Iron Flame, page 38
Quinn took it a lot like Rhiannon, with grace and a sense of resolve.
Xaden’s going to lose his shit when I tell him, but I’ll deal with that when he gets here on Saturday. If they actually let us see each other.
“All of Flame Section is looking strong. Bodhi should be proud,” Quinn says with a hopeful smile.
“Visia bonded a Brown Daggertail,” Rhi says, nodding across the field to where the first-year stands in front of her dragon. “Avalynn, Lynx, and Baylor all made it, too. But I don’t see Aaric or Mischa.” She glances at me. “She’s the one who’s always biting her nails.”
“Oh. Right.” Guilt clogs my throat, and I swallow, but there’s no clearing it. While I’ve avoided getting to know anything about the first-years, Rhi hasn’t had that luxury.
Wingbeats fill the air again, and we all look to the right as a Blue Clubtail approaches with sapphire-hued scales that contrast the changing colors of the sunset sky, and he is beautiful.
“We’ve always been the better-looking species,” Tairn chimes in.
“Andarna?” I ask him every single day, and today, twice.
“She still sleeps.”
“That can’t be natural.” I shift my weight on the hillside.
“It’s…longer than expected.”
“So you keep saying. You have the Empyrean gathered.” I change the subject and glance back over my shoulder at the dragon-covered mountain, spotting Tairn high on the ridgeline above, just a little lower than the dragons I assume are their elders. “Plan on discussing anything tonight?” Without the cooperation of the Empyrean, we’re stuck.
“If we were, I couldn’t tell you.”
“Figured,” I say with a sigh, watching the blue land in the field directly in front of the dais where leadership, including my mother, watch.
“I’ll be damned,” Rhiannon mutters as Aaric dismounts from the Blue Clubtail like he’s been doing it for years, with an ease that reminds me of Xaden and Liam. I smile as he keeps his head down while recording his dragon’s name and makes it back without my mother recognizing him.
“There.” Rhiannon points toward the end of the field.
A midsize red the shade of a strawberry flies in, whipping her daggertail behind her when she lands in the middle of the field.
“A Red Daggertail,” I whisper, relief flooding my veins as Sloane clumsily dismounts, clutching her shoulder. “Just like her brother.”
Sloane hugs Visia tight, and I smile. I’m glad she has friends, that their year has the chance to become just as tight as ours.
“It’s hard not to loathe her for hating you.” Rhiannon sighs. “But I’m glad she survived.”
“I don’t need her to like me.” I shrug. “I just need her to live.”
“Squad Leader Matthias?” A rider from Third Wing wearing a black sash with a gray messenger insignia approaches.
“Here.” Rhi beckons him forward, then takes the folded parchment from his hand. “Thank you.” He leaves, and she breaks the wax seal to open the missive. Her gaze darts to mine, and she lowers her voice as Ridoc leans in. “Jesinia requests we meet her by the Archives door in fifteen minutes. She has a tome we’ve requested.” She reads our code phrase slowly, excitement growing in her eyes.
I inhale sharply, and my heart jumps as I grin. “She’s found the vault,” I whisper. “But I have the next watch, and Threshing is almost over. You have squad leader duties.”
“I’ll take your watch,” Ridoc offers quietly.
“And give Varrish a reason for me not to see Xaden this weekend? No way.” I shake my head.
“Then I’ll meet Jesinia.” He reaches for the missive, and Rhi hands it over. “Sawyer can cover us here.”
We all agree, and Ridoc and I head toward the quadrant, keeping clear of the newly bonded dragons’ flight path.
“Which tower are we keeping watch on?” he asks as we enter the courtyard. “Dormitory?”
“Academic.” I point up to the turret where the never-ending fire blazes.
“Ah. The burn pit. It’s going to be a busy night up there once the ceremony ends.” He nudges my shoulder. “I’ll come up right after I meet with her. And then I vote we join the Threshing celebration after your watch.” His head tilts. “Or at least I’ll be celebrating. Unfortunately, I think you limit yourself to celebrating with Riorson, now.”
“Go find out if all our problems are answered.” I laugh, and we part ways when I push open the doors to the academic wing. It’s eerily quiet in the building as I climb the wide spiral stairs up to the top floor. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever been alone in the academic building in all my years here. Someone is always around. My heart rate increases with every flight of stairs, but I’m nowhere near as winded as I was when I made this journey for Aurelie last year.
I open the door onto the flat-topped turret and am immediately enveloped in heat from the flames rising from the iron barrel in the center.
“Violet?” Eya smiles and hops off the edge of the thick stone wall on the other side of the barrel. “I didn’t realize you were relieving me.”
“I didn’t realize you had watch before me. How have you been?” I make my way around the barrel and try not to think of how many of the cadets will have their things offered to Malek in the next day.
“Good—” Her eyes blow wide as she glances past me—and I turn, immediately drawing a dagger from my thigh and moving to her side.
Four grown soldiers in infantry blue rush out of the doorway, each brandishing a shortsword as they face us. My stomach drops to the bottom floor and crashes. They definitely don’t look lost.
“Infantry is not allowed in the Riders Quadrant!” Eya snaps, flipping her hatchet over her wrist and gripping the handle.
“We’re here with express permission,” the one on the right snarls.
“And paid well for the specific message we’re to deliver.” That ominous line comes from the tallest one on the left as they spread out on the far side of the barrel, splitting in the center to come at us from both sides.
Four assassins and two of us. They have the exit, and we’re pinned between the fire, the wall, and four stories of nothing. Not good. And they know it, especially by the slow smile the one closer to the center gives, the firelight reflecting off his blade as he raises it.
Fuck them. I did not survive the entirety of last year, or these last few months, to die on top of the academic wing.
“Kill them all,” Tairn orders.
“Go left,” Eya mutters.
I nod and unsheathe another dagger. “Let me guess.” They take slow, coordinated steps toward us, and Eya and I pivot so we stand back-to-back. “Secrets die with the people who keep them?”
The one on the left blinks in surprise.
“It’s not as original as you’d think.” In rapid-fire, I flick two daggers at him, catching him in the throat and heart. Eya shouts behind me, charging at the two on her side as my first attacker falls like a damned tree, crashing into stone and driving my daggers deeper.
Blades clash behind me, and I lose sight of my remaining attacker in the high flames as I grab two more daggers. Shit, shit, shit. Where is—
Fire blasts toward my face and I dive to the left, narrowly missing the barrel that skids across the cobblestone floor and slams into the wall with a thud loud enough to wake the dead. My shoulder takes the brunt of the impact when I fall, and I grimace as I force myself onto my knees, ignoring the wide, unseeing eyes of the soldier I’ve already killed.
“I’m coming!” Tairn shouts.
Eya screams, and I make the mistake of looking back over my shoulder as one of the soldiers wrenches his sword from the middle of her chest.
Blood. There’s so much blood. It slides over her leathers as she clutches her ribs, and I watch in horror as she falls to her knees.
“Eya!” I shout, stumbling to my feet, but I can’t get to her with the barrel blazing between us. Pinching the edges of my daggers, I lunge forward, then hurl both at the assassin she hasn’t slain, catching him in the chest.
I have two more out when I spin to face the only one left, but there’s no time to throw them. He’s used Eya’s death to close the distance. I gasp as he grabs ahold of my waist, locking down with a grip I can’t dislodge as he marches three quick steps to the edge of the tower.
No! I slice at his arms, but he holds fast despite the wounds. I kick hard in his stomach, and he sputters, and with the next kick, he releases me. My momentum sends me flying backward, and my daggers scrape both sides of the turret’s crenellations as I skid toward the edge, my feet kicking under me and finding nothing but air.
Fast. It’s happening too fast to do anything but react.
Instinct takes over and my hands splay wide against the sides of the crenellations, releasing the daggers. Clawing for purchase, I sail backward, my skin grating against the rock to slow me down as I do, and the tips of my boots hit the edge of the turret…then slip right off.
But the impact is enough to change the angle of my fall, and stone rushes up at my face for no longer than a heartbeat before my stomach collides with the edge of the turret, stealing what breath I have on impact.
My weight drags me the rest of the way backward, and I dig in with my fingernails and hold as my lower half kicks against the crevices in the stonework beneath me, looking for a foothold.
This can’t be happening, but it is.
“It’s nothing personal,” the soldier says, crawling forward onto the three-foot-deep wall.
I gasp for breath and cough at the first full inhale. There has to be a foothold below. There just does. This isn’t how I die.
My feet search and I can feel the ridges, but there’s nothing substantial enough to support my weight.
“It’s just money,” he whispers from his knees and reaches for my hands.
Oh gods, he’s going to—
“No!” Power floods my veins, but there’s nothing to do with a strike this close.
“Just money,” he repeats, lifting my hands from the stone.
Xaden. Sgaeyl. Tairn. This will kill us all.
The soldier lets go.
I scream, the sound so shrill it tears my throat, and I slide, scraping my forearms raw as gravity drags me down, the top of the turret fading from view, but my fingers grab hold of the tiny lip at the edge…and cling.
My heart lurches into my throat as my feet scramble.
No foothold.
Barely any handhold, and my shoulders start to wail as I dangle.
“Just let go,” the soldier urges, crawling forward again. “It will be over before you—” His eyes bulge and he gurgles, grabbing for his throat and the dagger whose tip protrudes a few inches below his chin.
Someone has shoved their knife in through his spine.
Everyone thinks most Riders cadets die from dragon fire. Truth be told, it’s usually gravity that gets us.
—Page Forty-Seven, the Book of Brennan
Chapter
Thirty-One
I slip another precious inch as the soldier is yanked backward, then thrown forward, over my head, disappearing into the darkness.
It’s Eya. It has to be. Maybe the wound isn’t—
Blond hair and icy-blue eyes appear above me, and my heart plummets with the assassin’s body. Jack Barlowe.
“Sorrengail?” He lunges forward, grasping my wrists with an unbreakable grip.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell Tairn and prepare myself for the weightless moment that will be my last.
“I’ve got you!” Jack shouts, holding my wrists tight as he throws himself backward and hauls me up and over the edge.
My ribs hit stone, and he lets one hand go, then grabs my leathers and pulls, heaving me the rest of the way onto the tower wall.
I don’t waste time, scrambling forward to safety. As soon as my boots land inside the turret, he backs up a few steps, his chest rising and falling quickly with exertion as he gives me space, dodging the fallen body to the left as fire rages to the right.
“You saved me?” I scurry backward, leaving my hands at my sides and close to my daggers.
“I didn’t know it was you,” he admits, falling back against the tower wall and catching his breath. “But yeah.”
“You could have let me fall, but you pulled me up,” I say, like I’m trying to convince myself.
“Do you want to climb back up there and we’ll do it again that way?” he offers, gesturing to the wall.
“No!”
Wingbeats sound overhead, and we both look up as Tairn soars by. He would have been too late, and we both know it. The relief coursing through my body isn’t just mine; it’s his, too.
“Look.” Jack shakes his head and peers over at Eya’s lifeless form. “I was on the dorm’s watch for First Wing and ran when I heard the screams. And…well…riders don’t die at the hands of infantry.”
“I killed you. You have every right to throw me off the tower.” I reach behind me one hand at a time and collect two of my daggers, sheathing them slowly, bracing myself for anything.
“Yeah.” He rubs his hand through his short blond hair. “Well, that death was kind of a second chance for me. You don’t know who you really are until you face down Malek. So, the way I see this is I just gave you a second chance, too. We’re even.” He nods once, then walks away, exiting into the tower.
I move slowly around the edge of the turret, stopping to roll over the body of the first assassin I killed and remove my daggers, cleaning them on his uniform before sheathing them at my thighs. The fire slowly sputters in the barrel, and I lean against the hard stone wall before letting my back hit every ridge on the way down as I slide to sit.
I stare at the tips of Eya’s boots—they’re all I can see from this angle—and let my head fall back against the wall. Then I breathe and wait for the adrenaline to pass, for the shock to wear off, for the trembling in my aching hands to cease.
Eya’s dead. That’s half of us who flew into Resson. Aetos isn’t going to stop until we’re all gone. He’ll pick us off one by one. I hug my knees to my chest. Who will he come for next? Garrick? Imogen? Xaden? Bodhi? We can’t go on like this.
“Holy shit.” I hear Ridoc’s voice a second before I see him. “What happened?” He falls to his knees beside me, looking me over in obvious appraisal. “Are you hurt? Stabbed?” His glance skitters sideways. “Burned?”
“No.” I shake my head. “But Eya’s dead. Assassins. Aetos.”
“Fuck.”
I laugh, the sound tripping out of my lips hysterically. “Jack Barlowe saved my life.”
“Are you kidding?” Ridoc rises up and cups my face, checking my eyes for signs of concussion.
“No. He said this makes us even, and I really think he failed math, because by my calculations now I owe him two lives: the one I took from him, and the one he just gave me.”
“I should have come with you.” His hands fall away.
“No.” I shake my head, and my vision swims. “They could have killed you, too.” Shivers rack my frame.
“What do you need?”
“Just wait with me while it passes.”
Silence stretches between us.
“I saw Jesinia,” he says quietly. “The good news is she knows where the vault is. There are wards, but she knows how to get through them, too. But the bad news is we need someone in King Tauri’s bloodline to do it. They’re not just in some sublevel vault. They’re in the royal one.” His shoulders dip in defeat. “I’m sorry, Violet.”
I look over at Eya’s boots. There’s nothing I can do to protect her now, but I can protect what she fought for. “Then it’s a good thing we have access to a prince who happens to hate his father.”
Gods save us from the ambitions of second-years. They think they’ve experienced everything because they’ve survived their first year, but in reality, they only know enough to get themselves killed.
—Major Afendra’s Guide to the Riders Quadrant
(Unauthorized Edition)
Chapter
Thirty-Two
Xaden stares down at me that Saturday, his eyes boring a hole through my soul, and a muscle in his jaw ticks once. Twice.
At least there aren’t any shadows creeping out from under my bed, so he can’t be that angry, right?
“Say something.” I hold his gaze and shift my weight when the edge of my desk digs into the backs of my thighs.
His shoulders rise with a deep breath. At least one of us is getting enough oxygen. My chest feels like it’s about to squeeze my lungs right out of it.
“Rhiannon saved my life. If she hadn’t retrieved that dagger before Varrish took your jacket, I wouldn’t be sitting here.” It comes out like the plea it is. “They had to know eventually. She saw the dagger. She knew something was up.”
Those beautiful eyes close, and I swear I can feel him counting to ten.
Fine, maybe twenty.
“Say something. Please,” I whisper.
“I’m choosing my words carefully,” he replies, then takes another measured breath.
“I appreciate that.” I open my mouth to make another excuse, but there really is none to give, so I sit and listen to the clock tick and rain pelt the window while he composes his thoughts.
“Who exactly knows?” he finally asks, slowly opening his eyes.
“Rhiannon, Sawyer, Ridoc, and Quinn.”
“Quinn, too?” His eyes flare.
I hold up a finger. “That was all Imogen.”
“For fuck’s sake.” He drags a hand down his face.
“They don’t know everything.”
