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My life-or-death mission tonight is to murder my husband.
Other than the group accompanying me, the only ones that know of our mission are Rhiannon and Brennan. Neither are happy about it, but we all know that I'm the only one who can carry this out. And if I can’t…well, we’ll all be dead by tomorrow night, anyway.
We’ve had ideas on how to get Xaden back—theories jotted down by Dain and I after piecing together what we could from Brennan’s jumbled memories, his dreams. But after what Xaden told me in his (our?) latest fucked-up dream, when he gave me that warning, we had to put something into action. Unlike when we crossed paths with him once before, we won’t have time to regroup.
I don’t feel like I’m truly existing in my body when we depart. It’s more like I’m watching from afar, just a star littered in the sky, all-seeing and unable to look away. I’m thankful for it, in a fucked up way, because if I was processing anything properly I would have lost all resolve.
The sun hangs low in the sky as we take flight. Too close to nighttime for comfort, but little to do about it now.
We land deep in the mountain range on the edge of Tyrrendor, just inside Poromiel, and in an area that’s impossible to get to without flying. We’re so close to the cliff-side we can hear the waves breaking brutally against the rocks down below. There are two venin that aren’t Xaden we come across, and they’re shown no mercy.
Not that Xaden is getting mercy, exactly, but while we stalk closer to where he awaits, they are left on the ground behind us as husks of wasted life and potential.
In our dream, I could see the edge of the cliffs, and an old rock formation pointing to the sky in the break through the trees. And so that is where we trudge onward.
I don’t quite see Xaden, but he sees us; we’re blanketed in darkness so deep that it should be suffocating. And to my allies, it might be. If our plan fails, he will kill them all in any moment. But to me, it feels like home.
Despite the impossibility of it all, we have to trust each other. Trust that Cat had enough time to see him and amplify the only emotion he has left, trust that Xaden is now too distracted by his love for me to kill everyone in the area but me. Trust that Dain and Sloane can move fast enough, because fucking Garrick wouldn’t hear it when I demanded he be with them to bring them into Xaden’s range, rather than be with me to bring me out of it.
And everyone has to trust me to kill Xaden Riorson.
As my vision darkens, shadows dance around my empty palms. Soft. Unyielding. I want to curl up in them and listen and see nothing but this, to forget anything that exists outside of them.
But I move. His shadows will always lead me to him. I would never not follow, and he would never not reach for me. Despite his letter, despite his pleas; we both know they’re empty words. He is mine, and I am his. There is no other way for us to exist.
It’s been agony, not having him in my mind, being able to tug at his presence—but the tendrils of shadows urge me to him as if they’re a string pulling at my heart. Or a compass. Pointing to my north. My love.
When I find him, the shadows recede around us, forming a cocoon. I stop, standing toe-to-toe with him. He stares down at me curiously, hands at his sides. I haven’t been this close to him since before he left. The few, brief moments I’ve seen him outside of dreams, he’s kept himself so far out of my reach.
I selfishly had hoped it would be difficult to see the pieces left of him when I gaze up at him. His face is even more gaunt than last time, his tawny skin grown ashen, but those unnerving, bright red eyes regard me with nothing but a familiar fondness.
“Yes, love?” He murmurs. His voice scratchy from lack of use.
I palm my dagger, and with all my willpower, stab up into his heart.
A flicker of surprise crosses his face. And then I expect pain, or anger. Betrayal, probably.
But no—it’s relief.
He lifts a hand like it takes all of his strength, reaching gently for a wisp of hair that didn’t quite make it into my braid. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch the gleam of a wedding band on his finger.
And then he crumbles to the ground. His shadows snuffed out like a match.
The setting sun has fallen behind the cliffs, but the light still blinds me. I’m supposed to call out for the others now.
A guttural wail that I don’t recognize is what escapes me. It burns my throat, bile churning in my stomach, and it continues until I have no air left in my lungs.
It’s echoed by a similar sound that rattles my bones. I manage to tear my gaze from Xaden’s prone form, and up, and up.
Sgaeyl is there. In the tree line, her head bowed as she stares at her rider. And then it rises—to me. I’ve never seen such a mournful expression in those golden eyes. She bares her teeth at me. I wonder if my death will be swift, when she burns me, but I hope it won’t. I hope it scalds me, I hope I am ignited with white hot pain as my skin melts for what I’ve done to the man at my feet.
“You will not burn,” Andarna says. Her tone is firm, but there’s a layer of grief hiding under it, too.
Tairn lands right in front of Sgaeyl, shaking the ground. A low growl rumbles from his throat—not a threat, but something else. Softer, despite the way his wings flair in warning. She arches to gaze up at her former mate, teeth still bared, and lets out a long, piercing whine.
I can’t bear to look at her, to see my own grief reflected so plainly, so I look back down at Xaden instead. At the dagger in his chest that I placed.
Garrick and Ridoc appear at my side; Ridoc has his sword drawn, keeping an eye on the treeline for threats. Garrick makes a low, choking sound when his gaze lands on Xaden, and then turns away to do the same.
I sink to my knees and crawl towards his head. His legs are bent underneath him at an unnatural angle; I want to straighten them out, but I’m numb down to my toes and fear I might collapse at any moment in a heap right beside him.
It’s part of our plan. It had to be done, but seeing him like this—
When I first used my signet with the intent to kill, I was so disgusted with myself after that I was sick. I was so repelled by manifesting something so clearly made for destruction. And although I’m proud of it now, and I’ve seen it save my loved ones and countless innocents—I did this with my own two hands. I felt his skin and muscle give under my strength. I put the force of my entire body into it. I am truly a thing of ruination, down to my bones.
The others arrive in a flurry. Cat, Dain, and Sloane kneel around him. Cat takes her rune disks and places one in each of his palms, tossing away the dagger I’d left in his heart and crossing his palms over the wound, instead.
I am his destruction and she is part of his salvation. What a sick, twisted joke.
I can’t stop looking at him, even as my vision blurs in the dying afternoon light. His face is relaxed, his dark eyelashes brushing his cheeks, and red veins web out along his temples. I ache to hold him, but I don’t deserve to yet. Not unless this works.
Dain and Sloane and Cat are talking, I think. There’s some garbled muttering that I can barely make out past the ringing in my ears.
No no no no no. That’s all I hear.
Sloane touches Xaden’s cheek, gently, and then winces. Dain holds his arm out to her insistently, and she snaps at him.
No no no no—
Cat grabs my arm, gripping me tight and pressing close to my side. “Violet!”
That sound was me, I realize, as my voice breaks on a wet sob. I lean into her side, desperate for any stability I can get, or else I may float away and not return.
She doesn’t say anything else, just keeps her grip on my upper arm so tight it hurts, and I’m grateful for the pain.
Sloane says, “Gods,” and places a palm to the ground.
“Sloane!” Dain barks, fear like I’ve never heard from him wrapping around her name.
“I’m getting it out, Dain—fuck, there’s so much—”
Her brow furrows in concentration, eyes shut tight. And we watch as the red veins soften and fade in Xaden’s face, and then pulse on the back of Sloane’s hand.
“Sloane, please—”
“She has it,” Cat cuts him off. “Holy shit, Mairi—”
Around her hand in the dirt, the grass darkens and grows, rich with life. And out of it, a flower rises. Blooms, facing the skyline, until her hand is wrapped in rich life and the back of the other smooths and returns to her unblemished, creamy pallor.
And then she cries out, and yanks at Dain’s wrist without a warning. He flinches at the sudden drain, then relaxes, somehow, as he watches her.
But looking at Xaden, I somehow feel much, much worse.
Because any part that labeled him as something other, as Venin, is gone from his face. Now, he just looks like my sick, dead fucking husband.
A new sob works up my throat, burning and insistent. I might vomit. Words sit at the edge of my tongue, but it’s too heavy to form them. Everything is so heavy.
I collapse forward, unable to hold myself up anymore, even with Cat’s help. My forehead rests on his stiff chest just under where his hands are crossed. Cat moves her grip to my shoulder, fingers digging into muscle while my body trembles. I can hardly breathe through the weight of my cries.
“We’re fixing him, Violet,” Dain says tightly.
“But I—” I killed him. “I—” I fucking killed him.
My voice is too thick and slurred to possibly be understood, so I stop trying.
Sloane says, through gritted teeth, “It’s not enough—”
I try to hold out a hand without lifting my head; Cat shoves it back down, yelling at me about being able to wield.
Can I truly not give some of my own life to him? Any of it? After taking his? I’m supposed to be power incarnate and here I lay, useless.
“Enemies from the north,” Tairn rumbles, his intrusion light, but insistent. “We have minutes.”
“We need to move out,” Garrick echoes.
“Hold on!” Sloane responds.
Beside me, I feel Cat start to curl in on herself as Sloane siphons from her. I turn my head, my cheek now resting on him as I look up at his face.
Please please, please.
Seconds move like minutes, and minutes like hours.
Sloane releases Cat’s wrist. She moves her other hand off of his face, hovering. Garrick says something else to us.
Xaden’s chest rises under me.
It’s shaky, and shallow. But it’s a breath.
One of his hands shifts, his pinkie just brushing my nose where a tear had settled at the edge, waiting to fall.
I take a long, shaky breath of my own, and let out a final sob.
“Silver One, you must move.”
Garrick kneels by Sloane, ready to take her and Xaden away. The runes pressing into his chest will keep him stable, but not for long. I place a trembling kiss to the back of his hand, and then Ridoc is hauling me up in a tight embrace as we watch the three of them disappear. I cling to him gratefully as I find my footing.
A wet, hysterical laugh bubbles out of my chest.
Dain and Cat stand; although a bit sweaty, the two of them are steady on their feet after being siphoned. Dain grins at me, like when we’d first raised the wards for Aretia, the giddiness of our work paying off. And then we run for our mounts.
Sgaeyl waited to break into flight with us. I’m not sure what Tairn may have said to her, but she stays in our formation as I stare down the flock of wyverns headed towards us. We’ll see how long it takes for them to realize Xaden isn’t here anymore.
We seem to have caught them off guard. Their group is smaller than we expected, and it pauses in the air once they spot us. Berwyn is there, with three other venin. They were, after all, just here to collect Xaden. To finally use his power for whatever next step of their master plan they’re on; Xaden could never say details, but he’d managed to stay on the fringes of battle, for the most part these past few months. We’ll have a lot to catch up on when I’m home. When we’re home, together.
I’m wrung out and hollow, like I’ve carved out my own heart and left it on the ground below, and it will not fit back into my chest until I’m home, in Aretia. Until I can look into Xaden’s eyes as their pure, stunning, gold-flecked onyx for the first time in nearly a year.
But we’re not there yet. So instead, my power crackles through the empty cavern in my chest, and ricochets and builds until I am nothing but raw, blistering energy. I killed my husband tonight. But now he is recovering, waiting for me. And I will make sure the one who tried to take him from me never gets another chance.
“Tairn,” I say. “I want to end him.”
Satisfaction bleeds through our bond, swirling with my rage.
“Then let’s.”