…
Today, Garrick gives as good as he's getting, and my sore ribs remind me of the punch he landed a round ago. My elbow hits him hard in his blocking forearm. I hear his intake of breath and see the wince, but he doesn't tell me to stop, so I follow through with a swing toward his barrel of a ribcage.
He parries, and I feel proud that he caught that one seeing as I used lesser magic to enhance my speed. He responds by doing the same, and I know I'll have a bruise on my thigh where his boot just collided.
Sudden panic fills every inch of me with an overwhelming punch to my whole body. My lungs are nearly paralyzed, and I feel a sudden burning agony flare across every inch of my giant relic as my power surges in response.
No - not my power.
Sgaeyl's power floods into me - this is her reaction. To…what?
Garrick thankfully doesn't kick the shit out of me, and I feel his grip as my legs go out and I crumple.
"What the fuck is going on?" I don't mean to scream it through the bond but everything in my head is so loud. Something just happened and I have no clue what to think. My own confusion and panic is flooded with hers pushing through my system. I can't help but put both hands over my temples and growl a roar through my teeth as I desperately try to ground both feet onto my hilltop.
I can hear Garrick asking what's wrong, I hear another voice yell for a commander, someone says healer. No healer can fix this.
My muscles tense and my power flares, and I feel shadows knock my oldest friend on his ass while scattering the sand of the pit and shattering parts and pieces of the stonework and all the wood benches that line the circle.
Heat cascades through my bones and I know I have to stop it. I have to cut off the power. It hasn't felt like this since…
No. It's never felt like this. I don't know what the fuck this is. The feelings are a swirling miasma of anxiety and panicked awareness of something being horribly wrong.
The possibility of something fucking terrible happening.
Gravity shifts under me and I feel my ass hit the dirt, my back following, and where I lay on the relic, everything burns.
Shadows still billow and whip. While I don't feel Garrick beside me any longer, and hope he has the common fucking sense to stay the hell out of the way, my whole body breaks out in a sweat as the rising power threatens to cook me.
I need to ground.
One foot - the hilltop is a blizzard of power - and I can't see any of the paths in my mind clearly. There's just a rushing torrent of energy that burns as I make the effort to push it back and access the summit.
Two feet - I work at building my shields one brick at a time to cut off Sgaeyl's power. As it closes, and as I lock it, I'm horrified to find that while the power was coming untamed from my dragon, the feelings were only mostly hers. The power is cut off, and I know the shadows are gone, but that's not the only problem.
The panic is still there. And it's morphing into cold, abject terror. Some comes from Sgaeyl, but the rest comes from…
"Tairn?"
"Meet us outside the walls!" Her demand is a snarled order that verges on a powered command.
"Us? They…I can't - Violet isn't here, I'd know. Why can I feel Tairn?"
Hands hit my back, and I know it's Garrick. I don't have the capacity to be thankful I didn't harm him in the outburst, but I don't fight him as he drags me to my feet.
"Chradh says…I - I can't make sense of it. He's - it's like he's -"
"Scared," I finish.
I find my stride before we hit the doors of the pit, and only when my flight jacked lands on my shoulder am I thankful that Garrick hasn't lost his damn mind like I have.
"Tell me what is happening." Sgaeyl responds to demands about as well as I do, but I can't help this one. I feel like my relic is trying to peel off my shoulders to release the pent up nervous energy she's leaching into me.
"It is…not good."
"Is Tairn okay? I…I felt him. I shouldn't feel him from this distance."
It's evening and the sun is close to the horizon. The gates open, and I see my giant Blue and the Brown scorpiontail waiting impatiently on the other side.
Not Tairn, the us was Chradh and Sgaeyl.
My legs feel wobbly like I've run all day just to get to this moment. When I'm on her back she launches, and I don't need to look to know Garrick and his dragon are right behind us. But when Sgaeyl turns on a familiar flight path, my blood becomes ice in my veins.
We're facing Basgiath.
"It's…not Tairn. Is it?"
She remains silent for a moment as if needing to choose her words. A first for us. "He flew close enough to give me a message. He hunts."
I'm used to hearing anger in her voice. Directed at me, at other dragons, at the Navarrian leadership for separating her from her mate for a week or more at a time to punish their riders.
But this anger is different. New. I can't place it.
Now the panic is my own, and I'm not able to keep from pushing it into Sgaeyl. "Who the fuck is he hunting?"
"Solas."
"Varrish."
She doesn't need the bond to confirm, I feel it from her as emotion - and I realize what it is. It's a rush of burning, parental anger.
"She will be fine." The sound of her voice isn't as sure as the words.
We only make it a half hour from the outpost before landing, but it wasn't her idea. I demand it, damn near summoning shadows to drag her to the earth. Powder flies as we hit the snowy peak, and I'm off her back in an instant, ignoring the nearly shin-deep drift.
The ground shakes as Chradh lands, and I glance at Garrick standing between the dragons and me as I desperately try to get my emotions under control through pacing. I have to move or I'll explode.
"If Tairn is hunting Solas, that means that Varrish has Violet."
Sgaeyl confirms with a brusque, "yes."
"Fuck."
"Does he have the others?"
"I don't know. He gave me his message once he was in range and didn't stay long enough for questions. He is beyond our reach now and is…furious."
I spin on her from my pacing, the snow now packed along my path. "Didn't you feel his panic? This didn't just happen. How long has Varrish fucking had her?"
"Oh shit," I hear Garrick's curse but block him out for the moment.
I'll fucking walk back to Basgiath if I have to. I'll tear that college apart brick by brick until I find her.
I know I can't.
That's reckless and will get us both killed.
She needs me to be better than that.
We need a plan.
My thoughts are a furious staccato and I know my breathing matches, but to their credit, neither my dragon nor my friend tell me to calm down.
"He…shielded it from me until he was certain."
I'm only speaking out loud for Garrick's benefit, but continue. "It's Sunday evening. How close did he get?" My pacing resumes.
"A little more than halfway here."
"Fuck! That's almost a full fucking day. Did…does he know if she's okay? Are they just holding her? Questioning her?"
Silence that lasts too long stops my movement and I look up to her golden eyes.
"Sgaeyl."
She looks away.
For the first time ever, Sgaeyl drops my gaze and lowers her head.
Her chest rumbles in a pulsing pattern that sounds apologetic.
Ice as cold as the mountains around us in the deepest winter burns my lungs, my heart, my mind.
"How bad?" I don't keep the fear-filled tremor out of my words. "Did he show you or tell you?"
"I will not."
"Show me."
"The Vice Commandant…questions her." Lying is not in her nature.
"SHOW ME!"
It's all my fury in a single phrase. Shadows rip out and fracture the massive boulder to our right, and it tumbles in cracking echoes down the mountainside.
At the feeling of losing my sight, I stagger, but hold my feet. My vision goes dark and then I'm seeing through Violet's, feeling every ounce of terror she feels.
But there's also relief and resolve there.
'They don't know who, which means no one else is chained up down here. Not Xaden, or Rhiannon, or Aaric, or any of the others. It's just me. Being alone just turned into a blessing.'
Standing above her is Major Varrish and Nolon, Basgiath's overworked mender. The voice of the Vice Commandant makes her heart flinch, and mine pounds in response.
The sudden assault of quick, successive memories is more than I can take, and I can't breathe.
'Selective truth. That's all I have within my arsenal to protect my friends.'
Varrish's quick and sudden backhand that splits the skin on her cheekbone - and I feel it as if I've been struck with her.
'Nolon, you're dismissed,' he says. 'I'll call you when you're needed.'
When he's needed to mend her.
After Varrish breaks her.
The terror that floods adrenaline into her system when his monstrous eyes hold hers as the door closes and they're alone.
'You have all the power here, Cadet Sorrengail. This stops as soon as you talk.'
The dislocation and breaking of her fingers - the heart-rending way she cried out and the surprise despite the fact that she knew it had been coming.
The monotone, unaffected voice of Varrish as he asks her why she stole the journals and who they were for.
Violet's silence.
Things get fuzzier, less clear as Tairn makes the choice to leave. To fly at breakneck speed toward Sgaeyl - toward help he knew he could trust.
Her screams start as sharp and reactive, but as each cracked bone, vicious hit or kick, and split in her skin outside of and beneath her leathers drive them from her throat, they become more raw and torn.
The snapping sound of her forearm, ankle, femur, and the ripping sounds of her joints being pulled apart one at a time grow quieter, but I hear them.
Feel them.
Own them with her.
Finally, he's far enough away that it's just the knowledge of pain coming across the bond, and I feel Tairn's relief mix with my own that everything isn't as sharp as when he was closer to Violet.
The comfort doesn't last long. White hot, soul-aching guilt rushes into me a moment before I feel it do the same to her dragon in the memory. Just because we can't feel more than the dull throb doesn't mean that she is no longer being tortured.
Blackness, then my eyes are my own again. I grab my chest as if I can reach in and stop my heart from breaking.
Bile rises in my throat as dizzying nausea brings up everything I had to eat today, and I land on my knees above the frozen packed stone to retch into the snow.
I only dimly hear Garrick yell an order to my dragon, and my heart aches enough that I may lose Violet. I don't need my best friend to get scorched with a sudden death wish.
Feeling limp and weak, I rise moments later and turn to make sure Sgaeyl didn't torch him.
Surprisingly, he's fine, and our eyes meet, both filled with tears. I know I don't have to hide the crippling terror and overwhelming fury I feel as he stands with his hands on his knees breathing deep, spitting his own nausea into the powder as every line of his face and tense muscled neck turns red in rage.
His demand had been to see what I saw, and she showed him.
Our dragons stand at attention, eyes and heads swiveling for any signs of danger as the two of us pull our shit together.
"Tairn has given us instruction, if you will hear it."
It's getting dark, and our breaths come out in billows of steam against the frigid air.
"He says that he can kill Solas and thus his rider, but he cannot get her out. A war is best fought on two fronts, one with direct action, and the other with brutal distraction. Empty the college of leadership and you will have unfettered access to the brig. He can kill the Vice Commandant, but he cannot save her. That falls to us."
Gods, my brain just isn't working. "Tell Chradh," is all I can muster.
Two fronts? What the fuck does he mean by that. I can't fly Sgaeyl, Chradh and Garrick into Basgiath. We'll be in the brig ten minutes after we land.
"What do you think he meant by brutal distraction?" Garrick's question is the one I've been tumbling around with as well.
"No fucking idea."
"What clears out administration - or at least enough of leadership that we could get into the college?"
"Nothing. Well…" a flicker of an idea sits at the edge of my mind.
His sigh is accompanied by a roll of his shoulders and neck, his only tell that he's nervous, and it only comes out when he's alone with me. He's a statue under duress, but this one has him rattled. If he saw what I saw, I can only fucking imagine.
"Breaches at the borders will often pull professors from Basgiath," I suggest.
He disagrees. "We don't want two teachers to leave, we need everyone to leave. We also need them to be none the wiser that it has anything to do with us or we'll put every marked one at that place in danger."
My mind is a swirl of thought as I slide back and forth from we can't do anything over to burn it all down. "How many do you think would be on our side if we asked?"
"People? Or dragons?" Garrick asks, curiosity in his eyes.
"We can't do this, just the two of us."
"Do what, exactly?"
Rage builds up in me at the thought that General Sorrengail is sitting in her office at Basgiath while her daughter is being tortured stories underground, and I turn back to Sgaeyl.
"Was Aimsir in the vale when we left yesterday?"
"No. He left that morning to fly the General to Calldyr. There is a good chance that she knows nothing of her child's plight."
"Fuck her. Even if she doesn't know, Lilith Sorrengail left Basgiath under Varrish's command. She bears just as much responsibility. They've been so careful to hide it all."
My dragon's eyes flare and an excited chuff rumbles up her throat. "I like this idea of yours."
"Wait," it's Garrick that pulls me back to reality. "You don't just want to pull admin from Basgiath, but also from Calldyr?"
"No, but I think it'll happen anyway. How many riders can we get on our side and how do you feel about doing some wyvern hunting?"
He looks perplexed, excited, and concerned all at once. "The fuck does that mean?"
"There are five outposts between Navarre and Poromiel. If we have enough riders, we can hit them all."
Garrick balks and Sgaeyl and Chradh tilt their heads at an impossible angle for a human to replicate. "You want to attack the fucking outposts?"
"No. I want to drop wyvern on the fucking outposts. Let's introduce Navarre's forces to the truth their leadership hides from them. That'll pull almost everyone out of Basgiath."
"Xaden," he pauses, moving toward me. "This will put everything at risk. Everything we've fought to do for the last three years, almost four. This will put Aretia back on the map. We won't have enough marked ones to hide any of it from Melgren."
"Fuck, Melgren. We'll be fine."
"Look. It was my dad's job to advise, and now it's mine. This - this could end our work. This could further devastate Poromiel, which is already struggling under the weight of too much fucking truth."
"Maybe that's what needs to happen, Garrick. Maybe we don't sit on the sidelines any longer pretending to fly for Navarre's crooked King."
"How many of the one-hundred-and seven scars on your back are you willing to sacrifice, Xaden? Because that's what will happen if you do this."
His words gut me, and the burning feeling of the relic between my shoulders flares against the raised silver ridges I carry.
"Sloane, Bodhi, Imogen…they're all at Basgiath. Hell - if we desert it puts a target on them."
I feel defeated because I know he's right, but I feel a defensive anger from Sgaeyl as she snaps her teeth in his direction forcing him to take a step back and lift his hands in deference.
"The four of us die if we do as he suggests!"
"Do you think we should do nothing?" I have to know. My harsh whisper is more of an accusation than a whisper.
He drops his hands and exhales harshly at the same time.
"Xaden," it's a throat-tightened whimper that I've never heard from Garrick before. "We'll lose access to Basgiath's forge for weaponry. We'll lose our family fighting for their lives inside, and we'll lose Aretia. Again. We'll…we'll lose everyone we love."
Bull I'll lose her.
And the thought rends what's left of my soul knowing that he's right, but my heart and mind know that I'd burn it all down to save her. He knows it too.
"Whatever you decide, I'm with you. But…I have to say something. It's my fucking job to say it. Please don't kill me for it, but gods - I have to say it."
"Don't," I beg.
"If there was anyone on our side -"
"Garrick, no."
"- that would give their life to protect us - to protect you -"
"Stop," my beg turns into a growl.
"It would be Violet fucking Sorrengail."
I'm moving before I know it, and the way my fists bunch against his flight jacket and my shadows wrap around his body to hold his arms down and keep signet controlled is all automatic. His feet are off the ground and I can hear him choking.
Chradh reacts with a snarling growl that shakes the loose stones around us and steps forward to protect his rider, while Sgaeyl responds in kind by putting both of her taloned forepaws on either side of me, body-blocking Garrick's dragon.
"This is not the way, Xaden." She doesn't use my name often, but when she does, it feels like when I knew I was in trouble with Dad.
Chradh releases a pleading bellow and undulates his neck in agitation. He stomps his feet restlessly while he -
Backs away. Garrick is telling him to back off because I would never actually hurt him. But gods I want to. Not because he's the one that said it, but because of how true it is.
"It's not him you wish to hurt. Let him go."
I release everything and catch him as he falls back to the ground, pulling his bulky frame against my chest as I whisper my apologies. He shouldn't, but he accepts them all and hugs me back just as fiercely.
"I don't know if there's a way to avoid everything you said, but I'll try. If you advise me." It's a promise.
We pull apart and I grip his cheeks tight with my cold hands. "I'm sorry, Brother."
His response is to slap me playfully across mine, the biting cold making it sting a bit more than he probably intended, but much less than I deserve.
We take the time, think everything through, use our dragon's knowledge to aid us, and then we fly.
I wish I could be there to see their faces when they get their scribe-written reports. By the time they're sent, we'll be at Basgiath and they'll be too late.
I wish I could see the look on Melgren's face when he realizes that we haven't hidden anything from him this time. We'll let him see exactly who gifts Navarre's secrets to his unknowing legion.
I wish I could witness the sheer horror on General Sorrengail's face as I burn her war college to the ground for her daughter - all because she asked me to protect her.
And I will, using the one thing I never thought I'd have again:
Love.
…
A/N: Sorry not sorry, I'm on a Xaden POV kick! Quite a few folks recommended this to me, so thank you do the recommendation!