Work Text:
...
I know that the sun is streaming through the window, and I know that the morning is ticking by, I just don’t care. I finally have a day with no responsibilities, and I’m using it to my fullest by lounging in this massive, comfortable bed until lunch. No force on Amari’s green earth will get me to move a muscle before then.
The door opens, two steps sound, then closes. “What happened to scribe’s hours?” Xaden’s voice is low from across the room and I don’t stop the smile.
He can’t see it since I’m pretty much flopped on my stomach with my arms spread after a delightful stretch as I attempt to take up as much of the bed as possible, but I do burrow my face into his pillow and grumble an incoherent retort.
“You can’t stay in bed all day.”
Muffled, “watch me.”
His laugh makes me desperate to turn and catch his smile, but I don’t. Instead, I inhale the scents of citrusy soap and mint from where he lays his head.
“I need your help with something.”
That prompts me to slide my arms underneath the pillow and turn my head to the side enough to half open one eye. Gods he looks delicious, all leaning on his shoulder against the door with his ankles crossed looking like he doesn’t have a care in the world. He absolutely knows what wearing just a tunic does to me, and having it mostly unlaced mid-way up across his collarbones? With that chest? And the sleeves rolled to just below his elbows? With those arms?
“It’s not a favor you can do from bed.”
“You sure?” My voice hasn’t been used yet today, and it’s a low for me murmur that makes his brows rise. “I can think of plenty that can be done with a full day in bed.”
The slow half smile is there, but he doesn’t move. I see that he wants to though, and take it as victory. Want is just as good sometimes. I heave a sigh and roll to my back, the sheet twisting around my chest as I prop up on my elbows and look at him with sleepy, sunlight-squinted eyes.
“You look…really good right now,” I can’t help but say and let my gaze sweep him from boots to hair again. I know that I wield the power to get him to stay in bed all day. Hell, it worked last night as my deliciously sore hips remind me.
“You look really good right now.” The ‘scraped through gravel’ sound of his words reminds me that he holds the same exact power I do, which is why I also didn’t get out of bed last night.
He continues with a sigh, “but, I do need a favor.”
“What kind of favor?”
“An in-town kind of favor.”
It’s my turn to send my eyebrows up. “Really?” We go into town every once and a while, mostly to the tavern some evenings to blow off some steam, but with training being an all day every day thing, Aretia is dark and unexplorable by the time most of us have any free time.
“Don’t wear your leathers, it’s not formal, and we’re not flying anywhere. You have thirty minutes, Violence.”
He then slips out leaving me to fall back against the pillows and make a choice.
…
My choice is a light yellow tunic, leaving it just as unlaced as he did with turnabout being fair play, all tucked into my black, cotton uniform pants. Truly, they’re the most comfortable thing I own while also having pockets and sheaths. And I love pockets and sheaths.
Beginning to gather my hair for the usual braid, I decide against the plait. Instead, I push some pins in and only half put it up to stay out of my eyes. Several strands decide to rebel, but that’s fine. If I don’t need to endure constant stabbing at the crown of my head or a tight braid pulling at my roots today, that’s what I’m going to choose for myself.
The moment I pull the door open he’s set to walk through it, and I’m suddenly two inches from that opening in his tunic as the fresh scent of mint washes around me.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m ready,” I grin, but all he does is narrow his eyes and purse together those beautiful lips.
“Absolutely not.”
I wear my confusion on my eyebrows and the slight cock of my head. “No to what? I haven’t even had a chance to say or do anything yet.”
“You can’t just wear your hair down.”
I can’t help the grin. “Why not?” His eyes darken as he takes it in.
“You,” he starts, his eyes sweeping where it fans around my shoulders, “be-cause.”
I roll my eyes and skirt past him into the hallway. “You said it wasn’t formal and wasn’t flying, so that’s what this means.”
Scanning me from top to bottom, “you don’t need your daggers.”
When I look at his belt where a sheath and dagger sit on his hip, I point my accusation.
His grumble brings a smile out, a smarmy cocky smile, and his hand hits the small of my back while we walk out of the main entrance of Riorson house. There’s a chill to the mid-morning air, but the sun is warm.
“So, what is this favor?”
“A friend in town needs something translated in Lucerish and I told them I knew just the person. Plus, I need to move things around on their property, so it’s the best of both worlds. They get the brains and the brawn.”
Much to my surprise, his fingers lace with mine as we stroll, and I catch more than a few surprised eyes land on us, but he doesn’t seem to notice or care. People stop and ask him questions, make requests, give a greeting, share a memory. He answers or helps them all quickly and efficiently. I realize that the patented air of indifference he was so known for at Basgiath isn’t his default, it’s a defense mechanism. He actually gets to be himself in Aretia, and it makes everything we’ve gone through and will go through soon worth it.
Reclaiming my hand each time, he leads me through the city, which seems to grow larger every time I look out at it or walk through the expanding streets.
“They all love you.”
“I’m one of the only council members that comes down here. I’m just…recognizable, and can get their messages to the Assembly.”
I roll my eyes, “sure. If that’s the case, why solve all their problems and answer all of their questions immediately? Not that I’m sure Suri wouldn’t rush down here to hold up that cart for the butcher to fix his spoke.”
“Are you suggesting something, Violence?” His hand snags the billowy tunic of a small child scampering past before they could be run over by a pushed cart, letting go only when their momentum shifted them out of harm's way.
I gesture with my free hand, “you’re indifferent.”
“I’m indifferent.”
This lie I don’t mind.
A gruff voice calls his name from ahead, and we stop to see a burly man almost as wide as Xaden but about five inches shorter standing in a soot-covered tunic and thick leather apron that goes nearly to the tops of his boots.
“I recognize my own work when I see it,” he beams proudly speaking in a drawled Tyrrish. The graying red beard is surprisingly trimmed and neat despite the charcoal stains that cover every inch of him, and I look down when he points to my hip at the handle of my sheathed dagger.
“I told you I knew someone,” Xaden says as if it was obvious all along.
“You had these made here?”
The blacksmith scoffs as if he’s truly offended. “No finer Tyrrish blade comes from anywhere else, m’lady. May I?”
His hand is massive and covered in calluses, and I feel dainty setting the dagger in his banana-sized fingers. His touch is delicate, however, and he twirls it expertly with a dexterity that surprises me before bringing it up and looking at the blade with a sharp eye.
“You’ve been keeping it well honed - good. Glad to see they’re with someone that respects the blade.”
I nod as he hands it back and without looking, I spin it and slip it into the sheath. I grin at his small look of approval. “They’ve saved my ass quite a few times.”
Sending a rough slap against Xaden’s shoulder, he turns to head back toward the glowing forge to the right side of the cobblestone paved street. “If you need another, you know where to find me.”
Twenty feet later, Xaden grins down at me. “He also made all the fittings for your saddle. You should have seen how scared shitless he was when I told him he’d have to get Tairn’s measurements.”
I can’t help but laugh and lean into his arm a bit. “You’ve been setting up Aretia as my second home for a while now,” and yet I spent months trying to hate him for hiding it from me. Again, he could have just told me, but I've learned by now why he didn’t and made my peace with that fact.
“Like I said. If I could have done it differently, I would have.”
His posture changes, and he leans in to brush a kiss to the top of my head. “Now for the serious conversation.”
“I knew there was a catch.”
“Nothing too bad - just a heads up. We’re going to Garrick’s family house - his grandfather’s house. A few cousins and Garrick’s younger brother Kai. Aunt Lydia will be there too, she’s the one that needs help with the Lucerish.”
I try to digest everything he’s telling me and nod slowly as my brain pieces together these new points with the family history I already sort of know. “Your aunt?”
“No. Gods, don’t tell her I said that. Not by blood. Originally, they’re from Lewellyn, and whenever Garrick, Bodhi, and I were sent away, when things got too dangerous here, we would stay at their farm outside the city. But if I call her Lydia she’ll smack me with a wooden cooking spoon, so I call her Auntie like everyone else.”
I feel his trepidation and finally look up at him. The previously relaxed lines of his face are taut and there’s a definite worry furrowing his brow. “What’s the issue?”
“Auntie knows who you are. No surprise there, she pried it out of me. But…Baba can’t know. Er,” he falters, “grandfather.”
I don’t stop the grin, “yeah, I speak Lucerish.”
“Damn, I had no clue that was Lucerish. It’s just…always what we called him. Makes a lot of sense. Anyway, more than anyone we’ve ever met or know, more than me surprisingly, he hates Lilith Sorrengail.”
I cock an eyebrow up at him. “I assume everyone in Aretia - probably all of Tyrrendor, hates my mother. Hell, I hate my mother.”
The tug of his hand against mine pulls me closer to his warm side. “You don’t hate her, Violence. You hate what she’s done, and the choices she’s made, but you love her. She’s your mother.”
“And that’s okay. I’d never ask you to stop just like you’d never ask me to love her. But, Baba is…militant in his hatred of even just the mention of the Sorrengail name. It’s something we avoid like the plague at all times. He’s…well, he is the way he is. If we don’t bring it up, everything will be fine.”
I gesture to my hair, “and he won’t notice this? Everyone knows who I am because of this.”
He grins and lifts his free hand to run some of the strands through his fingertips. “In Navarre. Not in Tyrrendor. They’re more likely to remember you as the woman I held hands with through the center of town.”
“Which is why you did it.”
He winks, “maybe I just wanted to hold your hand.”
“You’ll just be Violet. It’ll be fine.”
“Not Violence?”
His laugh is like a decadent wine. “We’ll see how the afternoon goes.”
The peace is broken with an excited, squeaky voice shouting, “Xaden!”
His hand lets go in just enough time to catch the youngster as he barrels into his legs. An inch or two taller than me and surprisingly thick already with muscle, the boy appears to be about twelve or thirteen. He’s going to be as tall as Xaden, maybe even taller. I don’t miss, however, the swirling relic that starts on his left wrist and goes up just past his elbow. His pale skin, hazel eyes, and that mop of curly dark hair means that this has to be Garrick’s little brother.
Introductions are a whirlwind before Auntie grabs my arm and drags me into the warm and spacious home while Xaden sets a hand to Kai’s shoulder and asks him to help. I don’t miss the surprise and excitement in the young man’s eyes as someone he probably reveres like a second brother asks him to help with something.
“No embarrassing stories, Auntie. And you,” he mumbles, his hand sliding through my hair to the back of my neck, “stay out of trouble.” He tilts my head up and presses a soft kiss against my lips before turning to leave.
“Gross,” Kai grumbles, Xaden laughing and pushing him out the door, and I can’t hide the blush when I see Aunt Lydia wearing a wide, teary smile, her hands clasped as if in prayer held up against her cheek.
The rest of the morning passes, and I’m seated at the long dining table in a large open room with high vaulted ceilings and freshly cut, stained, wood rafters. The Tavis’ are one of the oldest families in Tyrrendor, according to the research I’d done a lifetime ago, but they still needed a brand new home because Navarre razed this city. As I sit at the table carefully thumbing through an old family heirloom of a diary written by Thane Tavis, I realize that this family actually came from the Luceras Province, and many with the same familial name still reside in the region to the north.
Garrick’s family had journeyed down south and Thane Tavis became one of the most successful lords in Tyrrendor, adjacent to Riorson, according to the diary. I can’t help thinking that with a single blow, they lost everything when Navarre murdered the rebellion’s leaders. Their lands outside of Lewellyn now belong to a number of Navarrian nobles, and this large home and land that butts up to the mountains that shield the dragon’s valley is all they have left.
I push all of that aside and talk to Auntie, as I’ve been demanded to call her, while she bakes the most delicious-smelling bread in the adjacent kitchen. There’s no wall separating it from the dining hall, and she said that the men and women of her family have always shared the cooking roles. This way, if an important meeting takes place, everyone still has a seat.
I love that. It’s…freeing. Ruling by assembly, sharing roles and knowledge, understanding that not everything is just war or preparing for war. Navarre should have taken more pages out of Tyrrendor’s book instead of burning it on their pyre.
She’s far more comfortable speaking in Tyrrish, as are most of the civilians. When she fumbled over finding a word, I answered back in her own tongue to her great delight. So we talk lightly in her dialect and I occasionally read to her certain passages when she asks.
This is the beautiful type of translation I have longed to do since working with my father in the Archives, which feels like a million years ago. This is nothing like the complexity of Warrick’s journal, and for that - I’m endlessly thankful. Lunch is simple, and I finish transcribing the diary as Kai and Xaden come in, the boy being immediately sent up the street to the market to get something Auntie needs to make the rest of dinner. Xaden heads this way and the sheen of sweat makes his bronze skin shine. When Auntie hands him an earthen mug of water, he gulps it down and leans against the center island before looking over at me.
“All done?” I ask, folding my hands together to keep them from forcing me to get up and run them across his sweat-slickened skin.
“Nope. Well…everything except the heaviest of them. I only managed to move it a few feet. So…I called for reinforcements. Chradh is sending Garrick down in a bit with supplies. We’ll get it, Auntie. Might have to tie it to a dragon, but we’ll get it moved.”
Time passes into late afternoon and we just sit and talk. It’s…delightful. I’ve never known Xaden Riorson to be so relaxed, and it’s a comfort to know that maybe something normal could happen after all this venin bullshit. After all, if we learn the ability to create wards, the continent is safe, right?
There’s a thud against the door before it pushes open, and Xaden stands to help if needed. I follow his lead as a dark-gray haired older man with smile lines and wrinkles under his eyes and around his mouth steps in to scrape his boots against the mat.
“I hear ya couldn’t finish the job,” he says in a gruff jest, his sparkling hazel eyes so much like Garrick’s now that he turns our way. His accent is northern Luceras, if I’m placing it correctly, but I realize that no one else in the homestead has the same lilt to their voice. He very clearly came from the family that traveled south into Tyrrendor, and is definitely the person that the diary I translated is for. “Needed to call in the real muscle that these boys wish they had.”
“Save us, Baba,” Xaden grins before pulling the man into a hug. They were damn-near the same height, and the older man isn't without his share of bulk. If he is indeed Garrick’s grandfather, I can see the likeness the marked one inherited on full display.
“Baba, this is Violet. The only person here you can have a conversation in Lucerish with. I asked her to translate the diary.”
I walk over, look up, and hold out my hand. “It’s all done whenever you want to read it.” The huge man looks down at me, a light dancing in his eyes as they flicker back and forth between me and Xaden.
“This…you are the first,” he marvels, holding his arms wide as an answer to my attempted handshake.
He hugs how imagine a bear would - all zeal - and I feel the squeeze and remember my sore left shoulder from sparring yesterday as well as my hips made sensitive last night.
“The first who speaks Lucerish?” I wheeze as he sets me back on the floor, and I realize I had no clue I’d been lifted in the first place.
With a crafty wink and ignoring Xaden’s suddenly barked request for no extrapolation, he leans down to speak low in Lucerish, “oh no. The first woman he’s brought to meet his old grandfather.”
At my dropped jaw and look of surprise, Xaden steps up to push gently at the older man’s shoulder, the grandfather cackling with an ornery glint in his eyes. “No, no. No teaming up in another language. That’s not why she’s here.”
I grin and join in, the Lucerish feels so foreign on my tongue after spending months simply translating and not actually speaking it. “It will be a delight to hear all of his embarrassing childhood stories without him even realizing that’s what you’re spilling.”
Xaden sends me a mock glare. “Don’t encourage him.”
“Okay, alright,” the older man relents and the language is shifted to Tyrrish so all can participate. He pulls off his cloak and moves to hang it on the rack across the entry room before returning and standing expectantly in front of both of us. “So tell me about you, little Violet. Healer or scribe?” I catch the way his eyes narrow slightly as he says scribe, and it’s easy to tell that he desperately wants me to say that I’m a healer.
A noble guess, and seeing as I’ve spoken three languages since he’d walked in the door, he had to think scribe first despite his heart hoping for healer.
“Rider,” I say confidently. The surprise on his face is something I’m used to by now, but he schools it quickly and I feel his eyes as they scan me from top to bottom.
Shit, why do I feel so…something all of a sudden? Is this inferiority?
“Not inferior. Simply nervous. The wingleader has introduced you to a den leader, and you wish to be accepted. You have nothing to worry about, Silver One.”
That does make me feel better, and by the time I meet the grandfather’s eyes again, I see a small grin on his lips that crinkle the smile lines around his mouth. “Awfully…small to be a rider, aren’t we?”
Xaden tisks at the roof of his mouth from the kitchen where he’s helping Auntie carry dinner out to the table. “Baba, be nice. I’m keeping this one.”
The sudden excited flutter in my stomach puts a stupid grin on my face, but a clatter against the front door pulls everyone’s attention. Xaden moves and tosses it open, his arms suddenly full of leather straps and rattling chains.
“About time, where have you been? We’re running out of daylight.” Garrick steps in, wiping his feet just like his grandfather, and the two of them pile the materials on the ground just inside the door.
“Hello to you too.” His heavy hand lands on Xaden’s shoulder before those hazel eyes turn on me, and for what has to be the first time I’ve ever seen - Garrick gives me an honest smile.
“Hi, Garrick.”
“Hey, Sorrengail.”
And just like that, the warmth in the home freezes.
I hear Auntie’s sudden gasp from the kitchen, and I look to Xaden in time to see his fighter’s reflex snap his eyes across the room. Garrick’s face goes from relaxed and, dare I say, happy, to a pale wince before becoming the deadly serious one I’m very used to seeing.
“Shit. I…I’m sorry,” he whispers, but Xaden shakes his head and steps slightly in front of his best friend. I recognize the stance - the, I'll protect you, stance.
I feel the weight of the glare that the grandfather levies from across the room, and turn to see a completely different man standing, no - towering - in the room. It had seemed so spacious, but as he tips his chiseled chin up, stands at his full height, and flexes the wide muscles in his neck and shoulders, he seems not to fit inside any longer.
Everything seems smaller.
Gone is the kindness, the humor, from his eyes, and the hazel is replaced by a shining near-fiery orange flecked with dark browns and blacks.
“Xaden,” the growl reminds me of one of Tairn’s and I instinctively want to step back. Only when fingers tighten against my skin do I realize that Xaden has his hand wrapped around my forearm, just above the wrist. It’s a light and gentle pressure, but it says all it needs to for anyone watching.
“I’m sorry, Ba -” he doesn’t get to finish his apology.
He bellows. “You brought a fucking Sorrengail into my home? A Tavis’ home?!”
The step he takes along with the fists he’s balled his hands into bring out the fight or flight in me - and I’m not sure my body has chosen its particular reaction correctly.
“It has been a long time, my boys. But the lesson I have for you both will make you very thankful you know a mender.”
The steps turn into a stalk, and suddenly it’s me pulling the protective stance in front of both marked ones while holding out my tiny, frail, insignificant hand to stop this bear of a man mid-charge.
“Don’t.” At least my voice is stronger than I feel, and I make the command in Lucerish to gain his attention.
“Violet.” It’s a two-toned plea, and I’m pretty sure it’s the second time ever that Garrick has used anything but my last name.
Though Grandfather’s glare is still on the two men behind me, he stops a few steps short from where I’m bravely, or stupidly, standing in his way. My other arm, which Xaden still holds, is now behind me, and his fingers are still insistent. I know he’s taken a step toward me.
“Let go,” I beg through the bond but don’t look away from the enraged Tavis before me. It feels like I’m staring into the eyes of a dragon I’m not bonded to, which is a terrible thing to do and feels equally as deadly. He’s not looking down, however, which I need to change.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt. “I…from this Sorrengail to this Tavis, I’m so sorry.”
There they are. Eyes filled with lethal promise shift, and I suddenly feel as small as I probably look. His lip curls and his teeth flash as Tyrrish drips out like icy water down a frozen mountain peak. “I won’t accept an apology from the likes of you. How dare you think that you can give it, you tiny, breakable, little girl. You come from a line of murder, one filled with the blood of innocents. You dare to breathe my air, Sorrengail?”
He steps forward, but I hold my ground. I feel my arm freed and know it likely took all of his restraint to let me fully face his adoptive grandfather.
“Back up. Now,” Xaden demands, but I don’t.
I switch back to Tyrrish so everyone in this room understands. “I’m sorry that my mother sacrificed people you love for Navarre’s lies. I know exactly how that feels. She didn’t stop with Tyrrendor - she threw her own children at the lies as if we were shields.”
His roar is one built of rage and heartbreak, “you know nothing of how we feel! Sorrengail’s do not feel.”
My voice takes on a harder edge in response, but I’m still not raising mine as I channel every bit of advice from my father to rise above the hostility and let knowledge and composure rule me.
“I’ll remind you that Sorrengail is my father’s name.”
“Sorrengail means slaughter. We shouldn’t suffer a single one of them in these lands.” This sentence wasn’t meant for me, but for Xaden, and I feel not only my defenses rise but those from the shadowy bond in my mind. None are as strong, however, as the sudden burst of protective anger from my Black Morningstartail dragon.
Gods. Grandfather Tavis looks like he’s going to rip someone’s head off, and I know for certain that Xaden and Garrick won’t lift a hand against him.
I, however, don’t have that relationship with this man.
My response to his threat is simple. I slam my shields up to block out everyone’s emotions from overpowering my own, and I hear Xaden’s small inhale from behind me the moment I close him off from my mind.
“If there are two names in Aretia that I will not allow to suffer a Sorrengail’s punishment, it’s Riorson and Tavis. All I can say is that I’m sorry.”
I know it’s not enough. I also know that I’m not the person he wants an apology from, in as much as I know he doesn’t want an apology, he wants justice. Maybe even revenge.
“That would be unfortunate as I am two minutes out.”
“I don’t need help you can give. Do not terrify the people of this city over some threats against a last name.”
Dragons do well with demands, I’m sure that will work.
“Violet,” Xaden’s ask is a soft whisper that I know he would have sent across the bond if I wasn’t blocking him out. I know what he wants to say. Please don’t. He doesn’t want to have to protect me from his grandfather, and I don’t want him to have to.
The massive muscled hand lifts a finger to point directly into what I assume is my soul. “Get, out, of the, way, little girl.” We’re still speaking in Tyrrish, but I hold those eyes until he breaks to glare at Xaden. “A Riorson should know better. After everything she did to us here - to him,” the pause is as silent as the grave, “you bed her fucking daughter. What a disappointment you are, Xaden. The most powerful rider of your generation? Pah,” he growls, taking another step forward.
He’s running out of steps before his huge boots will touch the tips of mine. One more, and he’s on me, and then I’ll have to make a decision.
Grandfather’s lethal point shifts from me to over the top of my head. “You don’t deserve his name because of this.”
Something cracks in me.
While I know no one saw it since we’re all inside, we all feel the ground shake with the rumbling answer of thunder to the streaking spiderweb I just shot through the sky.
“Violet,” now it’s a warning. I drop the shields just enough to reconnect our bond so I can send every ounce of reckless love I have his way, but the sorrow I feel from him pulses anger into my heart.
This time? I take the step.
Grandfather’s eyes snap back to mine, and the surprised furrow that wilts the wrinkles of his brow embolden me. “I have no great love for Lilith Sorrengail. She sent my brother to his death for her lies, and she didn’t lift a finger while I was tortured across five days for getting caught helping Aretia.”
It’s my turn to point, and I send it back to Xaden. “He doesn’t deserve your hate. Neither do I, but I love him more than I hate her. If it helps heal your heart, I can take it - aim it at me. Not at him.”
“Sorrengail’s love nothing. And a real Tyr could never love one of those monsters. I will move you out of my way to get to him if you do not do it yourself.”
I boldly take that last step as our boots touch. I’m looking almost straight up, but take comfort in the fact that I - do not - feel small.
Another grounding rumble around us centers me, and I open my Archive doors to allow the power to flow, my arms at my sides rising ever so slightly to lift my palms toward the ceiling. The skin on my arms and at the back of my neck rise with tingles of gooseflesh, and the silvery ends of my hair lift a bit in response to the energy that pulses through my body. I know everyone feels the sudden electricity in the air, and I also know that only two others here know what that means.
“Xaden is not the most powerful rider of our generation. I am.” Another bang of thunder. Louder now than before. Closer. Less of a warning and more of a promise.
“You’re pushing it,” Tairn breaks easily through my shields and reminds me that the doors are open and the energy is building within me, as if he needed to. The familiar pain settles into my bones and I let it sit. What used to be uncomfortable is now comforting. He sounds close - as if he made the decision for us that we’d need his help. Worry mixed with fear streams in from Xaden, and I feel when he hits the back of my thighs, most likely with his knees.
The moment Grandfather’s eyes shift up, I snap, and my demand is followed with an accompanying crack of thunder. “Don’t look at him. Look at me.”
He does.
“I am every inch my father’s daughter, but I have no problem becoming as ruthless as her to protect this place. To protect him. And that is more than my mother ever did for anyone that ever mattered.”
In Lucerish, “I am Tyrrendor’s weapon now, and your heir apparent chose me. Baba means grandfather, but in the old tongue, it was Bompa. Words change over time. You have to give me the chance to change Sorrengail to mean something more than slaughter. Something worthy of being spoken outside of Navarre. My father deserves that.”
I ground both feet onto the marble floors of the Archives in my mind and close the door to Tairn’s power, and the electric charge in the air disappears. I hear Garrick’s exhale, and feel Xaden’s in my mind. With the roaring of power out of my head, I hear hovering wingbeats above us, beats I know by heart.
Keeping with the language I assume of his childhood, “I’ll leave. I’ll never come back. You’ll never see me again. I promise. But you have to make things right with them. With him. He’s lost far too many to my godsdamned name, and I won’t let you be another.”
Silence. We simply stare while everyone else holds their breath. This is a showdown of wills that I’m determined not to lose.
“Talk with them. For Amari's sake, make it right. Please.” It’s not a request, but not a demand. It’s a hope.
I will not break.
I didn’t break when I stared down the Parapet, and I didn’t break when Imogen snapped my arm. I didn’t break on the gauntlet, and I fought like hell against two other cadets at Threshing. I didn’t survive Resson, or Varrish’s burnout session, or five days of his torture to back down against an old man in this once, razed, city.
I spot movement, and for the first time since Grandfather learned my name, I look away from his eyes. There’s a quiver to his chin. Faint, slight, easy to miss except for the fact that I’m a foot beneath that chin as he towers above me.
Looking back up, I soften as I see what he’s hoped his anger would hide. And it honestly did until I chose to look for it. His eyes flash not with fiery warning but shielded fear beneath a shimmering layer of tears. I remind him of every loss he’s suffered in the last seven years and the further destruction of his family’s honor and heritage - hundreds of years of history burned for Navarre’s lies. That’s what I am. That’s what I represent. That’s what he sees standing in his newly rebuilt home filled with the only family that he has left.
He knows I’m not her, hell, he might eventually respect me for standing up to him while throwing my mother off the proverbial parapet, but he’s terrified that I’ll bring back whatever hell the Sorrengail name already wrought upon this family.
The fight leaves me in a wavering exhale, and hazel pleads with hazel. I change back to Tyrrish hoping that will help.
“Please? Will you do that for them?” At least everyone here knows that I’m asking - pleading - for something.
The huge shoulders drop a bit and he settles back onto his heels, his eyes jumping up to Xaden’s directly above my head. They shift, but not as far as I would have thought, just slightly to the right, and only then do I realize that Garrick had stepped up to be just behind and to my left.
“You two,” he growls before gesturing with his chin toward the large dining table on the other end of the open lower floor. Then he looks back down to me, “get out.”
I nod, but actually have nowhere to go. I’m toe to toe with the man and I can feel Xaden directly behind me. In fact, his hand is clutching the right side of my waist. I push a bit to the left and they part to let me slip by, Garrick moving automatically to obey his grandfather’s command. Despite the expectant look from the patriarch of the Tavis family, Xaden doesn’t move, only turns his head in my direction as I make for the door.
“I made a deal. I leave, you stay and fix this. I’m sorry.”
I can’t help it, I say it. I know he doesn’t expect it, and he’d likely argue with me that it wasn’t necessary, but I feel that it is.
“I have an escort.”
His head tilts up a bit and it’s almost like he only just now heard the wingbeats above us. His nod is slow, but I remove myself as the reason for his hesitation. I turn my back quickly and embrace the cool evening air as the setting sun bathes the newly rebuilding city in amber light.
“If you get to a rooftop -”
“I’ll walk.”
I hold it all in, every thought, and I can’t help but replay everything over and over again in my mind. I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have said or done any of that. I shouldn’t have gone. Every slow step I take is followed by the overhead sound of Tairn’s wings, and I see many look up in fear until they recognize the black scales and outline of his tail. Even after confirming he wasn’t a threat, however, their steps quicken to their destination.
An hour later I’m sitting at the writing desk, tomorrow’s rune assignment ignored before me, and my leg is fit to bounce off my body while I wait for Xaden to return.
“Is everything going alright?”
Tairn's growl is piercing. “I will not risk another neck bite to ask her, Silver One. She said it is a family matter and you are not of this family. Take her advice and be patient before she kills us both by ripping out my throat.”
I want to say I’m sorry, but Gods, I feel like that’s all I’ve done since I got back. All I can do is think about every way I can apologize to Xaden for everything I’d said, for every action I’d taken, and for the disrespect I’d shown someone he so cared for. My father definitely taught me better than that.
Another hour goes by, the sky fully black now, and I’m pacing. There’s nothing left to do but this. I drop my shields again to see if I could connect to him, but his are still fully up, and his shadowy bond would be almost missing from my mind if I didn’t know exactly where to look.
So I keep pacing.
The moment I hear the door open, I’m walking toward him.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt again, the second time for today, but my steps stall at how soft he looks.
His hand reaches out to cup my cheek before sliding to the back of my neck, and he drags me close to press his forehead against mine. I feel his shields lower and flutter my eyes closed as we reconnect. His calm energy matches this morning’s while mine is much less calm.
Pulling back he keeps his hold on me, his thumb brushing the skin just beneath my ear, his other arm wrapping around my waist. “Do you know how much I love you right now?”
“You still love me after that?”
“Violence, I love you more because of that."
“I did to you what drove me crazy about Dain and, honestly, you this year - I jumped in front to protect you as if you needed it.”
He just responds to my grumble with another brush of that calloused thumb. “Oh, Violence, I did need it. Do you know how many people would stare down Baba on a rampage? Let alone stand in front of the people he wanted to flatten?”
I shake my head, but I’m stuck in his eyes and can’t look away. The swirling onyx holds me captive.
“No one. Not even my father or Garrick’s. Baba’s belt welted the backs of our legs more times than any of us could count. But you,” he sighs, “are just as protective of me as I am of you, and I don’t ever want that to change.”
A mischievous grin tilts his beautiful mouth and I find that I have the urge to nip at that pouted lower lip. “Plus. Watching the tiny love of my life stare down the charging bull was…delicious.”
“I hate when you call me tiny,” my annoyance is only half serious.
When his hands slide down and grab my ass to pull me up nose to nose with him, I hook my legs around his waist instinctively. “You like it a little,” he mocks as he brushes his lips across mine.
“Everything is okay though, right? You’re…it’s okay?”
He sighs as if surprised I was going to ask. It’s all that’s been on my mind and I have to know despite the fact that he’s walking us toward the still unkempt and perfectly unmade bed that I hadn’t wanted to leave this morning. Despite that, I have to know that things were made right.
“It’ll take more work, but he understands,” deciding on another way to change the subject, he presses a sucking kiss to the side of my throat.
I frown but hum at the same time. “Understands?”
“He can burn the bridge with me if he wants to, I’ve made my choice.”
That prompts me to wiggle loose and he reluctantly slides me down until I’m back on my own two feet. “That’s…not what I wanted.”
I watch him drag his fingers through his hair before he defensively crosses his arms over his chest. “That’s how it is though, Violet.”
“You can’t lose what’s left of your family because of me, Xaden, that’s not fair.”
All he does is lift his scarred brow. “I told you that I’d happily let Aretia burn to the ground if it meant that I didn’t lose you.”
“I’m not going anywhere, and even if, that’s not a solution.”
“It is to me.”
The frustrated breath leaves me looking up at him with a confused glare. “I’m not enough - just me isn’t enough.”
His face softens, “it is to me.”
“Xaden,” I exhale and turn away from the infuriating man a few steps.
“Why the hell are we fighting right now, Violence? Can you clue me in?”
“It…doesn’t feel good,” I explain, my hand coming up to my chest. “It hurts my heart to think that just my last name got you thrown out of that home.”
He shakes his head and shrugs a single shoulder, “that’s up to him. I’m not thrown out, things are just hard right now. I don’t have to explain my love to him, and I told him that. I can’t make him accept it, Violet. Either he does or doesn’t.”
“But that’s not fair.” It’s a simple statement that I know we both agree on, but I felt the need to say it anyway.
“No, it’s not. I love the man like he’s my own grandfather, but we’re all asked to change eventually. This one is on him. He can change to accept me now or he can not. I still have family, Violence. I have 106 other marked ones, a city, and a house full of people I’m closest to.”
His eyes shift to the side a bit and a grin breaks his serious stare. “And a very powerful Blue Daggertail.”
The interruption lightens the mood a bit.
“Will it help if I let you apologize one more time?”
The fight leaves me and I walk into him, my forehead landing against the center of his chest.
“I’m sorry,” I muffle against his tunic and his laugh envelops me along with his arms as I flatten my cheek over his heart.
The deeper feminine voice cuts through both of our minds as the pathway that connects all four of us is commandeered by Sgaeyl.
“While dragons do not worry over human familial lines, I will remind you both that our family is, and always will be, superior. It is because it has three dragons and only two humans.”
…