“You didn’t dodge the question.” Have to admit, I’m a little surprised. “I promised you some answers.” He leans forward. “But I can’t promise you’ll like what you hear.”
“I’ll always prefer the truth.” Some answers?
“You say that now.” A wry smile twists his lips.
“I always will.” The sounds of boots shuffling behind us as students report for formation reminds me that we’re not entirely alone, but I need Xaden to hear this. “If the last few weeks have shown you anything, it should be that I don’t run from truth, no matter how hard it is or what it costs.”
“Yeah, well, it cost me you.” My whole body tenses and his eyes slam shut. “Shit. I shouldn’t have said that.” He opens them again, shaking his head, and the abject misery there makes my heart clench. “I know it was the not telling you. I get it. But when the lives of everyone around you depend on how well you can lie, it’s not easy to realize it’s the truth that will save you.” A sigh moves his shoulders. “If I could do it all again, I’d do it differently, I promise, but I can’t, so here we are.”
“Here we are.” And I’m not even sure where here is. I shift my weight. “But as long as you meant what you said about telling me everything—”
He flinches, and my heart sinks.
“You are going to tell me everything once I can properly shield, right?” It’s all I can do not to grab onto him and start shaking. Hard. “That’s what you promised in your bedroom.” He is not doing this to me. “‘Anything you want to know and everything you don’t.’ Those were your words.”
“Everything about me.”
Oh, fuck me, he is doing this to me. Again.
I shake my head. “That is not what you promised.”
Xaden starts to take a step toward me, but I lift my chin, daring him to touch me right now. Smart man that he is, he keeps his feet planted.
He runs a hand through his hair and sighs. “Look, I will answer any question you want to ask about me. Gods, I want you to ask, to know me well enough to trust me even when I can’t tell you everything.” He nods like those words had been included in the original promise when we both know damn well they weren’t. “Because you didn’t fall for an ordinary rider. You fell for the leader of a revolution,” he whispers, the sound so soft it barely carries to my ears. “To some degree, I’m always going to have secrets.”
“You have to be kidding me.” I let anger rush to the surface in hopes it will burn away the heartrending pain of his words. Brennan’s been lying to me for six years, letting me mourn his death when he’s been well-the-fuck alive the whole time. My oldest friend stole my memories and possibly sent me to die. My mother built my entire life on a lie. I’m not even sure what parts of my education are real and which are fabricated, and he thinks I’m not going to demand total, complete honesty from him?
“I’m not kidding.” There’s zero apology in his tone. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t let you in like I promised. I’m an open book when it comes to—”
“Whatever you want.” I shake my head. “And that’s not going to work for me. Not this time. I can’t trust you again without full disclosure. Period.”
He blinks as though I’ve actually managed to stun him.
“Full. Disclosure,” I demand like any rational woman staring down the man who kept her brother’s life a secret from her, let alone an entire war. “I can forgive you for keeping me in the dark before today. You did it to save lives, possibly even mine. But it’s complete and total honesty from now on, or…” Gods, am I going to have to say it?
Am I really about to issue an ultimatum to Xaden-fucking-Riorson?
“Or what?” He leans in, his eyes sharpening.
“Or I’ll get busy unfalling for you,” I spit out.
Surprise flares in his eyes a second before a corner of his mouth lifts into a smirk. “Good luck with that. I tried it for a good five months. Let me know how it works out for you.”
I scoff, at a complete loss for words as the bells chime, announcing the beginning of formation.
“It’s time,” he says. “Keep your shields up. Block everyone out like we practiced on the way here.”
“I can’t even keep you out.”
“You’ll find I’m harder to block than most.” His smirk is so infuriating, I ball my hands just to give my fists something else to do.
“Hey, I hate to interrupt what’s obviously a moment,” Bodhi whispers loudly from my left. “But that was the last bell, so that’s our cue to get this nightmare started.”
Xaden shoots a glare at his cousin, but we both nod. He doesn’t do his friends the dishonor of asking if they accomplished their missions as all eight of us walk into the center of the rotunda.
My stomach jumps into my throat as the death roll sounds from the courtyard. “I will not die today,” I whisper to myself.
“I really fucking hope you’re right about this,” Garrick says to Xaden as we face the open door. “It would be unfortunate to make it all three years and then die on graduation day.”
“I’m right.” Xaden walks out and we all follow, stepping into the sunlight.
“Garrick Tavis. Xaden Riorson.” Captain Fitzgibbons’s voice carries over the formation as he reads from the death roll.
“Well, this is awkward,” Xaden calls out.
And every head in the courtyard turns our direction.
As dragons ferociously guard both their young and any information regarding their development, only four facts are known about the Dreamless Sleep. First, it is a critical time of rapid growth and development. Second, the duration varies from breed to breed. Third, as the name suggests, it is dreamless, and fourth, they wake up hungry.
—COLONEL KAORI’S FIELD GUIDE TO DRAGONKIND
CHAPTER FOUR
My heart beats fast enough to keep time with a hummingbird’s wings as we walk across the courtyard toward the dais, Xaden two steps ahead of the rest of us. He moves without fear, his shoulders straight and head high, anger manifesting in every purposeful stride, every tight line of his body.
I lift my chin and focus on the platform ahead as gravel crunches beneath my boots, the sound muffling more than one gasp from the cadets on my left. I might not have Xaden’s confidence, but I can fake it.
“You’re…not dead.” Captain Fitzgibbons, the scribe assigned to the Riders Quadrant, stares with wide eyes beneath his silver brows, his weathered face turning the same pale cream of his uniform as he fumbles with the death roll, dropping it.
“Apparently not,” Xaden replies.
It’s almost comical how Commandant Panchek’s mouth hangs open as he turns toward us from his seat on the dais, and within seconds, my mother and Colonel Aetos stand, blocking his view.
Jesinia steps forward, her brown eyes wide under her cream hood as she fetches the death roll for Captain Fitzgibbons. “I’m happy you’re alive,” she signs quickly before grabbing the roll.
“Me, too,” I sign back, a sick feeling taking hold. Does she know what her quadrant is really teaching her? Neither of us had a clue during the months and years we studied together.
Colonel Aetos’s cheeks grow increasingly red with every step we take, his gaze skimming our party of eight, no doubt taking note of who’s here and who isn’t.
My mother locks eyes with me for one heartbeat, a side of her mouth tilting upward in an expression I’m almost scared to call…pride, before she quickly masks it, resuming the professional distance she’s maintained impeccably for the last year. One heartbeat. That’s all it takes for me to know that I’m right. There’s no anger in her eyes—no fear or shock, either. Just relief.
She wasn’t in on Aetos’s plan. I know it with every fiber of my being.
“I don’t understand,” Fitzgibbons says to the two scribes behind him, then addresses Panchek. “They aren’t dead. Why would they have been reported for the death roll?”
“Why were they reported for the death roll?” my mother asks Colonel Aetos, her eyes narrowing.