Your Majesty, Tyrrendor hereby officially declines your request for a Provincial Commitment of troops for our current conflict. Having resigned my professorship at Basgiath War College, I am now in rightful command of all Tyrrish citizens in military service.
—Official Correspondence of His Grace, Lieutenant Xaden Riorson, Sixteenth Duke of Tyrrendor, to His Majesty, King Tauri the Wise
Spring-green meadow grass bends under my boots as the first drops of rain fall. I shouldn’t be here. I know what happens here. And yet, this is where I’m called time and again.
This is the price of saving her life.
Lightning splinters the sky, illuminating the high walls of Draithus and its spiraling tower in the distance and outlining dozens of wings in the sky. If I move fast enough, I’ll get there this time.
But my legs won’t obey, and I stumble, just like I always do.
He steps out of nothingness, straight into my path, and my heart pounds, as though increasing the speed of its beats will cease it from sinking through my chest.
“I grow weary of waiting.” The Sage pulls back the hood of his robe, revealing red-rimmed eyes and scarlet veins branching at his temples like roots.
“I am not yours.” I flip my palms, summoning the power that’s come to define me, but nothing rises except my own panic. Before I can reach for my blades, I’m yanked into the air. Icy fingers wrap around my neck, too vaporous to fight yet substantial enough to nearly cut the flow of air. Pain sears my throat.
Asshole.
My magic never works here, but his always does.
“You are ours.” The Sage’s eyes narrow with malice. “You will bring what I want”—his grip tightens with every word, allowing only a trickle of air into my lungs—“or she dies. I’m through waiting, and I will not allow her to win such a prize.”
I sweep the sky for a familiar set of wings as I hear her scream but find none as the rain begins in earnest.
He’s bluffing.
“You.” I force the word out. “Do. Not. Have. Her.”
He drops his arms, and I fall to my knees on the grass, pulling breath after breath to replace what he’d denied me.
“But I will,” he vows. “Because you’ll bring her to me.”
The fuck I will. Anger cuts through the fear, and I slam my left hand to the ground. Rain runs off my flight jacket and courses over the edge of my relic in rivulets as I flex my fingers in the wet grass, splaying my fingers wide.
My hand…it doesn’t look like mine—
There it is. Power courses through the earth beneath me, ready and willing to annihilate their forces if I have the courage to let go of the impossible dreams I’ve clung to and accept the fate Zihnal has dealt me.
I only have to reach, and they’ll be safe. She’ll be safe.
No. This is wrong.
This is a dream. Only a dream. And yet he holds me here night after night. Fighting through the weight of the nightmare, I wrench my hand from the ground.
“Wake!” I scream, but no sound emerges.
“This city will fall. Yours will be next,” the Sage promises.
“Wake!”
I jerk my head up, only to find the Sword of Tyrrendor at my throat. The Sage draws his arm back—
My body jolts and my eyes fly open. There is no field. No Sage. No sword. Just gentle raindrops hitting our window, the warmth of the blankets tangled at my legs, and the weight of Xaden’s arm draped over my waist. The worst of the storm has passed.
Filling my lungs to capacity persuades the pounding in my chest to ease, but the breaths against my ear only come faster, growing more ragged with every second.
“Xaden?” I twist toward him and lift my hand to his face. His skin is damp with sweat, his brow furrowed, and his jaw clenches so hard I hear his teeth grind. I’m not the only one having nightmares tonight.
“Xaden.” I sit up and slide my hand to his bare shoulder, then tap gently. “Wake up.”
He flings himself onto his back, and his head begins to thrash.
“Xaden.” My chest tightens at the visible pain on his face, and I throw myself down the bond. “Xaden!”
His eyes open and he surges upright with a full-bodied gasp, then plants his hands beside his hips on the mattress.
“You’re all right,” I say gently, and his gaze snaps toward mine, wild and haunted. “You were having a nightmare.”
He blinks the sleep out of his eyes, then swings his head in a quick sweep of the space. “We’re in our room.”
“We’re in our room.” I draw my fingers across his shoulders, and the muscles soften.
“And you’re here.” His shoulders dip as he looks my way.
“I’m here.” I pick up his left hand and press it against my cheek.
“You’re clammy.” His brow knits. “Everything all right?”
Go figure he immediately asks about me.
“I had a bad dream, too.” I shrug. “Must be the storm.”
“Must be.” His gaze flickers past me toward the window. “Come here.” He pulls me closer, then lays us down to face each other. A second later, he draws the sheet—but not the blanket—over us and settles his hand on my hip. “Tell me about yours.”
I tuck the sheet under my arm and slide my other hand under my pillow. “It’s the same one I’ve had since Resson.”
“Same one?” He brushes my hair back over my shoulder. “You told me you had bad dreams but never said they repeated.”
“I have a recurring nightmare. It’s nothing.” Thunder booms in the distance, and he stays quiet, waiting for me to continue. “It’s usually in a field, and there’s a battle in the distance. I can hear Andarna scream but I can’t get to her.” My throat tightens, and I lift my hand to his chest. “The Sage is there, and he always levitates me like I’m nothing heavier than a pocket watch. And I can’t kick, or scream, or move. I’m just stuck there as he threatens me.”
He tenses. “You’re sure it’s the Sage?”
I nod. “He held the Sword of Tyrrendor to my throat after demanding I bring him something. It’s like my subconscious is trying to warn me that they’re going to use you against me.”
“What else?” His heart starts to pound beneath my fingers.
I blink, trying to remember. “I can’t explain how I know, since I’ve only ever seen it from a distance, but the last couple of times, we’ve been near Draithus.”
“Are you sure?” His eyes widen. “What did it look like?”
“It’s usually pretty dark, but I could make out tall city walls on a raised plateau, and a central, spiraling tower.”
“That’s Draithus.” His breathing picks up again.
“What’s wrong?” I slide my hand to the side of his neck.
“What else?” He palms my hip.
He’s oddly intense about this, but if it helps him talk through whatever plagued him while he slept, then I’ll play along. “Tonight was…weird. Different.”
“How?”
“When he dropped me, I had this second where I thought about channeling from the earth, and when I looked down…” My gaze slides to his relic. “I had a relic on my left wrist, right where yours all start. And my hand didn’t look like mine. Now that I’m thinking about it, it looked like…yours. Who knows. What was yours about?”
He stares at me silently, and worry creeps up my spine.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because it’s my hand.”
My fingers slip off his neck. “I just said that.”
He sits up and I mirror the motion, holding the sheet to my chest. “It’s my hand,” he repeats. “You were in my dream.”
• • •
It’s not possible, is it?
Two hours later, I’ve told him about every dream I can remember with the Sage, and Xaden’s had every single one.
There has to be a reasonable explanation.
“You think we’re sharing the same dream?” I ask slowly, sitting in the middle of our bed with a blanket wrapped over my shoulders, watching him pace the short length of our bedroom in his sleeping pants.
The move reminds me of Sgaeyl on Hedotis.
Is sharing dreams even possible? Some effect of our bond?
“No. They’re my dreams.” He rubs the skin beneath his lower lip. “I’ve had them at least once a week since Resson, and more frequently since Basgiath, but I almost never realize they’re nightmares when I’m in them. When I do, I wake up feeling like someone was there with me, watching.” He looks over at me and pauses his steps. “Like tonight.”
“That doesn’t make sense.” I tug the blanket closer. “I’ve had the dream on nights you aren’t with me. Nights you were hours away.”
“Maybe it’s the bond.” He leans back against our dresser. “But they’re definitely my dreams. You’ve never been to Draithus, and that scenario…it’s exactly what happened on the edge of the river when I fought him at Basgiath.”
I blink. He never talks about that.
“The dark wielder Andarna scorched behind the school pulled the same move.” I tilt my head. “But that dark wielder wasn’t him. Do you know what the dream’s about? What he wants you to bring to him? Because it’s all vague to me, like I’m walking in mid-conversation…” My words die as my mind flies through the possibility that he’s right, no matter how impossible it is.
“Because you are.” Xaden lifts his brows. “And he wants me to deliver you.”
“They have their own lightning wielder,” I argue like I can reason with Xaden’s subconscious.
“But it’s my nightmare, and I only have one you,” he says. “It’s getting harder and harder not to go to Draithus just to prove to myself that it’s all in my head.” His eyes flare, then narrow. “But it shouldn’t be in yours. Has it ever happened with anyone else?”
“How would I know?” I shake my head. “I don’t think so, but I don’t remember all my dreams.” Still…there’s the nightmare I had in Samara—that one still sticks with me. It’s as visceral as a memory. As visceral as these nightmares. “How much do you know about the fall of Cliffsbane?”
He grips the edge of the dresser. “You dreamed about Cliffsbane?”
“When I was in Samara.” I nod. “In the dream, I was in my room—at least I think it was mine—and the fire was coming, but I wouldn’t leave without the portrait of my family, and…”
The family in the portrait. The honey-brown eyes. The burn on my hand.
“And what?” He walks toward me slowly, studying me like he doesn’t already intimately know every inch of my body.
“I…” My heart rate picks up, and nausea racks my stomach. “I told Cat she had to live because she’s the future queen of Tyrrendor, and the way Cat looked at me…” I swallow the bile that rides the fear rising in my throat. “It was like I was precious to her. What if”—I fight the urge to be sick—“what if I was Maren?”
Xaden sits at the foot of the bed, and the muscles of his back ripple as he tenses. “You were in Maren’s dream.” He turns to face me, and something that looks eerily like terror widens his eyes before he can mask it.
“That’s not possible.” I wrap my arms around my stomach. “Maybe with you because of the bond, but there’s no way to trip into someone else’s dream.”
“There is if you’re a dream-walker.” He nods thoughtfully, and my heart pounds as I guess what he’s about to say. “It must be your second signet—the one being bonded to Andarna gives you. It would make sense. Her kind are peaceful, and the ability itself would be passive, even a gift in a culture like that.”
A what? My back stiffens. “There’s no such thing as dream-walking, and the irids told her that she gave me something more dangerous than lightning. It was one of the reasons they were so angry with her.”
“There is such a thing.” Xaden’s voice drops. “It’s absolutely more dangerous than lightning. It’s a form of inntinnsic,” he ends on a whisper.
“I don’t read minds. That can’t be right.” I shake my head.
“You don’t read them. You walk straight into them when unconscious.”
My jaw slackens, and I reach for Andarna. “Is it true?”
Tairn rustles but stays silent.
“I did not choose it any more than Tairn chose lightning,” she says defensively. “But you have been known to wander while dreaming. It’s harmless. You’re mostly drawn to him.”
The blanket falls from my fingers.
“And you said nothing?” Tairn growls.
“You did not inform her the first time she wielded lightning!” Andarna argues. “She needed to discover it herself.”
“Oh gods.” I start to shake.
“Shit.” Xaden tucks the blanket around me, then pulls me into his lap. “It’s going to be all right.”
“It doesn’t make sense. Signets are based on our unique bond and the power of the dragon.” My thoughts tumble over themselves as I babble. “And what we need most, so it’s logical that you needed to know everyone’s intentions when you manifested. You had to keep the marked ones safe. But there’s no part of me who wants or needs to know what anyone else is dreaming—” The trembling stops as it clicks and I understand. “Except when I did. I was cut off from her while she slept all those months.”
“Andarna.” He nods. “That makes sense. My signet doesn’t work on dragons, and I’m guessing yours doesn’t, either, so you unknowingly developed it on a human.”
“On you.” I search his face for any sign of anger but find none. “I’m so sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.” He strokes my hair and holds my gaze. “You didn’t know. Didn’t do it on purpose—”
“Of course not.” I would never purposely violate his privacy that way—or Maren’s.
“Which is what makes you exceptionally dangerous.” His jaw flexes twice. “I can only read someone while they’re awake, and I’m limited by their ability to shield. No one can shield while they’re sleeping. You could potentially walk straight into Melgren’s own dreams and he couldn’t stop you. Probably wouldn’t even know.” His face twists for a heartbeat before he quickly masks it. “Violet, they’ll kill you if they find out. It won’t matter that you’re the best weapon they have against the venin—against me. They’ll snap your neck and call it self-defense.”
Well, that’s…terrifying.
“Only if it’s true.” I slide off his lap and start pulling on my sparring uniform, leaving my armor draped on the back of the chair. “It’s just dreams, right? If it’s dreams? It’s like tripping into someone’s fears, not their actual thoughts.”
“Except I think you meddle, because I wanted to channel on that field and found myself raising my hand instead— What are you doing?”
Meddle?
“I can only think of one way to confirm for sure, and don’t worry, I’ll be careful.” I button my pants, then stare as he rises and pulls a set of dry clothes from his pack. “What are you doing?”
“Going with you, obviously.”
There’s no point arguing, so we both dress. A few minutes and several stairs later, I knock on Maren’s door.
It takes her a minute to answer, and when she does, her eyes are groggy with sleep. “Violet? Riorson?” she asks with a jaw-cracking yawn. “What’s going on?”
“I’m sorry to wake you, but I need to ask you something completely…weird.” I rub the bridge of my nose. “There’s no other way to say it, and I need you to not ask me why.”
“Tread carefully,” Xaden warns.
“All right.” Maren folds her arms over her robe.
“Did you happen to have a portrait of your family?” I ask.
“I still do,” Maren answers, her forehead puckering. “Is something wrong with my brothers? I just saw them a few hours ago.”
“No.” I shake my head vehemently. “Nothing like that.” Maybe we’re wrong and this is just some weird effect from the bond. If Maren still has the portrait, then it couldn’t have caught fire. Then Xaden can’t be right—I didn’t walk into her dream.
“Here, I’ll show it to you,” Maren offers, then disappears into her room. She’s back within a few seconds and holds out the portrait.
Recognition hits with all the subtlety of a dagger. “I’ve seen it before.” The soft smiles, the honey-brown eyes. Gods, no wonder the boys looked familiar to me. I was just in too much pain to register why the first time. “It’s beautiful.” I force myself to swallow.
“Thanks.” She draws back her hand. “I keep it with me wherever we go.”
“You’re not worried about losing it?”
“That used to be my worst nightmare, actually,” she says, staring down at the miniature. “Until I lived through losing them.”
Worst nightmare. It takes every ounce of self-control I have to keep my expression flat. “I can understand that all too well. Thank you for sharing that with me—”
“Silver One!” Tairn bellows.
Xaden’s head tilts, and Maren stiffens.
“I’m right here—”
“A horde approaches from the east!” he shouts.
Bells peal, the loudest of them straight overhead.
We’re under attack.
