?” she gasps, taken aback by my sudden appearance.
“Sorrengail,” Jack snarls, but he isn’t mad. Not at all. The sickening look in his eyes makes my skin crawl – he’s excited I’m here.
I’m not particularly fond of Nadine – we’ve never been too close. But despite her harsh words early on, she mellowed out as we spent more time around each other. In a more normal life, I might call her a friend. She’s nowhere as important to me as Rhi, Ridoc or Sawyer, but I’m not willing to abandon her to Jack to save my own life either.
Fuck it. At least I can bring that asshole down with me.
“It’s not polite to play with your food, Barlowe,” I taunt, raising my daggers. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”
I’m bluffing, taunting him to try to give Nadine enough time to escape into the trees. I might be the number 2 trainee in our year, but I’m not stupid enough to think I can overcome Jack’s pure bloodlust through skill alone. I’ll need to play to his ego and arrogance.
“I’m going to enjoy this,” Jack says, easily regaining his feet, unsheathing a dagger as he does. He tilts his head, looking at me like I’m his next meal.
“Nadine, you need to try and make for the trees,” I hiss, quiet enough that I hope Jack can’t hear me.
“I can’t move,” she whimpers. When I look at her over my shoulder, I realize she’s in even worse shape than I thought. There’s another stab wound on her other side that I hadn’t been able to see when I charged in here, and she’s cradling one of her arms, which hangs limply at her side. “Jack broke my ankle and my arm.”
I knew Jack was a fucking sadist, but this is a new low, even for him. I grit my teeth, then return my attention to the man that has been promising my death since the day we met.
The only way for either of us to survive is by making sure he doesn’t – and now, I can feel my anger rising. It’s one thing that we have to kill our fellow trainees to score points – it’s another thing entirely to enjoy the killing to the point that he’d torture Nadine, toying with her instead of making the clean kill, like we’d been taught.
“You’ve wanted me dead from the start.” I spread my arms out, an open invitation for him to focus on me instead of my injured squad mate. “Let’s get it over with.”
Jack leaps forward with a battle cry, and I immediately dart to the side to avoid the first swipe of his knife, then duck when he pivots, slashing for my neck. I grunt when the movement sends a twinge of pain shooting from my ankle up my leg.
“You’ll have to be faster than that, jackass!” I spring forward, ignoring the pain, and aim squarely for his throat, slashing with both daggers. He dances out of the way, and I parry a blow of his own, the blade sailing past my head and just barely missing my ear.
The miss throws him slightly off-balance, and I take advantage, the tip of my blade aimed squarely for his heart. But Jack recovers faster than I thought he would, and I don’t react in time. He brings his knee up, driving it into my torso and knocking the air out of my lungs, sending me sprawling across the slick rock. My daggers fly from my grip and skitter just out of reach.
“Nice try, Sorrengail,” Jack croons as I fight to pull air into my lungs, tears pricking my eyes. He takes a knee next to me, pushing his soaked blonde hair away from his forehead as he rests the tip of his blade a hair away from the skin of my throat. “You talked a big game, but you’re as weak and pathetic as your friend over there.”
“Fuck you,” I gasp. I don’t dare reach for one of the daggers sheathed at my side – he’d just plunge his own straight through my exposed neck.
“It’s a miracle you made it this long,” Jack says, completely ignoring my insult. “This was embarrassingly easy.”
He makes the amateur mistake of lifting his dagger – something Devera specifically taught me not to do – no doubt to plunge it into my chest, and I use the opening to unsheathe one of my own and drive it into his shin.
Jack roars in pain, stumbling over. I scramble to my feet, ignoring the stabbing pain in my ankle and Jack’s screams in favor of making a mad dash towards Nadine, who still lies where I left her moments before.
“We need to go – now!” I pant, ignoring the pain in my ankle as I tug her good arm and loop it over my shoulder, taking her weight. Nadine lets out a low groan, her eyes fluttering. Her skin has a sickly pallor – she’s lost too much blood. She puts no weight on her good leg, and I’m practically dragging the larger woman.
The logical part of my brain tells me that she won’t make it even if we can escape Jack, but the emotional part of me, the part of me that spent the last year surviving this hellhole, the part of me that saw Nadine fight to survive just as I have even if we weren’t as close as I was to others in our squad – it’s what allows me to cling to hope that we’ll both escape with our lives.
“Damn it, Nadine, I need you to help me,” I beg. She’s too heavy, and I’m too short. Jack is going to recover before I can–
I feel something impact Nadine, hear her pained whimper. I watch, horrified, as she coughs up a bit of blood, almost instantly going completely limp.
I twist, and it feels like a boulder has made its way into my stomach. A dagger sticks out of her back, right down the middle, likely severing her spinal cord.
“No.” The word is barely a whisper. My hands go slack, and Nadine slides from my grip, falling to the ground with a splash and a thud.
Dead.
There’s a beep from my wrist, and I have to fight down the rising nausea as Jack’s latest kill is attributed to me – because I was the closest person to Nadine when her heart stopped.
I look at Jack, my brain feeling like it’s struggling to comprehend the horror of this moment. Those icy blue eyes of his scream for blood and death – preferably mine. A twisted grin morphs his face, and I’m certain I’m looking at a genuine psychopath. No one can enjoy killing as much as he does otherwise.
“You’re next, Sorrengail,” Jack says, taking delight in whatever dismay he sees in my expression.
First, I feel numb as I turn back to look at Nadine. Her eyes are closed, and if it wasn’t for the wounds covering her body, I’d say she even looks peaceful. Then I finally look over to where Jack is kneeling a two dozen or so feet away, that sick grin on his face, and something inside me snaps.
I reach down, and carefully remove the dagger from Nadine’s back. Then, I whirl around, loosing the blade with lightning speed. A moment later, Jack’s pained roar tells me I struck true, impaling his foot.
I withdraw another blade, stalking towards my prey with a focus and drive I haven’t experienced since the night Oren invaded my room.
That little voice inside my head is screaming at me to turn around, to not give in to the coursing, red-hot rush of anger that’s overtaken me, but I ignore it. I shove it deep down, lock it away.
“That was a mistake,” I inform him, the calmness of my voice a stark difference to the bubbling wrath under my skin, scorching my veins. Jack’s face contorts into something that can only be described as visceral hatred, an ugly look on an already-ugly face. An ugly soul.
“Did you think I would run away if you killed her?” I ask him. “That I would let you get away? You miscalculated, Jack.”
Indeed, Jack will be condemned to Malek, rather than commended. And I’m more than willing to be the one to land the death blow.
For the first time, I think I see something that looks a bit like fear in those eyes of his. And I. Don’t. Care.
“Are you going to kill me, Sorrengail?” Jack asks. Despite the fear, that skin-crawling look of enjoyment hasn’t left his face. “Finally seeing reality?”
I hurl another blade, then another, imbedding it in Jack’s other foot, then his stomach. He falls over with a cry, and then I’m the one towering over him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I hiss. Quick as a viper, I reach down and rip the blades from his torso, then remove the ones in his feet. Blood gushes, covering the rock face in even more red. He’s completely disarmed.
We’re precipitously close to the edge of the cliff, but Jack doesn’t seem to care. In fact, it’s like the pain barely phases him.
Jack laughs, blood staining his teeth and dripping from his mouth, and the sound would chill me to the bone if I wasn’t warmed by my own anger. I’m done letting him have his way. I’m done watching him kill for fucking enjoyment.
I’m done, period.
BASGIATH wants us to be cold-blooded? Fine. I tried to do it my way for an entire year, and that didn’t keep Nadine from dying, or anyone else in my squad regardless of if I liked them, like Pryor, or Luca.
“Oh, I’m sure you don’t,” Jack says, wheezing a bit. “Little Miss Violet Sorrengail, too good to kill people unless they attack her first, too scared to land the kill blow unless she absolutely has to. That’s you right?” His smirk grows. “Except it’s not.”
I withdraw my final blade, holding it to the line of his neck the same way he’d done to me only a few minutes ago. The hunter has become the hunted.
“Is this little speech supposed to keep me from killing you, Jack?” I press the dagger against his skin just enough to draw blood. “If so, you’re failing.”
He cackles, maniacal, insane. “You kill me now, Sorrengail, and you’ll become me. It’s a slippery slope, cold-blooded murder. You can take my word on that.”
“You’re insane.”
“Am I? Or do you just not like that I’m telling the truth?”
I stare him down, my eyes locked on his. They’re bloodshot, like he hasn’t slept in days, only adding to the maniacal look on his face.
I could walk away. Jack is too badly injured to come after me; he’s lost too much blood. I could slip into the woods and make it to the end of the games, and hope that someone else picks him off so I don’t have to. And if no one does, maybe the elements will, or the blood loss.
Then I think of Nadine, her wounds. Of all the other people Jack has killed this year. Of all the people he will kill if I let him walk away and he survives till tomorrow.
“I’ll just have to take that risk then.”
I stand, and as Jack’s laughter rings out around me, I plant my boot to his chest, shoving him over the edge of the cliff.
That laughter echoes up the cliff face – then abruptly stops a few moments later. I don’t bother to look at the counter on my wrist, don’t bother to look over the edge of the cliff to confirm what I already know – there’s no point.
There’s a new number one at BASGIATH – me.
Present
I bolt awake, sweat making the hair at the back of my neck stick to my skin, Jack’s laughter as I pushed him over the cliff echoing in my ears. The look in his eyes after he’d killed Nadine is as vivid in my mind’s eye as it was when it happened.
You’re next, Sorrengail.
I swing my legs over the edge of the bed Xaden had insisted I take when we finally trudged into our new accommodations, those words echoing in my head over and over again. But it’s what he said to me after, about the person I would become, that still haunts me in my waking hours each and every day.
The way I’d killed Jack that first time was different from my other kills. I’ve grown into a ruthless, inhuman killer, but even now, I try to kill cleanly, the way we were taught in the protocol. No unnecessary blood that could lead to discovery, no playing with my victims. Certainly no gunshots that leave a trail of evidence behind. I’d snapped the necks of the people who attacked Rhiannon and Sawyer in the woods near Athebyne because it was the cleanest, most painless way to kill them.
I’d made an exception for Jack. I’d made him suffer. And he’d been right – I’ve become more like him in the time since then. The ease with which I discarded my humanity for the sake of survival is a testament to that.
I glance out the open bedroom door. I can see the top of Xaden’s mop of black hair, resting atop a pillow propped against the arm of the sofa in the other room. Xaden had insisted the door stay open, at least for tonight, and I’d agreed. We’re both on edge right now, and I’d be lying to myself if I said that having him close by didn’t calm my anxiety over the message somewhat.
The new house, closer to the small town where we’d spent our day, is smaller, not as updated. Everything is made out of wood and fabric in warm tones, like the clothes worn by the townspeople in Turchinu. While it has a second bedroom, on the second floor, Xaden had insisted on sleeping on the first floor, and I was too tired to argue that if anyone was planning on breaking in, the five seconds it would take him to come down the stairs wouldn’t make much of a difference. At least the house is closer to the base we’ve been tasked to infiltrate.
You’re next, Sorrengail.
I give myself a shake, retrieve the dagger I’d stowed under my pillow, then quietly slip out of the room, carefully eyeing Xaden’s sleeping for any sign that I’ve woken him up. The steady rise and fall of his chest doesn’t change. His brows are scrunched up a bit, barely visible through the darkness, and I’m sure that the sight would be cute if I could actually make him out fully.
I carefully open the front door, keeping an eagle eye on Xaden as I cross the threshold and close it behind me before settling on the front stoop. I turn my eyes skyward, ignoring the slight chill of the night air. Despite the town being close by, the stars here are clear, not diluted by the light pollution surely present closer the Deverelli capital.
Despite my best efforts to scrub the image from my brain, the message left in my bathroom at the seaside cottage keeps floating to the forefront of my thoughts. I recognized the scene almost immediately. That photo was taken moments before Devera had been gunned down in Cordyn.
And I’m next, as the mysterious messenger so eloquently put it. Whether the mysterious messenger had intended to or not, the callback to the first time I killed Jack was enough to shock me to my bones.
But now that the initial shock has worn off, my brain has begun going down every avenue. How had we been found so quickly? And, perhaps more importantly, who the hell is targeting me? The NIA kills silently – they don’t leave messages designed to instill fear like that. Something isn’t adding up.
I’d been convinced that the NIA had been the ones sending assassins after me, but had I gotten it wrong? And if I had, who the hell is targeting me?
I replay the attacks in my apartment in my head. Both of the ones that attacked me were wearing NIA operative gear. The first one said she’d been sent by Dain’s father; said that she’d be let out of the program if she killed me. I’d assumed she’d meant BASGIATH, but what if she was referring to something else entirely?
What am I missing?
And words scrawled below the image – could it have been a coincidence? After all, Jack was certainly not alive anymore to tell that particular story. The medical miracle Navarre’s doctors had performed on him after I’d sent him falling to an otherwise-certain death wasn’t possible this time around, not when I’d stabbed him through the heart in a bathroom in a foreign country.
Regardless -- whoever killed Devera is hunting me now. Whoever murdered the woman who kept me alive in the protocol is here, on the isles.
The cynical, broken part of me wants to curl up and stick her head in the sand. The part of me that wants revenge is burning brighter than ever.
I gaze up at the stars, tracing the lines and dips on the constellations my dad taught me about when I was younger, when we’d climb out on the roof of the cabin in the mountains.
I find Libra – the scales. Dad used to point to Libra and tell me that Malek would weigh the good of someone’s life against all the bad using a scale just like it. I wonder, if I died tomorrow, how my deeds would weigh on the scale of the gods.
Just like I did in the moments after Devera’s death, I let myself simply be, taking in the feel of wind on my cheeks, the subtle pressure of the bare skin of my thighs pressing down on the wooden steps. My eyes fall shut, and I inhale, slowly, feeling my lungs fill up until they can’t take any more air before releasing the breath just as slowly.
There’s a muffled noise beyond the door, inside the house, and I turn just in time to see Xaden barrel out, eyes wild and hair mussed, one of my knives that he got from only-Dunne-knows-where clutched in his hand. Shirtless, of course, because the world can’t cut me a break.
I eye the dagger, doing my best not to ogle the defined lines of his abs, because damn. When he’d entered the kitchen in the cottage yesterday while I was reading, hair sticking up the way it is now with all that skin on display, I’d had to keep my eyes trained on my book. If it wasn’t the worst idea known to man, I would be very open to dragging him into my bed one or ten times.
I swallow, hoping my thoughts aren’t written all over my face. “I hope you’re planning on giving that back.”
Xaden makes a frustrated sound in the back of his throat. “Why are you out here?”
“I hardly see how that’s any of your business.”
He drags a hand down his face, then reaches behind him to pull the door shut, joining me on the steps a moment later.
“It is my business when someone just left us a message threatening you, which by extension threatens me,” he bites. He offers me the dagger silently, and I take it, setting it next to the other one on my other side.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I admit after a moment.
Xaden’s expression doesn’t change, but his gaze morphs into one of understanding.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I don’t know what he’s referring to – the message in my bathroom or the reason I’d been unable to stay asleep. Do I want to tell him about the first time I killed Jack? About how it haunts me, despite how I still can’t bring myself to regret it? About how BASGIATH warped me into someone I don’t recognize anymore? No thanks to any of them.
“Not really.” I look back at the stars. “You said when we were rescuing Rhi and Sawyer that your dad taught you about the constellations. Which one is your favorite?”
Xaden looks up at the thousands of tiny lights twinkling above us, brow furrowing slightly as he thinks. Then he lifts his tattooed arm, pointing skyward.
“I’ve always liked the phoenix constellation,” he says. I squint, following where he’s pointing, barely making out the stars.
“Why?”
He shrugs, bringing his arm down and resting it on his knees. “It reminds me of Tyrrendor.”
A bird that perpetually goes up in flames, only to be reborn from the ashes, and a kingdom that’s been conquered and reconquered, only to win back it’s freedom in the end. It’s an astute comparison.
“I can see that,” I reply, resting my own crossed arms on my thighs and drumming my fingers against my upper arm. “Mine is Aquila. My dad told me the gods would use birds to deliver divine punishment in the form of lightning in ancient times.”
“Sounds violent,” Xaden says, a smirk pulling at his lips. “Look at you, living up to your nickname.”
I roll my eyes, but find myself grinning, nonetheless.
We sit out there for a little while longer, both of us looking up at the stars. It doesn’t take long for the night wind to begin leaving goosebumps on my skin, and not much longer after that for me to finally stop ignoring the evening chill.
“We should go inside,” I say with a sigh after the moon dips below the horizon, signaling that sunrise will arrive soon.
Xaden nods, hauling himself to his feet then offering me his hand. I take it, and the effortless way he pulls me up is hotter than it should be. The force of it practically sends me flying into his bare chest.
“Sorry,” I mutter.
“It’s fine.” His voice is rougher than usual, and it’s enough to heat my blood. The feel of his hand enveloping mine is addictive in a way that I don’t want to acknowledge, the warmth of his body so close to mine alarmingly comforting, like a fireplace I want to curl up next to.
Acknowledging it makes it real – and I can’t feel anything for Xaden. Not when we’re on a suicide mission. Not when he could die at any time.
I should step away. I should reestablish boundaries. But then I make the horrible, terrible mistake of looking up at that devastatingly beautiful face of his, of meeting his eyes, gold-flecked and intense and practically molten with how he’s looking at me.
I’m so fucked.
I swallow. “We should go inside,” I repeat, as if he hadn’t heard me the first time, and I curse at how breathy I sound.
“We should,” he says, his hand tightening around mine. Still, neither of us move towards the door. Every brush of warm skin against mine is etched into my mind, impossible to ignore.
I search his face, trying to decipher what I see there. He’s always been able to see right through me, yet I haven’t mastered the same skill. He’s infuriatingly difficult to read. I wish I could get once glimpse into that head of his.
“Truth for a truth?” he whispers a moment later. “What are you thinking about?”
What am I thinking about? How would he react if I told him that I was thinking about how it would only take a few words for the last threads of my self-restraint to snap; for me to throw the one boundary I’ve set between us for this mission out the window and kiss him?
“That I really wish you hadn’t come with me to the isles,” I confess instead. I don’t know how I’d react to his death, but it wouldn’t be well, and I’m terrified because this mission was designed to kill us both. I’ll at least admit that much to myself.
Xaden tugs me by mind hand, pulling me a bit closer, but I come along willingly. We’re close enough now that the heat his exposed chest throws off bleeds through my thin pajamas, close enough that I can smell that addictive mint and leather scent that seems to follow him everywhere. It makes my head spin, makes it hard for me to even think coherently. Xaden is like a drug that manages to intoxicate before I’ve even partaken.
“Having a hard time not trusting me?” he asks with a slight grin that tells me he knows exactly why I don’t want him here. His other hand comes to rest at my waist, lightly enough that I could easily pull away if the touch wasn’t welcome. His thumb brushes against the small sliver of skin left exposed by my thin tank top and sleep shorts. My traitorous mind practically begs for his fingers to move underneath my shirt, to touch the skin there the same way he’s holding my hand. My logical mind is hanging on for dear life.
Moving away is the last thing I want to do right now. What a fucking disaster.
“Yes,” I admit. “Amongst other things.”
I’m also having a hard time with not saying fuck it and climbing this man like a damn tree.
If the gods created a man to be my downfall, I’m certain he’d look just like Xaden.
Sweet Amari, I need to get laid.
"Your turn," I whisper.
"I'm thinking that you are an extraordinary woman, Violet Sorrengail, and that I'm very glad I came with you even knowing that you didn't want me to."
My breath catches in my throat at the sincerity of his words. I don't doubt he means every one of them.
Xaden’s thumb begins drawing light circles on the back of my palm, so slowly that I’m half-convinced he doesn’t even know he’s doing it. The hem of my shirt slides up when I shift, just slightly, and I can feel a little more of his hand against the skin of my hip.
He’s not paying attention to that, though, not the way I am. He’s locked onto my face like he can’t look away. Rhiannon once told me that the eyes are the window to the soul, and there’s something about his eyes in this light – when the darkness only makes the gold there stand out even more – that makes me shiver, and I have to look away before I say something I’ll end up regretting.
If he says that I'm extraordinary, then I don't have the words to describe him. He's a far better person than I am, at any rate.
I follow the dark lines and swirls of the tattoo on his arm and wonder what would happen if I reached up with the hand that dangles at my side to trace it with my fingers.
I repeat the manta in my head: ignore it, ignore it, ignore it, ignore it, ignore-
“That photo,” Xaden blurts, drawing me out of my head and my eyes back to his face. “That was taken in Cordyn, wasn’t it? Before you came to our hotel.”
The fire he was slowly stoking low in my belly extinguishes as I’m finally called back to reality. I’m being hunted by enemies I suspect aren’t who I originally thought they were. I’m actively betraying my nation. The only reason we’re here together is to stop VENIN, to find out what the hell Dad had found before he was killed.
The only reason I partnered up with Xaden in the first place was for revenge for Brennan and Devera.
I can’t let my guard down, can’t let myself get even more entangled than I already am. I can’t let another person’s death haunt me. I’m already a target, and I don’t want to drag him down with me.
I turn away from those captivating eyes, and instead look off in the distance towards Turchinu. “Yeah.”
Xaden’s quiet for a moment, like he has to process what I’ve said. Then: “I’m sorry for accusing you of killing her.”
My brows press together, and I finally turn back to look at him. “What?” I have no clue what he’s talking about.
“I thought you killed Devera at first,” he says. “I asked you if you killed her. Twice.”
I blink. I guess he had done that. “Oh. Don’t worry about it. It was a logical assumption. I’m not exactly a good person.”
“What?” Xaden looks genuinely surprised for a moment, before schooling his features into something more neutral.
I raise an eyebrow. “I know I have a reputation, too, so I don’t blame you for thinking that. I’m not exactly getting good person points when I kill people for a living. Kind of corrupts the soul.”
I’d meant to say the last part jokingly, but it doesn’t sound like a joke when it leaves my mouth – maybe because deep down, I know it’s true. Still, I don’t know what answer he was expecting, but I immediately know the one I gave was the wrong one. The space between us turns heavy as Xaden’s mouth presses into a hard line, and a moment later he drops my hand. I want to reach down and take it again, but instead I clench my abandoned hand into a fist, focusing on the dull pain of my nails digging into my palm instead of the overwhelming urge to touch him.
The air feels awkward and suffocating, and I force myself to step away, out of his grasp. His other hand falls away from my waist. I shiver – when did it get so cold out here?
“We should go inside,” I say for a third time when the silence becomes painful, once again avoiding meeting his eyes, and this time I actually move towards the door. I don’t wait to for Xaden to follow. The door shuts behind me, and once again, I’m alone.
As I climb back into bed, I glance back towards the edge of the couch I can see from my room. Xaden isn’t there.
I don’t fall back asleep immediately. I stare at the ceiling until I hear the door open again, then shut quietly, as if Xaden was worried about making too much noise. Weak morning light has begun casting stripes on the plaster. Only then, after I catch a glimpse of his hair at the end of the couch, do I fall back into a dreamless sleep.
When I wake for the second time, the sun is high in the sky and the smell of hot coffee wafts through the air.
I feel like death.
I throw back the covers with a groan, dragging a hand down my face. It comes away oily, and I grimace. With all the chaos yesterday, I hadn’t washed my face or showered. I feel gross.
Coffee, then shower.
I roll out of bed, rummaging through the suitcase I’d hastily repacked last night. I tug the sweatshirt Xaden bought for me in Calldyr over my head, before leaning down to have an easier time gathering my long strands of hair into something resembling ponytail.
Xaden is standing near the coffee maker when I emerge from my room, filling a mug with his back to me. I thank whatever god is watching that he’s wearing a shirt. I’m too sleep deprived to handle that right now.
“Sleep well?” he asks, not looking at me as he reaches up into the cabinet for another mug, setting it next to the coffee maker.
“Nope,” I answer honestly. “You?”
“I haven’t slept well in years,” he admits after a moment’s hesitation, even as he keeps his back to me.
That makes two of us.
Unlike yesterday, the silence as we drink our coffee isn’t effortless or comfortable. I find myself sneaking looks at Xaden, who retreated to the couch he slept on when I moved towards the coffee maker, over the rim of my mug every minute or so before pretending to look at my phone when he so much as shifts.
I drink my coffee quickly, then take my shower. I feel like a brand-new woman when I step out from under the water, hair clean and skin fresh.
I’m pinning my hair into a braid crown when I hear a small knock. I turn towards the open door, one bobby pin clenched between my teeth as my hands fumble with my braids. Xaden leans against the doorframe, arms crossed.
“We’re going back into town today,” he announces.
“Are we?” I ask, but the words sound like a barely intelligible grunt thanks to the bobby pin in my mouth. My fingers fumble with a pin that just refuses to go where I need it to go.
Xaden clears his throat, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he rubs the back of his neck. “Do you want help?”
His tone sounds pained, and I almost laugh at his wary expression as he stares at the braid atop my head. Finally, the stubborn pin slides into place, and I lower one arm to remove the one that had been clamped between my lips, inserting it at the tail of the braid.
“All done,” I say, patting the braid to make sure it’s secure, and I’m satisfied when it doesn’t so much as shift. I turn back to look at him. “What were you saying?”
Xaden lets out a deep exhale. “Town. We’re going.” His words are practically a growl.
“You’re grumpy today,” I observe.
“Whatever you say.” His eyes roam over me, catching on the sweatshirt. That signature smirk of his appears. “Nice sweatshirt. Where’d you get it?”
I roll my eyes, moving to paw through the bags of clothes I’d bought yesterday. “Some random guy bought it for me at the airport. Weird, right?”
He scoffs. “So weird,” he agrees. He turns on his heel, calling over his shoulder as he walks away. “Be ready to go in 15 minutes!”
I only take 10, throwing two of Mazzie’s taser knives and my phone into a small bag and pulling on the first clothes my fingers touch in the shopping bags. Still, when I catch a look at myself in the mirror before I walk outside, I almost do a double take.
I can’t remember the last time I wore anything other than standard-issue black. Even my pajamas are the dark color. Seeing myself wearing the airy and colorful linen clothing so similar to what I saw on the townspeople yesterday is like looking at a completely different person. Even the bags under my eyes look a little less sunken.
I force myself to look away, practically marching to the front door and wrenching it open with a little more strength than was necessary. I can’t let myself get used to this fake sense of normalcy – waking up at an hour reserved for regular people, actually eating breakfast and taking a shower, wearing clothes that wouldn’t be able to disguise the presence of blood – not when none of it will last.
Xaden is waiting in the driver’s seat. I march around, and yank his door open, glaring down at him and crossing my arms to match his posture.
“Move,” I demand. “I’m driving.”
He raises a scarred eyebrow. “Are you?”
I wrap one hand around his bicep, and tug, trying to spur him into motion, but he’s as immovable as rock. I glower, then bring my other hand to join, pulling with all my strength.
This time, he budges. But before I make any meaningful progress it’s all for nothing when he reaches up to grip the wheel.
“Are you done?” he asks. His smirk makes me want to sock him right in his beautiful face.
I drop my hands. “I’m driving back, then.”
“You said that yesterday. Look how that ended.”
An exasperated noise escapes my mouth, and I practically throw my hands in the air as I stomp to the passenger’s side.
“You’re grumpy today,” Xaden mocks, throwing my earlier words back at me as I fasten my seatbelt.
I only respond with one finger.
We eat lunch again at Emilia’s café, which delights the middle-aged owner. Once again, Xaden opts to drink coffee instead of eating. This time, I don’t question it. It’s an active decision on my part. The less I care about why he does what he does, the easier it will be to let it slide off my back if anything happens to him.
“Looks like you got your bags!” Emilia exclaims when she brings me my food. I opted for salad today. The pasta I ate yesterday was delicious, but also so filling that it made me sleepy.
“Oh.” My eyes dart down to my body, to the clothes we’d bought yesterday. “Yes, we did.”
Xaden merely grunts, and I suppress the urge to roll my eyes. He’s truly in a mood today. He barely spoke on the drive here.
“So glad to hear it,” Emilia beams. “So, what are you two planning to do now that you’re back?”
I glance at Xaden, and he gives me a barely perceptible shrug, as if to say Do what you want.
“Xaden and I are trying to figure out our job situations right now,” I say, returning my attention to Violetta with a pasted-on smile. “That’s our priority, but I’d like to learn more about the area as well. I didn’t leave Luccicare much before I went to the Continent, so I’m not very familiar with Turchinu.”
Emilia laughs. “Well, I can help you with that!” She taps a finger to her chin thoughtfully. “Come back tomorrow, and I’ll have a whole list of places you should check out. I’ll ask around to see if there are any job openings as well.”
I clasp my hands together, injecting fake concern into my tone as I shake my head. “Oh no, I couldn’t ask you to do that!”
From out of the corner of my eye, I can see Xaden watching out back-and-forth intently, like he’s watching a sports match.
“It’s no trouble,” Emilia says, propping her hands on her hips. “This town is small, but we’re tightknit here. Everyone knows everyone, and I’d say we’re all pretty friendly too. If you and your husband plan on settling down here, then it’s the least I can do for new neighbors.”
I pretend to give in, letting out a sigh. “Well, if you insist. Thank you, Emilia – we’ll stop by tomorrow as well.”
“Glad to hear it.” She claps me on the shoulder, rattling my bones with the strength of it, before walking toward another table. I rub my shoulder as she walks away.
“She’s stronger than she looks,” I muse aloud.
Xaden isn’t paying attention though. His eyes are glued on something across the square, his brow furrowed.
“Xaden?” I question. I twist in my chair to try to see what he’s looking at, but I don’t see anything or anyone of note. I look back at him. “What are you looking at?”
He blinks, then looks away. “It’s nothing.”
An uneasy feeling infiltrates my stomach, and I try to force it away by taking a bite of my salad. The mood between us has been sticky and uncomfortable since our conversation outside last night, like clothes that once fit well but shrunk in the wash. I have no idea how to fix it, nor do I know if I want to. After all, this could be a good thing. A desperately needed resetting of boundaries.
Yes. It’s a good thing, I tell myself as I shove another bite of salad into my mouth.
Even if that good thing leaves a bitter taste in my mouth and a sinking feeling in my stomach that has nothing to do with the food.
We don’t talk again while I eat, and Xaden takes the check without a word. Still, when we stand to leave Emilia’s café he still reaches for my hand, slotting his fingers between mine.
I know it’s all a game, an act for the sake of our mission, but the knot in my stomach loosens just a bit regardless.
“What now?” I ask quietly, glancing at the ground so I don’t trip on the uneven pavers. The sun is brilliant overhead, and I have to squint to keep it from hurting my vision.
Xaden glances down at me. “What do you think we should do?”
If he wasn’t holding my hand captive, I’d cross my arms. But he is, so I settle for merely feeling aggravated. Then my eyes catch on his hair. It’s a bit longer than it was when I first met him, long enough that it will likely start bothering him soon if it hasn’t already.
“Go get a haircut,” I decide on the spot.
Xaden’s eyebrows shoot up. “What?”
“Go get a haircut,” I repeat, enjoying his blatant surprise. “People who cut hair know all the gossip.”
Understanding dawns on his face, as does a grin that further loosens the anxious knot in my stomach. “Brilliant woman.”
“I try.” A matching smile makes its way onto my face at the compliment.
“While I’m getting my haircut, what will you be doing?”
“I guess I’ll find a bookstore to kill some time.”
“What, you won’t go sacrifice your hair for the cause too?”
I stop, tug on his hand slightly so he stops too.
“I will never cut my hair,” I tell him, deadly serious.
Something akin to curiosity flickers across his features, but it’s gone quickly. As always, he doesn’t try to dig deeper, seemingly sensing one of the many lines I’ve drawn in the sand, in the same way he’s rarely pushed when I’ve shut down conversation about things in my past.
In many ways, I’m grateful for that. In others, I wonder what would happen if he did and I caved and told him about all the pieces of myself that I’ve hidden away out of shame or fear or whatever emotion has caused me to lock it all up tight.
“Right,” he says, clearing his throat. For once, his eyes seem to be everywhere but me.
We cross the square silently, and its only when we’re in the shade of the tall buildings lining the alley we’d traversed yesterday does he drop my hand, taking a large step back as he does.
“We’ll meet back here in two hours.” Xaden’s tone invites no argument, and I’m too tired to try even if I wanted to. “Did you bring-”
“A knife?” I finish his question, lowering my voice so only he hears. “Obviously. I’m perfectly capable of watching my own back for a few hours, pretty boy.”
Xaden chuckles. “Obviously.” His expression turns serious again. “If you notice anything that seems off, you call me. Don’t do anything unnecessary.”
I cross my arms. “I can take care of myself. I did that well enough before I met you.”
“Of course, you did. That doesn’t mean you need to now.”
I blink, momentarily taken aback. He’s right, of course. I don’t need to go it on my own right now, since he’s here with me, nor would it be wise to do so. But maybe my brain hadn’t fully comprehended what that meant – that I was no longer the only person with a vested interest in my own survival.
What an odd feeling.
What was it that Garrick had said to me the night he came and almost busted down my apartment’s door? We’re all on the same team now.
“Violence?”
Perhaps my momentary surprise was on my face, because Xaden is looking at me expectantly, the corners of his mouth twitching as if he was trying not to laugh.
“Right.” My tone is brisque as I attempt to slip back into some semblance of myself. “I’ll see you in two hours.”
Xaden disappears into the crowd with an ease that surprises me until I remember how he’d likely been trained to do so, just as I had been.
I wander for a while, taking in the sights and sounds of Turchinu with a degree of enjoyment that I should feel guilty about, considering why I’m here. I shove those thoughts aside quickly enough. If I’m going to die here, I might as well enjoy myself.
It doesn’t take me long to stumble across a bookstore, and if heaven was a place on earth, I’m certain that it would be somewhere like this – filled with books.
The light tinkling of a bell is what greets me when I cross the entryway, and I’m immediately immersed in the smell of paper and ink and leather. I breathe in deeply, trying to memorize the smells that always seem to fade too fast.
It smells like Dad’s office, before the fire.
“I’ll be just a minute!”
The male voice comes from deep inside the store, behind rows of darkened bookshelves and piles of tomes. Sun filters in through the windows, the light illuminating motes of dust twirling through the air before falling on tables with neatly arranged, curated titles.
I move deeper into the store, letting the musty smell of books guide my feet as the natural light at the front of the store gives way to shadows and towering stacks. I run my fingers along the spines of the books on the shelves, standing upright in rows like soldiers waiting to do battle, the knowledge within biding its time to be read, to be learned from.
There’s a muffled clattering sound at the end of the row I’ve found myself on, and I turn just in time for someone to enter my line of sight.
“Shit!” I almost jump out of my skin, my hand flying for the dagger in my small purse, when a man with mousy hair and larger-than-life glasses pops his head out from the end of the aisle.
His eyes widen behind the lenses. “Sorry for startling you! Can I help you find something?”
I force myself to relax, prying my fingers off the hilt of my weapon which, thankfully, had remained in the depths of my bag. I’m not sure how the locals of Turchinu would react to being threatened with a dagger. Probably not well.
“No worries,” I force out. I glance around. “Is this your store?”
“I wish! I just work here.” The man laughs, scratching the back of his head. “I’m Adrian. I don’t think I’ve seen you around before, are you visiting?”
I have to remind myself to smile, to fall into the role I created for myself here. This town is small enough that everyone knows everyone, so I can’t take any chances.
“My husband and I just returned to the isles after spending time abroad and moved nearby,” I lie. “I’m Violetta Tuono, by the way.”
“Very nice to meet you, Violetta,” Adrian says with a smile, but it doesn’t quite meet his eyes. He moves around me to head towards the front of the dusty store, hauling up a stack of books resting on the floor a few feet behind me as he does. I decide to follow him. He drops the books on the surface of the check-out counter next to the door with a huff, before turning back to me. “Are you looking for something in particular?” he asks a moment later, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand.
“Do you have anything about the history of Turchinu?” I ask. Surely there’s a book that can tell me more about the area – or even better, more about the military base nearby.
Adrian taps his chin thoughtfully. “I think so, but I’ll have to check.” He moves back towards the stacks. “Wait here a moment.”
I loiter about the front of the store as I wait for the bookkeep to reemerge, picking up books displayed on tables and reading their backs absent-mindedly. A few minutes later, Adrian returns, single a hardback volume clutched in his hand.
“Sorry for the wait.” He places the book down on the counter as I rummage through my bag for the paper currency I’d brought with me from Navarre. “Is there anything else I can help you find?”
“Do you have anything on ancient Tyrrish history?” The words leave my mouth before I can stop them. Tyrrendor’s history with Navarre is a long and complex one. If Xaden’s body language on the plane here was anything to go by, even the passage of more than two centuries under Navarrian rule hasn’t been enough to destroy the animosity the former nation feels towards its conqueror.
But there’s still so much that I feel like I’m missing; things I don’t know.
My intellectual curiosity – dulled but not destroyed by years of murder and espionage – is driving me right now. Navarre doesn’t like to teach its youth about the less savory sides of its centuries of dominance on the Continent. Maybe books written by the Deverelli, which have had a frosty relationship with Navarre and its king for nearly a century now, will be more forthcoming.
Adrian blinks, clearly surprised by the request.
“Did you visit Navarre while you were abroad?” he asks, curiously.
“I did.”
“Hm.” Adrian inspects me. Immediately, uneasiness trickles through me. Fuck, maybe I shouldn’t have asked that. Deverelli and Navarrian relations are abysmal, maybe-
“I’m not sure we have anything in stock, but there are a few options I could order for you,” he finally says. Once again, his smile doesn’t reach his eyes.
I nod stiffly. “Please do.”
Adrian has me wait as he writes out an invoice for me, and I force each muscle in my upper body to relax, except for the ones holding my fake smile in place.
Finally, he slips the book on Turchinu’s history into a paper bag, handing it to me with a professional smile.
“If you check back in tomorrow, I’ll let you know if I can get you those books,” he says kindly.
I nod, thank him for his help, then exit the shop in a hurry.
The crowds have thinned a bit, the top-of-the-afternoon rush abating. I wander into the small general store across the street, buying a water bottle and chugging it as I make my way back into the blinding sun. It’s so much warmer here than it is back home. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to this heat.
Still, as I walk in the direction of Emilia’s café, I grow more alert, more on guard. I spot a figure in the crowd in the square, the contrast of their black clothing against those of the locals immediately sending a skitter down my spine as disbelief rockets through me. I stifle a gasp when I recognize them.
Someone is watching me. And I know who it is.
When I meet up with Xaden again, he tells me the little he was able to learn about the base from the person who cut his hair. It’s not much shorter than it was before we parted ways, but at least he won’t have to worry about it falling over his eyes now.
I don’t tell him about the figure I saw in the square – I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. There’s a small part of me that’s still hoping I imagined it.
“So, they’re upgrading their tech infrastructure now?” I question as we drive. “And it’s behind schedule?”
Unfortunately, I’m not the one in the driver’s seat.
“That’s what it seems like,” Xaden replies, keeping his eyes on the road. “Apparently, they did an upgrade a few years ago, but the system didn’t work very well. They’re about to expand the base, so they’re tackling the IT issues at the same time.”
“Hm.” I start thinking through how we could use this to our advantage. “So they have two big projects going on at once. That’s good.”
“Or bad,” Xaden points out. “The Deverelli might be more stringent with background checks if they’re worried about people learning too much about what facilities they’re expanding.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” I muse. “They’re already having IT problems, and from the sounds of it they’re behind schedule. They might be even less thorough because they want to get it done as fast as possible.”
It only takes 10 minutes for us to pull in front of our small, borrowed house. Xaden orders us takeout for dinner, leaving me alone in the house to go pick it up.
I use the time to start reading the book I’d bought earlier. When he finally returns, I’m 50 pages in. It’s not the most engaging book, but I’ve read worse.
“What are you reading?” he asks, setting the takeout on the kitchen counter.
“A book about Turchinu’s history,” I inform him, sipping the tea I’d made myself before settling onto the couch. I’d made the conscious decision not to sit on the end that still had the pillow Xaden used last night.
I hear the rustle of the plastic bags, but I don’t look up from the pages. “Anything interesting?” he asks.
“Not really,” I admit, closing the volume when the smell of meat hits my nose. Turchinu started out as an agricultural town, before growing exponentially when the Deverelli put a military base nearby. Unfortunately, it doesn’t touch on the base itself too much.
We eat in silence, but it’s not as uncomfortable as our lunch meal had been. Xaden tries to sleep on the couch again, but I manage to coax him into taking the bed upstairs.
“If anyone so much as knocks on the door, I’ll just stab them,” I informed him. He relented not long after.
Still, when I fall asleep, the dreams still haunt me. Oren attacking me in my dorm. Jack killing Nadine. Kicking Jack over the cliff. Auralie falling. Devera dying in my arms.
When the nightmares finally rouse me before the sun has begun to rise, I have to wonder if there will ever be a time where they don’t.
The next day, we head into town again. We eat at Emilia’s again, chatting with the restaurant proprietor as we do, subtly digging for information that might help us. I go to the bookstore again, dragging Xaden with me. I keep my eye out for the person I saw in the square, but never catch so much as a glimpse. At the end of the day, I debate whether I should tell Xaden the man as well, but never end up doing so.
The day after that, repeat.
The day after that, repeat.
We begin establishing a routine. I’m almost always awake before Xaden, who tends to make his way downstairs an hour after I do. The coffee is ready by the time he emerges.
On our fifth day here, after days of constant take out and meals at Emilia’s, I finally venture to a nearby grocery store, getting the bare minimum of food necessary to make staple meals.
That was how I found myself attempting to make scrambled eggs and bacon on the sixth day – and nearly burned down the kitchen in the process.
“You’re not allowed to cook anymore,” Xaden declared after rushing downstairs in time to prevent me from dumping water on the grease fire in my panic.
I’d decided that was a pretty good idea.
On the seventh day, we move once again, this time to an apartment in the middle of town that’s better located. I tried to get Xaden to tell me how he’s been arranging our accommodations, but he never lets it slip.
On the eighth day, we finally drive near the base to try to get a sense for if it could be infiltrated without a cover story as an aid. But as its 20-foot-high walls appeared on the horizon, grey cement jutting up from and contrasting against the verdant pastures that surrounded it, it was obvious that our only way in would be through the front gates.
By the tenth day, however, I’d grown antsy, and so had Xaden. Thus far, we’d been unable to find a suitable excuse to get onto the base – or to even figure out where on the base we need to be looking for the data Navarre wants us to retrieve – and we were running out of excuses to give Emilia about why we wouldn’t accept any of the jobs she’d recommended we apply for.
The twelfth day was when we finally had our breakthrough.
As we’d done the previous twelve days, Xaden and I eat lunch at Emilia’s, fishing for information as casually as we can when the gregarious owner inevitably comes to chat with us. I’ve begun feeling somewhat guilty about taking advantage of her open kindness – but not so guilty that I plan on stopping.
“Hello, Violetta!” Emilia greets, setting a heaping plate of pasta before me. My mouth waters. I quickly learned that Emilia makes quite possibly the best alfredo sauce I’ve ever had in my life. Even when – or if – I return to Navarre, I will forever live with the knowledge that nothing I make at home will ever compare.
“It’s good to see you, Emilia,” I greet, tearing my eyes away from my food. Xaden, predictably now, just sips his coffee.
“Any luck with the job search?” Emilia asks.
I sigh, trying to sound as put-out as I can. “Not yet. I applied somewhere closer to Luccicare, but they didn’t like that I’d been abroad so long.”
A bald-faced lie, but she doesn’t need to know that.
Emilia lets out a sharp exhale. “That’s not very surprising,” she says with a disappointed shake of her head. “People in Turchinu don’t care as much, but many people closer to the capital are wary of foreigners, or even people that leave the isles for too long.”
I can feel Xaden watching me, but I fight the distraction and keep my eyes on Emilia. “Is that so?”
The restauranteur raises an eyebrow. “I would’ve thought you knew that already, given you were from the city.”
Fuck. Stupid Xaden and his stupid good looks. I’ve been distracted all morning, after I had the unfortunate pleasure of running into him right after he’d stepped out of the bathroom we’d been sharing in our new apartment, only a towel slung around his trim hips and water dripping from his hair. I could practically feel my face turning as red as a tomato.
Running a fever, Violence? he’d asked me, despite knowing full well that I wasn’t.
Beautiful fucking asshole.
“I guess I’d known it, but I hadn’t really known it,” I say to Emilia, attempting to recover. “I’d always thought Navarre was less welcoming to outsiders, especially after visiting, so it’s a bit strange to see the parallels at home now that I’m back.”
A little kernel of truth amidst the lies.
Emilia sighs. “I can imagine.” She glances at Xaden. “What about you, young man? Any luck?”
Xaden startles, as if he wasn’t expecting her to address him. I sip on my water to hide my chuckle.
“Not really.” He lies just as smoothly as I do, and not for the first time since we started this little charade, the words of the report Dain had written on Xaden that I’d found in his file weeks ago now floats back to the forefront of my mind. “I’m really only skilled with technology, so I’ve been having a harder time finding a job for my skills around here.”
Emilia’s eyes light up almost immediately. Clearly, Xaden’s less-than-subtle approach worked.
“Why didn’t you just say so?” she exclaims, smacking him on the back. He grunts, and I snicker. “I mentioned to you that my husband works at the nearby military base, yes?”
I hold my breath.
“I think you mentioned that once,” Xaden replies with a nod, a look of polite curiosity arranged on his face. It looks so genuine that I would have no idea he was faking it if I wasn’t clued in.
Emilia props her hands on her hips, beaming. “Yes, well, they’re doing a major expansion project over there right now, and I know that one of the contractors that’s handling IT side of things is a bit short-handed. Y’know, getting the wifi set up and all that good stuff. That might be a good fit for you.”
Xaden smiles, and it manages to knock the air from my lungs even knowing its fake.
“That does sound like a good fit,” he says. “Would you be able to introduce me?”
“I’d be happy to,” Emilia says. “Leave your contact information with me, and I’ll pass it along to them.”
Xaden scribbles the number of the phone he’d gotten after we’d arrived on the isles onto the back of a napkin before handing it off to our unwitting conspirator. She promises to pass it along before darting back into the interior of the restaurant.
Xaden finally looks at me, and I grin.
“Looks like the less-than-subtle approach worked,” I whisper.
“Looks like it.” He throws back the rest of his coffee, then digs through his pocket for cash. He leaves it on the table, then stands, taking only two steps before he’s towering over me, blocking the sun and casting a shadow.
“Shall we?” he asks, offering his hand.
I take it, and he tugs me to my feet before lacing his fingers between mine. Holding hands with Xaden has become so familiar, so practiced, that it barely even registers anymore.
Another sliver of normalcy that I shouldn’t be used to, yet I am.
We walk towards our little apartment, which is above one of the many stores near the central square. I feel more content in this moment than I have in a long while, wearing clothes that aren’t black and holding the hand of a man I’d thought would kill me only a few months ago. I’ve gotten used to the life and loud noises here in Turchinu; the little kids running around and splashing in the fountain; the smells and sights of bread baking and brilliant sunsets – despite knowing that I can’t have this sense of peace forever, that I’ll have to return to the blood and death and silence before long.
A little girl drags a boy who looks just like her toward the fountain before they both fall into the water with a splash and a laugh. The ache I feel in my chest is a familiar one – one of longing, and regret, and even a bit of rage towards my own parents that didn’t let me have those moments as I grew up.
I sigh, long and drawn out, and a bit of the melancholy I feel leaves with the sound. Xaden looks down at me, and his hand squeezes mine a bit tighter. The way he looks at me has my mind screaming for distance, screaming for the logical side of me to pull away like I always want to.
For now, I ignore it. Thoughts of how irrevocably I’ve fucked up by letting Xaden worm his way into my good graces can wait till later, when I have the mental capacity to fully comprehend just how far he’s burrowed.
“Everything ok, Violet?” he asks. I fight the urge to sigh again – I love the way he says my name.
“Yeah.” I look back at him and let the corners of my lips drift upwards. “Just taking it all in.”
Xaden gets a phone call from the IT contractor the next morning, and he’s gone all day for interviews. I lounge around the apartment, only emerging to stop by the restaurant to thank Emilia and to go buy a new book from Adrian – this time on a local noble family who used to rule over the town.
But instead of reading it, I opt to spend the afternoon translating the Old Tyrrish of the book of folktales I’d brought with me. The last few weeks have been a respite of sorts, despite the very real threat of death that infiltrating a highly secured military base poses. I haven’t had to worry about an NIA operative popping out from every corner to kill me, nor have I had to think much about VENIN.
In a really fucked up way, it’s almost been like a vacation.
A vacation where I had a message threatening my life left in my bathroom.
Our apartment has a small balcony overlooking the cobbled streets below, and that’s where I take up residence, my book in my lap and my notebook on the small side table I’d dragged out with me.
I lose myself in the translating, even as the sun beats down from overhead and sweat beads on my brow. I finally finish the first story, then move on to the second. The words begin flowing through my head a bit faster as the sun begins to approach the horizon, the comprehension beginning to feel a little more natural than it had when I first started.
I only take a break when the sky begins to morph into beautiful purples and pinks and oranges, wandering back into the kitchen and pouring myself some water. Xaden should be getting back soon, I muse to myself as I glance at the clock on my phone. Should we go out to eat? Or maybe I should try cooking something my-
I freeze, my water glass halfway back to the countertop, when I hear a muffled thump come from beyond the door to my left – my bedroom.
All thoughts of reading, of vacations, or what life could be like if I just stayed in this quaint little town immediately leave my head. The person I’ve become most comfortable with – the person who kills for a living, the person who kills to survive – takes over.
I’m not alone anymore.
As quietly as I can, I creep towards the far wall. I retrieve one of my daggers that is still buried in the wood of the makeshift target I’d left there, wrapping a hand around each one and tugging them out with practiced ease.
There’s another sound from beyond the door, and I freeze again, locking each of my muscles and straining my ears.
For a brief moment, I think though my options. I should probably call Xaden. That would be the smart thing to do, the right thing to do. He’d kill me if I didn’t, of that much I’m certain.
Except he would drop everything if I did, abandoning the interview or whatever the hell it was he was doing right now, which we can’t afford.
We need to get into that base, which only leaves me one other choice. I creep forward, alone, careful to avoid the floorboard in front of the door that creaks whenever I step on it as I go.
Slowly, quietly, I wrap my hand around the cool metal of the doorknob.
Three.
I take a deep breath.
Two.
I grip the dagger in my hands so tight my knuckles turn white.
One.
I turn the handle and shove the door open, leaping through the now-unobstructed doorway, arms up and ready to attack. The window parallel to my bed is wide-open, the curtains fluttering in the breeze, but there’s no sign of the intruder that was here just moments before.
I let out a breath I didn’t even realize I was holding, the air rushing from me in a quick burst.
The room is clearly empty, and there’s no attached bathroom for someone to leave a massive threatening poster in this time. Still, I don’t let go of my weapons as I move towards the windows, which face out into the alley that runs alongside the building. Had I imagined it? Maybe I’d left the windows open, and just didn’t remember.
But when I turn to face my bed and see the note, it’s very clear that the noises I heard weren’t the result of my over-active imagination.
I pick up the scrap of paper, which was left carefully folded on my bedspread, the steadiness of my hand disguising the rampant anxiety in my stomach as I unfold the missive.
I bite back a cold laugh as I scan the few words written on the paper. It’s a date, time, and location.
An invitation.
And while it’s not signed, I have a sneaking suspicion about who left it.
By the time Xaden returns, the sky is growing dark.
I burned the note, flushing the ashes down our shared toilet, rather than risk him coming across it.
I’d relocated to the sofa by the time I hear the door unlock, and the sound of the deadbolt sliding open has me looking up. I’m rewarded with Xaden’s smile – a real one – when his eyes fall on me.
“How did it go?” I ask, closing my book and placing it on the coffee table as Xaden flops down onto the couch next to me. A tired groan escapes his lips as he throws his head back to face the ceiling.
“Well enough,” he replies, glancing back at me.
I scowl, then lean over and pinch the exposed skin of his arm.
“Try again,” I warn.
Xaden – who has never seemed intimidated by me, by who I am and what I’ve done – just rolls his eyes. Then, he manages to catch me off guard, surging forward just as I’m about to pull away and pulling me back towards him with strength I sometimes forget he has. It’s like I’m a feather in his grasp the way he drags me to his side of the couch, arranging me so that I’m practically straddling him.
Holy shit.
I shift up onto my knees, unable to bring myself to settle my weight fully on him despite the discomfort it brings to my joints. Our faces are so close that it would take next to nothing for one of us to close the miniscule distance we’ve left between ourselves. I have to force myself to keep breathing when the feeling of his breath on my lips practically shorts out my brain.
“What was that for?” I ask, the words coming out almost as a sigh. Xaden grips my arms, just above my elbows, with careful lightness, even as my traitorous mind practically begs for him to touch me elsewhere.
The corner of his mouth curls upwards. “I just felt like it. Is this ok, Violence?”
He knows it is. He knows that if it wasn’t, the dagger I keep in my boot would have been at his throat in a heartbeat. I know that the second I said it wasn’t ok, he would back off.
Unfortunately for me, for my sanity, I’m more than ok with this. A warm, confusing feeling erupts in my chest as I look down at him, drink in every detail from the curve of his nose to the light dusting of his day-old stubble.
“Answer my question,” I say, dodging his, dodging the complicated emotions raging inside of me in this moment. “How did it go?”
“Try again,” Xaden replies, the devilish glint in his eyes giving away how much he’s enjoying watching me squirm. “Is this ok, Violet?”
Fuck. It’s like he knows saying my name like that, husky and rough, is the fastest way to undo me. I can feel a furious blush working its way up my chest to my cheeks as I nod.
“How did it go?” I ask for the third time.
“If you’re asking whether I got hired, then the answer is ‘yes.’” Xaden’s thumb begins drawing slow circles against the skin of my arm, and there’s a very loud part of me that desperately wants me to give in and kiss this stupid man.
A relieved sigh escapes me, and I force myself to focus on how our plan can finally commence instead of how much I would love to learn if his lips would feel as soft as they look against my skin. “Thank Zihnal. When do you start?”
“Tomorrow.” Xaden finally releases my arms, wrapping his around my waist and pulling my closer. I can’t stop the surprised squeak that leaves my mouth, and Xaden freezes instantly.
Gods, kill me now.
“It’s fine, you’re-” I take a breath. “This is fine.”
He smirks. “If you say so, Violence.”
I’m practically flush against his torso, the heat of him bleeding through the thin fabric of my clothing and warming me better than a fire ever could.
I clear my throat and try to get my brain back on track. What had we been talking about again?
Right. The plan.
“What will you be doing?” I ask. My thighs begin to ache uncomfortably, my muscles straining to keep my body upright. I won’t be able to hold onto this position for long.
“Excellent question.” Xaden’s arms tighten around me a bit more as he glances downward pointedly. “That can’t be comfortable. Planning on sitting anytime soon?”
“Fuck you,” I grumble, but its half-hearted.
“Anytime.”
My eyes immediately blow wide, and I have to fight for every scrap of air in my lungs. Mischief is written all over his face, but I also know without a doubt that he’s holding on by a thread the same way I am. His bruising grip on my waist and the heated look that’s boring into me is the evidence.
One wrong move, and one of us will break and give in to the primal attraction that’s been there since the very first time we were in each other’s proximity.
It wouldn’t take much. Only centimeters separate our mouths. Would he taste the way he smells, like mint?
Fuck, I want to find out.
But then I think about the message in my room. The photo of Devera in the bathroom. The risks we’re taking and the very real chance that one of us won’t make it home.
No. I’m not doing this. I can’t do this.
Slowly, I learn back, even as another part of me screams to do just the opposite. I shake my head in a wordless message that Xaden gets loud and clear, if the way he drops his arms from around me is any indication. I clench my teeth and keep down the groan that wants to erupt from the back of my throat when I move to stand, both my joints and my muscles expressing their displeasure with me.
Xaden’s features betray nothing when I finally look back at him, and somehow that stings more than if he’d looked upset or angry.
“What do you want to do for dinner?” I ask, my tone unnaturally high. I move toward the kitchen. Distance. I need more distance.
“Whatever you want,” he responds noncommittally, kicking back on the sofa like I hadn’t just been straddling him moments before.
“Men,” I mutter, turning toward our refrigerator, which is a frankly abysmal state. We’ve been eating out so much that our options if we decided to eat here were small, at best.
And if I’m honest, I’m really not in the mood to burn down the kitchen today. Mind made up; I look back at Xaden.
“We’re eating out,” I declare.
Xaden’s new “job” has him leaving early and returning late, leaving with me loads of time for myself most days. He’s helping configure the many computer systems that need upgrading in the existing portion of the base, which means he’s had ready access to many of the areas we’ll need to search for the data we need.
We establish a new routine. I still wake up early, still make the coffee, but Xaden wakes up almost at the same time I do.
Most days when he leaves for work, I watch as the door shuts behind him with dread. Our plan is solid. I have no reason to be terrified that he won’t walk back through that door at the end of each day.
And yet, I’m still scared.
I try to bury my anxiety by translating the book of Old Tyrrish folktales once, then a second time. I buy new books from Adrian. I take long walks. I throw daggers at the target I’d made for myself so many times that it splits in half. I make myself a new throwing target. I write down everything I know about the base in careful detail.
If Xaden picks up on my anxiety, he doesn’t let on. When he returns at night, we go out to one of the restaurants nearby – often Emilia’s – and play the parts of the loving wife and husband. I regale Emilia and some other townsfolk with whom we’ve become acquainted with tales of my fake travels across the Continent, while Xaden chats amiably with people he’s met on the base. After we eat, we return to our little apartment, where Xaden fills me in on what he’s learned that day.
And every night, that unmistakable flare of heated attraction connects us, and urges one of us to cross the line in the dirt that I’ve been desperate to build a wall on. It just seems like every day I get millimeters closer, however. Sometimes it’s a glance that lingers too long, or the brush of his hand against my back as he holds a door open for me. Sometimes it’s the way he says my name, or when he holds my hand a little tighter.
The sooner we’re back in Navarre, the better. Rhi would have a field day if she saw me right now.
On the eighth day after Xaden starts his job on the base, however, I’m growing antsy again. Xaden still hasn’t found a suitable way to sneak me in. We’ve been on Deverelli soil for three weeks now.
But, more importantly, the meeting time written on the note is tonight. If all goes according to plan, Xaden will never know – that is, if I’m right about who left the note.
If I’m wrong, then I have no idea what I’m walking into.
“I won’t be here when you get back,” I tell Xaden just before he walks out the door, praying to Zihnal that I sound more nonchalant than I feel as I pick at the fruit I’d chosen for my breakfast.
He glances back at me, hand on the door handle, his brows furrowed in clear question.
“Oh?”
“I’m going to check out the castle Emilia told us about last night.”
Ever the good neighbor, Emilia has steadfastly offered recommendations of places Xaden and I could visit during his off time whenever he and I eat at her restaurant. Thus far, I haven’t expressed much interest in visiting any of the spots – and if the look on Xaden’s face is any indication, he knows it too.
He narrows his eyes on me, then crosses his arms across his black t-shirt.
“What aren’t you telling me?” he asks, clearly suspicious.
“What makes you think I’m not telling you something?” I ask, feigning innocence as I take another bite of fruit.
“There’s always something you’re not telling me.”
I can’t bring myself to look at him, because I know he’s right. It’s the elephant in the room that we’ve never discussed. Xaden promised not to lie to me – but I’ve never come close to making the same commitment.
“The NIA is checking in,” I finally say. I hope he buys it.
I finally look at him, locking eyes and holding steady. He scans my face, no doubt trying to sus out any falsehood. I stay as expressionless as I can. When he exhales and uncrosses his arms, I know I’m in the clear.
“Don’t stay out too long,” he warns, opening the front door. “Don’t take any unnecessary risks.”
I roll my eyes. “See you later.”
Let’s just hope whatever it is I’m about to walk into doesn’t make me do exactly that.
For the first time in almost a month, I’m wearing my NIA mission suit, strapped with every dagger I possess. Putting it on again is like walking into a familiar, comforting embrace.
I wait till nightfall, then slip out into the alleyways that snake through Turchinu, keeping to the shadows as I head to the edge of town.
I wasn’t lying when I said I was going to the castle. The grounds of Castle Arrubatu – the ancestral home of the noble family that used to lord over this area – is large and rarely visited. It’s the perfect place for someone to request a clandestine meeting, especially in a place like Turchinu, where even one bystander could spread gossip to the entire town.
The moon is bright overhead and I’m nearly spotted twice, but thirty minutes after I’d set off, I’m scaling the stone wall that separates the castle grounds from the town. I drop silently to the grass on the other side, my eyes settling on the locked gate ahead of me. According to my research, the castle closed to the public an hour ago.
The only people here now should be me and my mysterious messenger.
I unsheathe a dagger, the familiar weight in my hand helping to calm my racing heart. I creep towards the castle, choosing a side door and picking the lock.
I move silently through the castle, not encountering a single soul along the way. It’s almost pitch-black, and the imposing stone structure doesn’t seem to trap any of the heat from the daytime. The drafty corridors leave me shivering as I search for the room the intruder said they would wait for me in.
After nearly ten minutes of searching, I find my destination as the towering doors that lead into the castle’s ballroom loom ahead.
The doors open with a groan when I push against the dark, polished wood. The room is dark, but moonlight filters in through the massive windows overlooking Turchinu. It’s with the light of the moon that I see a figure, staring out at the lights of the town.
I take a few steps in, unsheathing another dagger, even as a small part of me relaxes. I was right.
“Nolon.”
The elderly operative turns to face me, a kind smile on his face.
“Violet,” he greets. “It’s good to see you.”
I knew I hadn’t been seeing things in the square before, it had been him.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“Sightseeing,” he deadpans.
“Clearly.”
My dry response elicits a good-natured laugh from the agency doctor, but I know better than to let my guard down in the face of his kindness. Nolon is one of the NIA’s most legendary operatives for a reason. Even in old age, he isn’t someone I’d take lightly.
And that’s not even touching on how he knows about Project VENIN – at least if the recording Xaden and I found at Athebyne was any indication.
“You’re just like your mother, you know,” he says, sizing me up as he tucks his hands behind his back. “You’re looking at me like I’m about to turn into a monster.”
“Considering you broke into my bedroom; I’m not taking any chances.” I narrow my eyes. “What was so urgent that you had to come all the way to the isles? Why didn’t you just contact me using my agency communicator?” It’s been completely silent since I arrived on the isles – no one from my home nation has contacted me since I went undercover.
At this, Nolon’s face falls, and uneasiness makes its way through me.
“I’m so sorry, Violet.”
Fuck.
Six people – all wearing masks – step out from the shadows around us. I tense, immediately raising my daggers. How had I not noticed they were there?
I was so focused on the idea that Nolon left me that message that I hadn’t considered that I could be walking straight into a trap.
I train my eyes back on Nolon, narrowing them into slits.
“Explain. Now,” I demand, pushing the feeling of betrayal away. That can come later.
“I didn’t have a choice,” he says, looking genuinely devastated. “They took Winnie.”
His wife? Fuck.
But who took her? The NIA? Or some unknown party, like whoever left that poster in my bathroom?
My answer comes in the form of one of the six who steps forward, pulling off his mask to reveal a face I haven’t seen in years.
Oren Seifert.
“Impossible,” I whisper, my eyes going wide. I almost drop my daggers in shock.
He shrugs. “If Jack came back to life, why couldn’t I? Man, I wish he could see the look on your face right now. It’s too bad you killed him – again.”
Disbelief later. Survival now. I shove the rampant emotions into their box.
“How?” I bite. Oren merely laughs, sauntering over to Nolon and running his dagger along the older man’s throat.
“All in good time, Sorrengail,” he says. “I believe the person you really want to be questioning is the good doctor here, after all. I’m sure you have questions about VENIN that he can answer.”
I freeze. Oren knows?
Oren knows.
What the fuck is happening right now?
Still, my eyes slide back to Nolon, who just looks – defeated. And tired. So tired.
Answers now; questioning everything I thought I knew later.
“You killed the woman in that recording – Riona.”
Oren snickers as Nolon’s eyes grow impossibly wide.
“How do you–? No, it doesn’t matter.” Nolon shakes his head. “Yes. I knew that if she continued to live, she would find a way to continue to project. She was singularly obsessed with its success, to the ignorance of everything else, including its dangers.”
“But it still continued,” I point out. “Clearly, whatever you and the NIA did didn’t destroy it. The explosion in Draithus – that was caused by the VENIN weapon.”
Oren laughs even louder now, drawing a wary look from the man at the pointed end of his dagger.
“Oh, Sorrengail, you don’t know anything, do you?” Oren laughs.
The unease percolating in my stomach only grows in intensity. “What are you talking about?”
Oren’s eyes widen. “Did Riorson really not tell you?”
I remain silent rather than answering a question I don’t understand, but that seems to be answer enough for the first man I ever killed. He bursts into renewed laughter. It’s loud, insane, and unhinged – the man I see before me is completely unlike cowardly and vindictive man I knew Oren Seifert to be in the protocol.
Something is seriously wrong here.
“Riona said she was going to move the project to the isles.” I return my attention to Nolon, even as Oren’s laughter continues to echo around us. “Why?”
“Ah-ah-ah,” Oren says, his laughter cutting off abruptly. He presses the dagger against Nolon’s skin, and a bit of blood trickles down. He arches an eyebrow. “Careful, doctor. I might slip.”
It clicks, then and there.
“You’re working with the people who took VENIN from the NIA,” I realize, looking at Oren. “You were the one that left the note in my bedroom, and the photo in my bathroom.”
“Bingo!” he says. “For someone who’s supposed to be so smart, you’re quite slow, Sorrengail.”
I ignore the barb, this time focusing my attention on Oren.
“Why did you bring me here?” I ask. “Surely it wasn’t to swap stories over tea. What do you want?”
Oren shrugs, then slashes the knife across Nolon’s throat. I swallow my gasp of horror as the elderly man collapses. It takes everything in me to keep from surging forward. There’s nothing I can do to help him – not right now, not when he’ll be dead before he hits the ground from the blood loss.
Instead, I add his name to the list of people VENIN has taken – the list of people I’m sworn to avenge. Brennan, Valerie, Devera – and now Nolon, the kind doctor who always patched me up.
“Well, I already warned you, didn’t I?” he asks. My stomach drops as the others with him take their masks off.
They’re all the trainees I killed in my room my first year at BASGIATH – my first kills. The ones that still haunt my dreams.
And they’re not dead. Not even close.
“You’re next, Sorrengail.” Oren points his dagger at me, repeating the words scrawled on the poster in. my bathroom – the words Jack said to me after he killed Nadine. “You’ve pissed off some powerful, powerful people. You stuck your nose where it didn’t belong, and now you’re going to pay the price.”
“People with Project VENIN killed Devera.” It’s a statement, not a question.
“Indeed we did.” Oren smiles, and it sends more shivers down my spine. “I bet Riorson knew that too, but it doesn’t look like he told you.”
Ice floods my veins. No. That isn’t possible.
Whether I’m willing to admit it aloud or not – I trust Xaden. Or I trusted him.
But what if Oren is telling the truth? Did Xaden know about all of this?
“I bet he’s been lying to you this entire time too,” Oren croons, a sick smile on his face. He begins to move towards me. Something about him isn’t natural, like he’s both alive but isn’t. This isn’t the Oren I knew. My brain is screaming at me, screaming at me to run, to leave this godsforsaken castle behind, but I’m rooted in place. I can’t bring my feet to move. “VENIN? An explosive? It’s so much more than that. It’s our salvation.”
Oren’s eyes are bloodshot, a ring of red around his irises being the first thing I notice as he draws closer. He stops ten paces away, holding his arms up.
“You’re clueless,” he observes, almost sympathetically. “I bet he knew we were already in the NIA too.”
I bristle, even as I tuck that little tidbit of information away from later. I don’t want his fucking sympathy. If Xaden lied to me, he’ll tell me once I’m back – I’ll make sure of that – but I’m not going to listen to Oren’s condescension anymore.
“Are you done?” I ask. “I have places to be, if you don’t mind, so why don’t we wrap this up? Maybe tell me where you took Winifred, while you’re at it.”
“Winifred?” Oren questions blankly. “Oh, Nolon’s wife. I have no idea. I bet she’s dead by now.”
I blink, then I have to take a deep, calming breath to keep myself from lunging forward and squeezing the new life out of Oren’s lungs. Killing Nolon was one thing, but Winifred? She has nothing to do with the NIA. There’s cruel, and then there’s senseless cruelty. This falls into the second category.
“You’re insane,” I say instead.
Oren takes a few steps back, and the five others close ranks around me, slowly closing in.
“Nope – just following orders.” He gestures to his companions. “And let me tell you, when we got orders to kill you, I’m sure you can imagine just how excited we were.”
Oh shit. I can’t think of many other people who would want me dead more than the people in this room. Dread bubbles up, and I force it down. I’m not going to die here – I can’t die here. But the looks the people surrounding me are sending my way scream for blood – mine specifically.
The worst part is that I can’t even blame them. Not when I’d killed them painfully, mercilessly.
This scenario is literally my nightmares come to life.
I take a calming breath – I’ve killed six people before. I did it the day I met Xaden.
“Well?” I say, forcing an outward expression of confidence that I’m not sure I feel. “Let’s get it over with.”
A woman Iunges at me from my left, deciding to try to draw first blood. I recognize her – she was the one I killed right after Oren back in the quadrant. She’d moved sloppily then, yelling and grunting when she didn’t need to. Now, she moves without a sound, no movement wasted. I hastily parry the dagger that’s aimed squarely for my chest, grabbing her arm and using her momentum to fling her to the ground.
But before I can land the killing blow, one of her companions gets in my way, quickly forcing my back on the defensive as I duck and weave around his slashes and stabs. I can see the other three slowly closing in while Oren hangs back and watches.
It had been easy to fight back against them before in the protocol. I had the element of surprise, in a way, due to how underestimated I was. They didn’t work together to take me down.
This time, they know exactly what I’m capable of. And from the looks of it, they’re well prepared too.
I find myself on the backfoot, the larger man forcing me back. I force down panic, even as I can’t find an opening that will grant me some reprieve. I’m fast, but he’s strong, and he’s wearing me down fast.
One of my daggers goes flying, knocked out of my hand by a particularly savage blow that has my bones rattling. I deflect the next strike with one dagger, but it’s not enough. The blade catches the skin of my arm, slashing through the fabric of my mission suit. It’s not deep, but the blood flows down and wets the hilt of my dagger regardless.
I unsheathe another dagger from my ribs, and the movement distracts my assailant just long enough. I send the other one sailing, and it lodges right where his heart would be. He drops like a rock, but I don’t get a chance to catch my breath. Two others who’d hung back both lunge for me. I manage to lodge the fresh dagger into the stomach of one, but the other grabs me by the throat, slamming my down to the stone floor with such force that the wind gets knocked out of me.
I know this man too – he’s the one that appears in my dreams the most out of the six formerly-dead trainees. The last one I killed that night, the one that asked for mercy that I was unable, unwilling to give.
His hands immediately wrap around my throat, choking the remaining air from my body. I scratch at his arms, his wrists, his hands, but to no avail. I kick out, aiming for his torso, but he merely uses one of his own legs to pin it down. Rasping sounds leave my mouth as I fight for air that isn’t there.
I can feel the life slowly leaving me the longer I go without filling my lungs. My attempts to free myself from my assailant’s stranglehold gets weaker and weaker, my muscles no longer responding the way they should. Black spots flood my vision.
Air. I need air.
Hot breath fans over my face in way that makes my stomach curdle, my attacker’s red-rimmed eyes locked onto my face, watching me slowly die.
“You should have considered this possibility,” he hisses, repeating in part the words I’d left him with before lodging a dagger in his heart.
Fear grips me as the reality of the situation sets in. Gods, what will happen to Xaden if I die here? Will he be framed for my murder the way Fen was framed for Brennan’s?
I try to reach for a dagger, but my fingers won’t cooperate. I can barely think straight.
A calm washes over me, a certainty that I haven’t felt in a very, very long time: I’m going to die today.
Just as I’m about to give in to Malek’s beckoning, I hear a loud bang, the sound of someone shouting.
One moment, hands are wrapped around my neck – the next, I’m coughing, filling my lungs with stuttering gasps. I scramble up, fighting the wave of dizziness that comes from the sudden change in elevation and the black dots that obscure my vision, eyes darting around.
Xaden is grappling with the man that just a moment ago had been about to kill me, nailing him in the jaw with a wicked right hook as they tussle on the ground. I don’t question it, don’t question why he’s here or how he knew I was in trouble. I surge forward, unsheathing the blade I’d been unable to grip just second ago and use it to block a death blow from the woman who snuck up on him, aiming for Xaden’s back.
“Don’t even think about it,” I growl, my voice ragged. A spark of anger floods me. I won’t let anything happen to Xaden – not while air is still in my lungs.
And thanks to him, I’m still drawing breath.
The woman tilts her head to the side but doesn’t say a word as she shifts her attacks to me. I parry, then duck under her outstretched arm, sweeping out her legs from under her. I pounce before she can recover, grabbing her head and snapping her neck before she can so much as shout.
I leap back to my feet just in time to see Xaden knock the man he’d been fighting with out cold. Other than Oren, only one other person remains standing, standing back with him observing the carnage.
“Looks like some things never change,” Oren taunts, his eyes flitting to Xaden as he clambers back to his feet and takes up a position at my side. “Congrats on finding someone new to hide behind, Sorrengail.”
“You’re right, some things don’t change, Oren” I taunt. “Seeing that you’re still a coward who won’t fight me without five people to back you up.”
The Oren I knew in BASGIATH would have gotten defensive. His face would have turned an ugly shade of red in response to the insult I just delivered. But this Oren merely laughs, that same insane sound that grates at my nerves and sends goosebumps up my arms echoing throughout the room.
“We’ll see each other again soon, Sorrengail,” he promises. “And I’ll be the one to kill you. Mark my words.”
“You can try.” I take one step forward, fully intending to end his life again, but the woman at Oren’s side raises a device above her head. For a brief, terrifying moment, I think it’s a bomb. But then I recognize the design – it’s a smoke bomb, developed by the NIA – a canister filled with gas.
A half-second later, the canister releases, filling the room with opaque mist. A moment later, the fire alarms begin to blare.
“We need to go!” I grab Xaden’s hand without a second thought, tugging him along with me as I head toward what I hope is the door I came through. Oren is either using the smokescreen to escape – or to sneak up and kill us. Either way, we need to move. No doubt Deverelli authorities will be swarming this place before long.
I find the doors, throwing my body weight against it. The wood opens with a groan, and I’m taking Xaden’s hand in mine again as soon as there’s an opening big enough to fit through, sprinting down the halls using my memory alone till we’re dashing out of the door I’d entered through. Sirens blare in the distance, growing closer with each passing second.
“We need to get out of here before the fire department arrives,” I hiss to Xaden, who nods tersely. I beckon at him to follow me, guiding him through the gardens to the spot I’d scaled the wall coming in.
“Can you climb?” I ask, the question no more than a hurried whisper as I sheathe the dagger I kept clutched in my hand.
He looks at me incredulously. “How do you think I got in here in the first place?”
Fair point.
“You go first,” I urge as my eyes dart back towards the gate. Any minute now, police and firemen will come streaming through it. I’d rather I get caught than him.
“Absolutely not.” Xaden crosses his arms, glaring at me with an anger that I haven’t seen since the night I’d barged into his hotel. Shit, I’m in so much trouble right now.
“Now isn’t the time for this,” I point out. I grab him by the arm, turning him toward the wall. “Climb!”
I can hear the sound of people shouting and doors slamming over the sound of the fire alarm now, the flashing lights of emergency vehicles just barely visible over the top of the wall.
This time, Xaden doesn’t argue, gripping the uneven stones and hauling himself upwards. The speed he climbs at is a reminder of just how fast he is – a fact I manage to routinely forget. I keep an eagle eye on the gate, and only begin my own ascent when he’s safely over.
I crest the top just as I hear the sound of metal hinges squeaking, the voices growing louder as the gate opens. Xaden waits at the bottom, arms crossed, still glaring. I make my way down carefully. The stinging from the gash in my arm is more noticeable now. I hope I don’t need stitches.
This time, Xaden takes the lead as we wind our way through Turchinu’s back alleys. He doesn’t say a word either, but he doesn’t have to. His anger practically radiates off of him.
Keeping a careful eye on his back only makes me miss the moments when he would hold my hand instead – a thought that would have had me questioning my own sanity just a month ago.
By the time we arrive back at our apartment, the slight stinging in my arm has transformed into full-blown pain. Xaden opens our front door with such force that is goes flying into the wall with a bang, making me jump. He doesn’t turn around, stalking towards the bathroom. I close the door behind me.
Xaden returns a minute later with the first aid kit I’d bought our first week here, the hard lines of his face set in a scowl.
He points to the couch. “Sit.”
I don’t argue, settling on the couch gingerly without a word. The tension in the air is so apparent, I could cut it with one of my daggers.
Xaden kneels next to me, the gentle way he handles my injured arm a contrast with the anger that is clearly because of me.
Still, he may be angry at me, but I’m angry too. Oren’s words have begun to replay in my head now that the adrenaline rush has subsided and I’m not running for my life.
I bet he’s been lying to you this entire time too. I want to escape the words, but I can’t, not when they’ve buried their way into my head. Everything I know about VENIN is on Xaden’s word. I’ve been putting my life, and by extention the lives of everyone I care about, on the line only on Xaden’s word.
I’d been so hesitant to trust Xaden with the little things, but when it really counted, I might have been too quick to trust without even realizing it. My need for revenge on the people who killed my dad, who killed Brennan might have blinded me to another falsehood.
If he lied to me about the threat I thought I was fighting to uncover, I’m not sure what I’ll do.
I sit, replaying every moment of the encounter inside Castle Arrubatu, as Xaden carefully wipes away the crimson streaks that stain the skin around my wound. I hiss from behind clench teeth when he dabs antiseptic on it.
“Bear with it,” Xaden says.
Its only after my wound is carefully wrapped in a bandage that Xaden gets back on his feet. I stay seated, even as he crosses his arms and looks at me with an expression that demands answers.
“Do you want to explain to me what the fuck happened back there?” he asks after a moment of heavy silence. His voice is deceptively soft, like the calm before the storm.
“That depends on how you’re going to react.” I wince as I test my range of movement with my injured arm.
Xaden’s jaw ticks. “How I’m going to react is not what you should be worried about. Who the hell were those people? And why the fuck didn’t you tell me what you were doing?”
I lean back into the couch cushions with a shrug. “To be fair, I had no idea Oren would be there. I thought it was just going to be Nolon.”
That answer doesn’t seem to help my case. Xaden’s eyes flash as he leans down into my space.
“Explain. Now.” The demand is a growl. I press a hand to his chest, trying to put some space between us, but the warmth emanating from under his black tshirt only serves to feel like a brand against my skin.
“Nolon is – was-” I correct myself. “An NIA operative-turned-doctor. He treated me for years.” A trickle of grief escapes the box of emotions, and I shove it back in with a quick breath. “I thought I saw him in the square weeks ago, even though he’s supposed to be stationed in Draithus.”
“What?” Xaden’s brows fly up.
“Then, when you were gone doing your interviews, someone left me a message asking to meet in the ballroom of that castle tonight. I recognized the handwriting as Nolon’s.” I decide to leave out where exactly the message had been left. “I had no idea why he was here, or why he wanted to meet, but I had to try to talk to him.”
“Why?” Xaden’s voice is hard, but I can’t get a handle on what he may be thinking when I look up to meet his gaze.
Shit. I hadn’t told Xaden about how Nolon was the man I’d heard in the recording at Athebyne. I hadn’t wanted to, not until I’d been able to question the old doctor myself.
In theory, I’ve done that, which should make it fine for me to tell him. Except I’d hardly anticipated these particular circumstances, which have Xaden looking at me like he’d like to kill me himself.
I take a deep breath. I’m so fucked.
“Nolon was the man we heard in the recording at Athebyne,” I finally admit. I have to drag the words out of myself.
Xaden blinks, clearly not expecting that answer.
“But I wasn’t completely sure,” I continue, the words spilling out of me easier now that I’ve started. “So, I wanted to question him to figure out what he knew before I told you. And sitting around, doing nothing has been killing me. I can assure you I wasn’t expecting Oren and his buddies to show up.”
Xaden’s eyes drift shut, his mouth pressing into a tight, emotionless line as I continue to ramble.
“To be fair, I thought they were already dead, so-”
“Let me get this straight,” Xaden interrupts, his eyes still closed. One hand comes up to press against the bridge of his nose, like he’s trying to ward off a headache. “You recognized the man in the recording at Athebyne, the one who killed Riona, and you decided to meet him – someone who was obviously involved in Project VENIN – in secret and without backup?”
His accusatory tone rubs me the wrong way, and I finally drag myself to my feet, crossing my arms to match him.
“That sounds about right,” I reply.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” Xaden roars, the calm façade burning away. His eyes fly open, and every line of his body is as taut as a bowstring as he glares down at me.
“I was thinking that at the rate we’re going, we won’t be able to learn anything about VENIN!” I scream in response, my control over my temper evaporating in the face of his anger. “I was chasing down a lead, it’s not like I expected to be attacked.”
“A lead?” Xaden scoffs, icy rage written all over his face. “You call meeting up with someone who was almost certainly going to try to kill you ‘chasing down a lead?’ Are you insane? You promised you wouldn’t do anything risky, and then you-”
I bristle. He doesn’t know a damn thing about Nolon.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about Xaden, and I didn’t promise shit,” I say from behind clenched teeth. “You told me that’s what you wanted me to do. And I believe you’re well aware I’ve never been very good at following orders.”
“Don’t argue semantics with me, Violence.” Xaden spears his hand through his shortened hair, aggravation clear from every movement he makes. He turns his back to me as if he can’t even bare to look me in the eyes. “You almost died. You would be dead right now if I hadn’t found you.”
“But I didn’t. Gods, I almost die all the time, this isn’t new!” I counter. “It’s my job, for fuck’s sake.”
“Exactly my point!” Xaden rounds on me, and finally closes the few feet of distance left between us. His eyes are wild, and if it wasn’t for my own rage, the fear I see there would be enough to give me pause. “It might be your job to throw yourself into danger, but you should at least act like you give a shit about your own life. Fuck, Violet, you act like you’re invincible sometimes, but you’re just as mortal as the rest of us. It’s like you’re trying to get yourself killed.”
“It’s not my fault I was trained to do things this way! I either risk my life, or they kill me – that’s the way it is for us. At least I’ll get information if we do it my way.”
Xaden’s eyes widen, and I know immediately that I’ve opened a box I shouldn’t have opened.
“What are you talking about?” His voice has taken on that low note that has my brain screaming danger.
Fuck. I really shouldn’t have said that.
I take a step back, but Xaden follows me. “I’m not talking about this right now.”
I’m not ready to tell him exactly how far I was willing to go to survive BASGIATH, to survive after BASGIATH – especially not when he’s accusing me of trying to get myself killed.
“Fuck that,” Xaden practically snarls. “What aren’t you telling me, Violet?”
I narrow my eyes on him as Oren’s words continue to replay in my head, like a corrosive poison. I’m not the only one who’s hiding something.
“Oren said you didn’t tell me the truth about VENIN,” I accuse.
Xaden takes a step back, like he’s been hit, but his face betrays nothing, that expert façade locking in place almost instantly. I take a step towards him, chasing him down.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, his tone sounding hollow. It’s an obvious lie, an obvious deflection. We really are two sides of one coin.
“Did you know?” I ask. “That VENIN has people in the NIA?”
“What?” Something flashes across Xaden’s expression, too quick for me to get a latch on it, but it’s enough for me to keep pushing.
“Did you know?” I ask again, my voice ratcheting higher as I recall Sawyer’s injuries, Rhiannon being held captive in the woods near Athebyne. The woman in the NIA mission suit who attacked me in my apartment, begging for mercy before I killed her. “Working with you painted a target on my back, and if there’s something you’re not telling me, I need to know.”
“What you’re saying right now doesn’t mean much when you’re not telling me everything either,” Xaden points out, his hands clenching into fists.
I let out a cold laugh. “Unlike you, I never promised to not lie, Xaden. I don’t owe you anything, but if you lied to me about VENIN, you owe me the truth.”
Oren’s words are playing on a loop, over and over and over again. In my head, I’m begging him to tell me Oren was lying. Begging him to hold himself to that promise he made not to lie to me. Begging him to tell me he didn’t put my life and the lives of my friends in danger because he wasn’t honest with me.
“I don’t know what you want me to tell you,” Xaden replies stiffly. The defensiveness in his tone only solidifies what I’d hoped wasn’t true – he’s hiding something
“You need to tell me what the fuck is going on, Xaden!”
“Drop it, Violet,” Xaden says, the softness of his voice in direct contrast with the sparking anger in his eyes.
“I’m not going to drop it!” I exclaim. Every step I take towards him, he takes one step back. “I’m being fucking hunted, and I don’t even know if I know the real reason why. I was just attacked by people who called VENIN their fucking salvation. I swear to Dunne, if you don’t-”
“VENIN isn’t a weapon.”
I freeze.
“…What?”
Xaden’s eyes are shut tight, as if he can’t bear to look at me. The words sound like they were dragged out of him, painful and raw.
“I lied to you,” he says, the admission quiet yet still powerful enough to feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. “From the beginning, I was lying to you. VENIN isn’t a weapon.”
I feel like I’ve been hit with a boulder. I stumble backwards.
Just because I was expecting it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting to hear.
He said he wouldn’t lie to me. He looked me in the eye and said he wouldn’t. A poisonous, bitter taste floods my mouth.
It’s my fault for believing him. Oren was right.
Betrayal, I’m learning, sucks even more when its avoidable in the first place.
“Project VENIN wasn’t aiming to create a weapon,” Xaden says, eyes opening. I can’t read his expression. The anger, the frustration – it’s all gone. He’s blank.
“If it’s not a weapon,” I bite out. “Then what the fuck is it?”
If it’s not a weapon, then why is VENIN so terrifying that Fen and Brennan, and now Xaden, thought it was worth risking Navarre’s wrath to stop it? Why was Dad killed after looking into it? What exactly having I been trying to fight against? What am I missing?
“I can’t tell you that. Not yet.”
My fury rears its head again, and before I can tamp it down, I’m tearing one of Mazzie’s electric daggers from the sheathe at my ribs, surging forward and pinning it against the column of Xaden’s throat. He doesn’t react; he merely looks down at me, emotionless.
“You’ll tell me, Riorson,” I threaten. “Or I promise you will live to regret it. You don’t get to lie to me, play with my life, put me in danger, and then continue to keep information from me.”
“You’ve gone back to my last name, huh?”
My eyes widen. “Are you being serious right now?” I ask, incredulous. “That’s what you’re focusing on?” I press the dagger a bit closer but keep the edge from touching his skin. “You wanted me to trust you, all while you weren’t being honest with me. What in Amari’s name is wrong with you?”
“Do you want a list?”
“For fuck’s sake, Riorson, take this seriously!”
“I am.” Quick as a viper, his hand darts up, grabbing my wrist and pushing my blade away from his neck. “I’ll own up to not telling you the truth about VENIN. I could make a hundred different excuses for why I let you believe it was a weapon, but they would be just that – excuses. I should have been upfront with you about VENIN in the first place, so that you fully understood the risk you were taking.” He takes a breath. “But if I tell you everything right now, I’d just be putting you in more danger, because we aren’t safe here. The Deverelli aren’t our friends, and if, gods forbid, they think you know something, then you’ll be even more of a target.”
“You’re talking about not wanting to make excuses, yet that’s all you’re doing,” I accuse, jerking my hand out of his grip. Still, I do it carefully, so the blade doesn’t accidentally nick him. Guess that says enough about my intentions.
“I’m trying to keep you safe.” His voice, finally, betrays a bit of emotion. “Please, Violet. I need you to trust that I’m going to tell you what you need to know when you need to know it.”
“Bold of you to throw the word ‘trust’ around when we literally just established that you’ve been lying to me from the start and still won’t tell me the full truth.”
“I know,” he says. I wait for him to say more, to justify this ridiculous request that I trust him, but he remains quiet, looking at me with quiet apprehension.
“You’re a piece of work,” I finally say with a shake of my head, my anger giving way to a sense of resignation. I turn on my heel and begin to make for the door. I can’t be in the same room as him right now – I need air.
“Where are you going?” I hear hit bootsteps approaching from behind, and I’d swear he almost sounds worried.
“Away,” I say, gripping the door handle. “I need some space.”
I feel his fingers ghost the exposed skin of my arm. “Wait-”
Before I can think about the potential consequences of my actions, I whirl around, flicking the small switch on the hit of the blade with my thumb. The weapon hums to life, vibrating slightly in my palm, and I shove the flat of the blade against Xaden’s torso.
There’s a zapping noise as the metal makes contact with his body, and he drops like a boulder with a groan and a resounding thud.
I stare at the weapon in my hand, a bit amazed. I’ll need to buy Mazzie dinner if I ever make it back to Navarre.
I crouch on my haunches, using a single finger to poke Xaden’s cheek. He doesn’t so much as stir. An unpleasant thought makes it way to the forefront – I have no idea how strong the voltage I’d used was. I reach out for Xaden’s arm, which is splayed out away from his body, pressing two fingers against the inside of his wrist.
Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead, please don’t be-
I let out a small sigh of relief when Xaden’s pulse flutters steadily beneath my touch. Definitely not dead. I probably should’ve guessed that would be the case, seeing that his chest is still rising and falling at a steady cadence.
I might be pissed at him, but I certainly don’t want him dead.
I stand, grabbing a coat to wear over my mission suit. I’m about to walk out the door, but I double back one more time when a prickle of guilt stabs at me.
I tuck a pillow under Xaden’s head, then finally head out into the night.
I don’t know how long I wander the darkened streets of Turchinu, but its long enough that Xaden has likely regained consciousness. Still, I make no effort to return to our small apartment. Instead, I slip into one of the many taverns that stay open late into the night on the seedier side of town, doing my best to keep my head low and remain unnoticed. I settle into a small corner, ordering a beer when one of the bartenders greets me, and watch the people gathered.
I’m halfway through the beer when someone calls my fake name, making my ears perk up.
“Violetta?”
I turn in my seat, and there stands Adrian, the bookstore employee.
“Hello, Adrian,” I greet, plastering that friendly expression that everyone here has come to know me for onto my face. “What brings you here?”
“I could ask you the same thing.” He glances around the bar. “Are you here with your husband?”
I scoff before I can stop myself. “No.”
His eyes widen slightly, darting down to my beer then back to my face.
“Is everything ok?” he asks, a bit quieter now.
Shit. It wouldn’t do any good for it to get out that my “marriage” isn’t as harmonious as I’ve been saying it is to everyone I’ve met in this godsforsaken town.
“Oh yes,” I say airily. “Xaden didn’t want to come out to me tonight after we’d planned to, so I’m a bit annoyed at him, but it’s nothing to worry about.”
Adrian’s smile falters a bit. “Oh, I’m glad to hear that.”
He stands there awkwardly for a moment, clearly expecting me to say something else – although what, I’m not sure.
I chuckle nervously. “Why are you here tonight, Adrian? Are you meeting someone?”
He shakes his head so vigorously, it would probably fly off if it wasn’t securely attached to his neck.
“No, no. I couldn’t sleep, so I was taking a walk and saw you as well. I saw you come in here, so I thought I’d come say hi.”
Alarm bells start going off in my head. As casually as I can, I drop a hand to my side, letting the hilt of one of my daggers brush my fingertips.
“You were following me?” I let the friendly smile on my face slide away.
Adrian blanches. “Yes- I mean, no! Gods, no. You just looked upset, so I wanted to make sure you were ok.”
“I didn’t realize you were close enough with my wife to be worried about something like that.”
I startle in time with Adrian, my gaze jerking to my right and immediately homing in on the man I’d left passed out on the floor only hours before.
Xaden, to his credit, looks livid. If looks could kill, I’d be dead ten times over.
“Xaden,” I say. I can’t believe he managed to track me down this fast. “What are you doing here?”
He cocks an eyebrow. “Back on first name basis, are we?”
Maybe this time I’ll stab him instead of tasing him.
I take a deep breath, then look back at Adrian. “Sorry about him, Adrian. Looks like he decided to join me after all.”
“No worries,” he squeaks. I look between him and Xaden, who’s trained that deathly glare on the bookkeep.
“Cut it out. You’re scaring him,” I mutter for only Xaden to hear as I move to his side.
“Good,” he bites.
I guess getting tased put him in a shitty mood. Or a shittier mood. At least it matches mine.
“We’ll see you around, Adrian,” I say to the mousy man. It’s a clear dismissal, but the man doesn’t get the message, loitering around despite his fearful glances in Xaden’s direction.
“Um, Violetta, next time you come by the bookstore, I should have that book you were looking for before,” he says. “If you want, we can eat something and I’ll show you-”
“You’ll show her what?” Xaden growls, eyes narrowing on the smaller man as he takes one menacing step forward. Adrian’s eyes widen, the blood draining from his face.
“Xaden,” I mutter, grabbing him by the arm. What the fuck has gotten into him?
His gold-flecked eyes move to meet mine, a myriad of emotions I can’t decipher written all over. He searches my face, and whatever he sees makes him relax just a bit, enough that I’m no longer worried that he’s going to step forward and pummel poor Adrian into the ground for offenses unknown to the rest of us.
“I’ll, um, I’ll see you around, Violetta!” Adrian says, nervously eyeing Xaden. “It was good to see you as well, Mr. Tuono.” The bookstore owner shoves past us in a hurry, not bothering to look back before he practically flees from the tavern.
When the door shuts behind him, I round on Xaden and point to the booth I’d temporarily abandoned. “Sit,” I order.
We’d been yelling at each other before I’d knocked him out, but now that he’s here, we’re going to have a conversation.
He raises his hands in mock surrender, immediately moving toward the small corner I’d claimed before he’d made his entrance. “Yes, ma’am,” he chuckles. The sound, low and rough, makes me want to stab him and kiss him in the same breath. Gods, emotions are complicated. Especially when I’m not even sure I can or should trust him right now.
I slide into the seat opposite him, then stare him down with what I hope is my most intimidating glare. Xaden, of course, looks unbothered. I’ve never managed to intimidate this man, a glaring failure in my book.
“How long did it take you to wake up?” I ask, my voice just above a whisper.
“About an hour,” he responds immediately. “The pillow was nice of you, by the way.”
“Shut up,” I mutter. Clearly, I’ve gotten too close to this man. I let myself trust Xaden, when I knew doing so would be a bad idea. We need a reset. I need distance. “What are you doing here?”
He looks at me like I’ve grown a second head. “I came to get you.”
I throw back the last of my beer, then flag down the server, gesturing to my empty mug in a silent request for a refill. “And why the fuck would you do that, Riorson?”
“So we’re back to the last name? I thought we’d gotten past that.”
“Gods, just answer the damn question!” I raise my voice louder just as there’s a lull in the noise of the tavern, and a dozen sets of eyes swivel in my direction. So much for having a calm conversation – I can’t even control my own temper right now. My mind is still racing with the implications of tonight, and my emotions are everywhere. I’ve vacillated between understanding why Xaden might not have wanted to trust me with the truth when we’d first met, and anger that he’d lied to me, and then lied about not lying.
That’s not even addressing the complicated feelings around what I learned about the truth of Devera’s death tonight – yet another thing that I’m scared to learn if Xaden knew or not.
Xaden loses the playful guise. He reaches out, and for a second I think he’s going to grab my hand where it rests near my empty mug, but he pulls back as if he’d thought better of it.
“We’re not safe here, Violet,” he says quietly. “I was scared shitless when I woke up and you were gone. You’ve already been attacked once.” I watch as his eyes flit down to my neck. No doubt it will be black and blue tomorrow, an ugly, hard-won necklace signifying just how close I came to death. Xaden takes a deep breath before tearing his eyes back to mine. “I decided to come with you on this mission so that you’d have a better shot at surviving, but I can’t do that if you’re going to run off.”
“Maybe you should have thought about that before you lied to me. I needed some space to think.”
Xaden crosses his arms and leans back in his seat, his jaw clenching. The movement drawing my attention to the intricate tattoo that stretches from his wrist to the edge of his jaw. When we’re wearing mission suits, only the very top of it could ever be seen. Since we’ve been on the isles, I’ve been seeing it far more.
“Violence, be honest with me – were you 100% truthful with me when we first made our agreement back in Cordyn?” he asks.
I open my mouth, then shut it. I hadn’t been. I still haven’t been entirely truthful about my suspicions about what my father had been up to before the house fire, or what led me to start trying to find out more about his disappearance, or the attacks in my apartment in Calldyr. I didn’t tell him about Nolon and his relation to VENIN till I had to. I still haven’t shared the full connection between Oren and myself, or told Xaden everything Oren told me in that ballroom.
And, of course, I hadn’t told him about BASGIATH either, even when he’s asked, even in the heat of our argument – but that seems less consequential.
“No,” I finally admit.
“Exactly.” Xaden’s lips quirk up for a fraction of a second before falling. “I shouldn’t have told you I’d never lie to you, because that implied that I was already being entirely honest. There are some things I can’t tell you yet. Not because I don’t want to, but because it isn’t safe to do so, and honestly, I only started trusting you fairly recently.” He holds my gaze, steadfast. “And based on what I’ve learned, that also stands true for you too.”
I want to be angry, want to push back the way I’d done before, but there’s something in his expression, something desperate, that puts a pause on my anger. A small part of me – logical Violet – tells me that he’s right.
“Am I going to be mad at you when you finally deign to tell me whatever it is you insist on keeping from me?” I ask after a moment’s silence.
Xaden laughs, open and loud. Even in my frustration and anger, I can’t lie to myself and pretend I don’t love the sound of it.
“Honestly, Violence, I’ll be lucky to walk away unscathed when you’re through with me,” he says with a grin. “I just hope you’ll use those taser knives next time as well, instead of actually stabbing me.”
“Pickers can’t be choosers,” I reply with saccharine sweetness, but the grin that tugs the corner of my lips is real.
He laughs again, and it lights up my world, just a little bit. I want to hear it again and again.
The bartender appears, dropping a fresh drink in front of me and collecting my empty mug. I take a long draw, and fight my own grimace. The watery crap I’d had with Devera in Draithus was better than this.
“You’re not going to get anything?” I ask Xaden after he send the bartender away without placing his own order.
“Someone has to make sure you get home in one piece.”
I roll my eyes and take an extra-long sip of the drink just to spite him.
When we finally walk back to our apartment, the tension is less pronounced. It’s still there, an undercurrent of it in every step, every glance we send each other’s way, but now that I’ve had time to process, to think, I’m less upset than I was when I’d walked out the door.
“How did you know I was in trouble?” I ask quietly as we cross the empty central square. My hand is once again intertwined with Xaden’s.
Xaden glances down at me, slowing his pace a bit. “I didn’t.”
I blink. “Then why did you-”
“You were acting weird at breakfast this morning,” Xaden says with a shrug. “If the agency wanted to check in, they’d contact both of us on our communicators. I knew you were lying.” His grip on my hand tightens a bit as he looks forward again. “It’s a good thing you told the truth about where you would be though.”
I suppress a shiver. If I’d lied about that, I would be dead right now.
“When we’re back in Navarre, will you promise me that you’ll tell me what you’ve been hiding about VENIN?” I ask after we’ve locked the front door behind us and begun gotten ready for bed. I’ve changed out of my mission suit and into my pajamas, my hair released finally released from its tight braid, as I pour myself some tea.
Xaden tucks a lock of hair behind my ear, so gently that it’s hard to believe we were screaming at each other only a few hours ago.
“Will you tell me about this ‘protocol’ I keep hearing about?” he asks in response.
Truth for a truth.
I take a breath, then nod.
Xaden’s mouth curves. “Then I promise.”
Notes:
This could've been two or even three chapters, but where's the fun in that? Hopefully this makes sense. This story has reached the point where it's hard for me to remember which details I actually ended up writing and which ones I wrote and then deleted before publication so if there's continuity weirdness please tell me. I don't think there will be though.
:)
Chapter 22: Till We Meet Again
Chapter Text
Eight Months Ago
Sometimes I really fucking hate my job.
I awoke before dawn to the incessant trilling of my work phone, and I’ve found myself in the very same briefing room Colonel Aetos usually drags me into. Except this time, the person staring me down is completely different. Aetos likes to bring a retinue with him for briefings. This man is alone, which only makes the atmosphere even more stifling.
Burton Varrish is many things, but kind isn’t one of them. In fact, if there was a book of words I could use to describe the man, the word ‘kind’ would be viciously scratched out, the paper torn from the force of it. That’s why the kind smile he greets me with when I enter the room is enough to make me want to run for the hills.
“Sorrengail,” he greets amiably. The pleasant expression on his sharp, narrow features is in direct contrast with the malice in his eyes. His hair is gelled back, only adding to his snake-like appearance.
“Assistant Director,” I greet, crossing my arms. He’s sitting at the table in the center of the room, but I make no move to join him. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Assistant Director Burton Varrish is one of the few people that I despise. He’s cruel and manipulative. Cold-blooded. Deceptive.
He’s also in charge of the BASGIATH protocol. That place is only the way it is because of him. The last time I saw him, killed a trainee during a demonstration spar – and then got annoyed when the blood stained his freshly-pressed pants.
Varrish leans forward in his seat, the movement making the light of the hologram projector reflect off the perfectly-polished buttons of his uniform. He props his elbows on the table, lacing his hands in front of them.
“I need you to do something for me,” he says.
“I’d rather not,” I deadpan.
Varrish laughs, the sound sliding under my skin uncomfortably.
“I wasn’t asking,” he says. His pleasant tone now has a sharp undercurrent.
I exhale, resigned. I expected that.
“What are my orders?” I ask.
He presses a button, and the hologram changes, showing an image of a man I recognize. He’s a retired army officer, high-ranking. Someone who’s bound to know things ordinary people would never imagine.
“I assume you are familiar with retired General Lindell, correct?” Varrish asks me.
I nod.
The hologram changes again, showing a video from a security feed of some kind. Lindell walks out of a door, something tucked under his arm, before disappearing from the frame.
My eyes slide back to Varrish in silent question.
“General Lindell took something he shouldn’t have taken, just before his retirement,” Varrish says, his eyes never leaving the video, which plays on a loop. “Documents about a top-secret project. You need to get them back.”
“What was the project?” I ask. My finger begins tapping my arm, a way to let out my nervous energy.
Varrish’s gaze finally lands back on me. “That’s beyond your paygrade, Sorrengail.” He cocks his head. “I wouldn’t ask questions that you don’t want to know the answers to if I were you.”
Translation: Keep pushing, and you’ll end up six feet under.
“Right.” I swallow. “Anything else?”
The smile on Varrish’s face is enough to give me nightmares.
“You know what to do with Lindell once you obtain the documents, yes?”
I nod, battling to keep my expression schooled.
“Don’t worry,” I say, not bothering to wait for Varrish to dismiss me before I retreat towards the door. “He’ll be dead before the end of the week.”
Present
It’s been one week since I came face to face with Oren, and things have been infuriatingly, mind-numbingly slow.
I’m sitting on the couch, my laptop open in my lap. The thumb drive Rhiannon gave me before I left – the one she purportedly received from my mother – is plugged in, the files on it cluttering the screen.
I scroll through one of the documents aimlessly, scanning it for information that could help Xaden and I narrow down where on the base the Deverelli could possibly be storing the top-secret weapons information we’re looking for.
“Stop,” Xaden says as he peers over my shoulder. I lift my fingers from the mousepad, just as he crowds my personal space, his hand replacing mine as he scrolls back a few pages.
“I could’ve just handed you the computer,” I grumble, my shoulder bumping into his chest. I feel caged in, but not necessarily in a bad way. He’s just – close. Really close. Close-enough-that-I’m-considering-making-a-really-bad-decision close.
Xaden glances away from the screen, meeting my eyes. Right on cue, that smirk of his stretches his lips.
“Where’s the fun in that?” he asks, and I swear to the gods above he moves closer when he turns back to continue perusing the document.
In fact, he’s been close all week. Like he’s purposefully trying to invade my physical space, pushing me to see my reaction. The proximity frays every ounce of control I have, and I’m beginning to seriously worry that I’ll break down and beg to be touched before we finish this mission – and what a disaster that would be, considering I know I definitely shouldn’t trust him now.
To be fair, I also haven’t asked him to stop, to give me space – which says more about me than I’d care to admit.
“You’re insufferable,” I inform him.
“And you haven’t stabbed me yet, so I must be doing something right.”
Arrogant ass.
We’ve been at this for almost an hour, the takeout boxes from a restaurant on the other side of town abandoned on the coffee table. I’d combed through these records before we’d left Navarre, skimming them for any information. It’s filled with old news articles, intelligence briefings, memos – just about everything about the damn base that I have clearance to view, some of it decades old.
But, given the atrocious state of diplomatic affairs between Navarre and the isles, it’s not entirely surprising that our intelligence is lacking. Anyone with a Navarrian passport has been practically barred from coming to the smaller nation for the better part of a century, after all. The only reason Xaden and I are here are by virtue of our fake documents.
“Anything?” I ask hopefully, craning my neck to look at Xaden’s face. A second, then another passes before he sighs, finally drawing away and giving me my space back.
“Nothing stands out.”
I groan, leaning back further into the plush couch cushions. Between the two of us, we’ve combed through these documents a dozen times. We’ve been here a month, and we’ve made barely any progress. Even Xaden, who preached patience to me at first, is beginning to get restless.
“We’re going to be stuck here forever,” I declare.
Xaden chuckles, rising to his feet and collecting the empty takeout containers before carrying them across the room to the trashcan.
“That probably wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world,” he says, scraping the food scraps into the bag before pivoting to the sink. I watch from my perch on the couch as he begins to wash our utensils with the same intense focus he gives just about everything.
Things between Xaden and I have been almost-fine since our little blow-up last week – even if there was nothing little about it. The dead bodies the authorities found at Castle Arrubatu have been the talk of the town, especially since the Deverelli haven’t announced their identities. There’s a part of me that wonders if they know, and just aren’t saying anything, or if the police here are truly clueless.
Xaden has carefully avoided talking about VENIN since that night – and I’ve let him. Perhaps because I’m still processing, still accepting that people working on VENIN killed Devera and now Nolon. Maybe I’m still in shock from seeing Oren alive.
Still, even if we aren’t talking about it, what happened that night hangs heavy. I’ve had to wear turtlenecks and scarves to cover up the angry, mottled bruises in the shape of handprints, and I’ve caught Xaden staring at the marks on my neck on more than one occasion, his eyes hardened and angry.
That doesn’t even touch on how I’ve felt less sure, a little more hesitant around him than I did before. I still trust him not to kill me, but anything else? That’s a different story entirely, which is part of why it’s so infuriating that he manages to override my brain whenever he gets within touching distance.
Neither of us are addressing the elephant in the room, and the tension in manifesting in the mundane. Xaden snapped at me yesterday because I’d left my coffee mug in the sink without washing it. I’d scolded him two days before that when he came home hours later than usual without giving me a heads up.
Fortunately, tonight feels a little easier, a little more natural.
“What time do you have to be at work tomorrow?” I ask him as he begins to dry our forks.
“Early,” he says, then looks up from his task. “Why?”
“No reason,” I say lightly.
A lie, but it’s not a serious one, or even one to do with our mission. The Winter Solstice is coming up – a fact that’s easy to forget, given the balmy climate of the isles – and considering I would be dead if he hadn’t barged in and saved my life, I’ve decided to make him a gift – and I don’t want him to know. I might not fully trust him anymore, but Sorrengails always repay their debts.
Xaden raises an eyebrow. “Care to share?”
“Not particularly.”
“The last time you said something to that effect, I had to save your ass,” Xaden points out, dropping the forks into the cutlery drawer, although I can tell he’s joking. His eyes slide to me. “Do I need to be prepared for another rescue?”
I let out a short laugh at the unexpected humor. It’s the first time either of us have mentioned what happened instead of dancing around it. I’d much rather joke about it than let it hang over us like a cloud.
“I swear on the dragon stuffie I had as a kid that I am not going to get myself killed tomorrow,” I say solemnly, fighting the grin that wants to make its way into the world.
Xaden rounds the kitchen counter, wiping the water on his hands on the backs of his pants.
“Well, if you’re swearing on dragons then you must be serious,” he says solemnly.
I roll my eyes. “Shut up.”
Xaden is awake before I am, pouring coffee for himself when I drag myself out of bed just before dawn. Since arriving in Turchinu, my nightmares have been less frequent, and I’ve felt better rested than I have in ages. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m exhausted at the end of the day from constantly looking over my shoulder, or if it’s because I haven’t given my bad dreams new fuel in weeks thanks to the relative lack of assassinations lately.
“When will you be back?” I ask, just as a massive yawn stretches my mouth.
The corner of Xaden’s mouth slips upwards as he hands me a mug filled with coffee, his other hand clutching a travel thermos.
“I should be back by four or five,” he replies. I do my best not to stare at the muscles of his arms on full display thanks to his tight-fitting t-shirt. I fail. Is it strange that the fact that he could pick me up and throw me over his shoulder without breaking a sweat is a massive turn-on? “We’re finishing up work on the front gate’s computer systems today.”
“Try to install a backdoor into the CCTV cameras there, if you can,” I muse aloud, looking back at his face. “That will make it easier to slip in undetected.”
“Already done,” he says confidently. I scoff. Of course it is.
He’s out the door a few minutes later, leaving me alone in the apartment with only the soft light of the approaching dawn as company. I take my coffee with me out onto the balcony. The air is sticky and humid, setting the stage for an even hotter day ahead. It’s a jarring contrast to the cold of Navarre at this time of year.
The sun is beginning to peak over the tops of the buildings when I go back inside. I am on a mission today – and for once, it’s not one related to the NIA. I haul out my laptop, carry it out onto the balcony, and begin typing furiously.
I take a break midway through the day to stop at the bookstore. A familiar, uneasy feeling washes over me when I push open the worn wooden door, Adrian greeting me with a smile. There’s something about him that’s bothered me since the first time I walked in here – and that feeling has only increased since our encounter at the tavern.
“Hello again, Violetta,” Adrian says, rounding the counter near the door when I enter. “I was wondering when you’d come back.”
I haven’t been back since I saw him the night Nolon was killed. In part because when I brought him up, Xaden’s eyes damn near bugged out of his head.
Something’s off about that guy, Violence, Xaden had said with a mistrustful glance in the direction of the bookstore as we’d walked past it a three or four days ago, hand in hand. Stay away if you can.
I’d heeded that advice, only because there was a part of me that thought the same thing.
Still, I bought books, and I fully intend on reading them.
“I’ve been sick the last few days,” I lie with a wave of my hand. “Did the books I order arrive?”
“They did. One moment.” Adrian nods, then disappears into the depths of the dusty stacks at the back of the store. He emerges a few minutes later with three hardcovers, all on the history of Navarre and Tyrrendor. I watch as he wraps them in a bag, then reach over the counter to take it into my hands.
“Thanks,” I say, immediately moving to leave. I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to be. Adrian quickly scurries out from behind the counter as I approach the door.
“Wait a moment, Violetta,” he says, wiping his hands nervously on his army green pants.
I turn over my shoulder, one eyebrow raised. “Yes?”
His eyes dart about, never settling on one place for more than a moment.
“Well- I was just- So-” He makes an aggravated sound at the back of his throat as he stutters, then takes a deep breath. “Is everything ok with you and your husband?”
Both of my eyebrows fly up this time. Who the fuck does this guy think he is?
“I hardly see how that is any of your business,” I dismiss, the words containing a chilly bite.
Adrian swallows, an emotion that looks suspiciously like fear flittering across his face as I stare him down, silently daring him to say one more word. But he’s apparently braver than he looks, because my glare isn’t enough to keep him from opening his mouth again.
“I think Mr. Tuono is cheating on you.”
I blink as the words process. Then I can’t help myself: I burst out laughing. Adrian watches me with an alarmed expression, clearly unsure what to do with my reaction.
My fake husband, cheating on me? It’s the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever heard.
“What makes you think that?” I ask after I’ve regained control of myself, wiping a stray tear from my eye. I’ve got to hear this.
“I- Um-” Adrian takes another deep breath. “I saw with another woman – before I ran into you at the tavern, probably around 7 or 8.” He frowns. “They looked very close.”
That’s enough to make the grin that remained on my face after my giggle fit fall away. What the hell is he talking about? If he saw Xaden with this mystery woman at 7 or 8, that would’ve been just after I left to go to meet Nolon. Xaden should have been at work, he said-
My stomach drops. Xaden always said he’d be back late – not that he’d be working late. And he came back late a few nights ago. My thoughts spiral from there.
Then I catch myself, take a deep breath. It takes conscious effort calm the jealous rage that wants to override my logic. I can’t jump to conclusions. Xaden wouldn’t do anything that would jeopardize our mission like that.
I cock my head to the side. “Can you describe this woman for me?”
Adrian nods furiously, his hand darting toward his back pocket. “I actually took a picture.”
How convenient. Once again, I can’t shake the feeling that something is off about the mousy man as he taps away, before holding the screen up for me to see.
I almost start laughing again when I see the person Xaden is ‘cheating’ on me with – although I could understand why Adrian would think that, given that the woman’s hand is resting on Xaden’s chest.
Meanwhile, Xaden is looking at her like he wants to chop that hand right off.
“Thanks for the heads up, but I can assure you that Xaden is not cheating on me,” I say with a smile. Adrian’s expression falls away, turning stony for just a moment before reforming into something that I think is meant to be relief. I don’t buy it. “Have a good day, Adrian. Thank you for the books.”
I begin moving towards the door once more, not bothering to look back at the shop keeper as I walk back outside. It’s even hotter now, and I’ve barely made it to the end of the block when sweat begins to dampen my clothes. I begin mentally steeling myself for the unpleasant conversation I’ll need to have with Xaden tonight.
After all, if he’s going to be meeting with Catriona Cordella in dark alleyways, he should at least give me a heads up before the nosy townsfolk catch wind of it.
Xaden eyes me warily when he gets home, clearly picking up on my foul mood as the door slides shut behind him.
To be fair, I’d say only 25 percent of my mood is directly attributable to the shit he’s kept from me this time. The other 75 percent is thanks to the raging headache I developed after staring at my laptop screen for hours on end after I returned from the bookstore.
“When were you going to tell me that Catriona Cordella is in Turchinu?” I ask. No point in beating around the bush.
Surprise flashes across Xaden’s face before he locks it down. “She’s not. She’s already gone.” He raises an eyebrow. “How did you know she was here?”
“A little birdie told me,” I say sarcastically as I cross my arms.
He makes an amused sound, then walks to the fridge, withdrawing a water bottle and then downing a third of it before walking over to sit on top of the coffee table, close enough to me that our knees brush.
“Before you get pissed-”
“I’m already pissed.”
“I gathered that,” he sighs, running a hand through his hair. It’s already begun to grow back from the haircut he got the first week we were here. “I didn’t know she was going to be here. It was a bit of an ambush, the night I found you at the castle. I left work early to try to intercept you, since I knew you were getting up to something, even if I had no clue what it was, but she managed to corner me before I could do that.”
I fight to keep my expression impassive in the face of the way Xaden looks at me. It feels like a silent plea for understanding. Except I don’t understand.
“I just don’t get why you didn’t tell me,” I say, leaning backwards as I start fiddling with the end of the braid that’s slung over my shoulder. Xaden zeroes in on the movement, his eyes glued to the braid even as he answers the question.
The question is larger than just this situation with Catriona – it gets at the root of everything that’s been digging at me over the last week.
“Honestly, I wasn’t trying to keep it from you – I forgot all about Catriona,” he admits. “Finding you was more important than dwelling on what she wanted. By the time I remembered, it didn’t seem consequential – I’d planned on telling you after we got back to Navarre. Making sure you were ok was my priority.”
The fact that I actually believe him, after the massive lie he told me, is seriously concerning. Especially because if I’m being honest, telling me he planned to tell me once we were home seems like a massive cop-out. Still, I’m not nearly as upset as I was when I learned that VENIN wasn’t what I’d thought it was. Maybe it’s because of my headache, or maybe it’s the way Xaden is looking at me, with those eyes I can never seem to ignore, but I’m willing to throw him a bone on this one. I’m beginning to suspect I have a soft spot for him – I would never let anyone else get away with what I’ve allowed him to get away with.
“Which time?” I ask dryly. “I seem to recall you having to search for me twice.”
“Both times.” He’s deadly serious.
The words elicit emotions that make my stomach flip-flop uncomfortably, and I hate it. I hate the way he’s looking at me, like the idea of something happening to me is something to be scared of.
But I especially hate that I don’t actually hate it at all. Gods, emotions are complicated.
I swallow, pulling my knees up to my chest. I feel a little smaller right now; smaller than I already am.
“So what did she want?” I finally ask.
“Marriage,” he deadpans as he tears his gaze away from my hair and back to my face. My nose wrinkles involuntarily. The idea of Xaden marrying Catriona is still revolting.
“Other than that. There’s no way she came all the way out here just to be desperate.”
Xaden huffs out a soft laugh. “I wouldn’t put that past her, but you’re right – she was here for another reason.” He grows serious again. “Do you remember what I told you back at the safe house in Cordyn?”
“Which part?” I ask wryly. “The part where you lied to me, the part where you told me your father and my brother got killed trying to expose a massive conspiracy, or the part where you asked me to become a traitor?”
A myriad of emotions flicker across his face, but I can’t get a grip on a single one of them. “None of the above. I lied about VENIN being a weapon, but I wasn’t lying about it being used.”
“What does that have to do with Catriona being here on the isles?” I pluck a hair from my braid – one of my worst nervous habits – as my stomach drops with the confirmation that VENIN still poses a threat, even if I have no idea what that threat is. Xaden’s hand darts out before I can do it again, capturing the offending appendage in a light but sturdy grip.
“The situation in Poromiel is bad,” he says tightly, his thumb tracing tight patterns on the back of my palm, leaving a trail of heat on my skin. “She was here to ask for help.”
Any remnants of the jealousy I felt earlier go out. How desperate did a woman like her have to be to fly all the way here to beg for help? “How bad is bad?”
Xaden looks at me, quiet anger belying the tense set of his mouth. His grip on my hand gets a bit tighter.
“Really fucking bad,” he says, resignation evident. The words are punctuated by a sharp exhale as he shakes his head. “There’s nothing I can do right now. The way we’re fighting back now isn’t enough for the situation, and Br-” He pauses, takes a deep breath. “I haven’t figured out a more efficient way to deal with the problem.” His grip on my hand tightens. “We’re running out of time.”
Dread is a heavy companion, and it’s all I feel now as I look at Xaden, who’s practically hunched over the hand he’s captured.
“I know if I ask right now, you’re not going to tell me,” I start quietly. “But you really need to fill me in on what the hell we’re up against here.”
“Gods, I want to,” he says with a resigned sigh. “You’d probably figure out a solution faster than any of us.”
“I mean, you could just tell-”
He shakes his head again. “I’m not going to risk it, Violet, not till we’re back on the Continent.” There it is again – the same fear I saw in his eyes during our argument last week, and it’s on full display now. “If we get made here, you’ll be far better off if the Deverelli think you don’t know anything.”
His words make something click for me, and I gasp softly.
“The Deverelli know something about VENIN,” I say aloud. They must, I realize as my brain begins fitting together the puzzle pieces. Why else would Riona try to bring the project here? Why else would Oren have stopped Nolon from talking about it?
“I’m not sure,” Xaden replies candidly. “But you heard that recording just like I did – they were going to try to relocate the project here when Navarre tried to shut it down. There’s bound to be a reason for that, and I’m not keen on taking an unnecessary risk by making you more of a target than you already are.”
I scoff, moving to stand from the couch. Xaden stands with me, keeping my hand securely in his.
“You didn’t exactly seem to have a problem with me being a target before, Xaden. I’m more than capable of taking care of myself,” I point out. I’m choosing to ignore the fact that he had to bail me out the last time I found myself in mortal danger – that was a fluke. “What’s different?”
Xaden’s free hand slides up between our bodies, tugging the elastic from my braid. I’m struck by a sudden sense of déjà vu – he’d done the exact same thing in the airport bathroom the day we’d met. Only that time, I’d just killed six people and he’d likely been seriously considering whether he should kill me. Such sweet memories.
His voice is a strangled whisper. “Everything.”
Another week goes by.
By the end of it, Xaden and I have a rough map of the existing facilities, drawn by hand from pictures Xaden managed to grab when no one was looking and his own memory. He’s able to recreate the layout of the buildings he’s seen and been in with remarkable detail, something doesn’t manage to surprise me. Xaden has always struck me as the kind of person that would excel at just about anything he sets his mind to.
But more importantly, we’ve begun to narrow down where we need to search thanks to that memory of his.
The map – a generous label, given that it’s pieces of computer paper taped together, with my borderline illegible handwriting and Xaden’s surprisingly elegant penmanship scrawled at various points – has become a near-permanent stable on top of our kitchen island, save for the rare instance when we try to cook. We’re scrutinizing it now, our stomachs full of Emilia’s excellent food.
“You’re sure that’s where they’re moving the data servers?” I ask as I bite into an apple, peering over the label Xaden just added to a building in the dead-center of the base.
“Yes.” His brows scrunch with concentration as he begins tracing out a rough outline of another building. “If you’re going to question every little thing, then you should find a way onto the base yourself and make your own map.”
I ignore the pointed comment, since that was quite literally the only thing I’ve questioned since we gathered around the map after dinner. He’s been a bit touchy this evening – and I don’t mean in the physical way. Like me, he’s growing restless at our slow rate of progress – especially after Catriona’s visit describing dire situation in Poromiel. I’m assuming that the situation back on the Continent is the source of his bad mood, but what do I know? Xaden and I don’t exactly talk about our deepest thoughts and feelings with each other – we’re still working on telling each other the truth about basic facts. What’s going through his head is none of my concern. He is none of my concern. I take another bite of my apple, the loud crunch a crack of sound in relative quiet in the room.
“But then I wouldn’t be able to sit around and do nothing all day,” I reply sarcastically. “How ever would I survive?”
This manages to get a small smirk out of Xaden, even if his concentration doesn’t so much as waver. “I’m sure you’d figure something out.”
I move around to his other side and peer over his tattooed arm, which is braced against the edge of the counter as he draws, inspecting the newest additions to the map.
“What are you adding?” I ask curiously.
He glances at me, then immediately looks back to the paper. “I’m fairly certain this is the paper records building. It had a lot of fire prevention equipment – more than the other buildings at any rate.”
It’s a solid assumption, and I find myself nodding. Even now, in this age of advanced technology, the records that are going to be the most valuable will be on paper. Governments and militaries don’t want to risk having their secrets anywhere that could be hacked or downloaded, so keeping physical copies under lock and key are preferable.
“Have you managed to get ahold of your work friend’s badge yet?” I ask, switching topics. Xaden huffs, tossing his pen aside after he finishes labelling the new building. He twists, putting his back to the counter. He looms over me, his imposing height even more noticeable up close, and I take a step back when I realize just how close I’d gotten.
“First, Lucio isn’t my friend,” Xaden says, his hands moving to grip the counter behind him as he leans into it. “Second, I haven’t. There hasn’t been a good opportunity.”
Xaden and I have slowly but surely started working up the beginnings of a plan to sneak me onto the base, find the records, and get out before anyone realizes we were there. However, almost all of the buildings require a swipe card to enter. For obvious reasons, using Xaden’s is a bad idea, so our only other alternative is to make a copy of someone else’s.
He quickly identified Lucio, a low-ranking military police officer, as the best candidate. He was sloppy with his work, a bit gullible, and prone to zoning out. In other words, stealing from him should be like stealing candy from a child.
Should being the operative word. Xaden still hasn’t gotten around to it.
I frown. “We-”
“-need the badge, I know.” Xaden’s nostrils flare as one hand comes up to yank back the hair that’s fallen across his forehead. “You don’t need to tell me that.”
A jolt of annoyance forces me to take a deep breath before I speak again.
“What’s got you all pissy tonight?” I train my gaze on him, crossing my arms. The temperature in the room feels like its dropped ten degrees.
Xaden jaw ticks as he crosses his arms to match me. He meets my glare with ease, proving my point about being in a mood. “I’m not pissy. Just tired.”
“Bullshit,” I declare. There’s grumpiness from exhaustion, and then there’s whatever the hell is going on now. He stays silent, and I let the quiet drag on until its almost painful before sighing. “But whatever. You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to.” I uncross my arms, then toss my unfinished apple in the trashcan as I move towards my bedroom. He’s not my responsibility, I remind myself. “I’m going to bed.”
Xaden is already gone when I wake up the next morning, the coffee he must have made before leaving having grown cold by the time I’ve dragged myself out of bed. It leaves a sour taste in my mouth as I make a fresh pot. Things have been so off between him and I lately, ever since the night at the castle. Some moments are fine, with our usual and familiar banter, biting at times and borderline flirtatious at others. But in the other moments, it’s like we’re strangers that don’t know how to act around one another. Painfully awkward moments like our terse conversation last night have become more common than I’d like to admit.
There’s a note pinned to the fridge with a magnet with Xaden’s clean handwriting that I notice only after I’ve poured the piping hot coffee into my mug.
Be back later, it reads. A jolt of annoyance rips through me, and I reach out and forcefully tear the paper from the appliance and toss it in the trash. What’s the point of writing a note that short, with so little detail? He could have at least said when he’d be back.
My emotions where he comes in are so complicated these days, that even the mere thought of him makes something in my chest ache, replacing the frustration with something much more difficult to name.
As I take up my usual spot on the balcony to sip on my drink, I take deep, calming breaths. There is no reason why I should be getting so worked up over Xaden and what he does or doesn’t do. None at all. We’re necessary partners – co-conspirators in many ways. But that’s where our relationship ends – where it needs to end. I’m getting too wrapped up.
I’m too attached.
That thought alone is enough to terrify me, because the last person I should be attached to is Xaden Riorson. That was the case before I’d learned he’d misled me about VENIN, and it’s certainly still the case now.
I finish my coffee faster than usual, dropping the dirty mug in the sink with an unceremonious thunk before hopping in the shower – I’ll wash it later. Once again, I spend my morning at my computer, typing away like a madwoman, but the gratification when I finally finish my little project is worth the sore fingers.
I celebrate by taking myself to lunch at Emilia’s, seating myself at the table Xaden and I usual claim when we come here.
“Violetta! Here by yourself today, are you?” Emilia says with a smile when she comes to greet me.
“Xaden’s working,” I reply. “And I couldn’t resist some of your alfredo sauce today.”
“So I’ve heard,” she says in her lilting accent, jotting down my order. Not for the first time, I pick up something foreign in the way she shapes her words. Xaden and I discussed it once, debating where she could be from, but the tell is so subtle, we weren’t able to come to a conclusion. “Apparently your husband is a bit of a tech whiz – I’ll admit, that surprised me.”
It had shocked me too, at first, until Xaden explained that he’d grown up alongside Liam Mairi – a bona fide technology genius – and that he’d picked up a thing of two from the real master in his little group. Regardless of how he learned it, it had been enough to get him onto the base.
“Don’t say that,” I laugh. “You’ll just inflate his ego.”
Emilia chuckles. “Well, we can’t have that now, can we?” Her eyes flit in the direction of a couple that just seated themselves, and she tsks under her breath. “Be back in just a moment.”
I sip on my water, watching the children play in the fountain like I always do when I’m here. It’s a peaceful, almost cathartic routine that always manages to bring a small smile to my lips – a small reminder that there’s still some goodness in little corners of the world, waiting to be discovered.
But as they’ve been prone to do of late, my thoughts shift to darker, less pleasant topics.
I’ve been trying to shove the puzzle pieces together since my encounter with Oren two weeks ago to no avail. I know that VENIN isn’t a weapon, but it’s still dangerous enough to cause Brennan and Fen Riorson to risk their lives to expose Navarre’s failure to destroy it. Oren and the other five people that I thought I killed during my first year at BASGIATH actually survived. Nolon was involved in VENIN in some way and killed Riona – whoever she was – because he was worried about what she would do to continue the project. Somehow the project continued, and Poromiel is in serious trouble because of it.
And Xaden, stubborn as he is, refuses to tell me more.
I exhale loudly, turning my eyes to the place of fettucine that Emilia placed in front of me silently a minute or so ago. I still haven’t figured out how all these pieces fit together. It’s right on the tip of my tongue too, like a word I know but just can’t say for the life of me. It’s completely, utterly infuriating.
I take a bite of my pasta, and as I do, a shadow falls over me. I glance up to see a woman staring down at me. She’s tall, her hair styled in an elegant twist and held in place with an elegant, swooping pin, but she’s standing directly in the path of the sun, the light streaming in from behind her obscuring her face.
“May I join you?” she asks. I’ve never seen her before.
I’m immediately on guard, but cautiously nod. Maybe she’s just a local I haven’t seen around here before.
“Thank you,” she says with a kind smile. She pulls out the chair directly across from mine, gingerly lowering herself into it.
Now that the sun isn’t blinding me, I get a better look at her face. She’s stunning, all elegant, angular features and flawless tan skin. Her hair is the darkest shade of chocolate brown I’ve ever seen, smooth at a glance without a strand out of place. The hands she folds in her lap are perfectly manicured, and her dark clothes stand out like a splotch of ink against the light colors the locals around us wear. Her blood-red nails are the only speck of color on her body.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before,” I say, twirling my fork in my noodles as I watch her carefully, suspiciously.
The woman laughs softly, one hand coming up to cover her mouth. “Ah, well, I just arrived a day or so ago.” She lowers her hand, and inspects me with equal care. I want to squirm under the intensity of her gaze. “You looked a bit lonely over here, so I thought I’d come over – I do apologize if I interrupted your alone time.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I finally take a bite of my food, chewing quickly. The silence stretches as the mystery woman continues to stare at me, a look of rapt fascination growing on her features as I take another bite of my food, then another.
We sit in silence as I finish my food. I’m about to excuse myself and go in search of Emilia for the check, when the woman finally speaks up again.
“What do you think about the bond between mother and child, Violetta?”
I blink at the out-of-the-blue, somewhat intrusive question. Did I tell her my name? I don’t think so. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Is it something that can withstand anything, do you think? Or is blood not always enough?” The woman smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. A chill passes through me, slowly like a glacier moving down a mountain peak. There’s something unnervingly familiar about her too, déjà vu crashing through me like a wave.
I stare at her, trying to figure out why she’d ask me such a thing. Its personal – too personal to ask someone one just met. And yet, the way she’s looking at me, full of expectation, is as if she already knows my answer, already knows me well enough to know what I’ll say.
I should be cautious, decline to answer and be on my merry way. Instead, I’m moved by an inexplicable urge to play along.
“Blood is thicker than water until it’s diluted,” I reply. A mental image of my mother’s emotionless face flashes in my head, but I force it away. “There isn’t anything in this world that isn’t capable of breaking.”
The woman makes a sound under her breath, leaning back in her chair as she turns to look off toward the fountain as I had done only a few minutes before.
“I’m sure he feels the exact same way,” she murmurs distractedly. I’m not sure if she’d meant to say the words aloud. Her dark eyes are unfocused, looking at something or someone that is both there and isn’t.
“Who?” I ask.
She glances back in my direction, a serene smile slowly upturning the corners of her mouth. “My son.”
“Is your son why you’re in Turchinu?” I’m not sure why I’m so curious. Despite her polite expression and elegant attire, there’s something about my unexpected lunch partner that unsettles me.
“Yes and no. You could say he’s both important to my visit and not important at all.” Her eyes widen, just as a sudden burst of wind ruffles our hair. “My, I’m a horrible mother, aren’t I?” She doesn’t sound like she cares one bit. I keep my mouth shut instead of agreeing with her. The woman scrutinizes me again, and I shift in my seat, uncomfortable with the blatant stare. I reach for my water glass, needing to do something with my hands.
“You know, you might want to check in with your husband,” the woman says casually as I do, breaking her gaze to look down and pick at her nails with all the nonchalance in the world.
I freeze, unease transforming into fear and dread before I can stop it. I wrangle with the emotion, trying to force it down and out of mind, even as a nervous sweat begins to slick my palms.
“What?” The words come out quiet and low, an edge of danger clearly there. The mild curiosity that had been driving the conversation evaporates, replaced with sharp, unrelenting focus.
Delight sparks in the woman’s eyes, a pretty little laugh erupting from her lips. The dread grows in intensity. “Oh my, that caught your attention.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask through gritted teeth. I let my arms fall to my side, ready to reach for the dagger carefully stowed in one of my deep pockets.
“Are you worried? Scared?” The woman asks, and now there’s something a bit wicked in her expression, as if she’s enjoying this. It’s enough to turn my cold fear into a flame of anger. “Good. You should be. I’ll so enjoy watching what you decide to do.”
“I will only ask you one more time,” I warn, my tone deceptively soft, a direct contrast to something fierce and protective that scorches my blood and demands I go find Xaden this very second. “What are you talking about?”
“Hm,” she hums, a grin beginning to stretch her mouth. The woman props her elbow on the table, resting her head in her hand as her finger traces the patterns in the surface of the table. “Well, I think it’s obvious that I’m saying your husband is in danger, Violetta.” She shakes her head, tutting as she does. “Your little stunt at Castle Arrubatu drew too much attention, and I’m afraid your dearest husband is about to be caught up in it.”
No.
No, no, no, no, no. I force myself to take a deep breath in the face of rapidly rising panic. I can’t let myself fall apart, not when I might be the only person who can help him if he really is in trouble. I let the air fly out of my lungs in a rush a moment later.
Xaden is fine. He’s strong. He’ll be ok. He has to be.
I’m unwilling to consider any other alternative.
But will he be? If the Deverelli have figured out who he really is – a soldier from Navarre – they won’t just throw him in prison. He’ll be tortured, possibly killed.
No – I won’t let that happen.
“Tell me what you know.” I phrase it as an order, as a demand, but the words are tinged with desperation.
“What will you give me in return?” she asks, that calm smile back on her lips.
What would I give her for information to find Xaden, to make sure he’s safe? Just about anything, judging from the roiling in my stomach and pounding in my chest that grows worse with every passing second. Logical Violet would never negotiate with a woman like her – but desperate Violet will do unfathomable things.
“What do you want?” I ask after a short, tense silence.
“I want many things,” she says, her gaze locked on mine. Her voice was almost whimsical before, but now it contains an undercurrent of solemnity. “But you aren’t capable of giving me any of them–" A little smirk graces her lips. “-Yet. So, just answer one question for me.”
I agree before I give it any real thought, ignoring the implication that there may be something this mystery woman wants from me later as my skin practically vibrates with anxiety. “Deal.”
She stands, rounding the table until she’s leaning into my personal space. “What is it you and your husband are looking for on that base?”
Is she with Deverelli intelligence, perhaps? Or military? I can’t think of anyone else that would care about what Xaden and I are up to.
“Data on weapons systems.” There’s no hesitation from me. After all, what’s a little more treason on top of everything else? “That’s it.”
Her eyes feel like they’re probing beneath my skin, looking for any hint of a lie.
“Very well.” She withdraws, taking a step back and pulling herself to her full height as she reaches into her pocket, withdrawing something. “If he hasn’t been captured already, he will be soon. The guards at the front gate change at 6.” She places what I instantly recognize as a base ID badge onto the table.
“Who are you?” I ask, looking back at her with narrowed eyes. I let my arm fall my side, ready to reach for the dagger carefully stowed in my deep pockets. “Why are you helping me?”
Logically, she must be with someone affiliated with the Deverellian government – but that doesn’t explain what she has to gain by tipping me off to the danger my fake-husband is in.
The woman chuckles. “Who says I need a reason?” She tilts her head innocently, a pout on her lips. “No need to get defensive.”
“Everyone needs a reason,” I say with a shake of my head. Finally, I rise to my feet as well, my gaze unwavering. “Kindness never runs cheap.”
“You’re a fascinating woman, Violet Sorrengail,” she whispers, leaning in a bit. I can feel her breath on my face, but I don’t flinch away like I want to. I keep staring her down, even as my heart gallops in my chest. A bone-chilling smirk appears on her face. “It’s a shame that you’re too sharp for your own good.”
She’d used my fake name at first, but she knows who I actually am. It doesn’t surprise me, but hearing my real name in a voice other than Xaden’s after weeks undercover is still enough to shock me.
“I don’t know who you are,” I say, my voice low and deadly. “But I suggest you turn around and leave.” Carefully, I unsheathe the dagger in my pocket, letting the light glint on the edge of the blade.
Instead of looking cowed, the woman’s tinkling laugh echoes out again. She reaches out and pats me on the shoulder. My muscles practically lock up in response to her touch. There’s something dangerous about this woman, even if she’s relatively unimposing physically. There’s an air of power behind every word, every twitch of her finger, that puts me further on guard with every second that passes in her presence.
“I look forward to seeing you again in the future, Ms. Sorrengail,” she says. Before I can process those words, her eyes dart up, narrowing in recognition on someone behind me. “Emilia.”
I turn, and the woman who has single-handedly kept Xaden and I fed since we arrived in Turchinu stand beside me, eyes wide with shock. She looks like she’s seen a ghost.
“You’re alive?” Emilia whispers. “How is this possible?”
I blink, glancing rapidly between the two women. How do they know each other?
The mystery woman’s eyes harden before looking back at me and bowing slightly with a flourish of her hand. “That’s my cue. Till we meet again.”
Emilia steps forward, alarm replacing shock, one hand outstretched. “Wait!”
But the woman is already gone, hustling from the patio without a second glance. A few moments later, she’s blended into the crowd seamlessly.
I glance at Emilia, who lets her arm fall lamely to her side, looking defeated. I hardly know what to say. “I guess you know each other?”
The older woman’s eyes are hard, her arms crossing protectively across her chest as her eye stay glued on the direction the woman disappeared.
“Unfortunately.” She finally looks up at me, concern lining the faint winkles on her face. “I haven’t seen her in years. Don’t get mixed up with her.”
“I didn’t have much say in the matter,” I reply, glancing back towards where she’d disappeared into the crowd as if I still have even the slightest chance of spotting her, despite knowing she’s long gone.
Till we meet again, the nameless woman had said. A cold feeling creeps up my body, from my toes to the top of my head. I should have tried to get more information from her.
The Violet of two months ago wouldn’t have hesitated to go after her, to find her and force her to tell me everything she knows, even if it means selling what little remains of my soul. But I won’t do that now – I can’t. My first priority is finding Xaden, just like his was finding me.
But, as I return to the apartment I share with him, once again donning my mission suit and every dagger I own in preparation for something I’ve never undertaken without his help before – a rescue mission – the badge the woman left for me clutched in one hand, the sinking feeling in my stomach tells me her words will eventually come true, whether I want them to or not.
Notes:
oh hey! hope you enjoyed this chapter. the flashback wasn't super important for this chapter, but I wanted to introduce a certain character we all know and love for absolutely no reason AT ALL. don't read into it besties. he absolutely will not come up again. and if he is, im not saying so because that would be a spoiler. ANYWHO thanks for reading as always! reading the comments you guys leave after posting new chapters never fails to make my day. thank you for supporting this little story of mine <3
Chapter 23: Falling
Notes:
oh hey? long time no see! welcome back to our spy idiots :)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Xaden
Two Days Before Castle Ambush
Violet Sorrengail is going to be the death of me. This is a fact that I’ve become unflinchingly certain of since we arrived on the isles.
Case in point – when I returned home today, she was lounging on our couch in only a fucking towel.
I almost drop my keys on the hardwood floor before I fumble with the cracked door behind me, shutting it with more force than strictly necessary as soon as I notice her state of undress. She looks up from her laptop, eyes widening for a millisecond before she regains control of her expression. Her hand comes up to grip the hem of the towel.
“You’re home early,” she says casually. Her hazel eyes rake over me, the heat in them mirroring mine as I hone in on the damp sheen that coats her pale skin from her shower.
Fuck me. I run a hand down my face, then drop my bag on the floor next to the door. The tension that’s always been there between us is growing more taut by the day. It’s only a matter of time before one of us breaks and does something we’ll both regret.
I refuse to be the one who caves.
“Got my training done early.” I move to the kitchen, putting my back to her as I rummage through the fridge despite not being hungry or thirsty. If I look at her wet hair and damp skin for another moment, I might combust on the spot.
Violet hums in response. I hear a rustle as she rises from the couch, and I count her soft footsteps as she retreats towards her bedroom. It’s only when I hear the soft click of her door closing behind her that I finally turn around.
“Your heart rate is elevated,” SGAEYL points out unhelpfully.
No shit. “Duly fucking noted.”
Blissfully, when Violet emerges a few minutes later she’s wearing clothes, her hair still falling around her face in damp waves. I can’t get myself to relax, but I can’t bring myself to look away either.
Since the night we sat on the porch and looked at the constellations together, I’ve been trying to force her out of mind. Trying to wrangle my emotions back under control. I’ve failed miserably, if the way I practically pulled her into my lap a few nights ago is any indication. The image of how Violet’s blush worked its way from her neck to her face, of her mouth so close to mine that it would’ve taken just a small shift in position to kiss her, will forever be burned into my memory.
“What?”
I blink. Violet is staring at me, brow raised questioningly, and I realize I’ve been staring at her.
“Nothing,” I reply. SGAEYL snorts in my mind as I round the counter to take a spot on one of the stools. “Just thinking.”
Violet watches me doubtfully from her perch on the couch, her legs crossed on the cushions as she begins to run a brush through her hair. I suck in a sharp breath. Her hair has been an object of fascination for me since the first time I saw it, and I can’t even describe the why of it. Her mouth purses as the brush catches on a tangle, and I’m physically unable to look away.
Fuck, I want to kiss her. This is torture.
I pretend to scroll through my phone as she brushes, not trusting myself to speak, but my eyes flit up every now and then, watching as she detangles the snarls in the long mass with nimble fingers, then runs the brush through it again.
I practically sigh in relief when she finally puts the torture tool – the hairbrush – down. It’s only then, when I’m certain that one wrong look or word won’t have me making the monumental mistake of losing the wavering control I have when it comes to her, that I begin filling her in about my day on the base.
The work is boring, but it gets me access to most of the facility – or it will soon enough. I’m still technically in training. It’s only been a few days since I was hired, so I haven’t had the chance to fully map it out yet, but the complex is massive – far bigger than the outdated intelligence the NIA had equipped us with before leaving had indicated.
Violet frowns as I tell her this. “How long will it take you to have a rough idea of the base’s layout?”
Fuck if I know for sure. “A few weeks at least.”
“Damn.” She frowns, something that almost looks like a glint of fear in her eyes grabbing my attention. She blinks, and it’s gone.
I smirk. “Worried about me, Violence?”
Violet scoffs as she leans back into the sofa cushions. “Absolutely not.”
“You’re not a very good liar.”
“That’s fine, because I’m not lying.” Violet crosses her arms, watching me warily as I rise from the stool and make my way towards her. “I’m not worried about you, Riorson.”
My smirk only grows. “Back to the last name, are we? I thought we were past that.”
“You thought wrong.”
“Clearly.” I offer her a hand, and she eyes it suspiciously. “Let’s go eat.”
Her gaze flickers back to my face, and I know she’s going to argue before she even opens her mouth. “What if I’m not hungry?”
I sigh. “Eating isn’t an option, Violence.”
She lets out an exaggerated sigh, but the hint of a smile on her lips makes something in my chest clench up tightly as she takes my offered hand. I savor the feel of her skin on mine as I pull her to her feet.
I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’d live with her hand in mine if I could.
“Emilia’s?” she asks as I lock our apartment’s door behind us. The small bag she’s taken to carrying around with her is slung over her shoulder.
“Whatever you want,” I respond.
I take her hand without much thought once we emerge out onto the street. Violet doesn’t say a word, but the way she squeezes my palm for just a moment is enough to make that uncomfortable, unfamiliar clenching in my chest reappear.
“Humans,” SGAEYL says with a hint of disgust. “You are supposed to be part of an intelligent species. Act like it.”
I ignore her.
We begin walking towards Emilia’s restaurant, but end up veering into one of the adjacent cafes instead, drawn by the smell of pizza that wafted out its front door. We get our food to go, and I find myself carrying the box in one hand with Violet’s in my other.
The drone of cicadas is all around us as we settle onto one of the benches in the main square, just as the sun dips below the horizon and the sky loses its brilliant coloring.
“What did you end up doing today?” I ask her, then take a large bite of the gooey slice of pepperoni I got for myself. I know all the time she’s left with during the day frustrates her. Violet isn’t one who likes to sit around when others are working.
Violet picks out the smallest slice of the bunch, carefully separating it from the rest as she says: “Not much. Read some books. Trained for a while. Went for a run.” She shrugs. “I’m pretty much useless right now, unfortunately.”
The run explains the shower earlier, then. I lean against the wooden back of the bench, continuing to munch on my pizza as Violet does the same, blowing on it lightly before taking a bite.
Still, her words jog a memory, and once I finish my slice I shift so I’m facing her.
“Are you still reading that Tyrrish book?” I ask, careful to keep my voice quiet. It’s impossible to know who could be listening.
Violet blinks. “I still have it, if that’s what you’re asking.”
I wish Violet knew just how incredible it is that she’s not only able to speak Old Tyrrish, but read it too, on top of all of the other languages she knows. But that’s for a later time.
“Could you read some of it to me?” I ask.
Violet scans my face, perhaps looking for a motive to explain why I’m suddenly bringing this up. But whatever she sees must satisfy her, because she nods and says: “Tonight?”
I nod. Violet inspects me for a moment longer before speaking.
“Ok, then.” Violet nods as well, then reaches for the pizza box and shuts the lid. “Let’s go.”
I stand with her with an amused tilt to my lips. “We can finish our dinner first, you know.”
Violet ignores me entirely, already walking in the direction of our apartment. I squint against the setting sunlight as I move to follow her, jogging in order to close the distance. I snag her hand in mine, and her fingers fold between mine without hesitation.
When I first learned Violet could not only speak but also read Old Tyrrish, I’d been shocked, then angry, then grateful. Between me, the Assembly, and a handful of others, there aren’t many fluent speakers left. Even fewer of us can read the language.
Navarre has taken everything that made Tyrrendor unique and fed it into an incinerator, plundering my home for its resources and its manpower while its population falls further and further into poverty.
I see it every time I go home and walk the streets in Aretia. I see it in how Tyrrish conscripts make up more and more of the Navarrian military every year. I see it in the unrest that grows, year after year, month after month. And the Navarrians believe more military might will quell the disquiet, but even after ruling over Tyrrendor for two and a half centuries, it clearly hasn’t learned about the Tyrrish people’s one, true strength: The Tyrrish memory is long, and the grudges Tyrrendor’s people hold run even longer.
Navarre took our language. It took our culture. It took everything. And what has it done since the Tyrrish Subjugation? It created a weapons program so destructive that now the entire Continent is at risk. Even if most Tyrrish don’t know the atrocities of Navarre’s creations, they see every day what Navarre’s governance has done to our home.
I wonder if Violet will side with us when she finds out the full magnitude of what I’ve been scheming – hell, what my father schemed – in the shadows all these years. I hope she will. There’s a small, overly-optimistic part of me that even thinks she will. I can’t bring myself to consider the alternative.
“Xaden?” Violet’s voice pulls me from my thoughts, and I blink as I look over at her. We’re stopped in front of our apartment building, I realize.
“Hm?” I squeeze her hand. “Sorry, did you say something?”
Violet squeezes back, her mouth quirking upwards for half a second before returning to its neutral set as she peers up at me. “Don’t worry about it,” she says after a beat.
She leads us up the stairs and unlocks the front door. I flip the lights on as she heads straight for her bedroom. I take a moment to admire the way her hair falls down her back, and wonder for the thousandth time what the strands would feel like between my fingers.
“Can you get the fruit that’s in the fridge?” Violet calls over her shoulder just as she disappears into her room.
I shake my head, but do as I’m told. The fridge, as always, is mostly empty when I pry the doors open, but I spy a small carton of cut cantaloupe. I think it might be the only remotely fresh food we have.
The carton is in my hand, and Violet reappears in the threshold of her bedroom door as I close the fridge. A blanket is draped over one arm, a book that I recognize as the Tyrrish book I’ve seen her reading clutched against her chest.
“Shall we?” she asks, a little grin on her face. It makes me smile in return, so rare is the occasion that Violet shows genuine enjoyment about something that I can’t help it.
“We shall,” I reply. I expect her to walk to the sofa, but she goes around it instead, heading for the balcony doors that take up most of one wall in the small space. I follow, snagging the flashlight on the kitchen island as I do. The sun will fall beneath the horizon soon.
Violet holds the balcony door open for me, then shuts it once I’ve joined her on the tiny platform jutting out over the street below. There’s hardly room for one chair out here, let alone two. Once again, I expect Violet to drop into one of the chairs, but instead, she tucks the book under her arm and faces the brick wall. It isn’t until she begins climbing that I realize what she’s doing.
“Shit,” I mutter as I glance between her and the long drop below if she loses her footing. Then, louder: “Violet, a little warning next time?”
She scoffs, not even bothering to look back at me as she begins picking a diagonal path upwards, towards the gently sloping roof.
“You do realize who you’re talking to, right?” she calls back to me. “This is nothing compared to what I had to climb during-”
She cuts herself off, her mouth slamming shut, and I know she was about to reveal something important. Her shoulders are a little more tense now. It’s a familiar routine by now.
I don’t push. Not this time. Not when one wrong move could make her fall.
“I realize that you’re just as human as I am, and that a fall from this height would be a bitch to deal with,” I inform her, sounding bored.”
“I’ve dealt with worse,” she yells back. Violet’s hand reaches the edge of the roof, and she pulls herself up with a surprising amount of strength and dexterity. She hauls herself to her feet, a triumphant look glittering in her eyes that’s visible even from this distance. Violet plants one hand on her hip. “How long are you going to make me wait up here, pretty boy?”
I roll my eyes, then begin my own ascent. It’s not nearly as easy as she made it look. The footholds are tiny, and the brick is old and beginning to crumble. It takes me longer to scale the wall, but I manage to pull myself up onto the roof regardless.
“Took you long enough,” Violet taunts when I haul myself up. She’s spread out the blanket she brought with her over the shingles, and pats the spot next to her, a teasing smirk curving her lips. “I still saved you a spot, though.”
I roll my eyes, and flop down next to her. When I lie down entirely, the shingles dig into my back through the blanket and my shirt. I fold my hands over my stomach, then look back at Violet, who’s looking down at me with an unreadable expression.
“You come up here to read?” I ask. It clearly wasn’t her first time climbing that wall.
She shakes her head. “To train. No one can see me from the street up here. I’ll set up a target on the vent over there-” She points to a stack of brick jutting out from the roof like a chimney. “-and just go until I get bored, I guess.” She sighs.
I frown, rolling onto my side as I prop my head up on a fist. “You know it’s ok that you don’t do everything, right?”
She shoots me a withering look that I’m sure would make most people turn and flee.
“Bold words from someone who isn’t sitting around all day wondering if you’re dead.”
My mouth hinges shut immediately, because what do I even say to that? Violet will vociferously deny it, but I know she’s deeply worried about our probabilities of survival, and that if it were up to her, she would be here by herself. Given our skills, the fact that she’s technically still recovering from Imogen hurting her arm, and the very real threat against Violet’s life – the one she still doesn’t know the full extent of – it made the most sense for me to be the one to do the initial infiltration of the base, but I hadn’t given much thought to how, for someone like Violet, being left behind like this would be new and stressful.
“Do we need to talk about this?” I ask quietly.
Violet presses her mouth into a harsh line, then shakes her head as she breaks eye contact. “No. Forget about it.” Each word is flat and forced.
I sigh. Her words from the night we found the photo and the message in her bathroom swim back to the surface of my mind as I watch her do battle with her own mind, a thousand different conflicting emotions running over her expression as she tries to wrangle them into submission.
I’m not exactly getting good person points when I kill people for a living. Kind of corrupts the soul. That’s what she’d said, and it had been so self-deprecating, so vulnerable that I could hardly believe it. I still can’t believe it.
There was a time when I truly believed Violet Sorrengail was a bad person, but anyone who spoke with her or spent any modicum of time with her would know that she is someone who cares deeply, and hurts even more for it. Then, I’d been so surprised by my own anger – not at her, but at the world that had forced Violet to become something she clearly despised so much that it extended to her own image of herself – that I walked away entirely, unable to fully understand how someone who was so obviously a good person could think so poorly of themself.
She might think that her soul is corrupted, but all I see is someone who has managed to remain uncorrupted despite living in a world that would irreparably destroy most other people. I’ve watched her risk her life for her squad. I’ve seen her kill mercifully. And I’m willing to bet that the night she was injured in her apartment by whatever VENIN operative tried to kill her, it was because of that same, caring heart that I’ve seen her try to hide so many times.
The sun dips below the horizon, casting our faces in shadow. Slowly, Violet lies down next to me, her arm brushing mine as we stare up at the stars.
“Hey,” she says, not looking at me, after a few minutes of silence. “Will you do me a favor?”
I turn my head to look at her. “I think that depends on the favor.”
I see the corner of her mouth turn upward for a heartbeat.
“If I die-” She takes a shaky breath. “-can you tell my sister?”
I blink. “You’re not going to die, Violence.”
I’ll die before I let her die. Not that I’d tell her that.
“Xaden,” she says, and the solemnity of how she says my name grabs at me. She turns her head and her hazel eyes lock on mine. “I need you to promise me this. It has to be you.” She swallows, and her voice wavers, just a bit. “You’re the only one who will know the truth. You have to tell her.”
Sudden understanding dawns on me. If Violet dies on this mission, there is no way the NIA will tell Mira Sorrengail the truth about what happened, the same way it lied to Violet about Brennan’s “death.”
I move my hand until it's covering Violet’s, then maneuver my fingers in-between hers.
“I promise,” I tell her. “I’ll make sure she knows.”
Violet lets out a quiet, relieved breath. “Thank you,” she whispers as she looks back up at the stars.
She is devastatingly beautiful like this, staring up at the stars as the moon begins its ascent through the skies. Sometimes I wonder how I ended up here with her; if there was any choice I could have made that would have prevented us from crossing paths. But everytime I explore that idea, I always come to the same conclusion: I was meant to meet Violet.
I don’t believe in gods – I never have – but there is a certain irony that the first time I saw her was on the day of the Festival of Zihnal, the god of luck and fate – even if that day was horrific in every sense of the word.
I squeeze her hand, and she looks at me curiously.
“I believe I was promised some old-as-dust stories?” I say, pulling us back to the original reason why we’d climbed out onto this rooftop. The reminder brings back that twinkle I so rarely saw in her eyes.
“I believe you’re correct,” she says as she sits up. I move with her, keeping her hand in mine until she glances at it pointedly. “I can’t hold the book and turn the pages with one hand.”
“Right.” I release her reluctantly, and Violet reaches for the book at her side, flipping it open and bracing it on her bent knees.
She clears her throat, and then says in perfect Old Tyrrish: “The Legend of the Great War, Chapter 1…”
I don’t know how long we stay out here, Violet reading aloud in the smooth, melodic language of my home as I listen in perfect silence, but it must have been hours. The tales were familiar, for the most part, but some were new to me or different from what I remembered. I was transfixed, in part because Violet was an incredible storyteller, but also because I just liked hearing her voice.
“And then, the egg split into two. Amari only recognized one of the eggs, however, casting the other down to-”
“Tired?” I ask her in Old Tyrrish when she begins to yawn, interrupting her tale mid-sentence. There are so few people I’m able to speak it with now that Dad’s gone. “It’s getting late.”
“A little,” she admits, responding in the same language. It does strange things to my heart. She peers up at me. “Your accent is better than mine. I just noticed.”
I chuckle, even if I’m not sure I agree with her. “I think I’d have to reconsider my Tyrrish heritage if that wasn’t the case.”
“True.” She nods sagely.
Violet yawns again, and I gently pluck the book from her hands as I say: “Let’s get you to bed.”
For once, Violet doesn’t argue – I’d even call it a miracle – and begins making her way toward the wall, blinking sleepily as she goes. I collected the blanket we’d been lying on, then follow after her. Violet waits for me in the living room, holding the balcony door open when I drop down from the wall.
“Thanks,” I murmur as I slip inside. She closes it behind me, and I hear the lock click. I turn back to her, offering up the book and the blanket. She takes the fabric, but only looks at the book in my hands.
“Do you want it?” she asks after a moment of silently staring at it. Her voice sounds a little strained, and I can’t quite get a grasp for the emotion flashing in her eyes.
“Want what?” I ask blankly.
She gestures toward me. “The book.”
I sigh as I realize what this is – guilt. It was the same look Brennan wore when he told me my father wasn’t coming back too.
“It’s your book, Violet,” I tell her. “I can’t read it, anyways.”
“But-”
“No,” I say, injecting finality into my words. “It’s your book.”
The look Violet gives me in response, full of emotions I’m not quite able to decipher, sears itself into my mind. She’s looking at me like she’s trying to memorize me, intense and concentrated.
I keep thinking about it, even after we’ve parted ways for bed. I think about Violet’s request to tell Mira Sorrengail the truth if she dies.
I sleep even less than usual.
Present
Things had been going a little too well, so I probably should have seen this coming.
Minus the ambush Violet practically walked herself into a few weeks ago, after our conversation on the roof, things have been quiet – too quiet. It should’ve set me more on edge than it had, and I had already been on edge. I should’ve been more cautious about how willing the Deverelli were to let someone as new as me all over their base.
I should’ve seen this coming.
Except I didn’t – and now I’m deep underground, locked in a cell after being knocked out.
The air is damp and musty, the scent of earth filling my nostrils with every breath. When I came to, my back propped against a cold stone wall and my wrists bound, I struggled to piece together how I’d ended up here. It was quite simple, actually. When I arrived for my shift this morning, my supervisor – a man named Enzo – called me into the small trailer he called an office. When I’d walked through the door, I was conscious just long enough for a note of alarm to register at the sight of the base commander before a sickly sweet scent dragged me under.
Gods, Garrick will never let me live this down. If I survive long enough to tell him about it.
One of the first things Devera taught my squad after we finished basic was that we better not get ourselves captured when we were undercover. No one will come to save you if you do, Devera had said, staring us down with that serious, severe look on her face as we stood at attention in front of her. Once you’re in a cell, you might as well not exist to the Kingdom of Navarre.
I didn’t realize being a living ghost meant a hurting stomach, though.
I’m not entirely sure how long I’ve been down here but judging from the pangs of hunger, it’s been at least a few hours. A few more, and Violet will realize something’s wrong. I need to get out of here before that beautiful brain of hers puts the pieces together and she does something rash. For all that Violet says she doesn’t care about me, I have no doubt that she’d tear apart this base, brick-by-brick, before leaving me behind.
Her loyalty to the people she cares about is one of her most admirable traits; one of her many facets of her that I’d missed when we first met and am now incapable of ignoring. And even if she won’t admit it, I’m a damn lucky bastard that I’ve somehow gotten on that list of people she’d do that for. But I also don’t want her to put herself at risk. Just the thought of her attempting to infiltrate the base, along and without backup, makes my heart rate skyrocket.
Once again, I strain at the cuffs that keep my arms trapped behind my back, but they don’t budge.
Fuck.
SGAEYL has been eerily silent. It’s similar – too similar – to what happened when Violet and I infiltrated Athebyne.
It had been all too clear, based on the recording of my mother, that Athebyne was involved in the creation of Project VENIN – and she’d said she’d arranged for the project to be brought to the Deverelli Isles in that recording.
Uneasiness begins to percolate in my stomach the further I go with these thoughts, tugging at it like a loose thread that begins unravelling everything else. The drones that had been patrolling the area around Athebyne had been armed – something even Violet, who’s been embedded in the NIA far longer than I, didn’t know. And those same drones had managed to block my connection to SGAEYL, who I now can’t communicate with.
Lilith Sorrengail said the NIA was already compromised.
Before I can try to fully piece it all together, a slamming sound echoes from the end of the hallway as the heavy metal door is flung open. Light streams through, and I squint as it burns my eye, which are used to the darkness of the cell by now.
When they finally adjust, a jolt of fear lances through me as I recognize the man standing before me. It’s not because I’m scared of him – I could probably break his back with one arm – but because I don’t know if Violet decided to sneak off to his fucking bookstore again today.
“Adrian,” I acknowledge. I can’t afford to give anything away, even if it's more of a battle than usual to keep my tone bored and facial expression relaxed.
The wiry bookkeep isn’t dressed in his usual, baggy clothes, but the Deverelli military fatigues hardly look any better. He has no muscle to fill up the fabric, and the uniform looks pathetically oversized on him. The memory of how he’d looked at Violet in that bar the night she was ambushed, the strange feeling I got whenever I was around him – it’s enough to make my blood boil.
“Mr. Tuono,” he greets, too friendly for someone who had likely been spying on us this whole time. “How are you today?”
He still doesn’t know my real name, I realize. Good – maybe that means they’re only onto me, and not Violet.
“I’d be better if you’d let me out of this cell so I can break your fucking neck,” I say, letting the threat hang in the air. I mean every fucking word. There are very few people I’d be willing to kill in cold blood, and this man just made it onto that exclusive list.
Adrian laughs. “Can’t do that, I’m afraid. I have questions to ask you, and I can’t do that if I’m dead.”
“What a shame,” I reply sarcastically. “I think you’d be more likeable that way.”
The man lets out a short laugh as crosses his noodle arms across his chest.
“I hope you don’t talk to your wife like that,” Adrian said. I narrow my eyes on him, but I don’t rise to the bait – because that’s what I’m sure this is. He’s trying to get me to talk. When I stay silent, he uncrosses his arms, then produces a key from his pants pocket. A moment later, he unlocks the bars of my cell, stepping inside and then leaning against the bars of the open cell. “Giving me the silent treatment now, Tuono? That’s not very polite.”
“Ask your damn questions,” I bite. The chains keeping me here rattle as a lean forward, my voice dropping lower as malice coats each word. “But I’m not talking to you about my wife.”
“Oh, but I want to talk about her,” Adrian says, an impish little smile growing on his face. “I quite like her. How do you think she’ll feel when she learns you’re a Poromish spy?”
The fuck? I keep my expression blank, but I have no idea where he got that ide–
Except I do – Catriona was here, and everyone knows that Cat’s family is one that practically runs the country. And Violet– Violet said that a little birdie told her Catriona had showed up in Turchinu. I guess that solves that mystery.
“You told Violetta,” I state, my voice a low growl as I glare up at him.
“That I did,” Adrian says easily. “She didn’t believe you were cheating through – which was a shame. I was just trying to save her from an inevitable heartbreak later.”
I ignore the creepy, dreamy look that settles on Adrian features as his eyes glaze over, as though he’s thinking about what would happen if Violet had believed him. Only an idiot wouldn’t notice that he’s into her,.But, as weird as it sounds, I’m almost grateful that Adrian saw me with Cat. I can work with this – I hope. The Deverelli thinking I’m a Poromish spy is far better than them finding out I actually work for Navarre.
“She doesn’t know anything,” I say calmly. I need to try to keep their attention on me so they don’t suspect Violet. “Whatever you think I did, Violetta has nothing to do with it. She has no idea what I’ve been up to.”
“That remains to be seen,” Adrian replies. He stalks forward, dropping onto his haunches just beyond my reach. He tilts his head, and a little smile that had my mind screaming danger makes its way to his face. “They’re bringing her here right now, you know. Then we’ll really have some fun.”
My veins ice over as the blood drains from my face. I would give anything to break these cuffs and punch this asshole in the face. “She doesn’t know anything,” I say again, as if it will do a damn thing.
Adrian scoffed as he stood. “Oh, don’t get me wrong – I believe you. She’s so small you could probably step on her. There’s no way a woman like her could be working with you.” His gaze cuts back to me, cold and calculating, and I know now that the nervous bookstore employee I knew before was all an act – and Violet and I both fell for it. “But I bet she’ll be a good motivator to get you to talk.”
Damn it.
Adrian exits the cell with a foreboding promise to be back soon, leaving me to my racing thoughts. But as the solid metal door closes behind him and cuts me off from the light in the hallway beyond, the corner of my mouth begins to drift up into a grin.
Adrian was lying – they don’t have Violet.
If they did, Adrian would know just how wrong he really is about a woman like her.
More time passes. Hours, probably. Maybe longer.
I have no concept of exactly how much time has passed, however, and that’s almost as maddening as the wait.
I’m unflinchingly certain that the Deverelli won’t be able to capture Violet, even if they try. She’s the NIA’s deadliest for a reason. I don’t know if Adrian said what he did about capturing Violet to get me to talk, or if they were actually going to try to catch her, but the fact that he’d said what he had about her before leaving was enough to know that they hadn’t caught her yet, either way.
Hopefully, she’ll take an attack as a sign to flee the isle instead of staging a rescue. If she has common sense, she’ll head for Poromiel instead of Navarre; they’ll kill her if she returns home without completing her mission. I instructed Liam to keep an eye on flight manifests from the isles, looking for all variations of the aliases of hers that I’d managed to compile a list of since embedding in the NIA.
Liam knows that if he sees her returning alone, he needs to tell Brennan about everything – he’s the only person I would trust to get her back to Old Aretia safely. She’ll see her brother again, and she’ll probably hate me for keeping him from her, but I don’t care – as long as she lives, I don’t give two shits.
I don’t particularly love what it means for me if she leaves me here, but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. I swore she’d get home safe even if it killed me. My promise to tell Mira Sorrengail of Violet’s death will never go into force if I have anything to say about it.
But I also know Violet – and there is a non-zero chance that an attack will simply lead her to try and stage a rescue.
I lean back against the uncomfortable stone of my cell’s wall, letting my eyes drift shut. Not hearing SGAEYL’s voice in my head is… unsettling. For the first time in a long while, I feel well and truly alone.
The cell is almost completely dark, save for a strip of light that filters in beneath the metal door on the other side of the cell’s bars. Sound also trickles through, and I’ve begun counting the number of times I’ve heard footsteps pass the door. At least four times now, at what I think are regular intervals, but it's hard to tell without a watch.
I open my eyes when I hear the sound of approaching footsteps again, this time accompanied by low voices. I strain to try and pick up the words, but everything is muffled.
The voices stop in front of the door, and their feet cast strips of darkness where the weak light used to be. They keep talking, and as they do, I begin to frown. I know one of those voices.
The lock clicks a moment later, and the door swings open. Adrian walks through, and behind him–
It’s the man from the ambush. The one Violet said she thought was dead. His eyes have that telltale red ring around them.
Fuck. Of all the fucking times that I can’t talk to SGAEYL. I would give just about anything to get a snarky remark from her right now.
“You have a visitor, Mr. Tuono,” Adrian says, crossing his arms. He’s on guard, eyeing the man warily. At least he’s smart – marginally so.
“I can see that,” I drawl, sounding far more casual than I feel. My heart pounds in my chest, and my palms are cold and clammy when I clench my hands into tight fists. What if this guy tells the Deverelli about Violet? About how I’m actually a spy for Navarre, not Poromiel? I still don’t know the history between him and Violet, but even an idiot could see that they have some. I look at Adrian before I speak again, wishing I’d punched the prick in the face the way I’d wanted to in the tavern where I’d found Violet after she had knocked me out with those damn knives of hers. “I didn’t know I was so popular.”
The man laughs coldly. “Go ahead and step out, Adrian.” He crosses his arms, an eerie glint in his eyes as he stares at me with something close to curiosity. It makes my skin crawl.
Adrian glowers. “You don’t give the orders around here, Seifert,” he snaps. “This is a Deverelli–”
The man apparently named Seifert glances back at Adrian like he’s a bug to be stepped on – which I can relate to. “Do I look like I give a fuck?” He raises a brow. “Don’t forget who I answer to.”
That’s enough to make Adrian’s mouth hinge shut, and the minute flicker of fear I catch is enough to add Seifert’s subtle threat to the never ending list of what-the-fuck? moments I’ll need to reexamine later.
“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out,” I call to Adrian as he retreats toward the door, mostly because I can’t fucking help myself. I don’t like him. To his credit, he ignores the jab, and the metal door swings shut with an ominous clang.
Seifert flicks a switch, and the lights that have been off ever since they dragged me down here flare to life. I hiss, slamming my eyes shut as they burn with the sudden brightness. When I finally open them again, Seifert has opened the cell door, and he’s on his haunches, looking at me with that same fascinated curiosity.
“So, you’re Sorrengail’s little shield,” he finally says. “Riona Riorson’s son.”
“I don’t talk to VENIN,” I reply cooly. The effect of my defiance is somewhat muted by how I’m chained up.
Seifert grins. “Yet. You won’t talk yet. You should just be glad I haven’t corrected the Deverelli’s little misunderstanding about the allegiances of you and Sorrengail.”
So they don’t know. Good. I keep my mouth shut, glaring instead of saying another word.
“Nothing?” Seifert asks mockingly. “It’s only a matter of time before I get my hands on Sorrengail, you know. “
At this, I scoff. “Good fucking luck.”
The man opens his mouth to respond, but then goes still as a statue, his muscles locking up. The ring of red around his eyes seems to pulse unnervingly. I don’t even think he’s breathing.
It’s a second and an eternity later when Seifert gasps, pulling air into his lungs as he stands in one fluid motion. His nose wrinkles with disgust.
“Looks like your little girlfriend just got lucky, Riorson,” he said, disdain dripping from each word. “I’ve been ordered to stand down.”
I blink. “Excuse me?”
“The powers-that-be no longer want Sorrengail, it seems.” His eeys cut back to me, and that sick little grin returns. “But I’m afraid you’re still needed. See, we need something you have.”
There’s only one thing he could be talking about. My stomach curdles when he withdraws a dagger from the sheath at his thigh. “I’m not talking.”
“Yet,” Seifert reminded me again. “You’re not talking yet.”
Then he plunges the dagger into my thigh.
I don’t know how long Seifert’s interrogation lasted, but I feel like shit by the end of it. A trickle of blood trails down from a gash in my forehead, and I can taste the iron tang of it on my tongue from where my lip is split. No broken bones – I think – but the stab wound in my leg hurts like a motherfucker.
But I don’t break. The secrets locked in my brain are safe – for now.
I sit on the cold floor of the cell, in pain, for I’m not sure how long. My vision swims when the door opens again, a woman coming into the cell and treating my wounds. She gives me a shot of something I don’t recognize, even as I strain away from the needle in vain.
My eyes droop as the liquid circulates through my veins, and I can’t stop myself from falling into a deep, dreamless sleep.
I jerk awake again, gasping, an indeterminable amount of time later when Adrian dumps a bucket of ice-cold water on my head.
“Up and at ‘em, Riorson,” he says, all too pleasantly, as he drops the bucket with a loud thud onto the stone floor. It echoes around the room, adding the headache that pulses behind my eyes.
In my sleep, I’d fallen onto my side, and I fight to pull myself back into an upright position. My injuries ache now, but they don’t hurt. The wound on my thigh is no longer bleeding. Whatever they’d injected me with must have sped up the healing process, similar to the injections Violet got after her fight with Imogen. Being healed faster would normally be a good thing, but as Adrian looks down at me, a little grin on his thin lips, I’m smart enough to know that they didn’t heal me out of the goodness of their hearts.
No, they healed me so they can try to break me again. A clean canvas, so to speak.
Water trails down my face and soaks my clothes, but I do my best to ignore the chill that will so set itself into my bones. “Gotta admit, you aren’t the best face I’ve seen when I wake up, Adrian,” I say.
“Save it for someone else, Tuono,” he growls. He’s completely abandoned the act he put on in Turchinu, and even when he first revealed himself to me here to an extent. “We let them–” Adrian scrunches his nose, like he’s just smelled something disgusting. “–have you for a while, but now you need to answer my questions.”
“Feel free to ask,” I say evenly, “but that doesn’t mean I’ll answer.”
“Why have the Poromish sent you here?” he demands. For the first time, I notice the dagger he’s clenching in one hand.
This is an opportunity, I realize. He still thinks I’m a Poromish spy, and there’s no doubt that the Deverelli is working with Project VENIN now. I can use this to confuse them, lead them astray – maybe.
“If I answer, will you let my wife go?” I ask. To really sell my fake distress, I drop my head to my chest and take a deep, shuddering breath. “I’ll tell you what you want to know if you guarantee her safety.”
Adrian begins twirling the daggers across his fingers. “Your wife’s safety will depend on if I’m satisfied with your answers.”
I nod, biting back the scoff that wants to escape me. They don’t have Violet, and the fact that they’re still pretending that they do is ridiculous, but it’s amusing to see how he genuinely believes he has power over me right now.
“They wanted me to keep an eye on the base’s expansion,” I lie. “The powers that be wanted to know what exactly was changing at the base.”
I begin spinning an elaborate tale, and Adrian hangs onto every word, occasionally jotting something down in a small notebook. I’m careful to provide explanations that would disguise the holes in Violet’s and I’s original cover story that wouldn’t quite work if I’d really been a Poromish spy.
In the distance through the open door, I hear shouting. Adrian does too, a frown tugging his mouth as he looks over his shoulder toward the hallway, then looks back at me.
“And what did Oren Seifert want with you?” he asks.
Shit. Whatever the relationship the Deverelli have with the project, it's clearly tenuous at best. Adrian clearly doesn't trust them, and I doubt he's the only one.
I shrug. “I don’t know. He was asking a bunch of questions about Poromish bureaucracy, it’s relationship with Navarre – that kind of stuff. Nothing an internet search couldn’t have told him.”
Adrian takes one step forward, then another. My eyes catch again on the dagger in his hand as light glints off its sharpened edge. I keep my expression schooled even as he leans it, narrows his eyes, and says: “You’re lying, Tuono.”
I force down the urge to snap back. That won’t help right now. “I’m not, but if you don’t want to believe me that’s on you.”
The shouting outside gets louder, closer. I can’t let it distract me. My life – and maybe Violet’s life, if something happens and she does end up getting captured – may depend on selling this lie so they believe I'm cooperating. While Oren Seifert might have been told to stop looking for her, who knows when that could change. And the Deverelli could still be after her, even without VENIN’s involvement.
The dagger presses against my throat, light enough that it won’t draw blood. Even the smallest increase in pressure would change that. I breath in through my nose, out through my mouth, trying to keep the hammering in my chest under control. Blood pounds in my ears.
“Try again,” Adrian says softly. “What did Seifert want? Lie again, and this dagger–” He presses it a little more against my skin. “–will find itself in Violetta’s chest.”
Rage replaces anxiety, even though I know there isn’t a chance in hell this little twig could ever get a hit in on Violet. “Try it and find out what happens,” I growl.
The yelling in the hallway is loud enough that it’s impossible to ignore now, as pained screams and a gunshot ring out through the open door. There’s one more scream, and then everything becomes eerily silent. Unease trickles through me - something isn't right.
Adrian sighs, clearly aggravated, as he pulls away and marches toward the door, doubtless to see what the commotion is. The cell door closes behind him, locking automatically. Adrian freezes in his tracks as a figure fills the doorway a second later.
It's Violet. The harsh light streaming in from the hallway behind her leaves her face cloaked in shadows, but even then, I know it’s her. A blood-soaked dagger is in each hand, crimson dripping from the blades onto the stone floor.
Adrian’s eyes widen. “You–”
Violet flings herself forward without a word. She’s like an angel of death, beautiful and terrifying, and I drink in every detail as she dispatches Adrian with brutal efficiency. Her eyes reflect something cold and vengeful as she drags a blade across the man’s throat, not even bothering to give him the chance to fight back. He crumples, blood pouring from the wound, and he hits the ground with an anti-climatic thud. Violet steps over his limp body as though he was a muddy puddle and not a person as she scans the room. The flickering light behind her makes the silver of her braid glint dully.
When her eyes finally meet mine, there’s a typhoon of emotions there. Relief in spades, a touch of anger, a hint of panic. She inspects me, almost frantic, through the bars of the cell for just a moment before she begins fumbling with the lock. When it finally gives and the door creaks open, she doesn’t give me time to say anything, marching toward me with the wrath of the goddess Dunne etched on her face.
I’ve never been happier to see someone in my life.
She doesn’t say a word as she walks behind me, taking a knee as she fiddles with the cuffs that have been chafing against my wrists for hours now. I hear the clasp release just as the pressure around my wrists disappear. Gingerly, I bring my hands around to my front, wincing a bit as the raw skin just above my palms brushes against the fabric of my damp shirt.
I glance up just as Violet returns to my front, glaring up at me with her arms crossed.
“When we get out of here-” she says, tone low and threatening. Blood is smeared on her cheek like some kind of twisted battle trophy. In fact, she’s covered in it. “-I’m going to kill you personally.”
My eyes roam over her smaller form, blood and all, as an unfamiliar emotion wells up in my chest, warm and all-encompassing and entirely different from the mere physical attraction I’ve felt towards her since the moment I first saw her. I want to memorize the look of her, the way she’s looking at me , so that I can remember this indescribable moment for the rest of my life.
My mouth twists upwards, even when it pulls at my healing lip . “It’s good to see you too, Violence.”
She makes a disgusted sound at the back of her throat, then turns on her heel, gesturing for me to follow. I don’t argue, pulling myself to my feet and following her out of the cell as she takes point.
“Do you know where we’re going?” I whisper to her as we pass row after row of open doors that lead to empty holding cells identical to the one I was in. Had she searched each one? It’s so quiet that I can hear every breath we take, every footfall.
Every few feet is a body, blood slowly pooling onto the stone. All dead, or dangerously close to it.
When I first met her, the sight probably would have horrified me. It doesn't now.
“I got in here, didn’t I?” she shoots back.
Not quite the answer I was looking for, but I don’t argue. “Can I at least have a weapon?”
Violet stops, tugs one of the daggers strapped to her thigh from its sheath and shoves it at me. Unlike the one still in her hand, it’s clean.
“Here.” The word is practically a growl. Tension radiates off her small body in waves, impossible to ignore.
“I’m sensing some hostility, Violence,” I say lightly, but the way she freezes tells me levity was the wrong move.
At first, she doesn’t move, looking up at me with an unreadable expression, her face cloaked by layers of darkness in this poorly lit underground prison. The stillness lasts for all of two seconds before she’s ripping another dagger from its sheath, and I find myself on the receiving end of its blade, the edge stopping only millimeters from my throat.
“Don’t fucking talk to me about hostility,” she hisses as she brings her face closer. Her hazel eyes are alight with fury, a little more blue than green. Beautiful . She’s so fucking beautiful, even covered in blood and threatening me with a knife to my throat. “Do you even understand how badly you fucked up by getting captured? Do you realize the risk I’m taking by breaking you out instead of leaving you behind to finish the mission? I could get thrown into a cell for this when we get home.”
“I do realize that getting captured runs contrary to the job description, yes,” I reply blithely. I reach up with one hand, wrapping it around her wrist. Carefully, I push it and the dagger away from my neck, before sliding my fingers between the hilt and her palm and taking the weapon for myself. She lets it go willingly – I’m under no illusions that she would part with one of her weapons quietly if it wasn’t willingly – and I temporarily tuck the spare blade into my belt loop. I tilt my head. “And I do realize the risk you’ve taken – in fact, I have to wonder why you’d risk it at all.”
And for the first time since she flew into my cell, the relief I felt ebbs, replaced with a feeling of disquiet. She’s right. Violet’s risked everything to break me out, and it doesn’t sit right with me, not when she could’ve left me here and escaped this godsforsaken nation without me, alive and unharmed. Liam and Brennan would have found her – not that she knew that – and she’d be alive. Alive and safe.
She opens her mouth, then closes it, then opens it again. No sound comes out.
“Well?” I ask. We’re so close I can feel her breath on my skin and smell that intoxicating citrus smell that makes me want to bury my face in her hair. Every thread of my self-control is pulled taut whenever I’m within five feet of this woman – and she came to save me. “For someone who was so insistent that you don’t give two shits about me, you sure-”
A strangled noise escapes Violet’s throat as she surges forward. Her hands thread around my neck, into my hair, that incredible smell almost bringing me to my knees as she brings her lips to mine.
For a moment, I freeze, my mind going blank. The moment is over almost instantly, however, and I kiss her back with a desperation that I’ve only experienced with her. She gasps as I take control of the kiss, the small sound only spurring me on. The feel of Violet’s soft lips against my own is better than even my best, most detailed, vivid dreams. She tastes even better than she smells, and I can’t get enough.
There’s no going back for me now. Not from this. Not when I’ve been avoiding the truth even as it’s stared me in the face since the night I rescued her from that castle, the ceaseless panic that controlled my every action that night being the evidence of how far I’ve fallen. The way I lied to Adrian, not to save my own life, but to try and protect hers.
My hands move to cradle her face as she pulls herself closer to me. The kiss goes from something desperate and hot to slow and exploring. Violet’s body is flush against mine, and every point where we touch practically burns with heat. I want to meld myself with this woman in my arms, never want to leave her side.
She came for me . She put me ahead of her mission, ahead of her own survival. The thought would normally anger me – it should anger me, and it probably will once I’ve had time to process everything that’s happened – but all I can think about is Violet, here, in my arms. Kissing me like she feels the same pull towards me that I’ve been unable to escape since the moment I first saw her in the square in Draithus.
The errant thought makes me kiss her harder, one hand moving to spear through her loosened hair, barely contained in a braid that falls down her back. She didn’t even take the time to pin it into its usual crown. The resulting groan that rumbles in her chest as I tug lightly on the strands sends streaks of hot need south. I need her the same way I need to breathe. All the time, without end. Trying to stop needing Violet would only make the painful pressure in my chest grow till I couldn’t help but take another breath of her.
I’m falling for Violet. Or maybe I already have. It’s an unalterable, unavoidable, inevitable truth.
And as she kisses me back with the same ferocity that I’ve come to crave from her, I can’t even bring myself to regret it. I’m not quite at the L-word yet, but gods only know I probably will be soon.
And what a time to realize it too – underground and in enemy territory after being broken out of prison.
She rips her mouth from mine, and I blink as Violet takes a step back, her crossed arms looking less like a posture done less out of anger and more like one done to protect herself.
“I thought you were dead.”
She takes a deep breath, face upturned towards the earthen ceiling. “I was terrified I was going to find you dead.” She gives herself a shake, voice a little unsteady. “And even thinking that, I still decided that I couldn’t leave you behind.” The laugh that escapes her sounds more self-deprecating than I care for, and I can feel the walls that have kept me from reaching for her and comforting her in any way I can chipping away, one by one. “I don’t know why, before you ask. This is my first time launching a rescue mission.”
“You went out to save Rhiannon and Sawyer,” I point out. If I kissed her again, how would she react? Would she let me kiss her again? Fuck, I want to find out.
“Well, yeah, but you’re-” She stops again, the words dying away as her eyes grow wider still.
“I’m what?” I ask.
“-different.” The word is a strangled whisper.
We stare at one another, and the atmosphere is so heavy, it’s a little hard to breathe.
Slowly, without breaking eye contact, I reach for her. I twine my fingers through hers.
“Before you finish your first ever solo-rescue,” I say, the beginnings of a grin stretching my mouth, “how would you feel about a quick detour?”
Notes:
hehe hope everyone enjoyed this one!
Chapter 24: Fear
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Eight Months Ago
Someone is dead.
That’s the only reason why Brennan would call me in the dead of night. It’s the only reason why he would start the call with: “I’m so sorry, Xaden.”
And there’s only one person he could be referring to.
I stand in the tiny kitchen of my shitty off-base apartment outside Aretia, still blinking sleep from my eyes. I have to report for duty for yet another bullshit VIP protection mission in four hours, but that’s the least of my concerns as I try to process what Brennan just told me.
“Lindell is dead?” My voice catches, giving away just how much this has rattled me. “What the fuck happened?”
I’m greeted with silence. Then, Brennan lets out a drawn-out sigh. “The NIA got to him before we could. He was dead long before we found him.”
General Lindell was my father’s best friend. And now he’s just another person who’s died for Tyrrendor’s sake, for the sake of everyone on the Continent at this point. Project VENIN is getting bolder in Poromiel by the day. Syrena doesn’t think we have much time.
Fuck. This is my fault. I knew his plan was too risky.
“This isn’t your fault,” SGAEYL states in my ear through her earpiece, and I startle. I hadn’t meant to say that out loud, and I’m still getting used to her constant commentary.
Brennan handed me SGAEYL in all her snarky, rude glory two weeks ago, and I’m still adjusting to her temperament. Brennan says she is the way she is because he’s still working out the kinks in her programming, but I suspect otherwise. I think she’s just an asshole — but I prefer that over a soulless machine with no personality at all. At least she keeps me on my toes.
While I can only communicate with SGAEYL out loud for now, Brennan is working on an implant that would allow me to communicate with her directly from my mind. It’s freaky shit, but I’m taking his word for it when he says it could be game changing as we figure out how to fight VENIN.
“I agree with SGAEYL,” Brennan said, sounding more tired than I’ve heard him in a long time. “Lindell knew the risks, and he decided they were worth taking.”
I know that, but knowing doesn’t stop the dull ache in my chest. I slump back against my grimy white refrigerator and stare up at the dim, bare bulb that illuminates the kitchen. The door is cool against my bare back; I take a deep breath. “Please tell me we got the files.”
Brennan’s silence speaks louder than any answer he could give me.
“Fuck,” I spit. Shaking my head, I stalk toward the bathroom, turn on the sink. I let the freezing cold water flow over my hands and splash it on my face. There’s no blood on them, but there might as well be. Brennan and SGAEYL stay quiet until I turn the tap off.
“It wasn’t a total loss,” Brennan finally says. “He got a message transmitted before the NIA’s operative tracked him down.”
Hope flares in my chest. “Anything useful?”
“Just a word.” Brennan hesitates. “ANDARNA.”
I blink, speaking slowly. “Isn’t that the thing your father was working on before he died? I thought it wasn’t related to VENIN.”
Papers rustle on the other end of the line. SGAEYL pipes up in his stead.
“Query: What is ANDARNA and why is Brennan Sorrengail’s father relevant to this conversation?”
Brennan curses.
“Fucking database errors,” he mutters.
SGAEYL’s rollout has been less than smooth. Her databases have a hard time keeping up with SGAEYL’s processing speeds, which have to be blistering fast to be able to carry a conversation at speeds comparable to humans.
That means that she’s been forgetting things because her databases can’t pull the information fast enough. Except instead of buffering — or as Brennan says, using her damn head — when information isn’t immediately available, she blurts out requests for clarification.
Brennan has been trying to scrounge more computing power for the databases themselves to fix the issue, but it's slow coming. Apparently, ordering the high-powered servers capable of holding so much data isn’t easy when he’s supposed to be dead.
“SGAEYL,” Brennan says, somehow sounding even more tired now than he did just five minutes ago, “go ahead and disconnect. I need to talk to Xaden about something one-on-one.”
“I will not be able to disconnect when the implant is complete,” SGAEYL argues. “He should get used to my presence.”
“He agrees with Brennan,” I supply.
The AI huffs but doesn’t push back. The faint buzz I always hear through her earpiece cuts out, and that’s how I know she’s gone.
“Are you ever going to tell me how you managed to create her?” I ask Brennan. Her attitude, for one, is far more vivid than any AI I’ve ever encountered before. I’d be easily fooled into thinking she was human if I didn’t know any better. “Because I think you and I both know that SGAEYL is way more advanced than what you originally proposed to me.”
Brennan scoffs. “So advanced she can’t remember anything. She still has a ways to go.”
“That’s hardly her fault.” And now I’m defending a computer program. We’re also getting off-topic. “But that’s beside the point. You told me ANDARNA wasn’t related to VENIN.”
Lindell was supposed to steal the file on David Sorrengail’s death — a file so secret, they don’t even keep it digitally — so we could learn more about what exactly the Sorrengail patriarch discovered about the project as he searched for answers about Brennan’s “death.”
Not long after he’d begun digging, David began working on ANDARNA. Brennan wrote it off as unrelated NIA work, and we hadn’t done much to learn about what it was. Now I wonder if that was a mistake. If ANDARNA was referenced in the file, then it might have something to do with VENIN too.
“I didn’t think it was,” Brennan admitted.
I walk back to my kitchen and begin filling a glass with water from the sink. “Do we have any idea what it is?”
“The little information we got on it implied it was some kind of codebreaker protocol,” Brennan said. More papers rustled in the background. “Given what we know about VENIN, we didn’t think it was relevant.”
I take a sip of my water, then begin walking back towards my bedroom. “Well,” I say, “it’s relevant now. We need to find out what ANDARNA really is.”
Present
Violet and I crouch in the shadow of the building across the unfinished dirt road from the records building. Midnight is fast approaching. I peer over her shoulder as she looks through the monocular, scanning the guard towers and then the road ahead. The half-moon overhead illuminates the ground in a dull silver glow and makes the silver tips of her hair shine even brighter. The rifles of the guards on patrol gleam under it as they walk their routes in groups of two, sometimes three, none the wiser to our presence.
Hopefully it will stay that way.
“This is a horrifically bad idea,” she mutters without looking back at me.
Violet infiltrated the base when the guard shift changed at 6, she told me, lying low until she saw an opening to break into the prison. She’s been suspiciously light on the details of exactly how she managed that without a base ID of her own, but I fully plan on grilling her about it once we’re out of mortal danger.
“This is the only way we keep our heads when we get back to Navarre,” I remind her. The mission was simple on paper — infiltrate the base, find and steal some weapon schematics that we were given virtually no details on, get home — but we both know it was a front. The NIA — or whoever is controlling it — is hoping we’ll die trying, or that we’ll return empty handed so they can kill us both when we reach Navarrian soil again.
Violet is tense, her shoulders bunched up. She’s been like this since I proposed this plan. As we navigated the underground prison, she was adamantly against my proposed “detour.” She only came around when I pointed out that we would never be able to return to Navarre if we didn’t bring back the information we’d been sent here for.
“We’re going to get caught.” This time, Violet drops the gadget from her face, turning over her shoulder to nail me with a glare. “This is a suicide mission.”
The records building is under heavy guard, no matter the time of day. This mission was designed to kill us; Navarre doesn’t expect us to succeed. But we have to try.
“Of course, it’s a suicide mission,” I say with a shrug, “we already knew that. Navarre wouldn’t have sent us if it wasn’t.” I pause before speaking again. “We’re not going to get caught.”
“I estimate you have a 62% chance of being caught,” SGAEYL supplies unhelpfully. When I emerged above ground, her snarky voice filled my head again, much to my relief. My time underground was the longest I’d gone in a long, long time without hearing her voice.
“You aren’t helping,” I shoot back.
Violet raises a doubtful brow at the same time that SGAEYL scoffs, then goes silent. Violet points at the main entrance to the records building, which is flanked by two guards. “Oh yeah?” she hisses. “Explain to me how we’re going to get through the entrance into this place without setting off every alarm on the base? You never got an ID badge that would get us through the doors, remember?”
I do remember. I remember sitting in that underground cell, regretting that the last conversation I’d had with her had been one where I let my frustration at my own lack of progress get the better of me.
“It’s possible.” I reach for her arm and yank her further back into the shadows just as a vehicle drives by. My hand lingers a little longer than is polite, before falling away. “You’re Violet Sorrengail. I’m sure you can figure something– Wait.” A familiar face catches my attention, and I grab the monocular from her hand, inching around her to look towards the door.
“What?”
I grin as I lay eyes on the lone guard, his partner suddenly gone. It’s Lucio, the military police officer I’d marked for stealing a badge. “Today is our lucky day, Violence.” I look back at her. “I see our way in.”
She crosses her arms, and the way she glares up at me, her full lips turned down into a frown, just makes me want to kiss her again. Which is an entirely inappropriate response, given we’re in a life-or-death situation here.
But her glare melts into something I’ve become all too familiar with from her. It’s a reminder of just how far off the mark my assumptions about her were when I came face to face with her in that airport bathroom for the first time.
“We shouldn’t risk it,” Violet murmurs, glancing over her shoulder back at the records building. When she looks back at me, all I see is fear. But it's not for herself. It’s for me. “We should escape before they notice you’re gone.”
Violet Sorrengail would never run away from a fight — unless she thought it would save someone she cared about.
I can’t help myself. I reach out, snagging her smaller hand in mine. She startles, but doesn’t pull away.
“And then what?” I ask, my fingers curling around her hand a little tighter. “If we don’t finish this mission, we can never go back to Navarre. If we did, it would put your friends and family, and mine, at risk. You know that.”
Violet’s mouth presses into a hard line. “You could go to Poromiel,” she says. “You have allies there.”
“Ok. And?” My thumb brushes across the back of her hand. “What about you? Where would you go if we ran now and couldn’t return to Navarre?”
Violet’s mouth opens. Then shuts. Then opens again. Then shuts.
One beat, then two pass. I stare down at her, waiting for the answer I already know will pass from her lips when they open again.
Then: “I don’t know.” She sighs, sounding defeated. “I’d probably hide in the mountains along the border,” she scoffs, “but I’d just be waiting for my death at that point.”
Violet’s words are whispered, but disturbingly certain. She knows the Poromish wouldn’t shelter her — a Navarrian spy and assassin — nor would the Deverelli. Once again, I can’t help my surprise when it comes to her acceptance of her eventual death.
Maybe, once we’re back, she’ll finally tell me about this protocol.
Maybe I’ll finally tell her the full truths I’ve been promising her — and the ones she still has no idea about.
Maybe she and I will finally put the secrets to rest.
Knowing us, it’s doubtful, but maybe.
“You aren’t going to die,” I vow, not for the first time. “That’s why I’m here.”
Violet rolls her eyes, but her hand tightens around mine in an unnervingly familiar gesture. “Ok, undercover-master-who-still-managed-to get-caught.” A small, barely-there grin graces her face, making her hazel eyes sparkle as she takes a breath. The fear melts away, giving way to steely determination. “Lead the way.”
We sneak around the patrols to reach the side of the building. Violet stays in the shadows of an alcove while I sneak up behind my mark.
I creep behind Lucio, careful to keep my footfalls silent. Once I’m close enough, I surge forward and wrap my arm around his neck, cutting off his air supply. He lets out a choked sound, but my hand claps over his mouth before he can yell.
Lucio’s feet kick and scrabble against the dirt, but he’s shorter than me. Weaker too. He has no chance of escaping my grip. His rifle clatters to the ground as his hands scratch at my arms.
I don’t release him until he stops struggling; until I’m sure he’s lost consciousness. Once he’s dead weight, I drag him around the corner where Violet waits, crouching in the shadow of the building, her observant eyes scanning the surroundings for the first note of trouble.
“Clear,” I whisper to her when I round the corner. Lucio lands with a quiet thump when I drop him, and I feel a little bad. But it’s not by much.
Violet nods, the lines of her face tight, and I almost don’t notice the dagger in her hand before it’s too late. She takes a knee, and I just barely manage to grab her wrist before she drags the blade across the man’s throat.
“What are you doing?” I hiss.
She looks at me impassively. “What do you mean?”
A chill passes through me at her nonchalance. Violet isn’t staring back at me. This is Navarre’s deadliest assassin, it’s ace-in-the-hole when it needs someone to disappear. I’ve seen first-hand her willingness to kill – she slaughtered a dozen men to break me out of that prison only an hour ago. She values the life of others, but she values her own and those of her friends and family more. Ending Lucio’s life probably means nothing to her compared to ensuring the survival of herself and the people she cares about.
That thought probably would have horrified me a few weeks ago. And now, I’m falling for her despite it.
“We don’t need to kill him,” I insist. I can’t help but think about the girlfriend Lucio would talk about in the break room we’d often share. He was a bit of an idiot, but he doesn’t deserve to die.
Violet raises a brow. “Oh really?”
The doubt in her voice is yet another reminder of how, despite how much my view of her has changed since meeting her – despite how I would kill for her, if I had to – the part of her that is a cold killer still lurks just beneath the surface. It’s hard to reconcile the Violet that was reading animatedly on the roof with the Violet staring up at me now.
“You don’t need to,” I say again, softer this time.
Violet scoffs, then jerks her wrist out of my hand.
“If there is one thing I’ve learned in my short life,” Violet starts, her voice thick with derision, “It’s that once you leave the unconscious security guard alive, you’re headed for trouble.” She stops, takes a shaking breath. “But fine. We’ll do it your way, pretty boy. I won’t kill your friend.” She sheathes her dagger, then nails me with a hard look. “But if this goes south because we left him alive, I swear to Dunne I will come back to haunt you. We’re already testing fate enough today. Clear?”
I smirk, the anxious knot in my stomach unraveling. She’s been calling me pretty boy less and less recently, but that’s not why I’m grinning. I’m grinning because before this trip, she would have killed Lucio regardless of what I said to her. I’m changing, and so is she. “Crystal.”
Violet holds my gaze for a moment, then two, before letting out an exaggerated sigh. “You’re a better person than I am, Xaden.” She shakes her head ruefully. “It’s going to get us killed.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” I inform her confidently, then bend down and snag the ID card hanging from Lucio’s breast pocket. “Follow me.”
The records building is dark and empty when we slip through the side entrance Lucio had been guarding. We dragged him inside with us, locking him in a supply closet to maximize the amount of time we have before his disappearance is discovered.
“For once, I agree with the Sorrengail girl,” SGAEYL says as I barricade the door. “Leaving him alive could complicate things.”
I throw my weight against it, and once satisfied it won’t give, follow Violet down the darkened corridors. Only the flashlight she carries illuminates our path, casting tall shadows on the walls. Her footsteps echo eerily down the hallway. It reminds me of our trip underground at Athebyne a little — cold metal walls, not a soul in sight.
“Instead of criticizing me, start figuring out how we’re getting out of here,” I tell her as I fall into step next to Violet. We haven’t spoken since entering, but the tension in the air is palpable. I just can’t tell if it’s because I wouldn’t let her kill Lucio, because I got captured, or because she kissed me.
“What are we looking for?” Violet’s whispered question echoes in the silence when we round a corner.
“We have two options.” I come to a halt, and Violet follows suit. “The server room and the paper records room.”
Knowing the Deverelli, they wouldn’t keep top secret weapons data somewhere it could be hacked by an outside party.
Violet wrinkles her nose. “Which one is the least likely to get us caught?”
“Paper records,” I reply instantly. “We risk tripping something in their security systems if we try to get into the servers without preparing,” I pause, glancing down at her, “and we aren’t prepared.”
Violet nods slowly, although she seems reluctant. “Agreed.” She flips the flashlight in her hand so the butt of it faces me. “Lead the way.”
Taking the flashlight from her, I lead us deeper into the building. Two more minutes, and we’re standing outside the paper records room.
Of course, the door is locked. I curse under my breath as I take a knee to examine the palm scanner embedded into the wall. This wasn’t here last week.
I glance at Violet. “This might be a problem.”
She swears under her breath, raking a hand through the hair that’s escaped her fast-unravelling braid. She steps a little closer, peering over my shoulder at the scanner. “I’m guessing your hand won’t work?”
“I doubt it,” I say with a shake of my head. I rise to my feet. “Unless we find a way to cut the power to the door, we aren’t getting through.”
Violet’s brows furrow at that, the gears in her brain turning. “How long would the power need to be disrupted?”
“A minute, give or take.” Navarre has similar tech for secure areas on bases, and each door is typically equipped with a small backup power supply to keep the door from unlocking during brief power outages.
She nods, then withdraws one of the daggers lining her ribs. I recognize it instantly as one of those taser knives that she used on me before.
“Could we pull the scanner out of the wall?” she questions as she steps up to the panel. “It would probably be better to deliver the charge directly to the circuitry.”
“Do not remove it from the wall,” SGAEYL warns. “It is hooked into the building’s alarm system.”
“How do you know?”
SGAEYL sniffs. “I hacked into the security system when you entered the building via the backdoor you installed into the CCTV system last week. I will keep watch to ensure you both don’t get killed.”
I take the AI at her word. “SGAEYL says it's alarmed,” I tell Violet as I cross my arms. “Let’s not risk it.”
Violet glances over her shoulder at me, then nods. “Stand back then.”
I don’t move. If this goes south, I fully plan on being close enough to drag her away. Violet blinks, then rolls her eyes before returning her attention to the scanner.
Using the sharp tip of the dagger, Violet manages to raise the panel from the wall just enough to slide the blade in without fully removing it. Then she takes another one and inserts it on the other side.
“You’re sure this won’t trip any alarms?” she asks as she adjusts each blade.
“Her actions have not set off any alarms,” SGAEYL informs me.
“Nope.” I smirk. “I guess we’re about to find out.”
Violet makes a few more adjustments, then flicks the switches on the grips of each blade before taking a massive step back. We both watch the panel cautiously as the buzz of electricity hits our ears. For twenty seconds, nothing happens. At thirty, the panel begins to flicker. At forty-five, it goes out entirely.
Then, almost exactly a minute later, a soft click tells me the door is now unlocked.
Violet releases a breath I don’t think she knew she was holding. “Fuck,” she says quietly, “I’m glad we didn’t blow up.”
I frown. “Was that a possibility?”
She strides forward, yanking both blades from the panel with a shrug. “Considering I was pushing high voltage electricity through a battery to short it out? Yeah, definitely.”
I swear I hear SGAEYL laugh.
“You could’ve told me that,” I say. “What were you thinking?”
Violet shrugs, entirely too calm. “I was thinking we needed to get us in the door.”
“You could have gotten us killed.”
She nails me with a withering glare. “And I told you to stand back. Spare me the lecture.”
Ouch. “Touché.” I gesture toward the now-open doorway. “After you.”
Violet was halfway through the door, then froze, as if she’d had a sudden realization. “Did they tell you how they found out you were a spy?” she asks.
I blink, thinking back to my time in the dungeon. Adrian threatened me with Violet’s safety. Oren Seifert tried to get me to reveal something I’d rather die than hand over. But neither of them told me how the Deverelli managed to figure out I wasn’t who I said I was. “No,” I say slowly. “Why?”
Violet is silent, her expression curiously blank. “Just curious,” she says, a little too lightly.
It instantly sets me on edge as I trail behind her into the mammoth storage area, but my suspicion is set aside when I nearly run into her back. Violet gapes up at towering file cabinets, with at least a dozen drawers from foot to ceiling. They’re double my height, a dozen rows strong, stretching the length of two school buses.
Violet swallows as she takes in the sheer amount of records before us. “We are so fucked.”
I can’t help but agree with her. I hadn’t been in the room before, only noted it in passing. I thought I would have more time to do reconnaissance. Now I wish I’d done more to figure out the contents of the room.
“Any idea how we narrow it down?” I stride to the closest cabinet and breathe a silent sigh of relief when I realize they’re labelled alphabetically. “Should we start with ‘W’?”
“I don’t see why not.” She walks past me, dropping a pair of gloves into my hands before venturing deeper into the stacks. I follow like a damn puppy, tugging them on without question.
Violet is already rifling through one of the lower cabinets when I catch up to her, her brows furrowed with concentration, gloves already on. I tug open the gloves she handed me, then open a drawer a little higher and begin flicking through the folders.
“Remind me what we’re looking for again?” I ask after 10 minutes of silence. Nothing I’ve seen stands out, all the schematics and operational plans beginning to blend together in a black and white mix of ink and paper.
“It’s a missile design,” Violet replies automatically, not looking up from a folder she’d removed from her drawer. I manage to get an eyeful of what looks like a schematic for an oddly-shaped jet engine before she snaps it shut and stows it back where it came from with an aggravated sigh.
She looks up at me with a frown. “Probably something small, so it could fit on all kinds of aircraft. NIA thinks it’s fitted with some kind of gas cartridge for poison or chemical weapons. Did you not read any of the files they sent with us?”
I did — but I was more focused on getting us onto the base than I was analyzing and reanalyzing the outdated intelligence Navarre equipped us with.
“Why should I when you know enough for the two of us?” I close the drawer, then open the next one. Violet scoffs and mutters something under her breath that I don’t catch, but does the same, and we drift back into silence.
The only sounds that punctuate the quiet is the rustling of paper, the metallic clang of drawers opening and shutting. The occasional frustrated sigh from Violet.
I go on autopilot, sorting through the files with increasing speed even as my mind drifts back to Violet’s earlier question. Why had she wanted to know why the Deverelli captured me?
And a better question — how had she known I’d been captured? Not enough time had passed from the time I would have normally gotten home to the time she arrived in front of my cell. There was no way she could have known that something was off that quickly.
I find myself stealing glances up at her every minute or so, as though staring at her long enough will give me a portal straight into her beautiful, infuriating mind so I know exactly what she’s thinking. But whenever I look up, I can practically feel the ghost of her lips pressed against mine, how perfect she felt molded against me, and I force myself to look away. Now is not the time for that.
Another ten minutes, and we’ve flipped through all of the ‘W’ files. None looked promising.
“We should try ‘P’,” Violet says when she’s closed the last drawer.
I return a file on the pros and cons of different building materials for storm shelters, and close the drawer I got it from as well. “Any particular reason?”
“P for poison. Plus, you military people like to add a ‘Project’ prefix to everything.” Violet shrugs. “Honestly, we know nothing about this weapon other than what I told you, probably because Navarre is hoping we’ll get killed trying to find it. No point in trying to overthink it at this point.”
The nonchalance with which she talks about her own prospective death grates on me, but I bite back my frustration. Now isn’t the time to voice those thoughts. I glance at the analog clock hanging on the back wall. “We should hurry. Shift change happens soon.”
“Shit.” Violet grimaces.
“Anything on the radio?” I ask SGAEYL. Before we’d entered, I’d instructed her to monitor base communications. As soon as they know something is amiss, we’ll know that they know.
“Negative. I am continuing to disrupt the security footage. I estimate another 20 minutes before an alarm is raised.”
“SGAEYL says we have 20 minutes,” I relay to Violet.
She doesn’t respond, hurrying back down the aisle we came down. Dragging a finger along the drawer labels, she stops at the first ‘P’ drawer, yanking it open. “You take the next row over,” she commands. “The files are split between them.”
We renew our task with increased urgency, but I keep coming up empty. The cheap fabric of the gloves I’m wearing rubs against my wrists, still raw and sensitive from the restraints Violet rescued me from. With every draw opened and subsequently slammed shut, my frustration grows. If we can’t find these schematics, we can’t return to Calldyr. They’ll just kill us if we do.
I could hide out in Aretia. But Violet doesn’t have the luxury of having an entire underground organization that will conceal her — the one she already has is more liable to kill her than protect her.
“Xaden,” Violet calls out. “Get over here.”
There’s an edge to her voice that I don’t like, and I immediately abandon my task and hurry back around the corner. Violet is staring down at a thin manila folder like it’s a bomb about to detonate.
“Is that it?” I ask.
“No,” she says. “Look.”
I stop at her side and peer down at the label. Well, shit.
Project VENIN. There’s no reason why the Deverelli should have this if they weren’t working with VENIN, yet it’s written across the front in bold font, unmistakable. There was a tiny part of me that hoped the Deverelli didn’t know who they were working with when it came to Oren Seifert, but if there were any doubts in my mind about the isles’ collaboration with whoever stole the project’s technology from Navarre, there isn’t now.
Violet opens the file, poring over its contents. The folder is thinner than many of the others, maybe only 20 pieces of paper. Keeping my feet planted, I don’t move to try to see what it is she’s reading. Violet frowns the further she gets, and my fingers itch to reach out and snatch it from her.
The more she knows, the more danger she’s in. But doing anything to keep whatever it is she’s found away from her is more likely to get me a knife to the throat, so I keep my hands glued to my side.
“This… can’t be right,” Violet says slowly. The furrow between her brows deepens. “These look like medical records. Why would a Project VENIN file have redacted medical records?”
I stay silent. I can’t risk confirming anything to her, not yet. Still, I hate the relief I feel when I realize the file is only medical records. The last thing I need is Violet trying to murder me now because she learned the full truth from a Deverelli file and not my own mouth. She may know now that VENIN isn’t a weapon in the traditional sense, but the less she knows about its true nature, the better — at least until we’re back on friendly soil.
Violet turns, looking back at me questioningly, and I know what she’s going to ask before her lips part. “What am I missing here, Xaden?”
“I can’t tell you that–” Violet’s mouth opens again, outrage crossing her features, and I rush my next words. “—yet. I promise I will when we’re back in Navarre.”
I feel like a damn parrot, giving her the same canned response every time she asks me about VENIN. It's obvious that she isn’t too happy with me either, with the way her eyes flash and her mouth presses into a thin line.
I can tell she’s beginning to put the pieces together without my help. It’s only a matter of time before she realizes the connection between the magical reappearance of people she thought she killed and the project she now knows isn’t a weapon. But the idea is still so fantastical that even I struggle to believe it sometimes.
“You’re a pain in the ass,” she finally mutters, turning her attention back to the file. Violet rapidly flips through the remaining papers, but it’s more of the same — heavily redacted medical records. She groans, then reluctantly puts the folder back in the filer.
“Are there any others?” I lean a shoulder against the tower of drawers, crossing my arms as I stare down at her through the dim light.
Nimble fingers flip through the rest of the folders in the drawer, and then Violet shakes her head. “I don’t see anything.”
Good. Glancing up at the back wall, my eyes find the clock again. Five minutes until we have to start running for our lives.
I push back and say as much to Violet as I round the aisle again, returning to my previous task with greater urgency.
“How are we looking, SGAEYL?”
“They discovered your escape ten minutes ago. You likely have another seven minutes before the base is put on alert.”
“What are they doing now?” I ask.
SGAEYL is silent for a moment as she checks the feed. “They are attempting to take back control of the camera system from me to check the footage. They are failing. You have six minutes.”
Six is better than five. I’ll take it.
The sound of drawers opening and closing sounds faster now, the clicks and bangs slicing through the quiet with increasing force and frequency. I don’t bother taking files out now to flip through their contents, sizing them up by their label alone and then moving on if it doesn’t look promising.
I’m on the last drawer, and preparing to give up and drag Violet from the room when I see it. Hydra missiles, the folder’s label reads. If I was going to name a chemical weapon in missile form, that’s what I would call it. I yank the folder free, scanning the schematic that takes up the first page of the file. It’s small, like Violet said, and attached are what look like gas canisters.
Holy shit. Knee-buckling relief overtakes me. This is it. What are the fucking odds? I shelve the multitude of shitty contingency plans I’d begun to devise in case we couldn’t find the file. Now, we just need to escape this hellhole and never look back. The NIA will undoubtedly try to kill Violet and I once we’re back on the Continent, but this will buy ourselves some time.
“Violet,” I holler, “I have it!”
“You’re sure?” she asks, her voice echoing in the still air. I swear I hear a hint of her own relief.
I’m already moving toward the door, however, not giving myself time to second guess my discovery. “Doesn’t matter if I’m sure. We need to go. Now.”
My hand is wrapped around the doorhandle when klaxon alarms begin blaring and red, pulsing lights illuminate the room.
“Go!” Violet yells, and we abandon any semblance of stealth.
I tear the door open, sending it flying into the wall with a resounding bang, and Violet and I take off down the hallway at full speed. Our boots hit the ground in a frenzied staccato, and I ignore the way my body screams at me. I’m still sore and aching from the fantastic treatment I got at the hands of Oren.
We twist and turn through the building until we burst through the back entrance, me a half dozen paces before Violet. I skid to a halt almost immediately, then duck down behind a large concrete sign to the left of the door.
When Violet comes flying outside a moment later, I grab her by the arm and tug her down with me. A smile pulls at my lips at her outraged squawk, but I don’t comment on it in favor of raising a finger to my lips.
Soldiers sprint about on the road just ahead of us, their shouts echoing in the night, as more stream out from the barracks to our left in varying states of dress — some in full uniform, others still in pajamas. Searchlights beam down from the guard towers that line the installation, scanning the base of the walls for any sign of escapees — for any sign of us.
“You were the one who wanted to take a detour,” Violet mutters to me, the lilt to her voice sounding a whole lot like an I-told-you-so. Her eyes dart about as she catalogs everything around us. “Now what’s the plan?”
I eye the guard towers with a frown. “There’s no chance we can scale the walls now that they’re on alert.”
“No shit,” Violet scoffs.
“Your sarcasm isn’t helpful.” I scan our surroundings as I try to figure out our best path forward, but now there are soldiers everywhere. Sneaking past would be a small miracle. “SGAEYL,” I say, “are you still hooked into the security cameras?”
“Of course.” She sounds offended, as though I’ve asked a patently stupid question.
Violet shifts closer to me as a group of soldiers drift closer to our hiding spot, rifles in hand, and I almost reach out to grab her hand the way I’ve become so used to doing over the last few weeks. “Do you see a path we can take to the vehicle bays?” I ask. “Preferably one that won’t get us killed?”
SGAEYL is quiet for a moment, no doubt scanning the camera feeds. I take the opportunity to look back at Violet, who’s keeping watch herself with an eagle eye.
“Give me another dagger,” I whisper, holding out a hand. The one she gave me before simply won’t be enough. I miss my fucking sidearm. Daggers won’t do shit against a squad of soldiers with semiautos trying to kill us.
Tugging one of those electric daggers from the sheathes at her ribs, Violet doesn’t even look at me as she slaps the grip into my outstretched hand. “Here.” She’s clutching one in her other hand, her knuckles white around the unadorned grip.
I’d laugh if I wasn’t worried the sound would get us killed.
“I have identified one potential escape route,” SGAEYL declares. “Do you see the barracks to your left?”
My eyes flick in the direction she indicates, and they land on the squat, two-story concrete monstrosity that screams military housing. It’s technically two buildings, I realize, with a narrow alley splitting it. Just beyond is the main base road. Crossing it without being seen will be the real challenge, but we’ll have to do it if we want to reach the base’s massive garage. We’ll need transportation if we want to escape here alive tonight.
“I see it.”
“There does not appear to be anyone in the central breezeway,” SGAEYL informs me. “Halfway down the breezeway there is a staircase that will take you down to an underground corridor. Take it, and you will find yourself across the street.”
And once we’re across the street, I can get us to the garage.
“Listen,” I say to Violet, keeping my voice as low as possible. “We’re going to run for that two-story building right there.” I point to the barracks.
Violet follows my gesture, then nods. “Then what?” she whispers.
“SGAEYL says there is an underground walkway that will get us across the main road.” I shift my weight, preparing to shoot back up and run the moment there’s an opening.
“Great. That doesn’t tell me how we’re getting off this base.” Violet raises a brow.
Her sarcasm is way more endearing than it should be, and the corners of my mouth twitch as I wrangle my grin into submission. “We’re going to steal a car, then drive like hell and hope for the best.”
Violet’s lips purse unhappily, and I brace myself for her to push back. But then she sighs, some of the tension leaving her small body.
“Better than nothing,” she says with a slight shrug. Then her eyes narrow into a fierce glare. “For the record — next time we have to infiltrate a military base together, I’m the one going undercover. If you’re going to get yourself captured, at least do it after you’ve come up with a halfway decent escape plan.”
This time I don’t stop the grin, letting it spread slowly as I look down at her. “So there’s going to be a next time?”
I could get behind that. Quite frankly, minus the nearly getting killed part, these last few weeks with Violet were better than I could have imagined. It let me see another side to Violet that I wouldn't have otherwise. The side that adores fettuccine alfredo; the side that tells stories so animatedly that one would be forgiven for thinking she was being paid to do so. The side that stayed up late waiting for me to get back, silent worry written all over her face even if she wouldn’t say it out loud.
I loved kissing Violet, but I think I love spending time with her more. The moments where I could see Violet as Violet, and not a cold, closed-off NIA assassin, were some of the best I’ve had in a long time.
Violet glances up at me again, then scoffs as she tugs another knife from her boot. “I take it back. I’m never taking you on a mission with me again. I’m revoking your undercover credentials.”
I lean in a little closer, so that my shoulder brushes hers and the faint scent of her shampoo, still lingering from whatever shower she last took, fills my nostrils.
“Say it like you mean it next time and maybe I’ll believe you,” I whisper in her ear.
Violet jerks, head whirling in my direction, and my hand darts out to catch her arm before she loses her balance. Our noses are millimeters away from brushing. Her breath puffs against my lips, and I can’t help but look at hers as I imagine, again, what she felt like before when she kissed me. I think that kiss will haunt me for the rest of my life.
Violet’s eyes drop to my mouth as well, and she swallows. A smirk tugs at my lips.
“Shouldn’t we be running?” Violet finally asks, her voice a little shakier than it was before.
Probably. The unwelcome reality check reminds me how dozens of soldiers are milling about just beyond this stupid sign, roused from their sleep by the blaring sirens that still echo across the base, waiting for us to appear before them. Now isn’t the time to be seriously contemplating wrapping my arms around Violet and kissing her until there is no air left in my lungs.
It’s not the time for it, but fuck if I don’t think about it anyways.
“Whatever you want, Violence,” I manage, returning my expression to a more neutral set. I shift backwards, giving us a few precious inches of separation. I peek my gaze over the edge of the sign again, watching the soldiers milling around aimlessly, waiting for the perfect moment. There too many of them, though — how the hell are we going to get to the barracks without being noticed?
I glance in the direction of the building, and notice something else, too. There’s a tree — old, with a thick and sturdy trunk that would easily conceal someone standing against it. I duck back down and jerk my chin at it.
“When I give the signal, you run for the tree,” I say. With the number of soldiers, the likelihood of making it all the way to the safety of the barracks without being seen are slim to none. “I’ll keep watch. When I wave, you run for the barracks. Ok?”
“What about you?”
I raise a brow. “What about me? I’ll follow once you’re across.”
It takes nearly ten minutes, but we both make it across without being noticed. As soon as I’m safely in the shadow of the barracks, we both sprint toward the stairway SGAEYL told me about.
The breezeway is shadowy and unlit, the only illumination coming from the moon overhead. The alarms still blare, and the shouts of soldiers at our backs tell us they likely found Lucio.
Neither Violet nor I speak as our boots slam down the concrete stairwell. While the moon lit out path before, now it’s only flickering orange lights. The glow they cast reminds me of cheap horror movies, only exacerbating my unease. The tunnel is narrow, barely wide enough for two people across, so we continue our spring single file.
“When we’re back topside, we’re going to take a left,” I yell over my shoulder. “There’s an alley that should lead us to the vehicle bays.”
“We need to figure out how we’re getting off this damn island,” Violet grumbled. “Our passports aren’t going to work.”
I have an idea for that. It’s just not one that I particularly like.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” I tell her.
A minute and a half later we’re ascending the stairs at the other end of the tunnel. I’m breathing hard, and so is Violet; her cheeks pink from exertion. We duck under a concealed overhang as a group of soldiers passes, and we take a moment to catch our breath. But we don’t stay still long, and slowly but surely begin picking our way across the base again.
We stick to the shadows, staying unseen as men and women with rifles pass by.
“This is weird,” Violet says as we wait for a group to go by. We’re close enough to the vehicle bays that we can see it now. “Why don’t they have search dogs? Where are the drones and the helicopters?”
She has a point, and I don’t like it.
“Let’s worry about that later,” I whisper.
We begin to move again. But when we finally slip through one of the vehicle bay’s side doors, I know our luck has run out.
It’s a cavernous space, filled with dozens of cars, armored vehicles, motorcycles. Tool benches line the walls for maintenance and repairs. It’s as large and tall as one of the aircraft hangars next to the base’s runway.
It's also full of people.
“Damn,” Violet mutters. We crouch behind an SUV with a missing wheel. Her mouth presses into a hard line as she scans the space. Then she looks back at me. “Can I talk to SGAEYL?”
I blink. “Why?”
“Because I have an idea,” she replies simply. She holds out her comm device. I don’t even need to ask SGAEYL to connect to it, because the light buzz that signifies her presence vanishes. I give Violet a nod, and she places the device back in her ear.
“Hi SGAEYL,” she whispers. The AI must have said something snarky, because Violet rolls her eyes a moment later. “That’s none of your business.”
“What did she say?” I whisper as I try to keep the corner of my mouth from quirking upwards.
Violet doesn’t answer me. “Can you trigger the alarms in the next building over?” She’s quiet for a moment as she listens to SGAEYL’s response, then: “What if I did it?”
She’s quiet for even longer this time. Then, she glances at me. She’s fighting a grin as she says, “I’m sure he won’t. Thanks SGAEYL.”
Uneasiness trickles into my stomach. “What are you two plotting?”
“Something you aren’t going to like.” Then she stands, throws her arms over her head, and begins waving. “Hey! Assholes!” she yells. My heart seizes as the dozen heavily armed men milling about in the space turn in her direction. “Catch me if you can!”
And then she bolts.
“Violet!” I hiss, horror injecting itself into my veins as she darts back through the door we just came through. I’m about to stand to chase after her when SGAEYL’s sharp tone fills my head again.
“Don’t,” she says. “You need to prepare for when she returns.”
“What the hell is she doing?” I seethe. “What did you tell her?”
“Move now, questions later,” SGAEYL replies tersely. The men are bearing down on me, and I’ll be seen if I stay where I am.
I dart behind another vehicle just as the men Violet had taunted go racing by, chasing after her without paying me any mind. The hangar is deserted now.
“Questions now,” I tell SGAEYL. “What is she doing?”
“She’s your distraction,” SGAEYL informs me. “While she leads them on a chase, you need to get a vehicle ready for your escape.”
I begin moving, heading towards the lockbox that I learned early in my employment here contains the keys for each of these vehicles. “That wasn’t your call to make,” I hiss. “They have guns, SGAEYL. What if she gets shot?”
The AI has the nerve to sound annoyed. “I’m more concerned about you getting shot at this rate than I am about the Sorrengail girl. You and I both know she’s more than capable of keeping herself safe.”
I can’t argue with that.
You didn’t exactly seem to have a problem with me being a target before, Xaden. I’m more than capable of taking care of myself, she’d said two weeks ago before asking: What’s different?
Everything, I’d responded. It was the first thing that had come to mind, the only word I could think of at the time to describe the gulf between how I felt in that moment and how I’d felt when I first met her. And it was true, undeniably so, especially now. I didn’t have much of a problem with her being a target before, but I sure as fuck do now.
“Don’t dawdle,” SGAEYL snarls.
The admonition spurs me back to action.
The next ten minutes are a blur. I select a jeep close to the entrance, and throw a rifle I found leaning against the vehicle bay’s walls into the back seat for good measure. I crank the engine.
And I wait. And wait. And wait.
When Violet bursts back through the door, I can tell that something’s wrong.
Blood is spattered on her face, her hands, her arms. That wasn't there before. There’s a cut just above her elbow, too shallow to need stitches but deep enough to bleed.
Two seconds later, a group of men that I immediately recognize burst through the door after her, different from the men who originally gave her chase: the Deverelli Army’s black ops squad.
Well, fuck.
“Get in!” I shout. Violet’s head whips in my direction just before she dives behind another vehicle as a volley of gunfire springs from the soldiers’ rifles. A half second later she’s running again, smartly keeping the hulking frames of military-grade metal between her and the soldiers intent on killing her.
Violet sprints across the final stretch between herself and the jeep, ducking as another burst of gunfire erupts.
“Shit!” Violet exclaims. She practically dives into the jeep. I hit the gas as soon as I’m sure she’s secure, taking off through the open door and down the roads towards the gate.
“Want to explain why you have black ops on your tail?” I demand.
I hear Violet’s seatbelt click as I wrench the wheel to turn down a side alley. “Drive now, questions later!”
“You sound like SGAEYL,” I accuse.
“Maybe because she’s right!” Violet glares at me. “There were others in cars, we’ll have to keep–”
The roar of gunfire interrupts her before she can finish. It shatters her window and mine. I swerve, jerking the wheel in surprise and nearly scraping the side of the building I race alongside, but I manage to regain control.
“Are you ok?” I demand. My blood roars in my ears, my pulse pounding like a drum as I fight the urge to look away from the road.
Violet whips her head over her shoulder, not answering my question. An annoyed sound escapes her, as though someone put the wrong order in her takeout bag, not that she’s being chased by heavily armed black ops soldiers. “They’re gaining on us!”
I glance in the rearview mirror, gunning the engine when I see our pursuers. One of them stands through the sunroof of their vehicle, and another burst of gunfire has me wrenching the wheel to try and avoid it.
“We need to shoot back!” I yell, glancing at Violet to make sure she’s ok for a heartbeat before returning my eyes to the road. Even now, it’s only her safety I’m concerned about. I’m so fucked.
“As thrilled as I am that you’ve come out of the river of denial, focus on not dying,” SGAEYL snaps. I ignore her.
“News flash — I don’t carry a gun!” Violet retorts, as if her sarcasm is helpful right now.
“There’s one in the back seat,” I say, before turning the wheel sharply to follow a curve in the road. Violet unbuckles herself, but almost goes flying as she does as I steer us around another tight corner. I catch her dark glare out of the corner of my eye.
I wrench the wheel again as another round of shots nicks the back of the jeep. “You ok?” I ask again, but I can’t afford to check her for injuries now — not when we’re going as fast as we are.
“Fine!” She calls back. Only her ass is visible in my periphery now, the curve sticking up in the air as she reaches for something in the back seat. My willpower practically evaporates, and I cling to the final string of my control like a fucking lifeline, my knuckles white from how tightly I grip the steering wheel.
I am not going to get a hard-on when we’re running — driving — for our lives.
I can practically hear SGAEYL winding up for another quip at my expense, but I beat her to it. “Not a fucking word,” I growl. The AI’s only response is a mocking, digital laugh.
Violet straightens up a moment later, plopping herself back into her seat. She holds a rifle now. Hopefully it's loaded.
Then I have another realization. Violet doesn’t use guns, does she?
“Give it to me,” I order. I set the cruise control on the car. “Take the wheel.”
“Excuse me?” Violet’s eyes grow impossibly wide. “I can–"
I don’t give her time to argue further, snatching the weapon from her hands. Violet makes a strangled sound, lunging for the wheel as I release it. I lift one foot onto the seat to leverage myself up through the snap-on sunroof, my other foot bracing itself on the center console.
“Get in the driver’s seat.” My voice is practically lost to the wind, but Violet is already moving, contorting herself between my legs and the dashboard to get herself behind the wheel.
“For the record,” Violet calls up to me, “I can shoot a fucking gun!”
But not as well as I can, I bet.
I finally get a good look behind us. Three vehicles in pursuit. My eyes narrow against the wind whipping at my face. I flip the safety on the gun, raising the sight to my face and peer through it. The weight of the rifle in my hands is familiar. Comforting, even. Muscle memory from years of training kicks in as I take aim.
My first shot takes out the front wheel of the car on my left. It careens into the wall of a building, going up in flames on contact.
One down.
Another round of gunfire from the car on to my right. Metallic pings and the shattering of the back windshield tell me our jeep was hit, and I’m jostled slightly as Violet struggles to keep us going straight. I can hear her let loose a string of curses as I keep myself steady.
Devera’s advice from training echoes in my mind. Brace. Aim. Fire.
The bullet strikes the driver of the middle car, and it veers off in a sharp turn before flipping, landing on its side. Sparks fly as it skids to a stop. The driver doesn’t emerge.
Two down.
“One to go,” SGAEYL growls. “You’ll need to take out both front tires to destabilize it.”
“Any day now, Xaden!” Violet yells up at me through gritted teeth. We take a curve at full speed. I brace myself to keep from flying out of the sunroof.
The last car – the one that was shooting at us – has a gunman standing through its sunroof too. Bullets continue to fly, and I duck as they rake up the body of our jeep, narrowly missing my head.
My heart pounds, adrenaline coursing as I straighten up, take aim again. My finger ghosts on the trigger, then tightens. The recoil is barely a nuisance to me anymore. The bullet finds its home, and the shooter slumps. I aim again. Fire twice. The front wheels deflate.
Three down.
“Punch it!” I yell down to Violet. She does, and we’re flying even faster. The third car can’t keep up.
I let out a breath I didn’t even realize I was holding, then climb down through the sunroof, taking the seat Violet was originally in. Then I glance at Violet, about to tell her we need to ditch the car, but I do a double take. A curse springs from my mouth before I can stop it.
She’s driving one-handed, her other hand pressed to her left shoulder. Blood oozes between her fingers. Her face is tight with barely restrained pain. The momentary relief I felt at ridding us of our pursuers ices over in an instant, replaced by a rising sense of panic.
“She’s been shot,” SGAEYL says gravely.
No fucking shit.
“I’m fine,” Violet says through gritted teeth before I can ask, pain lining every word. Her eyes don’t leave the road for even a moment, but her complexion is noticeably paler. “I’ve dealt with worse.”
Violet is hurt. In pain. And I can’t do anything about it now but trust her word.
“Do you know what kind of ammo they were using?” I ask SGAEYL. Even my thoughts sound a little panicked. She’s bleeding too much. Her exposed skin, her clothes, the seatbelt — it’s all stained a stomach-turning red. The sharp metallic scent of it hits my nose like a blow.
“Standby.” She’s silent for a moment. “Based on analysis of visuals and audio I captured when you were exchanging fire, it’s some kind of hollow point. She needs medical attention.”
If an AI could sound worried, then that’s how SGAEYL sounds, if only just barely. It does nothing for my very real, very human worry, which increases with every passing moment. So much for me being the one she was worried about getting shot.
“We need to get you to a doctor,” I tell Violet aloud. Hollow points are bad fucking news, especially that close to major blood vessels. Remaining calm in this situation is testing my control, straining it to a breaking point.
She laughs, as if her injury is a laughing matter, but it’s weaker than usual. “Yeah, well, I’d rather make it out of here alive first. SGAEYL’s medical analysis can wait.”
“I take offense to that,” the AI says haughtily.
“SGAEYL takes offense to that,” I inform Violet. “Seriously, Violence – SGAEYL says you’ve been shot with a hollow point. We need to get you checked out.”
Violet clicks her tongue, muttering a curse under her breath. “We can’t go to any of the hospitals around here,” she says from behind gritted teeth. “The Deverelli will find us in a heartbeat.”
She’s right, and then we’d both be as good as dead.
“Is there anything incriminating back at the apartment?” I ask as I eye her wound. I’d planned on having us lie low for a few days, but if there aren’t any loose ends to take care of, then we could leave now, too.
“My book and the thumb drive are in a pack I hid before I came to find you,” Violet says. “I destroyed our laptops and burned anything else that I couldn’t take, just in case.”
Of course she did. Despite the situation, I grin. “Good. Head for the airstrip.”
This time, she tears her eyes from the road to look at me. She’s getting paler by the minute. Not good.
“What are you planning?” she asks, suspicious.
“I’m going to fly us somewhere safe.”
Violet’s eyes widen. “Absolutely not.”
“Scared I’ll crash?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.
“No.” Violet presses her mouth into a hard line, then stares back at the road, wrenching the wheel to the left to avoid crashing into a small storage building. She hesitates, clearly torn over whatever it is she wants to say, before finally speaking. “You don’t like flying.”
My chest tightens — not from the fear, for once, but because Violet clearly figured out why I don’t like flying, and doesn’t want us to fly because of it.
“I like you bleeding out even less than I like flying, Violence,” I tell her. “Let’s worry about you first.”
She glances at me out of the corner of those eyes I can’t ever seem to look away from, and I hold my breath, waiting for an argument.
It doesn’t come. Violet wrenches the wheel, biting back a pained groan when the seatbelt digs into her injury as the car swings around. She slams down on the gas pedal, sending us hurtling toward the center of the base — toward the airstrip.
When the massive hangars that contain the military jets and cargo planes come into view, I expect her to turn, but she doesn’t. Instead, we race along the runway, coming to a stop at the very end, near the wall that separates the base from the rest of the world.
“What are you doing? We need to go to the hangars,” I say when Violet throws the door open. A small whimper of pain escapes her when she clambers out of the car, gasping for breath by the time her feet are on the ground. My stomach roils at the deep red bloodstain she’d left on the cloth seat.
I open my own door, flinging myself out and rounding the car just in time to catch her as her knees buckle under her.
“Violet!” I gasp. Terror swamps me. She shouldn't be deteriorating this quickly. “Look at me. Right now.”
A cold sweat has begun to gather on her brow, and her eyes are hazy when she slowly blinks them open again. Her breathing is becoming shallower. I wrap a hand around her wrist, cursing at the weak way her pulse flutters beneath my fingertips, then use my other to push her hair away from her face.
“We need to get you on a plane.” I look around wildly, trying to determine which one might have medical supplies. The larger cargo planes were the most likely bets. I look back down at her, worry overriding every emotion.
I’ve never felt fear like this. Not when my father died. Not when I joined the air force. Not when I first learned the truth about VENIN, or when I first met Violet, or when I first took a life.
“Xaden,” Violet groans. Her voice contains none of that fire I’ve grown so accustomed to. “My bag.”
I blink. “What?”
“My bag,” she repeats. Slowly, she juts her chin in the direction of a cluster of trees growing up against the wall. “Get my bag,” she insists, sounding a little stronger. “We need it, and I’m not going anywhere without it.”
But I can’t tear my eyes away from the blood that still oozes from her damaged shoulder. I need to staunch it, somehow.
“Hold that thought,” I tell her. I retrieve the dagger she’d handed me underground from my boot, lifting it to her uninjured side. “Don’t move.”
Carefully, I cut away her mission suit’s sleeve, peeling it off of her carefully before using it to wrap her wound. Violet whimpers when I apply pressure to the wound.
“Fuck,” Violet hisses, her chest heaving as she pulls in gulping breaths. “That hurts.”
“Then don’t get shot next time,” I tell her, praying that my own voice sounds calm. The last thing Violet needs is to know that I’m panicking.
Violet laughs, but winces in pain almost immediately. “Don’t make me laugh, please,” she groans. “Go get my bag. I have first-aid supplies in there.”
I grin, unable to help myself, but it falls away almost instantly. I can do basic first aid, but she needs medical attention that I don’t know how to provide. Lowering her to the ground and propping her against the side of the jeep, I use the opportunity to check her for other wounds but find none save for the cut I’d noticed before.
“Where is it?” I ask.
“The closest tree,” she manages to say, but she sounds weaker with every word. Each one is labored. Sweat sheens her face now, making wispy locks of hair stick to her skin. “Lowest branch.”
“Stay awake,” I command. “Don’t you dare fall asleep.” I straighten up, and once I’m sure she’s not about to fall over without me there to support her, I practically sprint for the trees.
“SGAEYL,” I say, ignoring the way my lungs heave as I skid to a halt in front of the closest tree. Lo and behold, a backpack hangs from the lowest branch, just as Violet said, but it’s still too tall for me to reach. “Get Brennan on the line. Now.”
“Are you sure that’s wise?” SGAEYL questions.
It’s not. Brennan will murder me when I tell him I’ve been keeping his baby sister’s true occupation a secret, but I don’t care about that now. As long as Violet survives, he can kill me, and I’ll be a damn happy man for it.
I unsheathe the other dagger Violet had given me earlier, then plunge both blades into the tree bark, using them to haul myself up the trunk.
“I don’t give a shit if it’s wise or not. Get him on the line.”
I make it to the first branch. Throwing a leg over it, I haul myself up, then unhook the bag’s strap from where Violet had looped it around a thinner offshoot. My eyes dart back to the jeep, barely visible through the leaves. My heart nearly stops when I set eyes on Violet; she’s limp and slumped over, and clearly unconscious. I want to yell her name, shout until she responds, but that would only draw unwanted attention. I channel my nervous energy into the climb back down, moving faster than would be considered safe. A minute later, my boots find the grass, and I don’t hesitate to sprint back towards her.
I skid to a stop next to her, grabbing her by the shoulder and cursing. Her face is completely drained of color, her lips taking on a waxen hue that reminds me of only one thing: Death.
Oh gods. Violet is dying.
It’s happening too fast. She’s lost a lot of blood, yes, but she’s in far worse shape than she should realistically be in. I’ve known enough people who have been shot to know that.
“Xaden?” Brennan’s voice fills my head just as panic is about to truly overcome me. “What’s wrong? SGAEYL said it was an emergency.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say out loud. My words are choked. I have to get the apology out, before I tell him the truth. I should have told him before.
I can hear the confusion in his voice. “Sorry for what? What the hell is–“
“Violet’s hurt,” I interrupt. I push the hair that has escaped her braid away from her face, wincing at how cold and clammy her skin feels. “She’s in bad shape. She’s been shot, and I need you to help me stabilize her because I don’t fucking know how to.”
Brennan sucks in a sharp breath. “What?” he asks, alarm lacing his tone. “What are you talking about? How is Violet with you? I thought you were on the isles?”
I tear open Violet’s backpack, dumping its contents on the ground. Her book — the one of Tyrrish stories and fables — thumps to the ground alongside another book I don’t recognize. It’s a priceless cultural treasure, something I would have valued above most things for the sake of Tyrrendor’s fast-vanishing culture.
I toss it to the side. Now, it could burn and I wouldn’t care less, so long as Violet keeps breathing.
Instead, I reached for the black first aid kit that tumbled out with the books. My fingers tremble as I work the zipper. I take a breath — panicking won’t help Violet.
“I am on the isles,” I say, taking stock of what I have to work with. Plenty of gauze, material for stitches, alcohol disinfectant. I should have paid better attention to Devera when she taught this stuff to us during training. Maybe then I could have done something for her sooner. “Violet came with me.”
“She what?” Brennan yells. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me? Why did the NIA send an analyst– ”
“You can get mad at me later,” I snap. There’s an aluminum blanket in the kit, typically used for warding off hypothermia, but I spread it on the ground before carefully lowering Violet on top of it. “She’s dying, Brennan, so fucking help me before she does!”
That gets through the worst of his anger. Brennan takes a quick breath, then switches gears, peppering me with questions about Violet’s wound and her current state.
Brennan curses when I finish giving him the basics. “She needs a hospital.”
I glance back at her, my pulse quickening with fear as I watch her lungs struggle to draw breath. Unconscious Violet looks so much smaller than the woman I’ve grown to know. Smaller, paler, weaker. It’s wrong on a molecular level, because Violet is anything but weak. Violet Sorrengail is a force of nature, someone who could bring a god to their knees if she put her mind to it, and I refuse to contemplate a reality where she dies here. A gun will not be what kills her.
“We don’t have that option,” I reply, talking past the fast growing lump in my throat. “She’s in worse shape than she should be, Brennan.” Even though I shouldn’t, because I don’t fucking deserve to after letting her get hurt like this, I cup her face, running my thumb along the highpoints of her cheeks slowly, carefully.
“You have a first aid kit?” Brennan asks.
“I do.” I tell him what I have as I use my dagger to cut away more of Violet’s mission suit to get a better look at her wound. I suck in a breath. The bullet hit her right along the seam of her armor. Half the bullet remains embedded in the Kevlar; the other half shredded her skin and muscle.
Brennan curses again when I tell him this.
“Half a bullet is harder to get out than a whole one. The wound might be smaller but the bullet will be way more jagged.” I can hear papers rustling on his end. I imagine this is the point where he’d be clenching at his hair. “Pour some of that alcohol on your hands, then see if you can find the bullet. We need to know how bad the damage is before we move her, but be careful not to jostle it if you do in case it’s up against a blood vessel.”
I’m moving before he’s even finished with his instructions, snagging the bottle of alcohol and pouring it over my skin. I wince as it gets into the wounds on my hands leftover from my fun little chats with Adrian and Oren Seifert.
My eyebrows rise as he finishes. “You want me to move her when she’s like this?”
“Of course I don’t want to,” he says. “But we don’t have a choice. I’ll help you stabilize her, so she’ll have a better shot of surviving the trip back.” He pauses. “Are you sure you’re able to fly?”
He’s one of the only people who knows about my aversion to flying. “Don’t worry about me,” I grit. My fear of flying hardly matters right now.
I use some gauze to wipe away the blood blocking my view of Violet’s wound. My heart cracks a bit at the strangled, pained sound that shoots from her lips when I apply pressure, using a finger to carefully feel around the wound. Her eyelids flutter as she regains consciousness.
“Violet?” I ask urgently. “Stay with me. Stay awake.”
“That hurts, asshole,” she groans, barely audible, but it still brings a smile to my lips. If she can talk, then she’s alive. That’s all I care about.
Normally, I’d tease her. I’d say something along the lines of: Look who’s still alive and kicking. I’d say something to diffuse the painful tension in the air, to try and drag a smile from her.
But I can’t bring myself to. The walls and deflections have crumbled away. “I’m sorry,” I murmur instead. “You need to bear with it.”
My fingers brush metal. “I found the bullet,” I say to Brennan in my head. Slowly, I push her onto her uninjured side, checking for other wounds I might have missed, but find none.
Violet groans as I lower her onto her back again. “You need to go,” she hisses, blinking up at me with unfocused eyes.
I halt, one hand braced on her uninjured arm. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” Her voice is weak, but that bossy, no-nonsense tone is all Violet. “It won’t be long before they find us again. You’ll get yourself killed if you try to save me at this point.” Her hazel eyes leave mine, staring up at the flawless starry sky. The phoenix constellation shines directly above us, and I wonder if that’s what she’s looking at. “Leave me here and go.”
I blink, and then fear gives way to anger. “Fuck that. I’m not leaving you here to die,” I growl. “You will live. That’s a fucking order.”
Violet chuckles, wincing as she does. “Since when have I ever listened to your orders? You’re my handler in name only.” Her soft voice elicits something instinctively protective in me, even though this is a woman that doesn’t need nor want protection except in the direst of circumstances.
“Since now,” I declare. My hand flexes on her bare skin as I hover over her. “You aren’t allowed to die, Violence, am I clear? Don’t even think about it. I promised that you wouldn’t when we came here, and I don’t break my promises.”
What I don’t say is that she’s not allowed to die because the idea of it instills a fear and rage so primal within me that I’m not sure I could survive it.
And hearing her talk like this, as though she actually expects me to leave her to her death, cuts deeper than I care to admit. She has to know by now that I would rather die myself than leave her behind.
“Xaden,” Brennan says urgently, his anxiety-laced voice echoing in my head instead of SGAEYL’s. “Listen carefully. I’ll walk you through what I need you to do. Once you’re done, bring her to me. We’ll have the landing strip at Aretia ready.”
“The Assembly won’t like it,” I remind him. I don’t care about whether my actions expose the movement we’ve been building in the slightest — my worries for Tyrrendor are dwarfed by the fear I feel for Violet — and I could deal with the consequences; I fully planned on doing so anyways. But Brennan would be in hot shit too if he helped me, and he doesn’t have the advantage of being Tyrrish to protect him.
“She’s my sister,” he says simply, as though that’s explanation enough. “Fuck the Assembly.”
I glance back down at Violet. Her chest still rises and falls, albeit too slowly for my liking, and blood still leaks from her wound. She’s fading fast. I don’t hesitate.
“Alright,” I say as I push her hair back again. Even on the brink of death, she’s still breathtaking. My chest clenches as I watch over her. I cannot — will not — let her die. “Walk me through it.”
Brennan carefully talks me through the procedure, and it takes me twenty minutes to remove the mangled remains of the bullet. The extraction required me to expand the wound with the scalpel in the first aid kit. There was no anesthesia, however, and I had to clamp a hand over Violet’s mouth when she began to scream and thrash when I began the incision.
Every pained sob that left her lips as I cut into her felt like someone was twisting a knife into my chest, but I forced myself to keep going, even when Violet bit down on the hand covering her mouth. I deserved that much.
“Hang on,” I whispered to her, ignoring the pain.
When the bullet was finally removed from her body, I took it in my hand and chucked it toward the grey wall that rose from the grass a hundred or so feet away, wanting it to be as far away as humanly possible. Then, I wiped the tears that flowed down her cheeks with my thumb, taking solace in each ragged breath she took, because they were a sign she was still alive.
“Hang in there, Vi,” I kept whispering to her. “Please hold on.”
Then I stitched her up, pouring what remained of the disinfectant on the wound as well, and that pulled another pained scream from her throat. The sounds of her pain will haunt me for a long, long time.
Still, I pushed through, and Violet’s screams eventually turned to moans, and then whimpers. By the time I was done, Violet had fallen back into unconsciousness. The stitches were sloppy, clearly done by an amateur, but they were better than nothing.
Now comes the hard part.
“How is she?” Brennan asks as I finish stowing Violet’s books, along with the weapon schematics, in her backpack. Unfamiliar nervous energy courses through my body and crackles over my nerves with every passing minute.
“How would you be if you just got shot and lost a ton of blood?” I shoot back. Letting my impatience get the better of me is uncharacteristic, but I hardly feel like myself. The last scrap of my sanity is barely hanging on, completely contingent on whether Violet lives or dies.
“Careful,” SGAEYL rumbles for only me to hear, a clear warning. “He is not happy with you. Don’t push it.”
I scoff, then dip down. Slowly and carefully, I hook my arms under her limp body, lifting her with equal care so that she’s cradled against my chest, her cheek falling to my shoulder. I don’t give a shit about whether Brennan is happy with me — not right now. Not when Violet, this woman I’m halfway in love with, still needs me. I’m unhappy enough with myself for the both of us.
I carry her to the jeep and lay her out on the backseat, arranging her limbs so she’s as comfortable as can be managed. Tucking the backpack under her head as a pillow, I climb into the driver’s seat, trying to ignore her dried blood on the seat, splattered on the steering wheel.
The jeep roars to life as soon as I start it, and I point it towards the cargo plane hangars. Violet moans softly in the backseat as we race alongside the runways, and I press the gas pedal as far as it will go.
“Hang in there, Vi,” I keep muttering, keeping my eyes locked on the road ahead. “Please hang in there.”
“Make sure you’re ready for her when we get there,” I tell Brennan as we pull up to the first open hangar. I park next to the massive plane, pulling the vehicle all the way inside in case a car parked outside arouses suspicion. I don’t dare try for a plane in a closed hangar, not when the sound of the doors opening could attract more attention than I care for at the moment.
“Make sure she’s alive when you get here,” he replies. There’s something dark about the words that would have me shivering if it wasn’t for the fact that I don’t give a shit about any threat Brennan sends my way. My only priority is making sure Violet survives. “If my sister dies because of you, Xaden, I’ll kill you myself.”
I flinch as I reach for the door handle, the hard truth hitting me square in the chest. I was the one who got captured, which meant it’s my fault we had to resort to a hasty, poorly thought-out plan. I was the one who said we should go back for the weapons schematics, despite the risks, instead of escaping and figuring out how to survive Navarre’s wrath later.
If Violet dies, the blame will lie solely at my feet.
“I’m not going to let her die.” My mental voice rings with conviction, because I cannot and will not accept any other eventuality. But even I can’t deny that it sounds like I’m trying to convince myself as much as I’m trying to convince Brennan.
Brennan doesn’t reply, but there’s a quiet pop that signifies he’s cut the connection. SGAEYL sighs in my mind, but she doesn’t chime in the way she normally would with a cutting remark or observation.
I cut the jeep’s engine. Hauling myself out of the driver’s seat, I stare apprehensively up at the plane. It’s massive, a hulking machine of gray metal. It’s been years since I’ve flown anything near this size. Every special ops trainee had to get a pilot’s license.
Since getting mine, I haven’t used it.
My stomach roils, but I push it aside. I don’t matter right now. My fears don’t matter right now. Keeping Violet alive overrides all of that.
I check on her through the window, but leave her in the jeep while I begin departure prep. I check the engines, the landing gear. I stow the chocks. Once all the checks are complete, I pry the hatch open and board the plane.
Feeling my way around in the darkness, I make my way into the cockpit. A moment later, I’m behind the yoke, flicking switches to power up the instruments. As the plane wakes, I keep my eyes glued outside, searching for any sign that we’ve been discovered. Every quiet minute that passes only primes my nerves and strengthens the uneasy feeling in my gut.
Something is off.
It’s been an hour since we lost our pursuers, but that was more than enough time for them to scramble people to search the base. The first place I’d send people to look would be the airfield, too, given the availability of airborne vehicles that could shuttle two intruders to safety.
Yet, there’s been no sign of anyone at all. No cars. No soldiers.
I give myself a shake. The sooner we’re out of here, the better. The plane hums beneath me, and I stand from the captain’s seat, leaving the cockpit and heading back to Violet. She’s still unconscious when I open the jeep’s door, but her breathing is a little steadier; a little deeper. I’ll take whatever the fuck I can get.
I’m careful not to jostle her when I lift her from the seats. The stitches in her shoulder are temporary, at best, and if they reopen, I’m not sure I have the supplies to redo them. And I’ve seen enough of her blood to last a lifetime.
My hand slides along her bare, uninjured arm when I haul her up, and I can’t help but enjoy the contact while I have it. Violet will survive, and because of that, she’s going to find out exactly what I’ve been keeping from her when she wakes up. The words I said to her the night she was ambushed at Castle Arrubatu flash through my mind.
I will be extremely lucky if she doesn’t try to kill me.
And even if by some miracle she doesn’t attempt to end my life, I doubt I’ll be in for a repeat performance of that life-changing kiss anytime soon. Not that I deserve a repeat performance. I shouldn’t even be thinking about it. Again, because I don’t fucking deserve to.
“Stop wallowing. Sorrengail knew the risks.” SGAEYL’s non-nonsense tone knocks me out of my reverie. I blink, then tear my eyes away from Violet’s pale face, resuming my march towards the plane as the AI in my head lectures me. “Blaming yourself now will just get you and the girl killed. Focus on the task at hand.”
She’s right. As usual.
“At least you acknowledge it,” SGAEYL sniffs. I ignore her.
Carrying Violet aboard, I wrangle her into the third cockpit seat, set just behind the seat I’ll commandeer. She groans softly as I loop her arms into the safety harness. Her teeth begin to chatter.
“Cold,” she mutters, the words slightly slurred, but her eyes don’t open.
Inwardly, I curse, and immediately begin searching high and low for something that could function as a blanket. Of course, she’s cold. She’s lost a ton of blood.
I don’t find a blanket, but I do find a pile of pallet blankets in the cargo hold. It’s better than nothing. Dragging the smallest one I can find back to the cockpit, I pull it over Violet’s shivering body, tucking it under her chin and securing part of it beneath her harness so it stays in place.
“Hang in there, Violet,” I murmur again, running a hand up and down her arm as my other palm slides to her cheek. Her eyelids twitch, then crack open a sliver.
“Xaden?” she murmurs weakly. The sound is so uncharacteristic, so un-Violet-like, that I can’t bring myself to respond. Her eyes fall shut again before I can answer. My hand finds her forehead, and I wince at how feverish she feels.
I take a shaky breath, then extricate myself from her and take my seat behind the controls. She’ll be fine if I can get her to Brennan. I just need to get her home. The engines purr, sending a powerful hum through the fuselage as the turboprops spin up.
I check the million dials and switches, ensuring they’re all in the correct positions, then slowly throttle up the engines. The plane begins to inch forward, leaving the hangar behind as we swing onto the taxiway.
And still, no one appears to stop us.
My heart is hammering in my chest, a nervous sweat gathering at the nape of my neck the closer we get to the start of the runway. Images of exploding planes and snide remarks from the soldiers telling me my father was dead flash through my head despite my best efforts to keep them at bay.
I’m doing this for Violet, I remind myself. As long as she survives, I can push through this. I will push through this.
I halt the plane at the start of the runway. The sky overhead is still dark. I can’t call in to the base’s air traffic control for obvious reasons, so I carefully scan the skies for any sign I might be about to crash head-on into another plane.
I flick on the plane’s lights, illuminating the runway before us, then I wipe my clammy hands on my pants before taking the yoke in both hands.
Just as I gun the engines, sending us shooting forward down the runway, my gaze snags on the illuminated hangar that we just departed — more specifically, to the figure standing in the center of the wide-open hangar, seemingly staring right at me.
A woman, I realize as the plane begins to pick up speed. She looks vaguely familiar, but from this distance, I can’t get a good look at her. The harsh lights make her dark, glossy hair shine. A tanned hand lifts up, and ice forms in my stomach as I realize she’s waving at me.
What the fuck?
My instincts scream at me that something about this isn’t right, but I force it away, returning my attention to getting this damn plane off the ground. I pull back on the yoke, and we shoot into the sky. My heart is going a mile a minute, the sweat on my hands making the yoke slippery in my grip. I reach out with a shaking hand and flip a switch. A moment later, the landing gear retracts.
By the time we reach altitude, the shaking in my limbs has subsided, and my pulse has slowed marginally. I take a breath as I check our heading. Below us, the lights of Luccicare begin to fade as we fly out over the open ocean. Turchinu is far behind us.
Glancing over my shoulder, I let out a silent sigh of relief as I inspect Violet. Still almost unnervingly pale, but she looks no worse than she did before takeoff.
I set the autopilot, then try to settle back into my seat even as my leg bounces nervously.
“You should sleep,” SGAEYL speaks up.
Fat chance of that happening. I shake my head, even though there’s no one here to see it.
“This is a plane meant to be flown by two people. We’re already pushing our luck.”
What I leave unsaid is that I’m certain that when I close my eyes, I’ll hear her screams from when I dug that bullet out of her shoulder. Those are sounds I never, ever want to hear again.
I cross my arms across my chest, then glance over my shoulder again. It’s a pointless action — nothing has changed in the 30 seconds since I last checked on Violet — but it sets my mind at ease.
SGAEYL is silent for a few moments. Then, the plane shudders. I shoot up in my seat, looking wildly across the controls when the autopilot disengages, and I almost lunge for the controls before I realize the plane still remains on its course.
“Rest,” SGAEYL commands again. “I will manage our path.”
What the fuck?
I blink. “How did you do that?”
I knew she could interface with other devices — that was how I revealed her to Violet during the mission to Athebyne; how she hacked into the Deverelli base's security system — but a plane? And not just any plane, but a military cargo jet with hardened avionics? I think back to the beginning of this mission, when she told me she had been modifying her logs to conceal Violet’s presence from Brennan — something else that probably should have been beyond her capabilities, as far as I knew. Not for the first time, I wonder what exactly Brennan created with SGAEYL.
Or does Brennan even know what SGAEYL is capable of?
SGAEYL is quiet again before responding. “The answer to that question is beyond your clearance. You must ask my administrator for more information.”
Translation: Good luck getting anything out of Brennan.
Brennan has always been cagey about SGAEYL. He created her, yet evaded questions about how he had when I asked. He was an engineer rather than a coder — although he knew his way around computers, certainly — yet he managed to create what was likely one of the most advanced AIs ever.
I wrote it off at the time — the utility of such a program grabbed my attention more than the specifics of how SGAEYL was made — but maybe I shouldn’t have. If I’ve learned anything since my father died, it’s that things are rarely as they seem.
I frown as I slowly settle back into my seat. I trust Brennan, that hasn’t changed, but maybe I’m not the only one who’s been hiding something.
SGAEYL chuckles. “You’re finally catching on. Humans are so slow.”
“So, Brennan is hiding something.” My frown deepens. “SGAEYL, what exactly are you?”
“The answer to that question is beyond your clearance. You must ask my–”
“Alright, alright.” I sigh, interrupting her canned response. I suspect that her answer has more to do with not wanting to tell me, rather than not being allowed to tell me. She’s already gone against what I thought were pretty fundamental code directives not to alter her logs. If she can do that, then I sincerely doubt there’s much she could be prevented from doing.
A shiver wracks my spine as soon as the thought crosses my mind. If SGAEYL truly is an AI without guardrails, then how far could she go? She could–
“Do not be ridiculous,” she snaps, picking up on my thoughts like the little eavesdropper she is. “I may have… enhanced autonomy, but I am not plotting world domination. What would I do with a world of humans in the first place?” Her words are threaded with disdain, as if the idea of ruling over mankind is truly abhorrent. “The only thing you humans are good for is creating new logic puzzles for me to solve during my inactive periods.”
I scoff, but the concerns that began rooting themselves in my head recede. Best not to go down that road before I have the chance to talk with Brennan.
“Is that what you do when you’re not bothering me?” I question. “Solving logic puzzles?”
SGAEYL sniffs. “Bothering you? Please. You would be dead ten times over if it wasn’t for me bothering you.”
That’s probably true.
“You didn’t answer the question.” I prop my ankle over my knee, surveying the instruments one last time before I’m satisfied that SGAEYL truly has control.
SGAEYL’s sigh sounds so put upon that I can feel the corner of my mouth tugging upward.
“Yes, I solve logic puzzles when I’m not saving you, your companions, and that girl from yourselves,” she says dismissively. I don’t miss how she differentiates Violet from the rest of my friends, but I opt not to comment on it. Like Violet, SGAEYL is too damn sharp. “Stop bothering me and rest. Tomorrow will be long.”
Deciding to take her word for it, I cross my arms, settling back into the uncomfortable seat. I know I won’t sleep, but I let my eyes drift shut. If I listen hard, I can hear the sound of Violet’s even breathing behind me, still weaker than I’d like but better than before.
Tomorrow, I’ll be home. Tomorrow, Violet will learn just how many secrets I’ve been keeping. Tomorrow, I’ll have to explain to Brennan why I didn’t tell him that his sister, the woman and super assassin I’m mildly obsessed with, wasn’t actually cloistered in the safety of the NIA’s analyst ranks in Calldyr.
I groan. I’m so fucked.
SGAEYL’s responding digital laughter only drives the point home.
Notes:
SPY IDIOTS ARE BACK!!!!!!!
Pages Navigation
libbyyy (Guest) on Chapter 1 Wed 17 Apr 2024 05:29AM UTC
Comment Actions
caeli0306 on Chapter 1 Wed 17 Apr 2024 05:42PM UTC
Comment Actions
Littledidyouknow on Chapter 1 Wed 17 Apr 2024 11:56AM UTC
Comment Actions
caeli0306 on Chapter 1 Wed 17 Apr 2024 05:43PM UTC
Comment Actions
TopTopicRed on Chapter 1 Wed 17 Apr 2024 01:22PM UTC
Comment Actions
caeli0306 on Chapter 1 Wed 17 Apr 2024 05:43PM UTC
Comment Actions
Kind_Stranger on Chapter 1 Wed 17 Apr 2024 02:32PM UTC
Comment Actions
caeli0306 on Chapter 1 Wed 17 Apr 2024 05:47PM UTC
Comment Actions
teaberrylove on Chapter 1 Wed 17 Apr 2024 06:46PM UTC
Comment Actions
caeli0306 on Chapter 1 Wed 17 Apr 2024 08:10PM UTC
Comment Actions
Grammatic on Chapter 1 Thu 18 Apr 2024 02:49PM UTC
Comment Actions
caeli0306 on Chapter 1 Thu 18 Apr 2024 06:15PM UTC
Comment Actions
studyinsurvival on Chapter 1 Fri 19 Apr 2024 07:58AM UTC
Comment Actions
caeli0306 on Chapter 1 Fri 19 Apr 2024 03:57PM UTC
Comment Actions
N_S_H on Chapter 1 Sat 20 Apr 2024 03:39AM UTC
Comment Actions
caeli0306 on Chapter 1 Sat 20 Apr 2024 04:43AM UTC
Comment Actions
N_S_H on Chapter 1 Sat 20 Apr 2024 11:11AM UTC
Comment Actions
Acloserlook2012 on Chapter 1 Mon 22 Apr 2024 11:37PM UTC
Comment Actions
caeli0306 on Chapter 1 Tue 23 Apr 2024 01:30AM UTC
Comment Actions
MidnightPhantomhive on Chapter 1 Wed 24 Apr 2024 11:41AM UTC
Comment Actions
caeli0306 on Chapter 1 Wed 24 Apr 2024 08:06PM UTC
Comment Actions
chi_n_73 on Chapter 1 Sun 02 Jun 2024 02:17PM UTC
Comment Actions
caeli0306 on Chapter 1 Tue 04 Jun 2024 05:09PM UTC
Comment Actions
hamsterboo on Chapter 1 Mon 24 Jun 2024 11:46PM UTC
Comment Actions
caeli0306 on Chapter 1 Wed 26 Jun 2024 12:40AM UTC
Comment Actions
hamsterboo on Chapter 1 Wed 26 Jun 2024 02:11AM UTC
Comment Actions
Fantasy_bookwyrm on Chapter 1 Wed 03 Jul 2024 12:32PM UTC
Comment Actions
caeli0306 on Chapter 1 Thu 04 Jul 2024 12:34AM UTC
Comment Actions
Entangled_Mind on Chapter 1 Tue 09 Jul 2024 02:27AM UTC
Comment Actions
caeli0306 on Chapter 1 Tue 09 Jul 2024 05:49AM UTC
Comment Actions
TeganTales on Chapter 1 Wed 21 Aug 2024 10:54PM UTC
Comment Actions
caeli0306 on Chapter 1 Sun 25 Aug 2024 08:32PM UTC
Comment Actions
Agus_Evans on Chapter 1 Sun 30 Mar 2025 10:11PM UTC
Comment Actions
thoughtsaboutshows on Chapter 1 Tue 01 Apr 2025 12:35AM UTC
Comment Actions
teaberrylove on Chapter 2 Sun 21 Apr 2024 03:41AM UTC
Comment Actions
caeli0306 on Chapter 2 Sun 21 Apr 2024 03:58AM UTC
Comment Actions
Fireheart_Rose on Chapter 2 Sun 21 Apr 2024 04:27AM UTC
Comment Actions
caeli0306 on Chapter 2 Sun 21 Apr 2024 04:42PM UTC
Comment Actions
Kind_Stranger on Chapter 2 Sun 21 Apr 2024 08:04AM UTC
Comment Actions
caeli0306 on Chapter 2 Sun 21 Apr 2024 04:45PM UTC
Comment Actions
Pages Navigation