With one hand raised, wielding the delicate strain of energy, I back away from Solas as quickly as I dare, feeding more and more power into the stream, and then I pour everything—
Solas roars, swinging his hind end around. A shape comes swinging for me, and I make out the thicker part of his tail in the dim light a second before it slams into my stomach, sending me flying and breaking the stream of lightning.
I’m airborne, nothing more than a projectile as I fly backward, hitting my ass, then my back, and lastly my head against the ground with a crack. But I hold my power tight instead of striking, letting it burn me from the inside out. Better me than accidentally hitting Andarna.
The only sound is a loud ringing in my ears, and sight only comes in quick, flashing blasts. Fire. It flares as I struggle to sit up through the fog of my own heartbeat, revealing Andarna latched onto Solas, hanging on even as he thrashes, slamming her smaller body against the cave wall.
“NO!” I think I yell, but the incessant peal of bells in my head blocks it out, and suddenly I’m moving, being dragged backward by a pair of arms. My head falls back, and I recognize those eyes.
Liam. I must be dead.
“She’s not clear!” someone shouts as the ringing fades slightly, and then another blast of fire shows two more arrows in the bloodied hole that used to be Solas’s shoulder.
Cat. She’s beside me, already drawing another arrow, and her lips move silently.
And the eyes above me aren’t Liam’s. They’re Sloane’s.
We’re plunged back into darkness momentarily, and the ringing fades enough to hear Cat’s voice clearly.
“Ninety. One hundred. One hundred and one.” Her voice shakes.
Light flares again as I’m dragged backward, and Cat fires, hitting Solas in the same wound. Andarna flies free, taking a chunk of Solas with her as I’m hauled from the returning darkness into the growing light from the mouth of the cave.
“Andarna!” I claw at Sloane’s grip, but the harder I fight, the weaker I feel, and the insufferable heat of my power lessens as Sloane starts to scream, letting me fall to the ground.
“Silver One!”
I feel the steady beats of air at my back and know Tairn is there, hovering, but I can’t rip my eyes away from the darkness of the cave as I stumble to my feet near the entrance.
A dragon screams, then falls horrifyingly silent.
She isn’t. She can’t be.
“She lives,” Tairn promises, but I don’t breathe until I reach mentally and find my bond with Andarna gleaming and strong.
“I drained you.” Sloane holds up trembling hands, staring at them like they don’t belong to her. “I drained you!” She grasps my shoulders, yanking my focus from the dark as my head swims.
“For fuck’s sake, Sloane, give her a second. She just hit her head,” Cat barks, still aiming into the darkness as we stand in the glaring light but not firing an arrow without a target.
“Are my eyes red?” Sloane shakes me, or maybe she’s shaking and simply holding on to me. “Are they red? I swear I didn’t reach, Violet. I didn’t take anything from you on purpose! Oh gods, am I turning venin?”
“She is as Naolin was,” Tairn says.
“You’re not turning.” I take her hands from my shoulders and stare into the darkness as footsteps sound, talons clicking along the rock.
“I’m not?”
“Your signet manifested,” I whisper, my eyes straining to see into the cave opening. “You’re a siphon.”
Andarna walks into the light, but it’s not the blood covering her mouth that catches my attention—it’s the blood dripping from the poisoned barb on her tail.
“You killed him.” My shoulders dip in relief. “You killed Solas.”
Pride and worry assault me at the same time, but I can’t force my shields up before Tairn’s voice fills my very existence.
“Slayer.”
Xaden bursts into our room as the healer finishes checking my eyes, shading my vision, then exposing me to light.
“Violet—” He halts a few feet away from where I sit on the edge of our bed. “Cat? What the hell are you doing in here?”
“She saved my life. Making sure she was seen by a healer was the least I could do,” Cat answers.
“She what?” Xaden moves forward as the healer stands upright.
“You heard me. She put herself between that giant orange dragon and me.” She rises from her seat—the same chair Xaden sat in while I slept in here for days after Resson, poisoned by the venin’s blade. “Thank you, Sorrengail.” She chokes on the words a little before passing by Xaden on her way out.
“Solas—” I start to explain.
“Oh, I already know,” he seethes. “Sgaeyl told me.”
“You were in a meeting. I didn’t want to bother you.” I follow the healer’s fingers upon direction.
“Bother me?” Shadows flood the floor.
The healer notices, blinking quickly. “You’ll be all right. I don’t think you’re concussed, but that’s quite a lump on the back of your head, and I’ll ask that you mind the stitches in your hand.” She arches a silver brow at me.
“Of course.” I lift my wrapped left hand. “Thank you.”
She nods, then dismisses herself, disappearing into the hallway.
I stare at Xaden, and he stares right back, tension emanating from every line of his body. “If you want to fight about the wards, that’s fine, but I’m not taking the blame for fighting my way out of a cave.”
He stalks forward, then bends down into my space and kisses me, soft and slow. “You’re alive,” he whispers against my lips.
“So my heartbeat says.”
“Good.” He stands, folding his arms. “Now we can fight. What the fuck were you thinking, saving Cat?”
I blink. “I’m sorry, you’re mad at me? I fight my way out of a cave against a dragon, and you’re mad at me? For saving a woman in the line of succession to the throne of Poromiel?”
He reels backward, horror flashing into his eyes a second before anger swamps them. “You saved Cat because she’s third in line?”
“First, I would have fought to save anyone—”
“You selfless, reckless—” he accuses, backing away slowly.
“And second, her death would have triggered yours, so hell yes I saved her!” My feet hit the ground and my head swims for a heartbeat, but my pulse steadies as I breathe deeply. “Tecarus would have had you executed if she’d died under your care.”
“Un-fucking-believable.” He laces his hands on the top of his head. “You hate her, and yet you refuse to raise the wards, no doubt so her power won’t be stripped away, and then you put your life in front of hers—”
“For you!”
“All I want is you!” He flicks his hands, and shadows shut the door a little harder than necessary, sealing us in behind the sound shield. “If she dies, then I’ll take the consequences. If they can’t channel, I’ll take those consequences, too. But not you. Never you. Gods, Violet. I’m doing everything in my power to both respect your freedom and keep you safe, and you’re…” He shakes his head. “I don’t even know what you’re doing.”
“Keep me safe.” I laugh, sarcasm biting into my eyes and making them sting. “Is that what you do? I get it all mixed up with just not killing me.”
“There it is.” He retreats until his back hits the wall, and then he folds his arms and leans against it, crossing an ankle casually. “You finally ready to ask me about the deal I made with your mother?”
Nothing kills powerful, unshakable love faster than opposing ideologies.
—THE JOURNAL OF WARRICK OF LUCERAS
—TRANSLATED BY CADETS VIOLET SORRENGAIL AND DAIN AETOS
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
My mouth opens. Then shuts. “You knew…that I knew?” “Of course I knew.” He arches a dark brow as if I’m the problem here. “I’ve just been waiting for you to work up the courage, the trust, whatever you want to call it, to fucking ask me.”