Chapter Text
Bodhi disappears behind the treeline.
“Xaden, this doesn’t feel right to me.”
My breath fogs up the window as I wait for his reply.
“He must have information."
I try to spot Bodhi in the trees, but I can't see him through the foliage and mist. “He wasn’t walking like he was in a hurry.”
“Maybe he’s hurt.” Another hypothetical to avoid what might be the terrible truth.
“Then why not get his dragon to talk to Sgaeyl?”
I feel Xaden's confidence waver across the bond. “He must have a reason.”
“Xaden—”
“Violence, I know you’re worried, but he’s my family. Do you realize what you’re insinuating?”
What am I insinuating? That Bodhi is working with the enemy?
Maybe there is some other explanation. Some reason as to why Bodhi is on his way to the wardstone — the one thing we need to defend from the venin at all costs — without telling his Commander that he's on his way. But there’s something else that’s been nagging at me since last night— a pulled thread I’ve been itching to tug. “Did Bodhi ever tell you about what he dog-eared in that book?”
Xaden's answering silence tells me everything I need to know. “So he’s been hiding information.”
“He obviously didn’t believe it was relevant.”
“He marked the page, Xaden. He obviously thought it was relevant.”
“Stop.” His mental voice is harsh. So unlike the tone he’s taken to using with me that I nearly flinch. “When Bodhi arrives, I’ll find out what he wants, and until then, I need to focus.” Xaden closes his mind to me, and I’m left reeling alone with my thoughts on the staircase.
Green Eyes, the other Handmaiden, and her lady’s maid finally catch up. “Can you make sure she gets to the healer?” I ask Green Eyes as the three women pass.
Confusion pinches her brows, “Where are you going?”
I'm already running down the steps. Xaden is in danger, whether he believes it or not, and by refusing to accept it, he's only putting himself at a greater risk.
My shoes slide on the polished stone floor as I stumble through the kitchen, taking hurried steps between the countertops and out the door. As soon as my feet strike earth, it hits me —away from the protection of the stone in the crypt, I’m entirely at the mercy of the venin. They could drain me before I even knew they were near. My mind starts swimming with images of Jack channelling on that fateful day. It was so impossibly fast.
No time to waste then.
I pull a dagger from my thigh and hold it by the pommel, blade facing upwards, to conceal it from sight. The sounds of battle meet my ears across the grounds. Dragons roaring overhead and swords clanging in the distance like a metal thunderstorm. Shouts of pain. Cries of horror — sounds I never thought I’d hear spending a lifetime in the archives.
Danger nips at my heels and anxiety claws at my throat. I pick up my pace and run at a sprint. I know this path by heart. Can place every stone and snag in the earth. Even still, the rough terrain is a deathtrap, and I roll my ankle before I make it up the first incline. Pain rips through me, but I continue as fast as I can, putting as little weight on the joint as possible and ignoring the ache that threatens to pull me under.
I crest another hill, and the wardstone chamber is finally in sight. Outside the entrance, a figure looms over a body prone on the ground. For a heart-stopping second, I think the standing figure is Xaden, and I nearly collapse in relief, but as I get close, I realize it’s one again Bodhi.
And he’s standing over a dead guard.
I falter, and Bodhi's head whips around to face me. “What are you doing here?” He demands, his voice hoarse.
My eyes remain trained on the guard lying lifeless on the ground. A thick current of deep red blood pours from his throat, and there’s another wound on his abdomen where it appears someone stuck a knife beneath his armour. “What happened to him?” My eyes lift to Bodhi, and I find him considering me.
“Looks like he died.”
If I thought Xaden wore a stone mask, Bodhi’s mask is made of rock from the barrens — entirely void.
“If that was a venin, we should go inside to help Xaden.” The words leave my mouth like they’re being dragged in a body bag.
Bodhi narrows his gaze, “You don't have to worry about Xaden anymore.” He wipes a dagger on his pants, spreading blood over the leather.
Blood.
My head starts thrumming as my thoughts try to catch up with what I’m seeing. Moments ago, I was trying to convince Xaden of this very danger, but now that the reality is in front of me, it’s like my brain doesn’t want to accept it as a possibility, let alone the truth.
Time slows to heartbeats as I lift my gaze to his face. The pale morning light illuminates his brown eyes. And then I see it — the red around his irises.
He smiles, "And now you see me for who I really am.”
I take a trembling step back, putting entirely too much weight on my rolled ankle, and pain whips up my calf.
Fuck.
Xaden's shadows are stronger in my mental archives now — he's close, likely just inside the wardstone chamber. I brush against his shields, requesting entry, and despite shutting me out earlier, his mind opens to me readily.
But how do I even go about revealing what I’ve just learned?
“Violence? Please tell me why you’re not in the house where I left you?”
Bodhi sheathes his dagger at his hip and stalks toward me with a lethal calm.
“Remember how I was suspicious of Bodhi? " I swallow thickly. "He’s venin.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
I need to buy myself time while he catches up. Fortunately, it isn't hard to make myself look fearful and desperate, given that I am both fearful and desperate. "Bodhi, please, just let me pass, and we can forget all about this.”
He clucks his tongue. "You know I can’t let you do that.” He cocks his head like a cat sizing up a mouse. "What are you doing here anyway?"
"Violence, what the fuck is going on?"
Time to change tactics. I narrow my eyes at Bodhi, mustering as much bravado as I can. “Stopping a fucking traitor.”
He laughs. “No, no, no, you’ve got it all wrong, Violence, I am the one with Tyrrendor’s best interests at heart.”
“Somehow, I doubt that.”
"Doubt me all you want. You wouldn't be the first. You can all watch as I take what should have always been mine." Bodhi takes another step, and I limp backwards, my ankle throbbing. “It was useless in his hands — the powers, the lands, the women — he has squandered it all.” " Bodhi’s oily gaze rakes over me. "And now it will be mine."
“No.” I retreat another step, but my ankle finally gives out, and I crash into the hard earth, my dagger falling from my grasp.
Before I can reach for it, Bodhi’s shadow falls over me, and he pins the weapon beneath his boot. “You thought that about him once, too. Perhaps you’ll change your mind.” He leans down and grabs my dagger in one hand, the front of my dress in the other, and hauls me to my feet.
I try to push him away, but he fixes my arm against his chest, twisting it uncomfortably, and brings my own dagger to my throat.
Bodhi chuckles. “Nice of you to finally join us, cousin.”
Xaden steps out into the clearing, casting off the shadows of the tunnel like a cloak.
“This is going to be even better than I thought. You haven’t tried to read me in so long.” Bodhi says, and I can almost hear the sickening smile he must be wearing.
I stiffen. Read him?
"Oh, has he not told you about his little secret? I thought the two of you were thick as thieves." Xaden's eyes flare in panic with each word Bodhi speaks.
Bodhi tilts his head to whisper in my ear. “He has a second signet, didn't you know? Xaden can read minds."
My heart plummets into my stomach.
"That's enough, Bodhi," Xaden's glare is sharp enough to kill.
"He’s read you more times than your little brain can count.”
"You're lying." This can't be happening.
“Did you never wonder how he always manages to say just the right thing? To soothe your fears, to soften you, to make it right? He knows how to be exactly what you need because he’s reading you.”
"I said that's enough." Xaden is practically vibrating.
"And the funny thing is, he probably even warned you about that slime Aetos doing the same thing. He’s an intinnsic and a hypocrite. Isn't that just hilarious?” The words leave his mouth like something rancid.
Xaden stands at the entryway to the wardstone, shadows writhing at his feet. “Say it isn't true," Even in my mind, my voice sounds desperate.
His onyx eyes meet mine, and my heart sinks even further. All this time. All this fucking time, he could read my mind. I even asked him. And he lied.
"I can explain—"
A sob escapes me, and my throat bobs against the knife, stinging as the blade nicks my skin.
Bodhi releases my arm to lift his hand as if slicing the air and scoffs. “It’s one thing to think so little of me and my signet that you didn’t realize I’d sense when you were reading minds, but to be so arrogant as to think I wouldn’t counter your shadows?”
Bodhi can counter signets?
I can only think of a few reasons why someone might find themselves in need of a signet like that, and none of them are good.
He wraps his arm around my shoulders, still holding the knife to my throat. “Now, cousin, I'll make you a deal. If you submit willingly, I won’t harm a single silver hair on her head.” His tone says otherwise. It’s the lilt of someone who has imagined a myriad of ways in which he could harm all the hairs on my head. "If you don't, well, I think you know what will happen." Bodhi slides his hand from my shoulder to grope my breast.
Xaden’s eyes burn as they track the movement before flicking up to meet my gaze.
Caught between two evils, it's better to pick the devil you know. But did I ever really know him at all?
“Don’t,” I tell him. No matter the betrayal, Xaden can't submit to the venin.
“Do you know how to get out of that hold?” He asks.
“In a way that doesn’t also include getting out of life?”
“I’d really love it if we didn’t make jokes right now.”
"And I'd love to know you never lied to me, but here we are."
“Yes, do think about it.” Bodhi’s voice reverberates through my back, sending a chill down my spine.
A muscle tics in Xaden's jaw before his voice once again fills my mind. “You’re going to slowly lift your hands, then quickly grab his wrist and pull down as hard as you can. Keeping his wrist pinned to your chest so you control it, angle his hand away from you to avoid cutting your face. As you do that, you’ll duck under his arm and escape.”
Easy. Simple. Totally doable.
I swallow hard, and it causes the edge of the knife to scrape my throat again.
“I’m going to distract him, alright?" Xaden continues, "When it feels right to you, make your move, then run to the wardstone. Liam’s inside.”
I close my eyes with a steadying breath.
"I never lied to you, Violence."
I squeeze my eyes tight against the emotion rising in my throat. "Don't call me that."
There's a pause, and I feel us sliding back a million metaphorical steps.
"Ready?"
Was any of it real?
"Ready."
Xaden sets his gaze on Bodhi. “I should have known.”
“Typical," Bodhi replies, clearly already taking the bait.
“No, really. I should have known that you’d always want more.”
I slowly lift my arms.
“That no matter how much I trusted you, how much responsibility I gave you — how much freedom — it would never be enough because I gave it to you. You’d always want what I had, simply because it was mine.”
“I can do better for Tyrrendor.” Bodhi spits. “We should never be under the Crown’s thumb.”
“See, I don’t think you even care much about the Crown. I think you just hate the idea of being under my thumb.”
“Oh, I’ve never been under your thumb. You’ve always seen me as the scum beneath your shoe.”
“Such a complex you have, Bodhi. Tell me, did it make you feel powerful, stealing all that magic, just so you could try to take me down?”
I can feel Bodhi seething behind me, his breathing rapid. My hands hover just above his forearm, ready for my moment.
“And do you really think so little of me, cousin, that you believe I would need magic to best you?” Xaden lifts his sword and charges. I pull down on Bodhi’s wrist with as much strength as I can summon. Keeping his forearm pinned to my chest and angling it so he doesn’t have leverage, I duck under his elbow to escape.
Narrowly. So, so narrowly.
I heave all my remaining strength into shoving Bodhi away, only for him to barely sway beneath the force of my shove. No time to lament that. Time to run.
“I’m nearly there,” Tairn bellows through my mind.
Thank the Gods.
I take off toward the tunnel, but a stocky and familiar blond man with chilling blue eyes emerges from around the corner — Jack — and Bodhi shouts, "Get her!"
Shit, shit, shit. I turn toward the flight field, but my ankle is shot, and Jack grabs me by the elbow. He throws me to the ground, and my head smacks against a stone, causing pain to erupt through my skull like throbbing fire.
I try to sit up, but Jack comes down on me hard, driving his forearm onto my collarbone to hold me down. He brings a knife to my throat.
Not again.
His red eyes are alight with the promise of pain as he stares down at me. “On second thought, why drain your blood, when I could drain you instead?” He drops the knife on the ground.
No, no, no no. I thrash and buck my hips, trying to get my feet under me so I can thrust him off, but my ankle shrieks, and Jack is an immovable object above me. His palm settles firmly on my shoulder, and I feel the strength being sucked from me like a valve has been uncorked above my heart.
I clutch his wrist in my hand, trying desperately to pull his palm away from my skin. I manage to lift it, but his elbow is a fulcrum, and it digs into my other shoulder. A scream pulls free from my throat as I shrug away from the force.
Jack repositions so both of his hands bracket my shoulders. The sucking feeling begins anew, as if all the energy, joy, and fire within me is being leeched against my will. Like my soul is being sucked through a straw, or the floor on my life has fallen out from under me. Jack’s face breaks into a maniacal grin, his eyes alive in wild, terrifying ecstasy. I try to grab the dagger at my thigh, but he has me pinned, and I can’t reach.
I’m going to die. I’m going to die here in the grass. Drained by a venin. Alone.
“You will not die.” Tairn’s roars down our bond.
Not alone. Never alone again.
I use what little energy I have remaining to grab his wrists in a last-ditch attempt to remove his hands from my body. I put all my will into my palms. Direct all my energy into those points of contact, and I feel myself growing stronger, as though the well within me is being refilled after a long rain.
Jack’s face twists from glee into something darker. “What are you doing?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” I grit the words through clenched teeth, and his grip loosens, but not enough to allow me to move him. “Trying to get you the hell off me.”
He stares down at his hands, enraged. “How the fuck are you doing this?”
I don’t know what in Malek’s name he’s talking about, but with each second I spend trying to get him off me, I feel more and more electric. In this battle of wills, I will defeat him. My limbs are buzzing with a reckless energy that is spinning and crackling inside me.
The earth shakes as Tairn lands, and Jack’s head snaps up, wonder spreading across his features at the sight of my dragon. He’s practically salivating, and I know it’s at the promise of draining such a powerful creature. He crawls off me toward Tairn, who stands twenty feet away, so unthreatened by the venin at his feet that he doesn’t even bother growling.
Jack chuckles, “I was hoping we’d meet again.”
My hands are shaking with something like unspent adrenaline. I roll over to get to my feet, placing my tingling palms on the ground to lift myself up, but as I press up onto all fours, a flood of energy seeps through my arms, making them buckle. The grass sways beneath me despite the stagnant air. I feel delirious.
Jack’s head twists back toward me, shock scrunching his features into a coiled spring. He glances back and forth between Tairn and me as if torn, then continues his slow crawl toward the dragon.
“Tairn, go.”
“I will not leave you.” He replies in my mind, finally lowering his head to glower at Jack.
Jack only chuckles again, “What are you gonna do, burn me?”
“At least hover!"
Jack crawls even closer. Still, Tairn doesn’t move.
“Tairn, you have Sgaeyl to think about,” And Xaden. “I can’t let you sacrifice yourself."
“It is no sacrifice to remain with you until I meet my end, Silver One.”
Jack places his palms on the earth, ready to channel and in a dizzying panic, I rise to my feet. Wrestling with my dress to free the dagger at my thigh, I hobble toward him on my throbbing ankle. He either doesn't notice me coming or simply doesn't care. I've been entirely forgotten at the sight of a new and bigger conquest.
The earth begins to grey in expanding concentric circles beneath Jack's palms. With each labouring step, I feel like I’m going to pass out, but I finally make it close enough to leap onto his back and avoid the dying earth beneath me.
I grip his blond hair tightly in my fist and hope it fucking hurts. Yanking his head back, I expose his throat as I reach my weapon around to meet the soft flesh beneath his jaw.
This man wanted to kill me. He wanted to drain me and my dragon. This isn’t even the first time he tried.
So why am I hesitating?
I hear the clash of swords behind me as Xaden and Bodhi fight. There is no time to waste. I need to kill him.
But my moment of uncertainty is all Jack needs to jerk his head backwards. A sharp pain erupts through my face, and blood pours from my nose over my lips. Head swimming, I collapse to the ground.
“You fucking bitch.” Jack spits.
I failed them all. Halden was right. My mother was right. The Aunts were right.
I'm weak.
“Silver One! Rise!”
Tears swell behind my eyes.
“You couldn’t just stay down, could you?”
This is it.
Jack towers over me, even on his knees, so I see it when he starts to choke. When blood starts to pour from his mouth. When he looks down and notices the alloy-tipped arrow protruding from his chest.
I see it when Liam walks up behind him and slits his throat to end his misery.
I see Jack fall to the ground beside me.
And then it all goes black. Coming back in spurts. And interspersed with stretches of darkness.
I see Liam, cradling me, whispering words that sound like “Stay with me, Starshine.”
I see a figure that looks like Xaden, running toward me in a cloud of shadows.
I see his onyx eyes, latching onto me, looking more desperate than I’ve ever seen them.
And as I’m carried away, I see a single flower in a grassy field. Rising triumphant from a pool of blood.