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Don’t look for me. It’s yours now.
Xaden’s final note to her was ingrained in her brain; the words repeated so much they made no sense anymore.
The latter half, she managed to accept.
The former half, she refused to, making her leave under the cover of darkness, going anywhere but his home, where she saw him everywhere, thinking that every shadow was him.
She knew that he had left to protect her from himself, but Violet didn’t know how to stay put, how to keep ruling on as if nothing was happening to Xaden, as if she wasn’t feeling the hollowness of the lack of his voice, the lack of their bond, every waking and dreaming moment.
She tried to reach out, willed herself to dream deeply, to seek him out, but nothing worked.
She needed to find him, to ask him what had happened in the hours she lost, to force him to let her in entirely and without reservation.
It was that search for truth that led her to her current predicament – waking up to a high-pitched ringing in her ears, feeling the bite of shackles against her wrists, the pain in her shoulder already betraying that it was out of alignment.
She jerked her head up, momentarily disoriented, before realising she was hanging by her bloodied wrists, the pounding in her head making it hard to work out what was going on.
“She’s conscious,” someone spoke to her side, just out of sight.
She blinked what she assumed was her own blood out of her eyes, taking note of the stone walls in her view, three venin in front of her, staring as though she were some battlefield prize.
Well, isn’t that what you are?
They weren’t the ancient, terrifying sages she’d had the misfortune of already facing, no. These three looked young, no sign of the rivers of red veins that she had come to be used to seeing on him – just the rings of red marking them as dark wielders.
They looked at her with curiosity, but not the benevolent kind.
They weren’t here to make small talk with her, or help her, no.
Violet’s knees buckled, her weight resting entirely on her already weak wrists.
“The youngest Sorrengail,” the tall one approached, circling her, something in his hands, something she couldn’t quite name, “the Lightning Wielder. To think of how much power is stored within you, of how much power we can take from you.”
“You won’t be taking anything,” she rasped, her lungs feeling as though she was inhaling shards of glass. She closed her eyes and concentrated, trying to reach out and beckon upon her dragons.
Nothing.
Hell, she probably wouldn’t have even been able to channel any lesser magic in her condition. She rested her chin against her chest, just now taking note of the runes carved into the floor in an intricate pattern, emanating outward from where she was half standing, half hanging.
“You know, we don’t need anything but the ground, rider,” the younger one, a girl, spoke to her, stepping close enough to Violet that she could feel the venin’s breath against her face, “but you… You seem to be one of the last great hopes in destroying us. The one true power against our kind. And so we had an idea, a hypothesis, if you’d like. You’d know all about them, won’t you – you wanted to be a scribe, didn’t you?”
Violet didn’t question how they knew all this – it was pointless, and it wouldn’t help.
“We’re going to harvest your power,” the third spoke, and Violet looked up, confused.
That… that was impossible, was it not?
“You think you can siphon my power out of me?” she croaked out.
“We don’t think anything. But we can find out,” the tall one approached, pressing something sharp against her sternum, waiting for the other two to follow suit, two more sharp points positioned over her heart.
The three began to chant something in a low voice, and Violet struggled to make out what language they were using, when it felt like a million tiny needles had pierced her, attempting to thread her essence through their tiny eyes. Violet somehow let out a scream as she felt her power – the power she had fought so hard to master – being pulled from every bone, every muscle, every joint.
Whatever the three had pushed against her sternum and siphoned her power into burned against her chest.
“Look,” the girl said, Violet not noticing what she referenced – her vision was now blurred, the siphoning of her power taking more than just that.
Violet Sorrengail thrashed, and her body convulsed, the movement too much for her fragile joints.
Her right shoulder subluxated, one of her knees gave out entirely, but the three didn’t stop. She choked on a sob as another dislocation sent another flood of pain flooding through her, intertwining with the agony of losing her power, her bond, her life?
Her vision disappeared, her hearing waning.
Xaden, she thought, feeling her head go light as more power was siphoned out of her, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come.
Her agony reached a crescendo, a blinding white-hot flash that felt like her soul had just spontaneously combusted before being glued back together breaking down the final pillar of her mental fortitude.
It all stop suddenly, and she slumped forward even further somehow, feeling her warm blood making its way down her hyper-extended arms and down her body, sticky against her torn rider’s uniform.
Her jacket – well, his – was gone.
They couldn’t even let her have a piece of him as they took away her last hope at reaching out to him.
Something else popped out of place, but she had no more energy to cry or even whimper in pain.
“We have what we need,” the tall one said, lifting her chin, staring into her eyes, a smirk dancing on his lips, before the three left her alone in her despair.
I was the hope, she thought, tears slipping down her cheeks onto the cold stone now stained with her blood.
And now I am nothing.