Chapter Text
I will not die today.
I will save him.I will find him.
- Violet Sorrengail’s Personal Addendum to the Book of Brennan
✨ 🐉 ✨
Brennan’s gaze snaps to Imogen before slowly turning back to meet my eyes. He rubs his thumb along his chin before nodding his head.
“Okay. Your arm is broken and you clearly have some memory loss,” his eyes flick to Imogen again before adding, “likely from being concussed. Let’s get you inside and up to your bedroom where I can mend you.” He raises an eyebrow at Imogen. “You coming?”
I feel a wave of concern crash through the bond—the shimmering golden bond I thought I had lost. I try—and fail—not to think about the other bond that should be there. The bond that now feels empty when I reach for it. The shadows that no longer swirl in the upper corner of my mental Archives. “I’ll be okay. Brennan is just going to mend my arm,” I reassure Andarna as her scales flicker in the darkness to the right.
“I’ll be right outside your window.” Her scales blend in perfectly to the surrounding night sky so I don’t see when she launches, but I feel the downdraft from her wingbeats as she takes flight.
Brennan ducks his head in surprise and peers overhead for the source of the wind. “What the—”
“It’s just Andarna,” I reply, folding the parchment and shoving it back into my front pocket.
“Well that’s going to freak out the guards,” Brennan mutters, looking over his shoulder towards the guards flanking the door to Riorson House. “Why was she hiding?”
“She was protecting me. I heard what that rider… what was his name? Weilsen? I heard what he said and so did she.” I glance to where Weilsen is standing on the side of the gravel courtyard talking to one of the other riders.
“Let’s get you inside and mended. The Assembly is going to want to debrief you,” Brennan loudly declares before adding in a whisper, “I know your arm is broken… any other injuries I should know about?”
I mentally scan my body for other injuries and then shake my head. “I remember coming close to burnout fighting Theophanie, but I guess that was hours ago,” I murmur. “I must have recovered since then.”
“I need you to fake it, Vi. Pretend to collapse so that I can catch you and carry you inside,” he whispers. “If they realize it is just a broken arm, they are going to pull you right into the Assembly Room.”
I dip my chin in a short nod and let out a shaky breath. Brennan steps closer and I let my knees buckle with the weight of my heartbreak. Xaden is gone. My eyes flutter shut as Brennan catches me, scooping me into his arms and striding towards the entry doors to Riorson house—my house.
I hear the commotion of the interior spill out into the courtyard as the guards open the doors. The sound intensifies as we reach the hallway.
“Aisereigh!” I hear a female voice shout. Suri, maybe? “Is that Cadet Sorrengail? We need to debrief her immediately.”
“She needs to be mended first. She has multiple broken bones, a head injury, and she collapsed outside from a near burnout. You can debrief her when she’s ready,” Brennan retorts.
“Just because she’s your sister doesn’t mean she gets special treatment!” The female voice that I now realize is definitely Suri yells.
“Her Grace gets special treatment because she’s the Duchess. Now fuck off and let me mend my sister.”
“She’s the what?” Suri shrieks.
“Imogen, I need you to run interference and then meet us upstairs,” Brennan whispers.
“You just had to go and say she’s the Duchess didn’t you? For fuck’s sake. Fine,” Imogen grumbles. As I keep my eyes closed, I hear quick steps start to head away from us.
“Imogen,” Brennan practically shouts, “have the kitchen staff steep some arinmint in milk and then bring it upstairs to us. It has helped her heal in the past and hopefully it can help with her head injury since those can be tricky to mend.”
I feel Brennan shift his weight and start to climb the stairs to Xaden’s room—my room. No. Our room. He’ll be back. He’ll come back to me.
I feel Xaden’s wards brush across my skin like a caress as Brennan carries me into the room. He kicks the door closed behind us and sets me down on the bed. “Let me mend your arm and then you better start talking.” He tries, and fails, to give me the look that Mom always used to get us talking as kids. Mira is much better at it. Mira.
“How is Mira?” I demand, my anxiety leaking into my voice. “Is Teine okay?” I ask Andarna.
“He’s resting in the valley, protected by Marbh and Fann. Injured, but he’ll recover,” Andarna confirms.
“She’s alive. She’ll have a wicked scar and it will take her body time to fully recover. I could only mend the structures, not replace the blood that she lost, so her body will have to do that naturally.” He pauses to look me over again before adding, “No changing the subject.”
I let out a breath that I didn’t realize I was holding and shrug out of my flight jacket. Brennan gently takes my splinted left arm into his hands. He cuts away the supportive wrapping with a dagger and I wince as the bones shift. Brennan spreads his hands over my arm and heat envelops it. I clench my jaw against the pain as the mending starts, but it slowly lessens as the bones knit back together.
A minute later, Brennan drops his hands from my arm. “All mended,” he confirms. “Are you sure you don’t have any other injuries that need mending? Your left hand is also bandaged…”
“It’s fine. It’s just a cut from when my conduit shattered,” I say, shaking my head, but he picks up my hand anyway and cuts away the bandage. “Save your energy. I am sure there are others with worse injuries that need mending,” I insist, trying to pull my hand away, but he holds onto it and I feel the healing warmth spread across my palm.
His eyes are soft as he looks at me. “You’re my little sister. You’ll always get special treatment.”
A knock interrupts us and Imogen shouts, “Open up!” through the door.
As I pull Imogen through the wards, she mutters, “We’re going to need to re-do your wards.”
“What? Why?” I ask. She can’t possibly think…
“You’re kidding right?” She stares at me like I have two heads.
“No. No! Xaden would never hurt me.” I shake my head. Right?
“I agree with Imogen, Vi. He blacked out the entire city of Draithus and several miles around it. We can’t take any chances. I’ll have Mira strengthen the wards as soon as she’s awake.”
I move toward the desk, slumping into the chair as Imogen places the arinmint milk tea in front of me.
“Drink that,” Brennan orders. “It should help with your recovery from the near burnout even if it won’t end up helping get your memories back from your head trauma.” He arches an eyebrow at Imogen. “What is the last thing you remember?”
“I killed Theophanie. I remember stabbing her with—” I break off. Shit. The stone dagger. I need to talk to Aaric before I divulge that detail. “I remember stabbing her with a dagger and she desiccated in front of my eyes.”
“Where were you when this happened?” Brennan probes.
“North of Draithus,” I recount. “We were chasing Theophanie and her wyvern north of the city when we got caught up in a net and crashed—”
“A what? A net?” Imogen interrupts. “ Are you fucking kidding me?”
I shake my head. “We were so focused on Theophanie that we must have flown into a trap. We crashed into the mountainside and slid to a stop. I was able to get out from under the net and dismount. Tairn was struggling to get out of the net while I was on the ground, protecting him and trying to strike her with lightning, but she was too fast. She moved faster than my fucking lightning. It was only when Xaden’s shadows blacked out the area that I was able to use my lightning to distract her and get close enough to stab her with the dagger.”
“And you’re sure it was Xaden’s shadows? Is it possible the venin have another shadow wielder that we don’t know about?” Brennan asks.
“It was his shadows. I know what they feel like.”
“Fuck. That’s… that’s not something I needed to think about.” Brennan grimaces, shaking his head. “That must have been when he blacked out the city too. Reports are that the blackout spread from the south before engulfing the city and the Medaro Pass, stopping at the edge of the wards.”
“Trissa and Felix were still weaving the wards in Draithus when the shadows rolled over the city. The shadows were so thick that we couldn’t see anything and when they finally receded, wyvern carcasses littered the ground outside the city walls—their rune stones had been ripped clean out. They finished weaving the wards to protect Draithus right after the shadows receded.” Imogen recounts.
“My squad?” I look between Imogen and Brennan and my heart stutters when Brennan winces.
“What happened?” I demand, pinning Brennan with a glare.
“Aaric…” Brennan looks down at his hands before continuing, “Aaric’s missing. Quinn Hollis was killed. The rest are safe, probably resting in the dorms.”
“Fuck,” I exhale. “Imogen, I’m so sorry,” I murmur, looking at her, but her eyes are squeezed shut and her jaw is clenched as she takes a deep steadying breath through her nose. When she opens her eyes again, the green shimmers with unshed tears. Turning back to Brennan, I offer, “Tairn told me that Aaric was meeting the advanced party from Zehyllna at the port of Soudra.”
“He did and there are reports that Aaric was spotted flying back towards Draithus from the south during the battle, but he never made it back to Aretia,” Brennan relays.
“Who are the others missing? The rider outside said there were four riders missing.”
“Bodhi, Garrick, and Xaden,” Brennan confirms.
“Shit. Bodhi was supposed to come back to the safety of the wards. He promised Xaden, but I saw him and Cuir fighting in the airspace over Draithus while I was chasing Theophanie.”
Imogen nods. “I probably last saw Bodhi shortly after that. He was retching on his hands and knees in the town square of Draithus. I know Cuir was injured, but Glane didn’t think it was a fatal wound. I didn’t see him after the blackout though.”
“What about Garrick?” Brennan asks, looking between Imogen and me.
“Last I saw him was when he disappeared with Jack fucking Barlowe in the Rybestad chest,” I offer.
“He helped get me away from the walls when the venin started draining them right after Quinn—” Imogen’s voice breaks and she swallows, shaking her head. She takes a deep breath before adding, “he was close to burnout and said he couldn’t distance walk again. I think he was going to get back in the air and fight.”
“Do you know what happened to Chradh, Cuir, or Molvic?” I ask Andarna.
I feel hesitation in our bond before she answers, “I can only tell you that they live.”
“What do you mean that’s all you can tell me? Do you know where they are?”
“I will not tell you anything that could endanger your life.”
“We’ll find them,” I offer, hoping I sound more confident than I feel. Imogen just presses her lips into a thin line and stares out the large window.
My thoughts start to spiral thinking about where Xaden could have gone. Did he have Garrick and Bodhi with him? Were they all safe? Where the fuck is Aaric? Halden will kill me—and everyone in Aretia—if I got his little brother killed. I start to rub my thumb along the underside of the emerald ring, spinning it around my finger, my gaze sliding to the emerald-hilted Blade of Aretia resting in the glass box from Zehyllna on the nightstand. When did he have this ring made? When did he plan for all of this? Was he ever really looking for a cure? Did he even want to be cured?
“Vi?” Brennan says, breaking me from my thoughts. I look into the weary eyes of my brother. “I can tell the Assembly that you are sleeping off the mending, but I can only hold them off for a little while. What do you want to do?”
I take the parchment out from my pocket, ignoring the scrawled message from Xaden, and open it to the official blessing from the High Priestess of the Temple of Dunne. “Can anyone challenge the validity of our marriage?”
Brennan pinches the bridge of his nose before looking down at me and answering, “I don’t think so. There’s not a lot of precedent for marriages where one party is a venin, but I’d be surprised if the king would risk the wrath of Dunne by challenging an official proclamation of the High Priestess.”
“So the Assembly…?”
“They are probably going to argue about it and complain… loudly… but I don’t think there is anything they can do unless the king strips you of the title,” Brennan responds.
“Let’s get this over with then,” I conclude. I promised Xaden I would keep Tyrrendor safe and I won’t let him down.
A few minutes later, I hear shouts coming from the Assembly chamber as we approach the large double doors. The sounds are muffled, but as the guard starts to open one of the doors for us, voices ring out into the hallway crystal fucking clear. My steps briefly falter before I continue approaching the doorway.
“That girl cannot be our duchess!” Ulices shouts. “I don’t care what her brother said!”
“Would you rather we wait for Tauri to appoint us some Navarrian sycophant to lead Tyrrendor?” Felix questions.
“We can petition the king to return the dukedom to Earl Lewellen,” Suri counters.
“You know Tauri won’t do that. He will elevate some fawning puppet like Mavis,” Trissa chimes in and I shudder to think of the type of people Amber’s parents could be and what they would do with power over Tyrrendor. No. This is my province now.
“We should wait for Bodhi to return. He has been shadowing Xaden. He should be the one to take Xaden’s place, not Violet Sorrengail,” Suri argues, her tone laced with venom as she practically spits out my name.
I take a deep breath, give the guard a quick nod as I enter the room, and lift my chin. My brother and I approach the table with Imogen trailing a step behind. I pause a few feet from the table and stand at parade rest. The Assembly members continue arguing as if we weren’t even there, barely sparing a glance in our direction.
“For all we know, Bodhi is dead. We cannot sit on our hands hoping that he returns,” Felix argues. Imogen’s breath catches in her throat behind me.
“How do we even know he was in his right mind when he married her?” Kylynn demands.
“Exactly!” Suri agrees. “Why should we be saddled with his choice for our duchess when clearly his decisions cannot be trusted?”
“I am right here!” I spit out, but no one even bothers to acknowledge me.
“We can negotiate an advantageous marriage for her to ensure a Tyrrish heir,” Trissa suggests. “We’ll have to get her marriage to Xaden officially terminated since he is as good as dead.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Imogen grumbles while the Assembly continue to argue.
They can’t seriously be talking about the end of our marriage less than 24 hours after it began. Sizzling power floods my system and heats my skin, but I roll my shoulders to dispel the energy and slam the Archives door closed. The last thing I need right now is to lose my temper and play into their narrative that I can’t control my powers.
“I’m not marrying anyone else,” I state, keeping my anger in check, but Suri talks over me.
“Are you seriously suggesting we accept Sorrengail as the new ruling bloodline of Tyrrendor?” Suri sneers.
Brennan straightens his spine next to me and his fists clench, but Suri continues on, ignoring our presence. “And as for another marriage,” she spits out, “Tauri will probably demand she marry his vapid brat of a son just to bring Tyrrendor to heel.”
“Seriously?” I mutter, fingernails cutting into my palms. “I’m pregnant!” I shout to get their attention and it works, seven heads snap towards me. Suri’s jaw drops and Ulices opens and closes his mouth several times like a fish.
“We’re having a hatchling!” Andarna squeals with excitement.
“No, I just needed to say something to—,”
“How long until it hatches? I will protect the human hatchling!” Andarna interrupts. I forcefully blow out a breath. Great. I went from the Assembly talking over me, to my dragon doing so.
“Why are you shouting about hatchlings?” Tairn grumbles, his voice thick with exhaustion.
“Violet is having a hatchling,” Andarna touts.
“No, I’m not,” I correct.
“Then why did you say you were having a hatchling?” Andarna asks, her voice filled with disappointment.
“I needed to get their attention and I knew that would silence the room,” I explain.
“Silver One knows that it would not be safe to bring a human child into this war and you should realize that too,” Tairn scolds Andarna.
“Go back to sleep,” Andarna chides. “Isn’t that what you always used to tell me?”
“You’re what?” Brennan exhales next to me.
“I’m not, but it got everyone to shut up, didn’t it?” I smirk, pinning Suri with a glare. “None of us are happy to be in this situation, but you’re stuck with me, so get on board or get out,” I order. Suri’s jaw snaps shut and Ulices turns a mottled shade of red.
“For fuck’s sake, Vi,” Brennan mutters. Imogen snorts behind me as she tries to stifle a laugh.
“You cannot seriously think that Tyrrendor will accept a Sorrengail as their duchess,” Ulices protests.
“Lucky for us, I am a Riorson now and if anyone has any complaints about that, they can take it up with Dunne,” I retort, lifting my chin. “Or do you doubt the authenticity of this proclamation from the High Priestess of the Temple of Dunne?” I take the parchment out of my front pocket and unfold it.
“Let us see this so-called proclamation,” Kylynn demands.
I hand the parchment to Felix, the closest thing I have to an ally at this table besides Brennan.
Suri’s eyes land on the emerald ring adorning my left hand and she gasps. “Is that from the Blade of Aretia?” she demands. “That’s a priceless heirloom of Tyrrendor!”
I curl my hand into a fist and ignore her.
“This proclamation bears the official seal of Dunne. See for yourselves,” Felix offers, sliding the proclamation into the middle of the table. “To deny that Violet is the rightful duchess would be to risk the wrath of the goddess.” His gaze shifts around the table and pauses on each of the other Assembly members.
“Even if we accept her as our duchess, no one in the Senarium will take her seriously. She is just a cadet,” Trissa argues, continuing to talk about me as if I’m not standing right there.
“I am not ‘just a cadet.’ I am Violet Riorson: the daughter of Lilith and Asher Sorrengail, the wife of Xaden Riorson, the only rider in history to be chosen by two dragons, the only lightning wielder in over a century, and the Duchess of Tyrrendor. If the Senarium underestimates me, they will quickly learn that that is a grave mistake—just like Queen Marlis of Unnbriel and the Triumvirate of Hedotis,” I respond.
Felix smiles at me and gestures for me to sit. “I think that settles it. Now, can we please move on?”
As I sit down, my eyes snag on the large chair on top of the dais and my thoughts drift to Xaden—my husband—and the last time he had me in that chair.
As if sensing that my mind is wandering, Brennan clears his throat beside me, snapping me back into the present. “Violet sustained a head injury during the battle and has some memory loss. She doesn’t know where any of the missing riders are, including Xaden. I already asked,” Brennan starts. Turning to me, he adds, “Tell them about the nets.”
“Nets?” Felix asks, raising a silver eyebrow at Brennan.
“The venin used a massive net to ground Tairn while we were chasing Theophanie through the mountains. Wyvern must have been hiding behind the ridgeline waiting for us. There were weights along the edges of the net and Tairn was forced to tuck his wings to avoid damaging them. We crash landed.”
“Shit,” Ulices mutters.
“How did you escape?” Trissa asks.
“With your help actually,” I offer, inclining my head in her direction as her eyebrows hit her hairline. “I used a rune on the net—the one that softens surfaces. It took a bit of time, but Tairn was eventually able to shred through the softened net.”
“And Theophanie? I assume she got away,” Suri sneers.
“No. I accomplished my objective,” I respond, turning my gaze towards Felix. “I watched Theophanie desiccate after I stabbed her with a dagger during the blackout.”
“Trissa, make sure all riders going out on patrol are warned about the nets and equipped with the softening rune. Think about whether there are other runes that might also be helpful,” Ulices directs. “Anything else helpful that you can remember?”
“Theophanie was fast,” I start and hold up my hand as I see Suri roll her eyes. “I know all venin are fast, but this was different. She bragged that there were only a few that were faster and older than her and she could outrun my lightning.”
“Can Tairn still sense Sgaeyl?” Felix asks.
“No. I can no longer sense my former mate,” Tairn grouses.
I gasp. “What do you mean your former mate?”
“She chose the Dark One.”
“Violet, are you okay?” Brennan’s voice is laced with concern as his hand clasps my forearm.
“You can tell them.”
“Tairn said he can no longer sense his former mate,” I whisper and the room erupts into chaos as the members of the Assembly start shouting over each other again.
“That’s not poss—”
“The mating bond can’t be—”
“No dragon has ever survived the loss of its mate!”
“I changed their bond so that they could both survive,” Andarna explains.
I clear my throat and I’m shocked when the room actually quiets down to listen. “As an Irid, Andarna can break and change bonds,” I inform the others. “She says she changed their bond so that Tairn would survive.”
“Tairn? Are you okay?”
A few heartbeats pass before he answers, “I am fine, Silver One.” I know he is anything but fine, but I don’t argue with him when he adds, “We are at war. We don’t have the luxury of being anything else, Silver One. They made their choice and now we must move forward.”
My vision shifts and I am no longer looking at the Assembly chamber. But I am not looking through either of my dragon’s eyes like I have before. No. Tairn is sharing one of Sgaeyl’s memories with me. I gasp as I feel her panic, feel the net pinning her to the ground.
Brathadair shrieks as he struggles to free himself from netting. Panchek shouts, “This is not what we agreed to!” as he stumbles backward towards the Green Clubtail.
“Did you not ask for power? Have I not provided?” the Sage—Berwyn—snarls in Panchek’s direction, holding an alloy-hilted dagger in each hand.
“Put those away. We both know you’re not going to hurt me.” Panchek argues, reaching for the net over his dragon. “I’m the only one who can give you access to your son.”
“I have another.” Berwyn sneers before he stabs Brathadair who desiccates, the color draining from his emerald-green scales as he shrinks to a husk.
I blink and my vision returns to my own.
“Holy shit,” Suri croaks.
Tairn must have shared the memory with the others’ dragons because everyone around the table is in a state of shock.
“How is that even possible?” Kylynn gasps.
“That power-hungry, traitorous bastard,” Ulices bellows.
“That might explain how the elders look like they were drained within the wards…” Trissa offers.
“You think venin snuck behind the wards during the battle to steal dragon eggs and killed the elders in the process?” Brennan asks.
“I don’t know, but the elders looked just like that. I don’t know what the venin would want with dragon eggs though,” Trissa responds, grimacing.
“Nuirlach said Tairn has agreed to share the memory with the rest of the riot,” Felix confirms. “We need to share this information with Melgren.”
“We can’t trust Melgren. You just saw that Lyron Panchek was a traitor,” Ulices snarls, spitting out Panchek’s name. “Who else in Navarre’s leadership is in bed with the enemy?”
“The Crowned Prince has troops on our border ready to march as soon as his father gives him the go-ahead,” Kylynn argues. “We can use this information in our negotiations with him.”
“Maybe if we give the prisoner to them we can get them to back off,” Felix suggests.
“Prisoner?” I ask, but only my brother seems to notice me.
“Garrick brought Jack Barlowe back here in the Rybestad chest,” Brennan explains, leaning towards me as the others argue around us again. “We haven’t figured out what to do with him yet, so he is still restrained in the chest downstairs in the dungeons.”
“Do you think Navarre knows we have him?” I question, raising my voice to be heard over the others.
“We don’t know. I suspect they think the venin infiltrated and took him since the venin tried to previously. As far as we know, no one suspects we have a distance wielder in our ranks,” Trissa answers.
“We risk exposing Garrick if we acknowledge we have Jack,” Brennan points out.
“We could claim to have re-captured him from the venin during the battle at Draithus,” Kylynn suggests.
“Do you think that story would hold up with a truthsayer in the room?” Brennan scoffs.
As the others resume arguing, I take a deep breath to steady my heartbeat as I parse through this new information. When I look around at the others, I find Felix studying me.
“No.” I declare, attempting to channel Xaden’s wingleader voice.
“Excuse me?” Suri snaps, staring at me like I’m a petulant child.
“No,” I repeat, glaring back at her. Shit. I am not nearly as good at this as Xaden is. “We will not return Jack Barlowe to Navarre. We cannot risk exposing Garrick’s second signet and we need to see what information we can get out of him. Jack repeatedly refused to answer Markham’s questions, but he can’t help himself when it comes to me. So we’ll play to that.”
“He’s already on death’s door from the looks of him, how do you propose to keep him alive without letting him drain this whole house?” Ulices scoffs.
“We keep him in the Rybestad chest for now and we keep him alive by—”
“For now?” Ulices interrupts.
“Yes, for now—until we can build a containment cell in the dungeons. If we line the walls of one of the existing cells with previously drained stones, Jack shouldn’t be able to feed unless we give him something like a piece of imbued alloy. We give him just enough to keep him alive but barely.”
“Are you sure?” Brennan asks. “We can’t afford to be wrong about this.”
“I’m sure.” I instill my voice with as much confidence as I can muster—this is one of the few things I actually feel confident about right now. “Theophanie admitted as much to me during the battle. She was taunting me while she drained the land near me, trying to get me to turn, but she said that standing on previously drained land creates a barrier. It’s why Tecarus used stones quarried from east of the Dunnes River in Braevick for his fighting pit. Venin cannot drain through previously drained materials.”
“So we ask Tecarus for some of the stones from his fighting pit,” Suri proposes.
“We may not need to,” Trissa chimes in. “The venin were draining the walls of Draithus as we were finishing weaving the wards. There are plenty of drained stones there and that is a lot closer than Cordyn. I am sure they won’t mind giving us the materials since we were able to protect them with our wards.”
“We gather materials from Draithus and we build our own venin containment cell. Actually, we build several. We need information and I no longer think we are going to find it in books. I think we need to change tactics and start capturing venin to interrogate them.” As I look around the table, I’m shocked to see Kylynn and Ulices nodding. Suri still looks like she wants to argue, but doesn’t say anything. Exhaustion starts to press in on me on all sides as the adrenaline of the argument starts to wear off.
“We both need to rest and recover from losing our mates,” Tairn grumbles. “The human politics can wait.”
“Is there anything else that requires immediate attention? Otherwise, my sister needs to rest so that she can finish healing.”
“What about the Crown Prince and the troops on the border?” Kylynn looks at us expectantly.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. “Halden won’t attack Tyrrendor while he thinks his brother is in residence here. My squad isn’t scheduled to return to Basgiath for another three days.”
“And if he finds out his brother is missing?” Kylynn probes.
“Let’s not borrow tomorrow’s troubles,” Brennan replies, standing up to leave. “Vi?” He inclines his head toward the door and I stand up to follow him out.
As we walk back up to my room, Brennan advises, “You will learn how to navigate the politics and to recognize when continuing a meeting will no longer be productive. We weren’t going to accomplish anything else tonight besides talking in circles. We can tackle the remaining issues with fresh eyes after we get some sleep.”
✨ 🐉 ✨
Tairn is next to me thrashing in a net trying to free himself. The battle rages in the skies above the gleaming city behind us. My squad—my family—fights to protect the city, but Tairn and I are alone on this beach because he is here for me.
Sgaeyl lands ahead of us and Xaden dismounts, but doesn’t approach me.
I have to get to him now. If I can reach him, I can make him feel it again. Remind him that he is mine. Convince him to come home.
I try to run towards him, but my footsteps falter. Shadows wrap around me and yank me into the air, suspending me above the sand.
The Sage—Berwyn—steps out from behind Sgaeyl and tilts his head as he studies me before turning to Xaden with a twisted smile on his face. “Tighter. We wouldn’t want your wife to get away.”
I feel the shadows tighten across my chest and I fight to pull in a breath. “Xaden,” I gasp. “Stop. Please.” His eyes flicker with recognition, but it is gone as quickly as it appeared, replaced by a cold emptiness.
“Kill her,” Berwyn orders.
A band of shadows wraps around my throat choking off my air supply and an overwhelming sorrow seizes my chest. Tairn’s roar of rage shakes the very landscape around us as I feel my heartbeat slowing until—
I wake, my heart pounding, the sheets soaked in sweat.
Just a dream. Just a dream. Just a dream.
But was it my dream or his?