It’s been my honor. Liam’s last words to me.
My vengeance in the sky, fighting along Tairn’s back, armed with the only weapon that will kill the dark wielder doing her best to slay my dragon and end me.
The moment the dagger slides into my side, I stop pulling Dain and start shoving, screaming both physically and mentally, filling my head with every ounce of pain that’s been inflicted upon me in the last four days.
Dain gasps, and his hands fall from my temples.
I throw my eyes open, the sound of my scream still echoing in my ears as he draws back, horror etched on every line of his face.
“I’m here,” Liam promises. “And I still don’t regret it, Vi. Not one second.” Wetness tracks down my cheeks.
“Did you get what you wanted?” I manage to ask through my shredded vocal cords.
“You’re smuggling weapons,” Dain says slowly, searching my eyes. “Stealing our weapons to aid another kingdom?”
My stomach sinks at my complete, absolute failure.
Out of everything I showed him, that’s what he took?
I wrench my gaze from his to look at Liam, memorizing the lines of his face and those trademark blue eyes. “I’m so sorry I failed you.”
“You never failed me. Not once,” he whispers, shaking his head. “We pulled you into our war. If anyone’s sorry, it’s me.”
“As you should be.” Varrish sneers.
If Dain has conquered my memory, seen the weapons runs I’ve helped with, then he knows it all. A wave of hopelessness rolls over, stealing my resolve, my determination not to break. All I have left inside of me is pain, and that isn’t worth fighting for, not if I’ve just given up everything—everyone—that means anything to me.
“They want us now!” the man shouts from the antechamber.
“Varrish,” Nora prompts. “It’s a summons for all leadership.”
“What did you find?” Varrish turns to Dain, losing his composure. “Where are they staging from?”
“Give me that knife,” Dain demands, holding out his hand. “I want to compare it to the one I saw in the memory. The ones they’re stealing from us.”
“Just don’t kill her. We need to find and question Riorson first, use her as leverage.” Varrish hands my dagger over to Dain.
He glances over the weapon and nods. “This is the one. They’re taking them out by the dozen, arming the enemy. I saw everything.” Brown eyes meet mine. “There’s at least one drift involved.”
My heart plummets. He knows. He saw despite my best efforts.
They’ll question me again—keep me prisoner to lure Xaden, even—but they’ll never let me leave here alive. This place I called home, the halls I walked with my father, the Archives I worshipped alongside the gods, the field where I flew with Tairn and Andarna, the halls where I laughed with my friends, and the rooms where Xaden held me will be my tomb.
And the boy I used to climb trees with along its river will be my demise.
I sag, the last of the fight draining out of me in defeat.
“Good. Good. Now tell me where they are,” Varrish orders.
Dain grips the dagger in his left hand, spinning it so the blade runs parallel to his forearm as he brings it to my throat. “You should have trusted me, Violet.”
I don’t dare to even swallow as I hold the asshole’s gaze. I won’t die afraid.
“None of this would have happened if you’d just trusted me.” The hurt in his eyes only feeds my rage. How dare he look wounded. “And now, it’s too late.”
“Varrish!” Nora yells as shouts fill the antechamber.
Varrish turns toward her, and I feel the knife slip against my skin.
Dain is going to kill me.
“You’re all right.” Liam steadies my shoulder. “I’ll be right here. I’m not going to leave you.”
Tairn. Andarna. Gods, I hope they survive it. Xaden has to live. He just has to.
I love him.
I should have told him every day, been honest about my feelings even through the fights and the doubt.
Now instead of giving those feelings back to Xaden, they’ll die with me. My vision blurs, and tears streak down my cheeks, but I lift my chin.
Dain whips his arm back, and I wait for the forward surge, the cut, the pain, the flow of blood.
It doesn’t come.
Varrish staggers backward, holding his side, his eyes bulging as a roaring sound fills my ears. Dain brings the bloodied knife to the straps at my wrists, cutting one free, then the other. “I don’t know if we can fight our way out of here,” he says quickly, dropping down to cut my ankles free. “Can you move?”
What the fuck is happening?
“Aetos!” Varrish snarls, falling back against the wall, then sliding down the stone. He leaves behind a fresh trail of red.
“Violet!” Dain shouts, forcing something into my hand. “You have to move or we’re dead!”
I wrap the fingers of my unbroken hand around the familiar hilt as Dain draws the sword at his side, holding it at Nora’s throat when she lunges into the cell. “Let us pass, and you’ll live.”
He holds the blade steady and hooks his other arm behind my back as I try to stand, holding me upright when my legs try to fail. They’re not newly broken since Nolon’s last visit, that I can remember, but I whimper at the pressure against my cracked ribs and the nausea as the room seems to spin.
“I make no such promises.” The low, menacing threat weakens my knees a second before a hand with a dagger reaches around Nora’s throat, slicing without hesitation.
She falls, a torrent of blood flowing from the gaping wound in her neck.
I look up into the wrath of Dunne in the form of gold-flecked onyx eyes.
The only crime worse than murdering a cadet is the unfathomable act of attacking leadership.
—MAJOR AFENDRA’S GUIDE TO THE RIDERS QUADRANT （UNAUTHORIZED EDITION）
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Rage shines in his eyes as Xaden holds his sword in his right hand and a dagger in his left, both dripping blood, both aimed to strike Dain.
Oh gods.
“No!” I shout, lurching to put myself in front of Dain, but my feet don’t cooperate and the ground rushes up to meet me.
“Shit!” Steel rattles against the floor as Dain catches me with both hands.
The edges of my vision turn black as pain threatens to pull me under. Every inch of my body screams in protest as I find my feet. But it’s not just Dain’s arms holding me—there are soft bands of shadows at my hips and beneath my arms. Two Xadens appear, then merge into one as I fight to stay conscious. “He saved me,” I whisper. “Don’t kill him.”
Stabbing Varrish earns Dain a chance…right?
Xaden’s gaze flickers to mine, and then he does a double take.
“Gods, Violet.” Shadows explode around us, cracking stone and decimating the wooden slab of a bed marked with my blood.
Guess my face is just as beaten as the rest of me.
“You came.” I stumble forward, and Dain is smart enough to let me go.
Xaden catches me, shadows grasping his sword as he splays his hand over my back and cradles me against his chest with a light touch, like he’s afraid I might break. “There’s nowhere in existence you could go that I wouldn’t find you, remember?” He drops his lips to the dirty, frayed, blood-spattered remains of my braid and kisses the top of my head.