The rarest of signets—those that rise once in a generation or century—have manifested concurrently with an equal twice in our records, both critical times in our history, but only once have the six most powerful walked the Continent simultaneously. As fascinating as that spectacle must have been, I would rather not live to see it happen again.
—A Study on Signets by Major Dalton Sisneros
“They’re within the walls!” Tairn bellows.
“Already figured that out.” I swap my daggers for two alloy-hilted ones at my thighs and move quickly to hand one to Sawyer. “None of us die today.”
He nods, taking the blade by the hilt.
“Maren, protect Sawyer,” Rhiannon orders. “Cat, help whoever you can. Let’s go!”
“Guess I’ll just…stay here?” Sawyer calls after us, muttering a swear word as we take off sprinting between the rows of infirmary beds.
We’re the first to make it to the doors, where Winifred holds the wailing infantry cadet by his upper arms. “Violet, don’t go out there—” she starts.
“Lock the doors!” I shout as we run through.
“Like that’s going to stop them?” Ridoc challenges as we enter the tunnel, then all three of us skid to a halt at the sight before us.
The blankets on every overflow bed down the hallway have been thrown back, revealing desiccated bodies. My stomach plummets. How did this happen so fast?
“Oh shit.” Ridoc draws another dagger at my right as two more riders sprint through the infirmary doors behind us, both from Second Wing.
I reach for Xaden and find his shields not only up but impenetrable.
Frustrating, but fine. I’m perfectly capable of fighting on my own, and I have Ridoc and Rhi with me.
“You do not have a conduit,” Tairn reminds me. Which means I can’t pinpoint my lightning strikes, especially not indoors.
“I’ve always been far more accurate with daggers than my own power. Warn whoever’s riders guard the wardstone.”
“Already done,” he replies.
“Check the bridge!” Rhiannon commands the two from Second Wing, and they take off toward the Riders Quadrant.
“Bring their bodies outside once you’re done killing them so we can roast them for fun,” Andarna suggests.
“Not right now.” I calm my breath and concentrate.
“Eyes open,” Rhiannon says, her voice as steady as her hand as she pulls an alloy-hilted dagger and moves to my left. “Let’s go.”
Then we move as one, quiet and quick as we make our way down the hall. I keep my eyes forward as Rhi and Ridoc check left and right respectively, and their silence tells me all I need to know. There are no survivors.
We follow the curve of the tunnel, passing the last cot, and a scribe flies out of the stairwell ahead, his robes billowing behind him as he runs toward us at full speed.
I flip the dagger in my hand and pinch it by the tip, my heart starting to beat double-time.
“Which way did they go?” Rhi asks the cadet.
The scribe’s hood falls back, revealing red-rimmed eyes with spiderwebbed veins at his temples. Nope, definitely not a cadet. He reaches beneath his robes, but I’ve already flicked my wrist by the time he grabs the pommel of a sword.
My dagger lodges in the left side of his chest, and his eyes bulge in shock as he falls gracelessly to the tunnel floor. His body shrivels in the span of a heartbeat.
“Damn. Sometimes I forget how good you are at that,” Rhi whispers, scanning our surroundings as we move forward.
“How did you know?” Ridoc asks in the same hushed tone, quickly kicking the husk of a body over and retrieving my blade.
“A scribe would have run toward the Archives.” I take the blade back and wrap my hand around the hilt. “Thanks.” The alloy’s hum of power is a little dimmer but still there, hopefully capable of another killing blow. How many of them had Imogen and I seen on our walk to the infirmary without even realizing? “That’s how they fed without notice. They’re dressed as scribes.”
Two figures in cream robes approach from the opposite side of the tunnel, mage light shining on their first-year rank, and I prepare to throw again.
“Drop the hoods,” Rhi orders.
They both startle, and the cadet on the right lowers her hood quickly, but there’s a slight tremble in her counterpart’s hands as she complies, her wide blue eyes locked on the body at my feet. “Is that…” she whispers, and her friend wraps an arm around her swaying frame.
“Yes.” I lower my blade, noting that neither of them carry red in their eyes or at their temples. “Get back to the Archives and warn the others.”
The women turn and run.
“Up or down?” Ridoc asks, facing the steps.
Someone shouts beneath us.
“Down,” Rhi and I say simultaneously.
“Great.” Ridoc rolls his neck. “Down the stairwell to the torture chamber where an untold number of freshly fed dark wielders wait. Good times.” He takes the lead, switching his dagger to his left hand and lifting his right in preparation to wield as Rhiannon steps in behind me.
We edge down the stairs rapidly, keeping our backs to the stone wall, and I send up a silent thanks to Eran Norris for building Basgiath with stone stairs instead of wooden ones with the potential to creak…or burn.
“Pay attention to the present, not the past,” Tairn lectures.
Metal clangs beneath us, the pitch varying from the ting of colliding blades to the ear-grating rasp of steel scraping against stone. But it’s the maniacal laughter mixed with grunts of pain that has me hurrying faster, has power rising, crackling along my skin.
“Control it!” Tairn orders.
“Quiet time,” I remind him, throwing my shields up to block him, knowing he can still push through if he wants.
“Stop playing with your kill and help us get this door open!” someone demands from below. If they want a cell door open, they’re definitely not on our side. They’ve come for Jack.
“How many guards are on Barlowe?” Ridoc whispers as we near the turn in the staircase that will expose us to whomever waits beneath.
“Two—” Rhiannon’s answer is quickly muffled by the sound of a low and painful scream.
“Make that one,” I reply, readying my right hand to throw.
The antechamber of the brig comes into view, and my gaze flies over the all-too-familiar space, taking quick stock of our situation.
Two dark wielders dressed in scribe robes yank at the unmoving door handle to Jack’s cell, while a female pulls her ruby-hilted sword across the neck of a second lieutenant who’s been pinned to the thick table with daggers through his hands, and a fourth stands at the edge of the shadows.
Her long silver braid swings free of her hood as her attention whips in our direction, and her eerie red gaze jumps to mine and widens slightly under a faded tattoo on her forehead. My blood chills when a smirk tilts her mouth, distorting the red veins at her temples, and then she…disappears.
I blink against the sudden breeze that rustles a loosened strand of my braid, then stare at the empty space she’d occupied. At least I think she had. Am I seeing things now?
Rhi gasps behind me, and my focus jolts to the imprisoned guard. Blood floods the table from the rider’s wound, and I swallow back the burn of acid in my throat, catching sight of two corpses to the left, one in cream, the other in black.
The female with the jeweled sword at the table pivots, her short blond hair smacking her sharp cheekbones as she turns in our direction, revealing branches of red veins at her temples.
I flick my wrist just in case this one disappears, too.
“Riders—” Her alarm dies with my blade lodged in the middle of her throat.
Ridoc rushes the two at the door, but they’re ready, one drawing a sword that Ridoc blocks with a thick band of ice.
I throw my remaining dagger at the other as I jump the last two steps, but the dark-haired venin moves unnaturally fast, dodging the strike. My blade bounces off the stone wall behind him as I run toward the rider bleeding out on the table.
Fuck!
Rhi leaps over the female’s body, headed for Ridoc, and I continue on, keeping an eye on the one I missed.
The venin swings his arm, and a shape flies toward me.
“Drop, Vi!” Ridoc shouts, throwing his hand out, palm down, and a chill sweeps over the front of my legs as spikes rush at my face.
I hit my knees and slide along a small sheet of ice as the mace whips over my head, slicing through the air with a whistle.
“Not the silver hair!” the dark wielder with the sword bellows, and I scramble to my feet, slipping on the blood-covered stone. “We need her!”
To control Xaden? Fuck that. I’ll never be used against him again.
“Mine, now!” Rhi shouts, and when I glance left, she’s swinging the mace at its previous owner, giving me time to get to the twitching rider on the table.
“Hold on,” I tell him, reaching for his throat to staunch the bleeding, but I pause as his last breath rattles his chest and he falls limp. He’s gone. My heart clenches for all of a beat before I draw two more daggers and turn toward my friends.
The black-haired venin moves in a blur, ducking beneath the mace Rhiannon swings, then appears before me like he’d been standing there all along.
Fast. They’re too damned fast.
My heart jolts as I jerk my dagger to his throat, and he studies me with sickening excitement in his red eyes. Power floods my veins, heating my skin and lifting the hair along my arms.
“Ah, the lightning wielder. You’re a long way from the sky, and we both know you can’t kill me with that knife,” he taunts, and the veins along his temples pulse as Rhi sneaks up behind him, her alloy-hilted dagger poised to strike.
Shadows quake at the edges of the chamber, and a corner of my mouth rises. “I won’t have to.”
His eyes flare in confusion for all of a millisecond before shadows explode around us, immediately devouring every speck of light in a sea of endless black I instantly recognize as home. A band of darkness wraps around my hips and yanks me backward, then brushes my cheek gently, steadying my galloping heartbeat and quieting my power.
Screams fill the chamber, followed by a pair of thuds, and I know without a doubt any threat to my life’s been extinguished.
A heartbeat later, the shadows retreat, revealing the shriveled bodies of the dark wielders on the floor, alloy-hilted daggers embedded in their chests.
I lower my weapons as Xaden strides toward me from the center of the room, the hilts of the two swords he keeps strapped to his back peeking above his shoulders. He’s in thick winter flight leathers, devoid of any markings but his second lieutenant rank, and speckled with tiny dots of water that tell me he’s been out in the snow.
Second lieutenant. The same rank as Barlowe’s guards had been.
The same as Garrick, who’s standing at the base of the steps behind Xaden, and almost every other officer temporarily stationed here to protect Basgiath.
My heart stutters and my gaze rakes over Xaden’s tall, muscled frame, searching for any sign of injury. Gold-flecked onyx eyes meet mine, and my breath stabilizes only when I realize he’s unharmed and there isn’t a single trace of red to be found anywhere near his irises. He may technically be an initiate, but he’s nothing like the venin we just fought.
Gods, I love this man.
“Tell me something, Violence.” A muscle in his square jaw ticks as he stares down at me, rippling the tawny-brown skin of his stubbled cheek. “Why is it always you?”
• • •
An hour later, we’re dismissed from the debrief with the commandant of the Riders Quadrant, Colonel Panchek, and sent on our way.
“He doesn’t even seemed fazed that they were working to rescue Barlowe instead of going for the wardstone.” Garrick shoves his hand through his short dark hair as he descends the staircase of the academic wing ahead of Xaden and me.
“Maybe it’s not the first attempt.” Rhi glances back over her shoulder at Garrick. “It’s not like we’re getting briefed every day.”
We aren’t safe here, not that we ever really were.
“Panchek’ll notify the other leadership, right?” Ridoc asks as we pass the third floor.
“Melgren already knows. There were only two of us down there.” Xaden glances pointedly at Garrick’s hand, where his rebellion relic peeks out from the sleeve of his uniform.
“I’m just grateful for the wards Sorrengail put in place before she left.” Garrick doesn’t bother to clarify that he’s talking about my sister. “Barlowe can’t hear or see a thing outside that chamber unless someone opens the door, so it’s not like he’s gathering new intel. From the look of the stones he’s drained within the cell, he’ll be dead within the week.”
Xaden tenses at my side and I reach for him mentally, but his shields are thicker than the walls of this fortress.
“It’s not always me,” I whisper to Xaden, brushing my hand against his as we continue down the wide spiral staircase, approaching the second floor.
Xaden scoffs, then laces his fingers with mine and brings the back of my hand to his perfectly sculpted mouth. “It is,” he replies just as quietly, punctuating the remark with a kiss.
My pulse jumps just like it does every time he puts his lips on my skin, which hasn’t happened much in the last couple of weeks.
“You know, that whole slay-them-in-darkness thing was badass”—Ridoc lifts his finger—“but I totally had him.”
“You didn’t.” Xaden strokes his thumb over mine, and Garrick’s shoulders shake with a quiet laugh as we descend the final flight of steps to the main entrance.
“I was about to have him,” Ridoc argues, shaking that finger.
“You weren’t,” Xaden assures him.
“How could you possibly know that?” Ridoc drops his hand.
Garrick and Xaden exchange a look of sheer exasperation, and I fight a smile.
“Because you were on one side of the room,” Garrick says, “but your blade was on the other.”
“A problem I was in the middle of solving.” Ridoc shrugs, reaching the ground floor with Rhi.
Xaden pauses, tugging my hand in wordless request that I stay with him, which I do.
“We should check on the others.” Rhi glances up at me. “You headed to the great hall?”
I nod, and nerves jumble in my stomach.
“You’re ready. You’ve got this,” she says with a flash of a smile. “Want us to walk you over?”
“No. Go check on the squad,” I reply, and Garrick stills a step beneath us. “I’ll find you afterward.”
“We’ll be waiting,” Ridoc promises over his shoulder as he heads to the left with Rhi, disappearing around the corner.
“Everything all right?” Garrick turns our way and studies Xaden’s eyes.
“It will be if you give us five minutes alone,” Xaden answers.
Concern knits Garrick’s brow as he glances at me, but he quickly smooths his expression when I nod.
“For fuck’s sake. You trust her to babysit me at night, don’t you?” Xaden narrows his eyes on his best friend.
“Don’t act like I’m the reason you need to be supervised,” Garrick fires back.
Shadows creep across the step at our feet.
“It’s fine,” I quickly assure Garrick, keeping my hand entwined with Xaden’s much larger one. “I’m fine. He’s fine. All fine.”
Garrick glances between us, then pivots and moves down the steps. “I’ll be close by,” he warns, turning the corner to the right, toward the sparring gym.
“Damn it.” Xaden pulls his hand from mine, then leans back against the wall, his swords clinking against the masonry. His jacket falls open as he rests his head on the stone window frame. “I never realized how much I like alone time until I didn’t have any.” His throat works and his hands clench at his sides.
“I’m sorry.” I cross the foot of space between us, stepping between his feet and lifting my hand to the side of his neck, right over the magically inked lines of his mark.
“Don’t be. He has every right to worry about leaving me alone with you.” He covers my hand with his own and lowers his head, slowly opening those eyes I can never get enough of.
“I trust you.” Not a trace of red to be seen.
“You shouldn’t.” He wraps his arm around my waist and tugs me against his body. The contact instantly heats my skin and makes my stomach flip in the best possible way. “I’m pretty fucking sure the only reason he and Bodhi aren’t sleeping at the foot of our bed is that they know I would have killed them for it before, let alone now.”
Not that we’re doing anything in that bed besides sleeping. I might trust him, but he sure as Dunne doesn’t trust himself, at least not enough to let go of control in any form.
“In the spirit of transparency, I should tell you they’d like me to reconsider our sleeping arrangements.” I splay my other hand over his warm chest.
His eyes flare, and his arm tightens around me. “Maybe you should.”
“That’s not happening. I told Imogen to get fucked.”
A smile ghosts his mouth. “I’m sure you did.”
“They’ll stop hovering as soon as you’re cured.” My gaze skims the carved line of his jaw, then along the rise of his cheekbones to the locks of his black hair that have fallen over his forehead. He’s still him. Still mine.
His muscles tense beneath my fingers. “You ready to meet with the Senarium?”
“Yes.” I nod. “And don’t change the subject. I will find a way to cure you.” I put every ounce of my determination into the words and lift my eyebrows at him. “Let me in.” It isn’t a request. To my surprise, he lowers his shields, and the shimmering onyx bond between us solidifies. “You wielded your signet today. Behind the wards.”
He nods, dropping his hand from mine and fully wrapping his arms around me. “I channeled from Sgaeyl.”
I savor the feel of his body against mine but don’t push my luck for a kiss. “Did she tell you we were in trouble?”
His gaze falls away and he shakes his head. “She’s still not speaking to me. Flying is awkward as fuck.”
My chest threatens to crack under the weight of the sadness in his tone. “I’m so sorry.” I slide my hands around the small of his back and hug him, turning my head so his heart beats beneath my ear. “She’ll come around.”
“Don’t count on it,” Tairn warns with a growl down the mental pathway that only belongs to us, and I blatantly ignore him.
Xaden lowers his chin to the top of my head. “She knows I’m not…whole. She senses it.”
I startle and pull back, lifting my hands to hold his face. “You’re whole,” I whisper. “I don’t know what you paid to access that power, but it didn’t change you—”
“It did,” he counters, sidestepping down a stair and out of my arms.
I can only think of one way to prove it didn’t. “Do you still love me?” I hurl the inquiry at him like a weapon.
His gaze snaps to mine. “What kind of question is that?”
“Do. You. Still. Love. Me?” I enunciate every word and lean right into his space just to prove that I’m not intimidated by him.
He cups the back of my neck and pulls me within inches of his face—close enough to kiss. “I could reach the rank of Maven, lead armies of dark wielders against everyone we care for, and watch every vein in my body turn red as I channel all the power in the Continent, and I would still love you. What I did doesn’t change that. I’m not sure anything can.”
“See? You’re still you.” My gaze drops to his mouth. “Telling me you’re capable of horrible things while still loving me is pretty much your idea of foreplay.”
His eyes darken, and he hauls me closer until only his own obstinance separates our lips. “That should scare the shit out of you, Violet.”
“It doesn’t.” I rise on my toes and brush my lips over his. “Nothing about you scares me. I won’t run, Xaden.”
“Damn it.” He drops his hand and retreats a step, putting space between us again. “With my shields up, I didn’t know you were in the interrogation chamber until I was halfway down the stairs.”
“What?” I blink. “Then how did you know to come help?”
Silence stretches between us, and a prickle of apprehension makes me shift my weight, aggravating my lower back.
“I sensed them,” he finally answers. “The same way they sense me.”
My stomach pitches, and I reach for the wall, splaying my palm over the rough-hewn stone to keep my balance. “That’s not possible.”
“It is.” He nods slowly, watching me. “That’s how I know I’ve changed, how Garrick and I have managed to slay more than a dozen of them this week. I can feel them calling to me, just like I can feel the source pulsing beneath my feet with its incomparable power…because I’m one of them.” His eyes narrow. “Scared yet?”
