Chapter Text
We are the last ones to arrive in Rhiannon's room, and it's full: Rhiannon, of course, Ridoc, Sawyer, Jesinia, Sloane, Garrick, Imogen, Bodhi, and Dain. I sit down on the floor among the surviving members of Violet's flight, minus the more recent additions, plus my closest friends.
Violet closes the door and nods to Rhiannon, who looks around the room, meeting each person's gaze in turn. "Against all odds, we're still here. Now we know what we're up against, and everyone else does too. The secret is out, and General Melgren and the rest of the leadership are desperate and grateful enough to overlook our prior absence and accept us back into the Navarrian war effort."
I catch her eyes as she glances in my direction. "The Aretian leadership have their own decision to make, but we're here to decide for ourselves. Do we go back to Aretia, knowing the wards are failing? Or will we stay here, under General Melgren's command, and negotiate terms for our future involvement in this conflict?"
Everyone looks at me. Fuck - they expect me to make a decision, or at least propose something that they can debate and eventually agree with. I don't want to lose their trust, but they really need to know what happened and my stomach twists thinking about it. Cut off from Sgaeyl and my signets, I feel half-blind and half-deaf, far away from everything happening around me. I didn't realize how much I've come to rely on my ability to read intentions, and without that knowledge I am terrified to say what I know I need to say.
Violet speaks, and I can hardly listen or even think over the overwhelming dread inside me. "Brennan and Mira are set on staying here. They are planning to carry on," her voice breaks, and she pauses for a moment before continuing, "in my mother's footsteps. Brennan has been appointed as...General. Out of honor for her, and recognition for his previously unacknowledged service defending our borders."
"Well shit. Guess that limits the options for the rest of the Aretian leadership," says Sawyer.
"That won't make our Poromish allies happy," mutters Garrick.
I can't keep quiet any longer. "We..." My chest aches. Dying would be so much easier if I didn't have to lose everyone's trust and see the fear and hatred in their eyes first. "That is, I..."
Violet shifts beside me, and takes my hand, intertwining my fingers with hers. Steadier, I begin again. "There's something else you need to know first. Don't look to me for anything, because I'm as good as dead, and as soon as I'm done talking you'll wish I was dead already."
Violet squeezes my hand, and glares out at everyone, challenging. Rhiannon's eyes widen with hurt, Dain's looks confused, and Garrick is angry. "In my final battle against the venin sage, I won. What you don't know is that it took everything." I pause, and repeat with emphasis, "Everything."
"Fuck you if you don't already know we'll stand by you through anything," Bodhi says, his voice cold and full of fury.
"How can you doubt us now, after everything?" asks Garrick.
Even Dain is muttering discontentedly.
Violet's voice is soft but full of steel. "Just listen."
Everyone quiets. I feel the awful weight of my own dread, and see uncertainty and the beginnings of fear reflected in every face in the room.
"I channeled from the earth."
After a split second of shocked silence, multiple people move at once. Violet is fastest and leaps in front of me, holding daggers in each hand. Dain stands opposite her with daggers raised, and Imogen is beside him with her own daggers drawn. It would be hot how quickly Violet moved to defend me, if I wasn't so dead inside.
Jesinia is slower, but she moves to Violet's side, and Dain lowers his daggers an inch.
"Dain. Imogen. Violet. What the fuck?" Rhiannon's voice is fierce. "Sit. The fuck. Back. Down."
Reluctantly, Dain and Imogen comply, and a moment later Violet does as well. Jesinia sits beside her and grabs her hand.
Everyone is looking to Rhiannon now, and her words are resolute. "We will listen. We will discuss. And then, we will decide together." She glares at Dain and Imogen, and they glare right back. I know they understand the gravity of the situation. I glance towards each of my friends. Garrick looks stricken; Bodhi is pale and worried. They will do what needs to be done to protect each other. I am certain of it, because that is what I trained them to do.
Saywer speaks, breaking the tense silence. "That's nice to say, but what is there to decide?" He looks at Violet with an uncharacteristically heavy expression, eyes full of sympathy.
Violet says, "We'll need every advantage we can get if we have any hope of protecting ourselves and everyone we love." She places heavy emphasis on everyone, pausing and looking at each person in turn. "Any information Xaden can help us learn about the Venin could make the difference between death and victory. We have to study the Venin, and it will be a lot easier to do so with someone cooperative. Or would your rather resurrect Jack-fucking-Barlowe again?"
Dain has visibly relaxed, but Imogen is still tense as she turns towards Violet and speaks words that are clearly meant for everyone else, "Violet, I'm proud to fight beside you and have high regard for you as a person, but you are too biased to think clearly. You'd let the world burn - you'd set it on fire yourself - if it was what you thought you had to do to save Xaden."
Violet looks like she's been punched in the gut. Her eyes squeeze shut for a moment and her shoulders slump. When she finally speaks, her voice is low and broken. "That's...what Xaden did, in the final moments of the battle. What he thought he had to. His only way to grasp victory in the face of inexorable defeat." Her voice drops further, and everyone is dead silent and completely focused on listening. "Xaden might be the only reason any of us are here today. We might not have had time to get the wards up. We might all have died. We'll never know. And Imogen. You were almost right." She shudders and glances towards Sloane. "I felt the pull of the magic in the ground, rising up to meet me. I'm still not sure what I would have done if I was alone, like Xaden was. But I wasn't, and I didn't have to find out what would have happened. Sloane and Brennan and General Sorrengail...my mother....were all there when I needed them, and that's the only reason we're all here today. We can't give up now."
Even with the awful heaviness in her voice, I almost believe Violet. Hope is a knife in my chest, alleviating the flat apathy I've been buried under since the battle enough for me to be terrified. I hope I don't live long enough for my fears to become regrets; I look to Garrick. "You have to promise to kill me at the first sign that I'm not myself."
A muscle in Garrick's neck twitches but he doesn't respond.
Dain speaks first, eyes narrowed, "You're already well past one, how many signs should we plan to wait for? Or were none of you paying attention any of the times when Barlowe killed people?"
Rhiannon finally steps in, decisively. "Barlow was a murderer before he'd even earned the title of cadet. Becoming Venin didn't make him something he wasn't, he was always a monster. We don't know what will happen now, but if there's one thing I know about Xaden it's that he would sacrifice everything for the people he cares about." She manages to make it sound like a positive trait, as if it wasn't what had gotten me into this situation.
"For what it's worth, I think we need all the information we can get." says Jesinia.
Garrick adds, "None of us riders will ever escape the shadows of danger and uncertainty. I can accept a calculated risk." He looks around, challenging Imogen who meets his eyes with a glare. Bodhi nods.
Sloane says, "I just want to destroy the bastards who are behind this."
Dain's eyebrows draw together in consternation but he just says, "You're a fucking idiot." One side of my mouth twitches upwards and a tiny piece of me feels settled, with the normalcy of the remark and the acceptance it signifies.
Slowly everyone else nods, and even Imogen says, "Fuck if I'll be the one to hold out against all you gods-damned fools," with a shake of her head.
Violet's worried expression eases and her lips lift into a small smile as she looks towards Rhiannon with hope, waiting for her final pronouncement. Rhiannon's answering smile is soft, and she says, "No matter what we face, we have each other. Now we need a plan."