A/N: While I love the inclusion in Iron Flame later chapters of Violet having PTSD reactions to caves, smells, confining quarters, and anxiety reactions to people suggesting she be confined or questioned because of her torture by Varrish, I wanted more because I'm an angst goblin. I don't have a great timeline, and I do try and stick to canon-ish things because I like research and the relaxing effect that has on my brain (I'm such a scribe). So, sometime after their sexy time at the beginning of Part 2 and a few days later.
.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
My eyes fly open and take in the gray stone walls, the blood splattered floor, the shitty wood cot, and the overwhelming darkness that threatens from every corner. A single mage light fights to light the interior at the door, just like it has every morning in this prison.
Fear clutches my heart when the door opens, and sharp, radiating pain in my ribs, my left arm, my fingers, and my legs react when Varrish stands tall in the doorway, illuminated like some unholy knight here to pull every last secret out of my heart.
Sweat rolls down the back of my neck and every inch of skin breaks out into gooseflesh as he takes a step toward me wearing that smug fucking grin that I hate so much.
"We're going to have fun, you and I," a voice says, but it doesn't belong to Varrish.
While I thought my heart was beating out of my chest before, it skyrockets when I recognize the figure that moves into the room to stand side by side with the vice commandant. The deep purple of the robes is a stark contrast to the gray color of the room and the black outfits we riders wear.
I can't help the sob that tears from my throat at the sight of those red eyes, the spiderwebbed veins spreading across the pale skin like branching tributaries of a massive river system, the cracked lips that smile when he takes stock of my purpling, bruised skin from where I'm tethered to the chair.
He lifts the staff and his power wraps like sharp wire around my arms and legs. Every place the invisible essence touches me is a violent, vibrating energy that rips through and settles into every muscle, every joint, every bone. I've felt this before…and as I begin to rise, lifted into the air by the Sage's magic, I realize where. On the mat…during sparring -
.
I gasp as my eyes fly open. Shadows move along the ceiling above me, and a bright flash from across the room forces my eyes painfully closed. The answering rumble of thunder that reverberates through the stone almost chastises me - and I can't help but wonder how much of Aretia I've set on fire with my bad dream and, as of late, nearly uncontrollable power.
Sound other than my racing heart and the blood pulsing in my ears tunes me into the fat drops of rain pelting the side of the large window.
Sometimes it's actually a thunderstorm. Get a hold of yourself.
Aretia. Not Basgiath.
Riorson House. Not a cold, dark, stone cell.
Soft bedding and the warmth of Xaden's arm heavy across my waist. Not lifeless stone or the splintering wood of the cot.
I pant through my nose several times in an attempt to lower my heart rate and calm my breathing, and another flash of light brings reality into focus for milliseconds before it's shrouded back into darkness.
The ground rumbles again, and the storm beckons. The relic on my back burns as crackling energy paths through my veins ordering every hair on my body to stand at attention. I gently slide from under Xaden's arm, pausing when he moves in his sleep to adjust and tuck his arms beneath his pillow while rolling onto his stomach. His default sleeping position, and I can't help the soft smile at the fact that I actually know that for a fact.
Pressing a light kiss to his shoulder, I sit up and for the first time feel the wetness of tears on my cheeks. Gods, I want the dreams to stop. First the Sage, now Varrish, or tonight Varrish and the Sage, haunting me over and over again.
I long for the night's I'd wake up flushed and lusting after dreaming that Xaden Riorson had finally taken me to bed, and after having been in his bed, waking with the same amount of lust from having too much knowledge and not enough him.
I grab the first piece of clothing I can find and drag it over my head.
When the overwhelming scent of mint assails me, I know it's not my clothes I've found, but there's no way I'm taking it off now that I know it's his. The black tunic is long on my body, coming to the middle of my thighs, and the laces at the chest leave a deep, loosely laced V from the edges of my shoulders to my stomach.
My knee complains as I walk, unhappy at its treatment from the previous days run up the mountain trail, but I ignore it and move to the large window surrounded by velvet curtains.
A thunderstorm in all its glory rolls through the valley.
The power in my veins calls to the storm, and the dancing strands of lightning that flit from cloud to cloud taunt me to come play. Instead, I sit onto the sill and watch, though between strikes, the darkness of the room forces a triggering pinch in my chest as anxiety wraps like vines around my lungs.
Only when the strikes are big enough does the sky's release chase the dark away and remind me that I'm safe in his room. Well, our room. It's only been a few days, but you'd think we'd been together for years with how suddenly intermingled our things are in the Aretian bedroom.
Flash - the soft, thick curtains around me.
Darkness and thunder, simultaneous.
Flash - the walls of shelves filled with books and tomes.
Blackness and rumble, simultaneous.
Flash - the muscled lump of Xaden in the bed as he sleeps.
Comforting shadow and answering echo.
Surprisingly, I don't jump at the fatherly voice that knocks at my mind. "I would not have guessed you to be afraid of the dark, Silver One."
"You're supposed to be asleep."
"My rider is…distressed."
In response, I raise my shields over the other paths in my Archives so I don't risk waking anyone else at what I assume is an ungodly hour of the night.
"Bad dreams. Go back to sleep."
I feel his gentle scoff as a flowering burst of warmth comes before the bond goes quiet. I shield off his door when it's dimmed before turning to face the storm as it ravages the Aretian countryside.
If I can't figure out how to raise the wards, this beautiful, rebuilding city will be ashes again. Or worse - occupied by Venin. The people that live here, the people I brought - if that's even the right word - will be drained into husks.
Maybe they shouldn't have trusted my knowledge. My knowledge is…useless. Not even Varrish wanted it, not really. He wanted Xaden. What I knew was secondary.
He tortured me for five days because I was the lure and he could. Well…and probably because he truly enjoyed it.
None of my - knowledge - prepared me for that.
No amount of books I read, or battles I studied, helped me in that room. Everything he wanted from me was someone else's secret…I don't even have one of my own any longer.
Fresh anguish drives another bout of tears from my eyes to roll down my cheeks and I bite my lip trying to refocus on the storm, the Archives, anything to try and center myself. Instead, my hands sit in my lap and fidget with the hem of Xaden's shirt.
"There is nothing more sacred than the Archives. Even temples can be rebuilt, but books cannot be rewritten," my lips move as I silently recite the absolutely useless Guide to Excelling in the Scribe Quadrant.
It doesn't center me like I'd hoped.
Because they did. They rewrote…everything. They changed everything to suit their narrative.
My knowledge means nothing.
They'd have been better off burning it all.
The vehemence behind my thought twists the dagger that's taken up permanent residence in my chest as another part of my scribe's heart - my father's heart - splits away. Soon, there won't be any of it left.
A flash of light illuminates the room once more and I see Xaden moving to my right slowly in an attempt to get my attention. I assume he's making his best effort to not scare the shit out of me, but that fails. My heart leaps into my throat and am immediately annoyed by the gasp I suck in.
"I really tried not to scare you," he says quietly, his sleep-roughened voice almost loud compared to the silence I've gotten used to. A flash of lightning shows that he'd tugged on his leathers, the ties around the waist just tight enough to keep them on, but the waistband hangs dangerously low on his hips. Despite my spiral, I can't not draw my eyes to the V of muscle that sits between his hips and dives into the top of the leathers.
The boom of thunder pulls my eyes back up.
"Sorry," I whisper, not really knowing why I'm apologizing, and the look on his face echoes my unspoken sentiment. I relax my shields from his pathway and feel a pulse of warmth that I assume he's been trying to send my way for a little while.
He lifts his hand and twists, and across the room a mage light illuminates at the lowest level. It gives enough light so that everything is cast in low shadows, but not enough to burn my eyes, and I instantly feel better.
Why didn't I think of that?
He moves to the other side of the room and I can't help but follow the muscled lines of his back across his dragon relic, and I do the same to his front when he comes back, the chair from the writing desk in his hand. He settles it a couple of feet away from me and sits with a soft, open smile, elbows resting on his knees as he leans forward.
His full attention is on me, and I don't know what the fuck to do with it.
The moment of silence stretches between us, but it's not awkward, nor is it painful. It's just silence - save for the rumble and crack of thunder from another bolt of light that illuminates Aretia in one second of brilliant near-sunlight before it all goes dark once more.
"Nightmare?" He assumes correctly.
I nod.
"Ressen?"
I frown, shaking my head, and I feel a pinch in my left arm where it had been broken over and over again. My right hand seeks to massage it away despite knowing it's just a phantom pain tied to bad memories. His eyes focus on the movement before coming back to mine.
"Varrish," his whisper is a caress in my mind, and I see the want in his eyes to take me into his arms and never let me go.
Does that sound so bad?
Not really, I decide.
His voice is calm and gravelly. "Tell me something real." It's the first time since I was mended where he's allowed himself to be open enough to ask me, in a roundabout way, something about those five days. It's also my go-to question when things are too heavy on my heart. I told him to ask if he wanted to know, he said he didn't. Said he wouldn't.
Now he is.
"They took my knowledge from me - made it useless," I whisper, a quiver to my chin. "Then Varrish took my strength while reinforcing exactly," I drag in a ragged breath, "how powerless their knowledge made me."
"No, Violet -" I interrupt without letting him finish. A Sorrengail specialty. I know he doesn't agree with what I'm saying. And…maybe I don't either, but I have to get it out. It's eating me alive. Maybe it's not my new self image, but it's definitely a detriment to the self image I'm desperately trying to rebuild.
"I used my knowledge of poisons to cheat; held myself back from getting any better - any stronger."
"I read the codex a dozen times the night before the gauntlet and my knowledge gave me the idea for the dagger, but it didn't help when I shredded my hands by climbing. It didn't drag me over the lip of the ramp at the end, it was my speed and my ability to box away pain that did it."
"Violet -"
"I crafted a plan to break into the Archives and find a first account of the construction of the wards, but was too stupid to not use a scribe's bag to transport the damn thing and got myself caught."
I heave in a ragged, almost angry breath as the room is illuminated again by a bolt from the sky.
I know my voice is too shaky, and the lump that's almost a permanent fixture at the back of my throat will make my words too raw. I let the boom soothe me as best as it can.
"I've been sitting here for a while just…thinking about how dark it was in there. Varrish would - take away the mage lights and I swear my eyes could never adjust to that, much, black."
From the corner of my eye I see the lines of his shoulders tense, but he listens.
"The time between the lightning strikes reminded me that here isn't there, but why didn't I just conjure a mage light? Why did I sit here, afraid of the dark as if I'm…powerless?"
I think we both end up assuming that my question is rhetorical, but when I rip my fingers through my loose hair and look down at my fidgeting hands, the sigh I give is one of disappointment.
"Because I didn't - think - of it." My chuckle is hollow. "Me." I say, meeting his eyes. "I. Didn't. Think of it. A lot of good my scribe brain is doing me lately, huh?" Another rhetorical question.
I feel the building tear blur my vision before it lets go to roll down my cheek.
"I know you don't want to know what happened, and I don't blame you. I really don't. It wasn't fair of me to hope that you'd want to talk about it because…if roles were reversed, I don't think I'd ask either."
"I know enough." His voice sounds like it was dragged through glass, and I nod. He saw the bruises, cuts, dried and wet blood across every inch of my body. But the aftermath is so different from the moments when those bruises, those splits in my skin, were delivered.
I drag my legs up to press my knees against my chest, and rest my cheek on top to look back out the window at the rolling clouds and coruscating lightning. I'm surprised when he continues, and the pain I hear in his voice pulls a fresh wave of tears to my eyes.
"I know you felt like you were alone in there, but you weren't."
I freeze, though I wasn't moving. There's no way he knows about my Liam hallucination. I haven't told anyone how crazy I went in there.
"When we were close enough to Basgiath, all three of us knew exactly what was happening to you across the bond we share."
I slowly lift and turn my head, and his tear-filled eyes drive that heart-plunged dagger into my soul.
"But…the bond-blocking serum," I start, but the shake of his head silences me.
"It only cuts you off, remember? Not the other way around. And you weren't able to shield us out because of it, so every single time he hurt you, I knew. I…felt it."
Another flash of light, another round of thunder, followed by another bout of silence until his words break me.
"My bad dreams are filled with the sound of your screams."
"I'm sorry." Another apology I don't owe anyone, least of all him, and the softness in his features tells me so. Again. "I feel so lost, Xaden." My words are a quiet, sad whisper. "We're supposed to just…go back to doing classes and being second-years, but I constantly feel like gravity is shifting beneath my feet. One moment is up, the next is down, and I struggle with just about everything. It's so different from last year."
He nods, sighs, and leans back in the chair. "Look. I'm here. I'll help you with whatever you need me to help you with. If that's just sitting and listening, I'll do it. If it's beating the shit out of someone because you don't want to do it yourself, I'll win. If that's taking you to bed ten times a day, it'll be my pleasure. You're not lost, Violence."
He punctuates the statement by holding out his hand to me, and my body responds before my mind. Feet moving, fingers soaking in the warmth of his, my skin tingles beneath both his touch and his gaze.
"I know you're not, because my brilliant, fucking, woman is standing right in here front of me."
Gods, the faith he puts in me might just be enough to rekindle my soul.
"Yeah?" I ask because I truly need to know.
My hands hit his chest, the right moving to drift my fingers along his relic where it swirls up his neck, as is my habit.
"They didn't take anything that you can't get back. I promise. Everything that makes you, you, is right here," his warm hand sets flat over my chest, above my beating heart. "Facts don't really matter."
I can't help the small offended gasp, and the brilliant smile he silences me with prompts me to answer with one of my own. "Are you saying you've already learned everything you're ever going to learn?" I shake my head. "So you aren't tied to the facts, you're tethered to the ability to gain knowledge. Your mind, other than being so godsdamn sexy, is the thing that will save all of us."
I can't keep my face from falling. "I don't know if I can shoulder that much responsibility." I can't help but slide my hand down and trace the scar over his heart with my thumb.
"I never have and never will doubt what you're capable of."
One hand at the small of my back and the other over my chest warms both sides of my heart, and my gaze flickers to his lips only once before I bring my hands up to the sides of his jaw. I don't have to pull him in so much as he assumes my goal and leans forward. The hand over my chest moves up to dive through my hair and cup the back of my head, holding me in place for the soft touch of his lips.
Missing is the explosive heat that sears through my veins like always when our mouths collide. Instead, a slow fuse burns from the back of my head to the base of my spine, one delicate vertebra at a time. Our lips are like whispered caresses, promises we're making to one another, and the way his fingers at my back rub ever so slightly against the fabric makes me wish to Amari that it was my skin he was touching.
"Violet," he mumbles against my lips, his slipping to brush feather-light kisses against the length of my jaw toward my ear. "Tell me what you need me to be tonight. I'll be whatever you need," his words are a husky whisper that sends molten gold straight from my heart to my center. I wrap my arms around his neck, one hand clinging to the back of his shoulders as the other dives into his silky hair, and I cling to the comfort he offers. His mouth brushes my shoulder as he wraps his arms around me.
I think about everything he said and, though the nightmare will probably come back and things will still be hard tomorrow, I don't feel as bad now as I did ten minutes ago. Because I know deep in my heart that what he said was true. Knowledge isn't just what I've learned - it's how I learn.
"I think I'll go with the offer to take me to bed ten times a day. For now, at least," I whisper, and I can feel his quickening heartbeat where I'm pressed to his chest.
I tilt back, his hands coming up to cup the sides of my jaw and pull me in for another core-melting kiss. "I'll make sure I'm available."
…