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The bond is quiet.
Not gone—not broken—but quieter than it has ever been. A whisper instead of a roar, a feeling instead of words. It’s like trying to hold onto smoke, slipping through my fingers before I can grasp it.
I hate it.
I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the slow, rhythmic sound of Imogen breathing in the chair beside me. I know she’s awake. She hasn’t slept since I found out. Since she made me forget.
I should hate her.
But the anger has dulled into something heavier, something harder to carry. Because I know why she did it. I know why he asked her to do it.
A pulse thrums through my chest, sudden and electric. Not painful, just—there. A warmth that seeps into the edges of my fraying thoughts, steady, grounding.
Violet.
His voice is rough, worn down with exhaustion, but hearing it is like breathing again after being underwater too long. I close my eyes, sinking into it.
You didn’t have to leave, I say through the bond, pressing my lips together to keep the words from slipping out aloud. Because this was so much worse than his normal sulking.
I did. The answer is immediate, resolute. I wasn’t going to let them do to you what they did before, Violet.
I inhale sharply, the weight of old memories pressing against my ribs. The interrogation rooms. The pain. The feeling of someone else clawing through my mind, trying to unmake me from the inside out.
He thinks he’s protecting me. Like he always does.
You think I wouldn’t have endured that to keep you safe? The words are sharper than I mean them to be, but I don’t take them back.
A pause. A flicker of something across the bond, dark and unreadable. Then, softer—I know you would have. That’s why I had to leave.
A hand brushes my shoulder, pulling me back to the infirmary, to the dim candlelight and the chill of the stone walls. I turn my head slightly to see Imogen watching me, her face unreadable.
She hesitates before sitting on the edge of the bed. “Is he still talking to you?”
I nod, my throat too tight to answer properly.
Imogen exhales, rubbing a hand over her face. “I didn’t do it to hurt you,” she says quietly. “You know that, right?”
I stare at her, at the guilt in her expression, at the way she won’t quite meet my eyes.
“That doesn’t make it hurt less,” I admit.
Her shoulders drop, and she nods once. “I know.”
Silence stretches between us, thick and uneasy. I know she thinks she did the right thing. She still believes it. And maybe, in some twisted way, she’s right.
But that doesn’t make me forgive her. Not yet.
The bond pulses again, faint but insistent.
Violet.
I close my eyes, reaching for him. I’m going to fix this.
I know you will, he murmurs, something like longing curling around the edges of his voice. Just… take your time. And stay safe.
A dry, humorless laugh slips past my lips. You’re the one hiding in a land without magic, raising dragon eggs like some kind of outlaw prince, and you’re telling me to stay safe?
His chuckle is soft, but it still sends warmth flooding through my chest. For a moment, it almost feels normal. Almost.
Then the warmth starts to fade, the bond stretching thin again. The distance between us pressing in.
I love you, he says, a whisper at the edge of my mind.
My throat tightens. I press a hand to my chest, as if I can hold onto him like this. I love you too.
Then he’s gone.
The quiet settles over me again. I hate it more than I ever have before.
Imogen shifts beside me. “We’ll get him back.”
I nod, gripping the sheets beneath my fingers. I have to believe that.
Because if I don’t—if I let myself drown in the weight of this loss—I don’t know how I’ll pull myself out.
Because the bond is silent again.
I hate it.
The quiet stretches too long, heavy and suffocating, like the weight of a blade resting against my throat. Every second without him feels wrong. Like part of me has been cut away, and the wound refuses to heal.
I should get up. I should do something.
Instead, I stare at the ceiling, my fingers curling into the blanket. My mind is still reaching for him, grasping at the frayed edges of our connection, searching for any flicker of warmth.
“Violet.”
Imogen’s voice is careful, but I hear the exhaustion in it. When I turn my head, she’s watching me with an expression I don’t know how to name—somewhere between guilt and determination.
She hasn’t left my side. Not since I woke up and remembered what she had taken from me.
I should tell her to go.
But the truth is, I don’t want to be alone right now.
I push myself upright, ignoring the ache in my muscles. I haven’t slept, not really, and the weight of everything is pressing harder by the second.
Imogen hesitates, then stands. “Come on.”
I frown. “Where?”
She gestures toward the cot. “Lying awake and torturing yourself won’t help him. Just… sleep, Violet.”
Sleep. As if closing my eyes won’t just bring more nightmares. More images of Xaden alone, of the eggs hidden in a land without magic, of the time slipping through my fingers.
I don’t move.
Imogen sighs. “Fine. Then just… rest.” She gestures at the bed. “At least get comfortable.”
A sharp remark rises to my tongue, but I swallow it down.
She’s right.
I push the blanket back and shift toward the bed, sitting at the edge first, forcing my body to relax. The infirmary is too quiet. Too cold.
My pulse jumps as Imogen reaches for my wrist.
I flinch.
It’s instinct. A reaction I can’t control. My breath stutters, and for a second, I don’t know where I am—I just know someone took something from me. That I can’t get it back.
Imogen freezes, her hand stopping inches from mine.
The air between us turns sharp, something tense and awful stretching between the moment.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” she says quietly.
I know that.
I force myself to exhale, to unclench my jaw, to push down the sick feeling crawling up my throat. “I know.”
Imogen doesn’t move. She watches me carefully, like she’s trying to figure out if she should say something. Eventually, she just nods and sits back down in the chair.
I hate that I reacted like that.
I hate that my own instincts don’t trust the people around me anymore.
I press my palms into the mattress and focus on breathing, on the bond, on him.
Nothing.
Damn it, Xaden. Where are you?
The quiet doesn’t answer.
But I swear, somewhere deep inside my chest, I feel the faintest flicker of warmth.
But it’s gone just as fast as it came and that pit remains.
I keep reaching for the bond, for him, for something—anything—but all I get is silence. A cold void where his presence should be.
It makes my stomach twist, my pulse stutter. Because the last time the bond was this faint, I thought he was gone.
And I can’t—I can’t do that again.
The chair beside me scrapes against the stone floor as Imogen shifts, exhaling slowly like she wants to say something. Before she can, the air shifts.
A shadow passes over the infirmary.
Then a rumble.
Deep. Resounding. Unmistakable.
Tairn.
The weight in my chest cracks apart, just a little.
A gust of wind bursts through the open archway as his massive form lands outside, dust swirling around the entrance. My body moves before I can think, pushing off the bed, my steps uneven as I stumble forward.
Tairn is already lowering his head by the time I step outside, his golden eyes locking onto me. I grip one of his scales before I even realize what I’m doing, my fingers pressing hard into the rough warmth of his hide.
I should have come sooner, his voice rumbles through my mind, low and steady.
I swallow. “You should have.”
His chest rises, then lowers on a long exhale. And yet, I am here now.
It’s not an apology. Tairn doesn’t apologize. But it’s something close.
My breath shakes.
Then another presence stirs in my mind, hesitant and small.
Viol—
I jerk back, something deep inside me snapping.
A smaller iridescent form darts toward me from the edge of the field.
Andarna.
She lands beside Tairn, her emerald eyes filled with something too close to guilt. The same guilt that has been suffocating me.
Violet, I—
But I take another step back. “You left.”
The words come out sharper than I mean them to, but I don’t stop them.
Andarna flinches, her wings tucking close. I didn’t have a choice.
“Neither did I,” I snap, voice cracking. “I turned around and you weren’t there.”
Andarna’s black scales dim, her tail curling around herself.
Tairn watches us both, silent.
I drag a hand through my hair, pressing my palm to my forehead as my thoughts spiral. I don’t want to feel like this. I don’t want to be angry at her. But every piece of me that was breaking when Xaden left—when she left—only fractured further.
Andarna inches forward, slow, careful. But I came back.
I swallow against the lump in my throat.
I know. I know.
But it still hurts.
The bond flickers again, a sudden pulse like a spark catching fire for just a second. A reminder that he’s still there. Still alive. Still waiting.
Then it fades again.
“Damn it,” I whisper, pressing my fingers against my chest, like I can reach for him through my own skin.
A hand lands on my shoulder, solid and grounding.
I jerk back again, instincts kicking in, but the grip is already gone.
Garrick.
He lifts both hands, taking a careful step back. His usual smirk is missing, his sharp gaze filled with something more serious. “You’re jumpy.”
No shit.
I exhale shakily. “What are you doing here?”
“Tairn was getting restless,” he says, nodding toward the dragon. “Figured I’d come along.”
Tairn huffs. As if I need a reason to check on my rider.
Garrick gives a look. “And because I wanted to make sure you weren’t doing something reckless.”
My jaw tightens. “I’m fine.”
He crosses his arms. “You’re not fine.”
I glare at him, my hands curling into fists. “Then what do you expect me to do, Garrick? Sit here and wait while Xaden is hiding somewhere in a land without magic, raising dragon eggs, running from the people who should be protecting us?” My voice shakes. “Because that’s what I’m doing. I’m waiting.”
And I hate it.
Garrick doesn’t flinch. He just watches me, waiting for me to take a breath, to steady myself.
Then, softer, “You’re not the only one who lost him, Violet.”
My heart stutters.
The fight drains out of me all at once. Because he’s right.
Garrick lost him, too. Tairn lost him. Andarna lost him.
But I can still feel him.
And I can feel how far away he is.
I turn back toward Tairn, pressing my forehead against his scales again, grounding myself in the warmth of him.
I close my eyes, reaching for the bond, whispering through it—
I’m going to find you.
As soon as those words echo through my mind, Garrick is gone. He’s just disappeared.
A hand slaps on my back and I jump once again expecting to face Garrick again.
This time it’s Imogen though looking me in the eyes and snapping, “Who the hell were you talking to now? You really are out of it.”
“What? Were you there the whole time? Didn’t you see Gar—what? Where did Tair—and Andarna?” I question, realizing everyone had just disappeared.
She face-palms, the gesture lacking its normal fire as she mutters, “We need to get you to your dragons.”