Total pages in book: 247
Estimated words: 235897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1179(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 786(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 235897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1179(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 786(@300wpm)
“Not going to happen.” Xaden bites out every word.
“You could deliver her yourself.” Chains rattle. “Or you could let me out and we’ll do it together. Who knows, they might let her live just to keep you on a leash until you turn asim and forget all about her.”
“Fuck you.”
My hands ball into fists. Jack knows Xaden’s channeled. He’ll tell the first person who questions him, and Xaden will be arrested. My mind spins as the two start to argue only yards away, their words blurring in the whirlwind of my thoughts. Gods, I could lose Xaden just like—
I can’t. I won’t. I refuse to lose him, for him to lose himself.
Fear fights to rise and I snuff it out, denying it air to breathe or grow. The only thing stronger than the power prowling within me is the resolve stiffening my spine.
Xaden is mine. My heart, my soul, my everything. He channeled from the earth to save me, and I’ll scour the world until I find a way to save him right back. Even if it takes bargaining with Tecarus for access to every book on the damned Continent or capturing dark wielders one by one to question, I’ll find a cure.
“We’ll find a cure,” Andarna promises. “We will exhaust every closer resource first, but if I’m right and I somehow altered that venin inadvertently while changing my scales, then the rest of my kind should know how to master the tactic. How to change him. Cure him.”
My breath stutters at the possibility, the cost. “Even if you’re right, I’m not using you—”
“I want to find my family. We both know the order to locate my kind is inevitable now that your leadership knows what I am. Let us do so on our terms and for our own purposes.” Her tone sharpens. “Let us follow every possible path to a cure.”
She’s right. “Every possible path may require breaking a few laws.”
“Dragons do not answer to the laws of humans,” she counters in a tone that reminds me of Tairn. “And as my bonded, as Tairn’s rider, you no longer answer to them, either.”
“Rebellious adolescent,” I mutter, forming half a dozen plans, half of which might work. Even as their rider, there are still some crimes that would demand my execution…and that of whomever I trust to involve. I nod to myself, accepting the risk, at least for myself.
“You’ll have to keep secrets again,” Andarna warns.
“Only the ones that protect Xaden.” Which currently means preventing Jack from revealing this conversation without killing him, since we can’t afford the manhunt the death of our only prisoner would cause.
“You sure I shouldn’t ask Cuir or Chradh—”
“No.” I start down the stairs. There’s only one other person besides Bodhi and Garrick I can trust to prioritize Xaden’s best interests, only one other person who can know the truth in its entirety. “Tell Glane I need Imogen.”
I will not die today.
I will save him.
—Violet Sorrengail’s personal addendum to the Book of Brennan
CHAPTER ONE
Two weeks later
Flying in January should be a violation of the Codex. Between the howling storm and the incessant fog in my goggles, I can’t see shit as we cut through the blustering snow squall above the mountains near Basgiath. Hoping we’re almost through the worst of it, I grip the pommels of my saddle with gloved hands and hold tight.
“Dying today would be inconvenient,” I say down the mental pathway connecting me to Tairn and Andarna. “Unless you’re trying to keep me away from the Senarium this afternoon?” I’ve waited more than a week for the invitation-disguised order to come from the king’s council, but the delay is understandable given they’re on the fourth day of unprecedented peace talks happening on campus. Poromiel has publicly declared they’ll walk after the seventh day if terms can’t be reached, and it isn’t looking good. I only hope that they’ll be in an agreeable mood when I arrive.
“Want to make your meeting? Don’t fall off this time,” Tairn retorts.
“For the last time, I didn’t fall off,” I argue. “I jumped off to help Sawyer—”
“Don’t remind me.”
“You can’t keep leaving me off patrols,” Andarna interrupts from the warmth and protection of the Vale.
“It isn’t safe,” Tairn reminds her for what has to be the hundredth time. “Weather aside, we’re hunting dark wielders, not out for a pleasure flight.”
“You shouldn’t fly in this,” I agree, looking for any sign of Ridoc and Aotrom, but there’s only walls of white. My chest tightens. How are any of us supposed to see topography or our squadmates, let alone spot a dark wielder hundreds of feet below in this mess? I can’t remember a more brutal series of storms than the ones that have battered the war college in the last two weeks, but without—
Mom. Grief sinks the tips of her razor-sharp claws into my chest, and I lift my face to feel the stinging bite of snow against the tops of my cheeks, focusing on anything else to keep breathing, keep moving. I’ll mourn later, always later.