I charge toward him at a run, and he swings meaty fists at my head, but I drop to my knees before they can make contact. Ignoring the shattering pain in my legs from impact, I use my momentum to slide by, clipping the tendons alongside his knee as I pass.
He yells and falls forward like a fucking tree, slamming into the floor.
“Violet!” Dain shouts from somewhere behind me.
I scramble to my feet and turn back to the giant, who has already flipped himself onto his back as if impervious to pain, but he can’t stand with what I’ve done to him. He can, however, reach for one of the daggers he dropped and throw it at me.
Which he does.
“Shit!” I spin sideways to avoid my own blade, and he kicks out with the leg I didn’t slice.
His boot catches me behind my thigh.
The blow cuts my feet out from under me, and all I see is ceiling as I fall back, smashing my hip with the full force of my weight. Pain blinds me for a heartbeat when my head smacks against the floor, white-hot and so sharp my ears ring. But at least I haven’t stabbed myself with my blades. One is still in my hand, but my eyes blur and tell me it’s really two.
The first-year grabs hold of my right thigh and pulls, dragging me with the distinct squeaking sound of leather against the shiny floor. If I put my dagger through his hand, I’ll strike my own muscle.
So I swipe out at his arm instead, my reach only catching him with a cut across the forearm. My heart launches into my throat as people around me yell my name, but they can’t interfere. I’m a second-year, and this asshole isn’t in my squad.
His grip secure, he drags me feetfirst toward him, his puddled blood soaking the back of my neck and wetting my hair.
If I don’t get free, I’m dead.
I bring up my left leg and kick as soon as I’m close enough, catching him in the jaw, but he doesn’t let go. Tenacious bastard.
A crunch sounds with my next kick, breaking his nose. Blood flies, but he shakes it off, lurching upward and rolling onto me, pinning me to the floor with his incomprehensible weight.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I swing out with my knife, but he catches my right hand, pinning my wrist to the ground. Then he wraps his other hand around my throat and squeezes.
“Fucking die, already,” he seethes, his voice blending into the ringing in my ears as he lowers his face to mine.
There’s no air as his grip tightens on my windpipe.
“Secrets die with the people who keep them,” he whispers, bringing his nose an inch from mine. His eyes are light brown but rimmed in red as though he’s on some kind of drug.
Aetos.
Fear floods my mind, breaking past my shields, but it’s not mine.
I can’t focus on Tairn’s fear. That way lies shock and death.
And I’m not about to die under some no-name first-year.
My vision tunnels as I grab one of the daggers sheathed along my ribs with my free left hand, draw quickly, and plunge the blade into the giant’s back, angling right where Xaden taught me. His kidney. Once. Twice. Thrice. I lose count as I stab over and over and over, until the grip on my throat releases, until the first-year sags on top of me.
He’s dead weight.
My lungs fight to expand as I put the last of my strength into shoving him off of me. He’s heavier than an ox, but I manage to push him sideways enough to slide out from under him.
Air—beautiful, precious air—fills my chest, and I gasp for it, breathing past the fire in my throat, and stare up at the beams of the ceiling. Pain. My entire body is nothing but pain.
“Violet?” Dain’s voice shakes as he crouches beside me. “Are you all right?”
Secrets die with the people who keep them.
No, I’m not all right. His father just tried to have me assassinated.
I force myself to the familiar headspace beyond the pain and roll to my hands and knees. Nausea sweeps through me in waves, and I breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth until I can push it back down.
“Say something,” Dain begs in a frantic whisper.
I walk back on my hands until I’m kneeling, then arch my neck, wincing as I pull breath after breath.
“Vi—” He stands and offers me a hand, and the worry in his familiar eyes—
Fuck no.
I throw all my energy into my shields.
“Don’t. Touch. Me,” I grind out, my voice like sandpaper, and stand slowly, more than aware of the number of eyes on me. My head spins, but I fight the dizziness as I retrieve all five of my daggers. Everyone in the nearby area watches as I bend over and use the dead first-year’s uniform to wipe the blood off my blades before sheathing them.
The fear flooding my pathways changes to relief.
“I’m all right,” I tell Tairn and Andarna.
“Matthias and Henrick, take the bodies,” Dain orders. At least I think it’s him. The ringing in my ears muffles everything farther than twelve inches away.
Emetterio appears before me. “May I touch you?” he asks.
Clearly, I made that demand of Dain rather loudly.
I nod, making sure my shields are in place, and Emetterio grasps my face, searching my eyes. He blocks the light, then lifts his hand. A fresh wave of nausea churns in my stomach.
“You’re concussed. Want to skip the rest of the session?” He drops his hand from my face and holds me steady by gripping my arms when I sway.
“No.” I’m not leaving assessment day the same way I did last year.
“I’ve got her,” Imogen says, taking my elbow.
Emetterio’s mouth purses, his dark eyes narrowing.
“I’m not going to try and kill her this year. Promise.” She draws me to her side but doesn’t hold on to me, just lets me lean a little.
Fine, a lot.
“You were just strangled, Cadet Sorrengail,” Emetterio reminds me.
“Not the first time,” I respond, the razor blades in my throat making my voice raspy. “I’ll heal. I’m staying.”
He sighs but eventually nods and heads back to his place at the head of the mat, picking up the clipboard he’d apparently dropped.
“Aetos sent him,” I whisper to Imogen. “I think we’re being targeted.” Gods, I hope that’s not why Xaden didn’t show yesterday.
Her green eyes flare a second before Ridoc appears at my other side, his shoulder brushing mine.
“Damn, Sorrengail,” he mutters, offering me an arm I don’t take.
“It’s always something, isn’t it?” I try to smile as the two of them walk slowly back to the edge of the mat, giving me enough support that I don’t fall to either side.
“He was probably sent as a message to your mother,” Emetterio says, shaking his head. “Same thing happened to your older sister during her years.”
The first-years stare in wide-eyed horror as I glance around the bloody mat, noting that Rhiannon, Dain, and Sawyer are missing. Right. Because they have to take Nadine and the nameless first-year’s body.
Nadine is dead because she said she was me.
Heavy, eye-prickling sorrow threatens to take me out at my throbbing knees, but I can’t allow myself to feel it. Can’t let it in. Not with everyone watching. It goes into the box where I keep every other overwhelming emotion.
Sloane and Aaric stand in the middle of the mat, watching me with varying shades of shock on their face. There’s far more concern on Aaric’s face than Sloane’s.