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“We have to try! This isn’t a fucking negotiation!”
Violet’s words echoed in the hall alongside the fist she had slammed into the table. Bodhi could tell by the way her jaw ticked that the move hurt more than she was willing to let on. Regardless, it had the intended effect – the members of the Assembly fell deadly silent from their previous bickering. The tension was palpable, and Bodhi could feel the hairs on the right side of his neck stand at attention, pulling toward the static electricity Violet was unwittingly pouring into the conduit clutched in her other hand.
He let his eyes linger on her a moment longer, taking note of the pain broiling behind her hazel eyes, darkening them so much he could no longer pick out the blue threads in her irises.
Bodhi cleared his throat, pushing the tight feeling in his chest away. Violet needed Xaden back. And he’d be damned if he didn’t help her.
“She’s right. This is likely our last chance, and if we don’t go, thousands of civilians are going to die ,” he addressed the Assembly, keeping his voice level and looking at each of them in turn. He had studied his cousin enough to try to add his mannerisms to his arsenal, the way that he was able to capture the attention of a crowd, but Bodhi couldn’t bring himself to add the threatening edge to his voice that Xaden did. “If we’re going to let everyone in Cordyn perish, we’ve failed at our mission. This is our last stand. We can’t keep running.”
Bodhi ended with his gaze on Brennan. The ginger’s cold gaze could pin him against a wall, but Bodhi leveled it with his own. He couldn’t imagine the look that Violet was giving her brother.
“So your plan is to risk our entire army on the off chance that your ‘cure’ works,” Ulices hissed. His singular eye flicked between Violet and Bodhi. “One man for the safety of Tyrrendor. Your parents would be disappointed.” He spat the last word.
Heat rose to Bodhi’s head.
Careful, Bodhi, came Cuir’s voice. They are looking out for Tyrrendor as well. They are looking for rationality. Tairn’s Silver One needs that from you .
Sparks. Bodhi snapped his head toward Violet as flashes of light flickered from her clenched palm and she opened her mouth to speak.
He reached out to quickly put a hand on her forearm and cut her off before she could damn the entire mission. “We have been researching for months . It’s as sound as it can be. We need to try, otherwise the venin are going to continue to be unstoppable until they are on Aretia’s doorstep.” He glared at Ulices. “Need I remind you how disastrous every fucking encounter where we’ve second-guessed ourselves has been?”
“Riorson’s signet fueled by his training as a venin already could have leveled us in Draithus,” Felix said, a hand on his chin.
“The only reason it didn’t is because he still has good in him,” Violet breathed. “Everything he’s done for us has been for Tyrrendor, for…”
No one needed her to finish her sentence. Everything Xaden has done has always been for her .
“The greatest question is whether the intelligence sent to us by Xaden is still in alignment with the resistance, or if he is so far gone now that he is attempting to lay a trap,” Kylynn said, taking the parchment in her hands and throwing it face-up on the table. The alleged letter from Xaden that had begun this godsforsaken meeting.
“That is his handwriting,” Bodhi said. “It’s from him.” He slid his eyes to Violet.
“He wouldn’t tell us where the next battle is to trap us. He wouldn’t. He wants out, and he wants to come home,” she insisted. “We have wings stationed in Cordyn – either we go, or they pull out and we give it up.”
“He wouldn’t months ago,” Suri started, “but how do we know he’s the same man? It’s been months since anyone has heard from him and all he has to say is this cryptic shit?” The woman slammed a dagger onto the table, the tip pointing at the frayed parchment.
“We take volunteers,” Bodhi reasoned, “and I guarantee we’ll have enough to make a stand.”
“Again,” Violet growled, causing Bodhi to flinch, “this isn’t a fucking negotiation. I am the sixteenth Duchess of Tyrrendor. Xaden Riorson left Tyrrendor to me . We are making preparations to fly to Cordyn.”
Bodhi was the last out of the room when the meeting was adjourned, and he shoved his hands into his pockets as he padded down the empty, stony hallways. The call had already been relayed to the wings, and preparations were being made for all riders of fighting capability to fly to Cordyn.
As he passed an offshoot of a hallway, a shape moved lightning fast from an alcove and barreled into him, shoving him into the stone wall.
BODHI, boomed Cuir.
He reacted instinctively, regaining his balance and pulling a dagger from the sheath on his ribs. Metal clanked against metal as he met the dagger of his assailant, whose amber eyes were boring into him. Brennan.
“Brennan, the fuck?” Bodhi grunted, relaxing only slightly. The look in his eyes suggested hurt more than they did anger.
“I can’t fucking believe you,” Brennan said. “You and my sister are both throwing everything away for Riorson?”
Brennan wasn’t remotely trying to move the dagger toward him, so Bodhi relaxed, only using as much force as he needed to keep the blades suspended in the space between their necks. “You need to talk to her. It’s her call.”
“Do you know how hard I’ve been trying? I have no idea what he was thinking. She’s too young and inexperienced to be in a position to make these calls, especially when she’s going to lose herself to visions of grandeur about ‘saving’ him.”
Bodhi narrowed his eyes. “Xaden knows her. He knows she’ll do the right thing if she can’t save him. If this mission needs to end in his death, she’ll make that call. He trusts her to do it, so I trust her.” He forced the knot in his throat down.
Brennan huffed, a curl of hair falling across his forehead. “You’re his right hand man, right? So I guess you’ll be the one making sure that it happens.”
He forced Bodhi’s dagger away, the shink of the metal slicing through the tension between them as he turned on his heel and walked toward the staircase. Bodhi was breathing hard, his heart hammering behind his ribs.
I have to stay by her, he told Cuir, wincing as he remembered the last time his dragon swept him up at the last second and he had no idea what had become of Violet. Whatever it takes. No backing out this time.
Cuir was silent.
The night air was crisp when the wings flew out. There had been much more support from both the cadets and active duty wings than any of them had anticipated, but many of them were tired. They needed hope. Many of them had families either in Poromiel or Tyrrendor whose safety were threatened every day by the advancement of the venin, and the prospect of taking out Xaden as a venin asset was such an attractive goal that there was little dissent.
There is still no guarantee that this cure is going to work, Bodhi , Cuir’s voice came almost hesitantly. I fear the one that Tairn calls the Dark One could be too far gone. There are too many variables.
He’s my family, Cuir. The last family that I have , Bodhi responded, tightening his grip on Cuir’s back until his knuckles turned white. It has to work .
Cuir didn’t respond, but Bodhi knew that the dragon could sense the renewed anxiety whirling inside him. It was true – the cure they had fabricated was sketchy at best. If there was no part of Xaden’s soul left intact, it was unlikely that he would respond to what they were about to do, much less let them get close enough to do it.
Hours after the lights of Draithus faded into oblivion, the riot had picked up more riders and formed a murky black shadow slinking through the clouds. Tairn and Violet flew beside them. Bodhi couldn’t help the pang in his chest as he looked at the stoic black dragon who hadn’t so much as spoken a word to anyone outside of Violet since his bond with Sgaeyl had been broken. He could barely see Violet’s small frame atop the harness.
Cuir was flapping her wings desperately, trying to keep up with the huge dragon despite the injury to the fleshy webbing of her wing.
Are you going to be okay getting all the way to Cordyn without stopping? he asked her.
Are you still choosing to question the might of dragons despite all we have been through ?
Okay, then.
Cordyn loomed ahead of them. He vaguely heard dragons chuffing over the thunderous flapping of their wings as they landed in a large field outside. The city was still reeling from the announcement that the venin were on their way, wagons of civilians clogging the streets to flee to Draithus. Many had thought Cordyn was too far off the path from the Barrens to Aretia for the venin to care about taking them, but if they were running out of land to siphon…
Bodhi was already on the ground when Violet slid down Tairn’s sloped shoulder and hit the dirt. Hard. He rushed over to her, and caught her by the waist before she toppled over. “You okay?”
Violet relaxed a bit, reaching down to make sure the wrap around her knee hadn’t moved. “Yeah, just stiff from riding for that long. Not used to going straight through without a break.”
Bodhi was about to let her go when suddenly her arms were wrapped around his midsection and her head was against his chest. His heart palpitated and he begged at least three different gods that she didn’t hear it.
He only let a beat pass before wrapping his arms around her in turn. “What’s this for?” he asked, hoping the nervousness didn’t come through in his tone.
“Thank you for everything, Bodhi,” she murmured.
He tightened his grip slightly. “Please don’t thank me.” It was almost a whisper.
“No,” Violet said, pulling away from him and pinning him with her gaze. “I need you to know before everything goes to shit that I appreciate you. So much.”
“Don’t talk like that,” he said, tearing his eyes away from her and focusing on the structures of Cordyn. Gods, this place is going to fall . “I’ve done what I’ve had to.”
“You’ve done more. Thank you for being there for me.” With that, Violet gave one last squeeze before she pulled away and walked off. Bodhi could feel Tairn’s eyes on him but refused to look up. The morningstartail had become known for his unpredictable irritability in recent months, and the slight growl rumbling from Cuir’s scarred chest didn’t make him feel better as he followed Violet into the city.
I still believe he would rather her be with you than the Dark One, Cuir mused, a stark contrast from her protective demeanor.
Please don’t say that , he begged. His best-kept secret obviously wasn’t safe from his nosy dragon, but he at least hoped that if Xaden did come back to them, there weren’t any rumors that could convince his cousin to off him.
I am not ‘nosy.’ It is you who insists on allowing me to view every thought, no matter how depraved.
If I could shield you out, I would, Bodhi said, shooting a glare back at the green swordtail, her golden eyes glinting in the light of the city.
As the riot of dragons launched, Tairn was the last to leave.
“There is a horde of wyvern heading this way from the northeast.”
Morning broke without incident, but in the growing light of sunrise a small scouting drift had spotted the incoming horde.
“How many?” Violet demanded.
“At least double the amount from Draithus, with reports of another horde incoming from the east at an hour’s delay,” the lieutenant said, standing in the doorframe of the palace at Cordyn.
Bodhi decided to voice the question that no one else was seemingly going to ask. “Any dragons sighted with them?”
The lieutenant shook his head. “Not that we are aware of.”
Violet’s disappointment was palpable, her shoulders slumping back into the ornate chair to the right of a roaring fireplace. The rest of the Assembly and major generals of Tyrrendor’s army were across the room at the longtable, discussing the defense strategy, and Bodhi felt like they should be there as well. Their conversation picked back up at the revelation that the horde was only a few hours out of Cordyn.
Second Squad was dotted around the rest of the plush couches and chairs. “It’s sad that this place is probably going to get destroyed,” Sawyer said thoughtfully. “I’ve never seen any place like it.”
“Well, if it survives, I call taking this couch home,” Ridoc said, kicking his boots up onto the carved armrest as he cuddled into a feather pillow. He tilted his head like Aotrom was saying something to him, and then seemed to be engaged in an argument with the dragon.
Second Squad plus Bodhi was being pulled from the fray to wherever Xaden would be. Any wing that spotted Sgaeyl or Xaden was to report immediately, since no one knew if Tairn or Violet would be able to sense them anymore. Thus, they were relegated to waiting in the palace while the rest of the riders took up their stations across Cordyn, speeding up the evacuation and fortification efforts in the hour before the horde was expected to hit the borders of the city.
Sloane was leaning against the wall, deep in a conversation with Dain. It seemed like she was hardly listening as she stared out the window.
“Do you think she’ll be able to do it?” Bodhi asked Violet in a low voice.
Violet flicked her eyes to the blonde and then back to him. “She has to. The only thing that we’re pretty much sure of is that she’s the key.”
Bodhi nodded. “And do you think you’ll be enough?”
Violet clenched her fists together in her lap. “I have to be.”
As the first throes of battle rang out across the city, the Assembly left to man their posts and Bodhi and the others were the only ones left in the hall. The fire had died down to nothing, leaving the hall awash in shadows as the wings of wyvern and dragons alike blocked the sun. All of them were jumpy in the dark, the thought that Xaden could ambush them if he wanted to flitting through Bodhi’s head. Truthfully, he had no idea what to expect when they saw Xaden. If they saw Xaden.
Second squad paced, most of them anxiously looking out the windows, waiting for the call to run out to the arena to be picked up by their dragons.
The call came maybe an hour after. Violet sat up straight, blood drained from her face. “Tairn says they’ve been spotted.” Her voice was raw, but she ran as the others followed suit. Bodhi pumped his legs catching up to her.
“Where?” he asked, pushing a thought to Cuir down their bond to let her know to pick him up.
“South. Outside of the city.”
Moments later their dragons were landing, shaking the ground as the rumbling of collapsing buildings and screams echoed through the air. Bodhi tried not to focus on it too much before mounting Cuir and flipping down his goggles.
They were going to find Xaden.
Tairn was leagues ahead of the rest of the riot, and Bodhi wasn’t sure that even Violet could convince him to hold back. Sgaeyl had also been spotted, and the dragon hadn’t seen her since before their bond broke after the Battle of Draithus.
Bodhi’s heart hammered as they approached the cliffside. The ocean was still miles away, but the air smelled salty compared to the now sulfur-choked air of Cordyn. The large navy-blue daggertail stood with her head low to the ground, eyes locked on Tairn. In front of her, the dark speck of Xaden came into focus the more they descended.
An emotion Bodhi hadn’t expected to feel upon first seeing Xaden again surfaced: rage. His cousin’s veins were purple and distended, much worse than he had ever seen them. What shocked him to his core, however, were his eyes – they were blood red, with no sign of his flecked onyx irises at all .
Bodhi couldn’t fucking believe the monster Xaden had let himself become.
Per the plan, he and Violet were to approach Xaden to try to reason with him. Every blade strapped to them had alloy and was poised to kill. Before, he was hesitant. Now, looking at Xaden’s soulless eyes, he might just do it anyway. His blood thundered in his ears as he dismounted Cuir, dropping the last few feet to the ground so their dragons didn’t need to risk being desiccated.
Blood be damned. If that fucker siphoned his dragon, if he siphoned Violet –
Bodhi, Cuir said. Focus .
He sucked in a sharp breath, looking up to where Tairn was coming in hot. Violet managed to make her way to his claw, and Bodhi stepped over to help if she needed it as she landed on the ground. This time, however, she made the running landing and righted herself without so much as a wince. Her silver hair whipped in the wind where it had loosened from her braid, and he held back his hand from tucking the strands back in – something he would have done in recent months before knowing Xaden was very much alive, in front of them, and in a position to kill them.
The fact that Sgaeyl was on the ground only comforted Bodhi slightly. If she was still alive, it meant that Xaden at least needed her for something. He wondered if venin could use their amplified signets if their dragons were dead.
He and Violet stopped about fifty yards from Xaden and Sgaeyl. The beating of the wings of the riot above them almost drowned out all sound.
“Xaden!” Violet shouted above the din. “We can help you!”
He stalked forward, and Bodhi placed a hand on one of his daggers. It didn’t stop Xaden from closing twenty yards as he spoke. “You can’t help me, Violet,” he said. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“You wanted me to come!” Violet stepped forward, closing more of the distance.
Bodhi , Cuir warned.
Dammit. If they were going to keep moving together like magnets, they were going to lose the advantage of the distance they had. Bodhi’s heart rate picked up as he spoke to his cousin.
“Enough of the games, Xaden. We can fix this. Let us take you home. Please,” he begged. He dug his fingernails into his palm in an attempt to smother the anger he actually felt. Anger at Xaden for abandoning Tyrrendor, abandoning Violet, abandoning him . Failing Tairn and Sgaeyl and every other person who had ever loved and defended him.
Those red eyes slid from Violet to him. “Are you really that hopeless without me?”
Bodhi reeled back like he had been hit. “What?”
“You can’t live up to me,” Xaden hissed, turning his full attention from Violet to Bodhi. “You only want me to come back so you don’t have to keep living with the failure that you’ve become. Failure to Tyrrendor. You were never meant to take the throne. Never meant to have power.”
Bodhi’s eyes flashed. Before he could think better of it, the dagger he had been palming was flying through the air toward Xaden’s chest. A scream ripped from Violet’s throat and he heard multiple dragons roar. “BODHI!”
As fast as Bodhi had thrown it, the man easily batted it out of the way with a thread of shadows pooling from his feet. The blade ricocheted to the left, whizzing past Violet and lodging itself in the ground.
Bodhi grabbed Violet, pulling her closer to him. His stomach dropped at the realization that there was no electric energy coming from her – she hadn’t screamed his name because she was afraid of what Xaden might do, she was afraid that his blade would pierce Xaden .
Violet had no intention of wielding against Xaden. And Xaden had no intention of letting them cure him.
“Are you just now realizing that? For being my right hand for so long, you’re a little slow,” Xaden smirked. Bodhi clenched his jaw as his grip on Violet faltered. Fucking inntinnsic. Why wasn’t he able to counter? Xaden’s signet had nothing to do with him being venin.
Unless…
“Realizing what? Bodhi?” Violet asked. Panic laced her voice and he looked down at her, failing to conceal the emotions in his.
Call it , Cuir’s voice bounced around his head. You know.
He was so lightheaded, unable to shake the feeling that something very bad was about to happen.
Bodhi swallowed, tasting bile. “Violet,” he said in a low tone, “there’s nothing of him left. He’s gone. We need to –”
Violet tensed and her eyes hardened as she cut him off. “You don't know that. That’s my husband . He’s in there.”
Bodhi’s grip on her went fully lax as he laid eyes on the emerald rock that was on her finger. In the moment that it took him to process, Violet broke from him and rushed toward Xaden just as the shadow of a red dragon passed over them, Sloane executing a perfect running landing yards behind them and whipping past Bodhi at a sprint.
Fuck . They were going to try to cure him.
Bodhi felt useless. The only reason he was on the ground was because they hoped he could help Violet hold Xaden off long enough to reason with him. His signet was useless, he couldn’t get close enough to Xaden to do any damage, and he couldn’t even live up to the promise he made Brennan to save his fucking sister.
To save Violet. The girl that he loved.
“Violet!” he shouted as he broke into a run after Sloane. “He’s not fucking in there! You need to finish him!”
Tairn bellowed a painful cry above them, wind rushing as he moved to converge on his rider. Bodhi could only watch as Violet ran to her husband, arms outstretched, but not to wield on him.
His vocal cords ripped apart when Xaden slammed his hand to the ground, and everything went dark.
Bodhi instinctively skid to a halt and scrambled back, damn near falling over. It would take seconds for the ring to reach him, and all he could hear was the confused roaring of dragons around him, shouting from the rest of Second Squad, and Cuir’s frantic cries in his mind. He couldn’t focus long enough to even send a prayer to Malek to commend his soul.
But the end never came. Bodhi’s eyes were open and he frantically looked around, but the entire cliff was engulfed in shadows. Xaden hadn’t drained anything yet – he had used his signet.
BODHI.
I’m okay, I think , he pushed to Cuir, breathing hard and continuing to back up. He couldn’t see fucking shit in this, and he hated the reminder of how powerful Xaden had always been, and how powerful he was now that he was venin. He held out a hand, countering some of Xaden’s signet and clearing the area slightly in front of him.
Violet and Sloane. Where were they?
Screaming. Violet .
Bodhi stumbled forward, trying not to trip on the uneven ground he could barely see. Energy poured out of his very core; he had never had to work this hard to counter his cousin.
She was screaming Xaden’s name over and over again, begging. Bodhi tried not to listen more than he had to to locate them as Violet recounted everything between the two of them. He knew she was desperately trying to weed out a thread of humanity in him that Bodhi was no longer sure Xaden even had.
And that’s what this plan hinged on.
Bodhi’s mind kept going back to the one backup plan he could ever think of. What he had been thinking of since learning that Xaden went venin.
Bodhi, NO, Cuir commanded. You cannot!
His boot crunched on something that made bile rise in his throat. Bodhi reached down in the darkness and locked his hand around something. Some one .
The skin crunched and crumbled in his fist.
As he moved his hand to the ground, pulling more from Cuir to clear the darkness, he had to bite back a scream.
Sloane .
At that moment, an anguished roar came from somewhere above them, and the telltale crash of a dragon landing somewhere in the grass.
Thoirt has lost her rider , Cuir reported in a hollow tone, as if Bodhi hadn’t fucking figured that out.
At that moment, Violet’s pleading turned into something else.
“How fucking could you?” she shouted. Lightning shattered the shadows, illuminating the shapes of Xaden and Violet locked in combat.
Tairn has informed her, Cuir said. The Dark One must be dispatched swiftly .
Another flash of lightning. Bodhi saw a circular patch of living grass surrounded by a ring of decay that ended just past Sloane’s desiccated corpse.
Xaden is going to fucking kill her .
Bodhi unsheathed a sword and a dagger and threw himself into the fray.
“Violet! Back up! You need to wield!” he shouted as he barely saw a blade barreling toward his chest. He blocked with his sword and kicked out a leg, connecting with some part of Xaden.
“I’m going to hit you!”
“You won’t!” Bodhi took the crack of lightning that followed to lock onto Xaden’s full position and drive at him with the alloy-hilted dagger, but Xaden was no longer there. He stumbled and whipped his head at the next crack of lightning, catching Xaden’s form moving between himself and Violet. “Violet!”
He leapt in their direction, but fell to his hands and knees as his boots were stuck to the ground. His dagger flew into the grass somewhere. Bodhi pulled at his ankles, feeling the solidified shadows that held him in place. “Fuck!”
A muffled scream from Violet. As suddenly as the shadows had erupted, they were gone from around him, forming a dome around him, Xaden, and Violet. He gasped as the energy from his signet dissipated, no longer fighting for supremacy against Xaden’s shadows. His entire body was on fire.
You are going to burn out! Cuir warned.
His cousin was holding a dagger to her neck, a hand clasped over her mouth and shadows binding her arms. The hopelessness that swallowed Bodhi’s gut would have brought him to his knees if he wasn’t already there. Xaden had been toying with them – he was always too powerful for them to take on.
“What’s going to happen is I am going to take her,” Xaden seethed, “and then I’m going to fucking kill you.”
Bodhi couldn’t tear his eyes away from Violet’s wide, fearful eyes. And he refused to look at Xaden’s blood red ones. His labored breathing wisped the tendrils of desiccated grass in front of him.
“Xaden, please,” Bodhi rasped, tears finally stinging his eyes. “If there’s any part of you left–”
“There’s not,” he snipped, “and if you had just joined us when I requested, cousin , you wouldn’t be in this position. You could have had the power to stand against anything. Even me. What a fucking waste.”
Violet gaze was locked on Bodhi, and she didn’t react when a droplet of blood ran down her neck. But Bodhi’s entire body tensed, energy building up inside of him until he was about to rip apart at the seams.
“You’re not taking her,” he growled. “I’m a waste? I’m pathetic?”
A fist of shadow clocked him straight in the jaw.
He fell to his elbow with the force of it, spitting out the coppery taste of blood before continuing. The pain didn’t even register. Blood roared in his ears. “You’ve always been fucking careless with the power you’ve had. It’s always been about what you wanted. Not Tyrrendor, not the revolution, and clearly not for the good of the damn Continent. Bedding yourself with the venin is just a new low for you.”
Xaden cut the dagger further into Violet’s throat.
Bodhi’s heart jumped into his mouth, but he couldn’t stop his tongue – not when he was so close to what he needed to do. He just needed to reach out.
“You say I’m powerless, always following in your shadow. Did you ever stop to think that you had what I wanted?” He tried to keep Xaden’s focus on his face as his fingers slowly crawled across the ground. The green was so close .
BODHI!
He slammed his shields up, a wall of solid evergreen energy severing his ties to his dragon. I’m sorry .
But truthfully, at that moment, he wasn’t.
“You had the power, the position, the girl . Everything. People looked up to you. And it’s true that I always tried to be like you. I know you, Xaden. The way you fight, the way you think.”
Bodhi hardened his gaze, staring daggers into his cousin’s empty eyes.
“I’ve watched you fuck it up over, and over , and over again. Failing every fucking person in your life. Failing Sgaeyl. Failing Violet .” His voice was rising into a shout now. “Taking and taking and taking and never thinking about anyone fucking else!”
Every muscle in his body was alight with rage as it poured out of him, rolling off his tongue like poison. He felt something beneath his palm, waiting for him to pull it out.
“I’m sick of being your right hand man. This ends now .”
Violet’s muffled scream filled his ears when he slammed his palm into the live grass, watching the decay race toward the two of them as true power filled his core.