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“Welcome to our fucked up family. Guess we’re brothers now,” Jack sneered with a shit-eating smirk.
Barlowe’s words rang in my head as I walked across the frigid courtyard back towards Violet’s room. My breath and shadows coiled around me as I absorbed my new reality.
I’m fucking venin.
Gods, this was all so fucked up. And the worst part was I couldn’t even bring myself to regret what I’d done. If it meant Violet was safe and alive…I would make the same decision every time. People would think I’m a monster for it, and now they would be right. I turned myself into the very monster that I vowed to destroy. The same monster that my father gave his life to reveal to the masses. The same monsters that had killed Liam.
Gods, Liam.
He would be horrified to see what I turned myself into. I shuttered to think what Bodhi and Garrick would do when they found out.
What would I do if one of them were in my position? Would I try to help them and find a cure? Or put them out of their misery as a mercy?
If Tairn had any choice, it would probably be the latter. The disgust in his eyes was palpable when he found Violet and me on the flight field in those horrible moments after the battle. He didn’t want me anywhere near Violet, let alone Sgaeyl.
I winced as I thought of my dragon. She had taken to giving me the silent treatment over the past forty-eight hours, which was far worse than any scathing remarks she could fling my way. It had been so long since there had been such absolute silence in my head. For the past three years, Sgaeyl had a near-constant presence in my mind either offering sage advice or a cutting remark, often at my own expense. Her presence was shortly by the combined bond from Violet and Tairn, which meant our minds typically didn’t have much silence these days.
Tairn, unsurprisingly, was in solidarity with Sgaeyl on icing me out completely. Violet, however, would stay an open book to me if she had been given any choice, but I was forcing her to keep her shields up around me. I didn’t trust the parasitic power that was now pulsing just beneath the surface of my skin, but Violet…my headstrong, brilliant, optimistic girl was certain I could beat this. Despite her brief horror when she realized what I did, what I’d become - she shifted immediately into fix-it mode. Insisting that there had to be a treatment or cure in the Archives or even the fables her father left behind. Violet knew more about the venin than anyone. If somebody could figure out how to defeat those pieces of shit, it would be her.
But if Barlowe had been telling the truth…
I shook my head. I couldn’t let that craven asshole get inside my head. It would only fuel the desperation and fear that this power fed on. But if he was right…knowing there was no hope for me would break Violet’s heart. Between losing her mother and Liam, the latter of which she had barely been able to process due to the utter shitshow the past six months had been, this might break her. As good as Violet was at compartmentalizing her feelings, another major loss would be her tipping point and the world couldn’t afford to have her break. She would be our best shot at beating what’s to come.
She would need training. We’d get her to work with the best to learn how to control the electricity running through her veins without burning out. I doubt Felix would be willing to take up residency at Basgiath to continue their lessons, but there was no shot in hell I would let Violet leave the protections of Navarre’s wards. Aretia was better protected than it had been six months ago, but if the venin were able to breach Basgiath of all places it was only a matter of time before they came for Tyrrendor. Violet was safest here, no matter how much I wanted to take her back home.
I sighed as I approached Violet’s room, pausing at the door. No matter what, I would tell her about what I learned tonight. It was the least I could do when she was sacrificing so much already by keeping my secret.
I ran a hand through my hair before gently pushing the door open, but what I found inside made my blood turn to ice. I tried to summon my shadows to strike but they remained frozen at my side as I stared at the figure cloaked in purple staring down at Violet with glowing red eyes.
Violet remained peacefully asleep and unaware of the scene playing out around her. I tried screaming out a warning to her but found that my mouth couldn’t form the words. My body was just as useless as my shadows were.
“Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!” I screamed down the bond, but Violet didn’t so much as stir. Instead, her head lolled heavily to the side, exposing her unbound hair splayed across the pillow. A wave of nausea coursed through me as the figure reached out to play with the silver ends of her hair.
“So much power,” the venin mused, still gazing down at Violet. “She has no idea what to do with it. She nearly burned herself alive rebuilding those wards.”
“ Violence, wake up,” I pleaded, but still nothing. When did she get so good at shielding that she could do it in her fucking sleep?
“It would have been such a waste, don’t you think?” The venin continued, finally looking up to observe me. I couldn’t see his face, but the voice was different than the one that haunted my dreams for the last six months, but it was still oddly familiar somehow. “You know you don’t have to do this all alone. There may be no cure for us but think of what the two of you could do with wielding the power that now courses through you.”
The venin took a deep breath as if he could scent our signets and the unnatural power I now wielded.
“We both know you never really fancied yourself as the hero type,” he continued. “You inherited this fight and legacy from your father while you were still just a boy. You never had time to consider what you wanted for yourself…but I will say you're a man of simple taste. All you want is this one girl .”
“Tairn!” I was begging now. Even if Tairn didn’t give a shit about me, he’d burn down this whole godforsaken college to keep Violet safe. It was the primary thing we had in common. “I can’t move and this asshole is going to take her.”
“Take her?” The venin asked. If possible, I went even more still than I already was.
He was fucking intinnsic.
“Hardly,” he chuckled, still twirling Violet’s silver hair between his fingers. “We want the same things is all. We want the one who can command the sky, just like you. There’s no reason why you two can’t stay together if you can bring her to our side.”
Violet would never. She had already been tempted to pull from the earth when she reached her burnout and was strong enough to do what I couldn’t, she fought that urge to take what didn’t belong to her. And I would die before I let these monsters get their hands on her.
The venin sighed, “So dramatic…you can’t stop what’s coming, though. Although, you’ll soon start seeing our side of things.”
I could feel my power surging beneath the surface of my skin, but still, I couldn’t access it. As if a blanket had been thrown over me, smothering the shadows that ached to attack. To kill.
“Oh, how rude of me,” he quipped waving a hand. “Forgot I took away your ability to speak.”
Air I hadn’t realized had been missing came flooding into my lungs and I fought the urge to gasp.
“Get your fucking hands off of her before I peel the skin off your flesh,” I seethed. The figure's face split into a sinister grin as he cocked his head to the side as if sizing up the reality of my threat.
“I’ll take those odds,” he answered.
Before I could even blink his hand moved from Violet’s hair to her throat, squeezing her neck tightly. Her eyes flew open in shock and fear as she glanced around wildly. She beheld the figure above her, scratching at his arms and trying to kick him off her, but the figure didn’t even budge. He just grinned down at Violet. I tried to lurch forward to grab her but I remained rooted to the spot, my mouth opened in a silent scream. There was nothing I could do. I could see the sparks of electricity at Violet’s fingertips, but it wasn’t strong enough to throw the figure off of her.
Instead, the venin spared a glance at the small flashes of light and gripped harder at Violet’s neck. She choked for air and tried to recoil from his grasp, whipping her head from side to side. It was no use though, the venin was too strong. I gaped in horror as the silver strands of Violet’s hair began do spead upwards towards the dark roots at the crown of her head. Dread and agony coiled within me. He was draining the life from her, just as his brethren had sucked the life from the Soleil, Fuil, and countless others in the villages they desiccated across the continent.
Why can’t I fucking move? She’s dying and I could fucking move, I was just frozen staring at the scene playing out in front of me, praying Violet could miraculously fight him off.
“Take me,” I pleaded. “I’ll do whatever you want. Just take me instead.”
“We already have you right where we want you,” he crooned back, not even sparing me a glance. “We need her now…or at the very least her power.”
The ivory and peach hues of Violet’s skin began to dull into a lifeless grey. My mouth fell open in a silent scream as I crashed to my knees. She gave a few weak thrashes before grasping onto the figure’s forearms, not to peel him off but to force them to meet her own hazel eyes.
“Look at me, look at me, look at me,” I begged her through the bond, but she couldn’t hear me. I had no idea if she was even aware that I was in the room with her. I didn’t want the last thing she saw to be those horrible red eyes staring down at her with hatred and hunger.
“Please,” she managed to gasp out. The grey rash now inched up her neck as she stared at the figure with such sadness and what I swore was… compassion ? I didn’t have time to consider the mix of emotions in Violet’s eyes as a sickening snap filled the room and I watched as Violet’s arms and head fell back like a marionette’s strings had been cut. Her usually bright hazel eyes stared unseeing at the ceiling.
A cold, cool, oddly calm silence coursed through me.
She was dead. Violet - my Violet - was dead.
The room exploded around me as my shadows were finally able to fight through whatever damper the venin had placed on me. The rage that coursed through me, now uncontainable. I wrapped a night-kissed shield around Violet - her body - while another shadow wrapped itself around the venin’s neck to yank him against the wall. The stone cracked on impact and the figure’s hood slipped from his head. I stalked closer as my shadows wrapped around his wrists and ankles to bind him in place. His head hung low but his shoulders shook with delirious laughter, no doubt drunk off the power and life he drained from Violet. He deserved a slower more painful death than I would grant him.
“You’ll be the death of her,” he whispered, his laughter growing hysterical.
I lunged forward, needing to kill him with my own bare hands. To snap his neck, the same way he had done to Violet. I wrenched his face upwards to look at the same hateful eyes that had been the last thing Violet looked at as she was ripped away from the world, away from me. I stumbled backwards in disbelief as I looked into the smiling face before me.
My own face.
"Now you'll be the villain...especially in her story," Jack had told him in the dungeon. It had been a warning.
I shot upwards with a gasp glancing wildly around the dark room. I looked to my left to find Violet sleeping. Breathing . Relief flooded through my system and I instinctively reached out to run a hand through her hair before I shot backwards, remembering that it had been my own hand that had sucked the life from Violet. How it had been my hands that turned her beautiful hair and skin into an ashen husk to fuel my power.
It was just a fucking dream. A nightmare, more like it. The logical part of my brain knew it wasn’t real, but my dreams from the past six months had come true. The ones that told me I’d turn for love rather than power. Now the same source of those dreams was telling me I would be the one to destroy the only thing that mattered to me? The only person that loved me?
I wouldn’t do it. I would never risk her or hurt her. I’d kill myself before I let that happen. It would break her heart, but she would survive.
I stumbled from the bed. Knocking over the glass of water and books that lay on the nightstand.
“Xaden?” Violet murmured sleepily as I haphazardly threw only my pants and shirt. I didn’t even bother with socks as I crammed on my boots. I snatched my flight jacket from the chair at Violet’s desk as I rushed through the door. I could hear the bedsprings groan as Violet shot up in bed. “Xaden?!”
I was already out the door, sprinting towards the flight field. I had to get far away from here. Far away from her before I could do anything that couldn’t be undone. Before I could hurt her.
“I need you,” I begged Sgaeyl, praying she would answer my pleas. That she would understand why we had to fly off in the middle of the night. Silence followed for a few beats before I continued. “Please.”
“I’m on my way,” Sgaeyl finally answered. I nearly stumbled down the steps with relief, it was the first I heard her voice in days. “Tairn will be joining me.”
The implication that Sgaeyl was now unsafe with me didn’t hurt. Tairn was right - I was dangerous and should not be trusted alone with his rider or his mate. I’m sure when he hears about the dream he will roast me alive. It would be a mercy for everyone.
“He will do no such thing,” Sgaeyl hissed. She may be pissed, but she hadn’t completely given up on me. Yet.
I was in a full-on sprint towards as I spotted the massive figures on the flight field. We could probably make it to Aretia by noon if we left now.
“You will not be flying anywhere tonight, Dark One,” Tairn said plainly. “You are needed here. Even if you fly off to Aretia, you don’t think Silver One will command me to follow?”
“Humans do not command dragons. Isn’t that what you’re always groaning about?”
“That may be so,” the black dragon countered back. “Unfortunately for both of us, Silver One is also bonded to a rebellious adolescent dragon who would no doubt be willing to test all of our limits to reunite you two.”
“Andarna can’t carry a rider,” I argued back. Gods, I must really have a death wish for arguing with a dragon. The second largest of the continent, no less.
“It hasn’t stopped her from trying,” Tairn said with a grumble, sounding like a disgruntled grandfather. “She shouldn’t have be able to catch Silver One’s fall as Resson, but she did so anyway. Do not underestimate her.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I breathed. Andarna, from what I learned from Violet, was just like her in spirit. Both small and unassuming to those who refused to look beneath the surface. Only to be met with courageous, powerful beings when pushed to their limits.
“Why do you think I claimed them?” Tairn asked me, his eyes shimmering with pride.
“I have to go,” I begged again. “I won’t survive it if something happens to her. If I’m the reason she get hurt or killed.”
“You will not harm the girl,” Sgaeyl said, her voice more gentle than I had ever heard it.
“The dream-”
“ Is just a dream,” she snapped. “You are the one with the choice to make it a reality or not. So fight it. Fight them. Teach the girl how to defend herself and harness that power of her’s to protect herself from even you.”
“What if…” I glanced down at my hands shaking with fear and disgust at the power that lurked beneath. “ What if I’m too powerful for her to take down.”
“Nature likes everything in balance,” Sgaeyl reminded me. “Why would the universe see to it that a shadow wielder and lightning weilder were bonded together through their dragons?”
I don’t know how I never thought of it before. How our signets could essentially counteract one another. Balance each other. If the venin power took over me like the infectious disease it was in Violet’s fables…she would be the only person that could take me down.
“She needs you, just as much as you need her,” Sgaeyl said. “Not that I’m very keen on the idea of you sharing our weaknesses…you’ll need to teach them to her…so she know what to do if the time comes for it.”
“You can’t make her do that,” I ground out. “It would destroy her.”
“It will destroy her to watch you become one of those abominable beasts,” Tairn hissed back. Sgaeyl snapped at his neck, but he ignored her. “If we can find any alternatives, we will take them but until then you will train her. Make sure she is prepared and teach her to control her powers just as you took control over your own.”
“I…” I wanted to continue the argument that I was the worst possible thing for Violet now before I felt the silver thread of the mental bond tug tightly with worry. I snapped my neck around to see Violet sprinting after me and nearly rolled my eyes with annoyance to see she had no shoes or jacket on. Just one of my shirts that hung over her like a dress. It was the end of December for gods sake.
“We may want to start first by instilling some self-preservation in her,” I grumbled to the dragons.
“Good luck,” Tairn said, with what I could have sworn was a snort.
“What the hell have I told you about risking your safety to come and talk to me?” I all but barked at her.
“The only think I’m risking is a cold,” Violet replied, not at all deterred by my tone. “What the hell do you expect me to do when you take off running in the middle of the night?”
I sigh as I tug off my jacket to wrap around her. Practically swimming in the godsdamn thing and she peered up at me with such worry and love in her eyes. Love I didn’t deserve. Not after what I had done. For what I might do to her. She reached up a hand to brush my cheek and I flinched at the gentleness of her touch. She brought up her other hand to cup my face forcing me to look into her eyes. Just had she had gripped the venin’s arms - my arms - in the dream. Nausea coiled through me at the memory and I tried to rip myself away from her, but Violet held me firmly.
“What happened?” she asked. “No more lies remember? Whatever you have to say, I can take it.”
She couldn’t bear this burden. I would have to fix this on my own.
“You cannot do this alone,” Sgaeyl murmured. “Let her in. She will help you as much as you can help her.”
“Please, you can’t shut me out any more,” Violet begged, her beautiful hazel eyes staring into mine. My shields were up, but she knew me well enough to read every emotion on my face. If there was any hope of us surviving this, I’d need to let her in. No more selective truths and lies of omission, the full - oftentimes ugly - truth.
“I went to see Barlowe,” I admitted and Violet’s eyes widened in surprise. No anger or judgment, just surprised I’d sought him out so soon. “There’s no cure for… what I am.”
If Violet felt any sort of devastation or defeat, she masked it well. Damn, maybe she was already learning from me.
“Barlowe is a fucking liar,” she murmured, her bright eyes hardening with a determination I’ve seen countless times before when she was desperate to prove someone wrong. “He was a lost cause long before he became fucking venin. He turned because he felt weak and powerless, you did it so you’d have a chance at saving everyone.”
“Not everyone,” I said, shaking my head. “I did it to save you. Only you.”
Her mouth formed a hard line, “Fine..but still you didn’t do this for yourself. From what we know…the rest of it have done it to amplify their own power. You took it to protect you did it out of love not fear.”
“I was afraid though,” I whispered, dropping my head in shame. “I could feel you dying through the bond and there was nothing I could do stop it except…reach down and pull from that power. He was going to kill me and step over my body to get to you next, Vi…and I couldn’t…”
My voice dropped off. Gods, I was such a weak, pathetic mess. She didn’t need any of this. She didn’t need me.
“It’s going to get worse,” I told her. “And I need to be far away from here - from you - when that happens.”
She gripped my face even harder as if holding me back from bolting like I so desperately wanted to.
“Fuck that,” she ground out. “There is always an answer Xaden. If the legends and fables are true, there was a way the venin were defeated before. We just need to know where to look for the answers.”
I knew that brilliant mind of her would spend hours scouring the Archives to find a solution.
“Assuming leadership hasn’t burned every piece of research and literature that makes reference of the venin,” I argued. Violet pursed her lips as if the thought of burning books was a personal affront to them.
“I don’t think they’d be arrogant enough to burn it,” she said. “They had to keep the lie somehow and if Navarre has been able to hold them off for this long, it means a select few needed to know how to fight them or ward them off. The texts have to exist…they’re just probably very well hidden. Probably in the Royal Archives in Calldyr if I had to take a guess.”
Gods, she was so fucking smart. However, I didn’t forget the disastrous results of the last heist we pulled in the Royal vault within the Archives. which ended up with her being tortured for five straight days. I still shuttered as I remembered how her face had been so bloody and bruised that I hadn’t even realized it was Violet until she spoke up. I couldn’t risk that happening again.
“If we can’t find get to the texts then we’ll have to consider Plan B and Plan C,” she continued, no doubt sensing my hesitation and probably remembering the horrors of what happened to her.
“You have multiple plans?” I asked stupidly because of course she did.
“You’re not going to like Plan B, but just hear me out first,” she replied, quickly. Whatever Plan B was couldn’t be as insane as her implication that we somehow break into the Royal Archives. “It includes working with Nolon.”
I stand corrected.
“No fucking way.”
She sighed in frustration as if I were being the unreasonable one. The man was lucky to still be breathing after the part he played in Violet’s capture and torture. There was no way in hell that we would work alongside him.
“He was able to keep Jack in line for ten months , Xaden,” she argued.
“I think your mother and Baide would beg to disagree,” I shot back. I felt a pang of guilt when Violet flinched at the mention of her mother and Tairn growled at me as a puff of steam hit my back. I’ll admit it was a low blow, but clearly, Nolon did not have nearly as much control over Jack Barlowe as he thought he did. “He played Nolon and the rest of us almost died because of it.”
“He had some control. The fact that none of us even suspected Jack had turned venin shows how effective they were,” she continued.“I think Jack may have taken advantage of us stealing half of the dragons and riders away from this place. Nolon probably gave him a longer leash and Jack snapped.”
I clenched my jaw, not trusting my own self-control to not snap Nolon’s neck when I faced him again. Violet had a point, I’d give her that, but it would take time for me to even consider working with someone who had betrayed her trust and caused her so much harm.
“I’d like to hear about Plan C,” I said wrapping my hands around Violet’s waist and pressing my forehead to hers. I could hear a soft flap of wings approaching us, by the small smile playing on Violet’s lips I knew it was Andarna approaching us.
“Lucky for us,” she continued. “We happen to know a dragon that waited six hundred and fifty years to hatch.”
I whipped my head towards the adolescent dragon landing between Tairn and Sgaeyl. The was an abnormally long time for a dragon egg to remain unhatched. Technically, it meant Andarna was older than Tairn and Sgaeyl. The smaller dragon shot an almost goading look at Tairn who chuffed in disbelief that had Sgaeyl snickering and Violet clamping her lips down to keep from smiling.
I eyed them all in confusion.
“She told Tairn that he should respect his elders,” Violet supplied and I was smart enough to fight back my own laugh.
“Infuriating younglings,” he growled.
“She keeps you young,” Sgaeyl answered, nuzzling his neck.
Suddenly, a realization hit me. Six hundred and fifty years ago predated The Great War. Before The First Six approached the dragons to help them in the fight against the venin. It could hardly be a coincidence that she hatched just as the creatures
“Andarna was…”
“Nesting when the Great War took place,” Violet supplied. “She may not remember much, but she might be able to point us in the right direction.”
“Andarna is Plan C,” I said, watching the dragon straighten with pride and Violet beamed back at her.
“Our own secret weapon,” she answered.