Dain grips the dagger in his left hand, spinning it so the blade runs parallel to his forearm as he brings it to my throat. “You should have trusted me, Violet.”

I don’t dare to even swallow as I hold the asshole’s gaze. I won’t die afraid.

“None of this would have happened if you’d just trusted me.” The hurt in his eyes only feeds my rage. How dare he look wounded. “And now, it’s too late.”

“Varrish!” Nora yells as shouts fill the antechamber.

Varrish turns toward her, and I feel the knife slip against my skin.

Dain is going to kill me.

“You’re all right.” Liam steadies my shoulder. “I’ll be right here. I’m not going to leave you.”

Tairn. Andarna. Gods, I hope they survive it. Xaden has to live. He just has to.

I love him.

I should have told him every day, been honest about my feelings even through the fights and the doubt.

Now instead of giving those feelings back to Xaden, they’ll die with me. My vision blurs, and tears streak down my cheeks, but I lift my chin.

Dain whips his arm back, and I wait for the forward surge, the cut, the pain, the flow of blood.

It doesn’t come.

Varrish staggers backward, holding his side, his eyes bulging as a roaring sound fills my ears. Dain brings the bloodied knife to the straps at my wrists, cutting one free, then the other. “I don’t know if we can fight our way out of here,” he says quickly, dropping down to cut my ankles free. “Can you move?”

What the fuck is happening?

“Aetos!” Varrish snarls, falling back against the wall, then sliding down the stone. He leaves behind a fresh trail of red.

“Violet!” Dain shouts, forcing something into my hand. “You have to move or we’re dead!”

I wrap the fingers of my unbroken hand around the familiar hilt as Dain draws the sword at his side, holding it at Nora’s throat when she lunges into the cell. “Let us pass, and you’ll live.”

He holds the blade steady and hooks his other arm behind my back as I try to stand, holding me upright when my legs try to fail. They’re not newly broken since Nolon’s last visit, that I can remember, but I whimper at the pressure against my cracked ribs and the nausea as the room seems to spin.

“I make no such promises.” The low, menacing threat weakens my knees a second before a hand with a dagger reaches around Nora’s throat, slicing without hesitation.

She falls, a torrent of blood flowing from the gaping wound in her neck.

I look up into the wrath of Dunne in the form of gold-flecked onyx eyes.

The only crime worse than murdering a cadet is the unfathomable act of attacking leadership.

—MAJOR AFENDRA’S GUIDE TO THE RIDERS QUADRANT (UNAUTHORIZED EDITION)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Rage shines in his eyes as Xaden holds his sword in his right hand and a dagger in his left, both dripping blood, both aimed to strike Dain.

Oh gods.

“No!” I shout, lurching to put myself in front of Dain, but my feet don’t cooperate and the ground rushes up to meet me.

“Shit!” Steel rattles against the floor as Dain catches me with both hands.

The edges of my vision turn black as pain threatens to pull me under. Every inch of my body screams in protest as I find my feet. But it’s not just Dain’s arms holding me—there are soft bands of shadows at my hips and beneath my arms. Two Xadens appear, then merge into one as I fight to stay conscious. “He saved me,” I whisper. “Don’t kill him.”

Stabbing Varrish earns Dain a chance...right?

Xaden’s gaze flickers to mine, and then he does a double take.

“Gods, Violet.” Shadows explode around us, cracking stone and decimating the wooden slab of a bed marked with my blood.

Guess my face is just as beaten as the rest of me.

“You came.” I stumble forward, and Dain is smart enough to let me go.

Xaden catches me, shadows grasping his sword as he splays his hand over my back and cradles me against his chest with a light touch, like he’s afraid I might break. “There’s nowhere in existence you could go that I wouldn’t find you, remember?” He drops his lips to the dirty, frayed, blood-spattered remains of my braid and kisses the top of my head.

Leather and mint overpower the iron-and-moss scent of the cell and, for the first time since Nolon drugged me, I feel safe. Tears soak his chest—his or mine, I’m unsure.

“Godsdamn,” Garrick says from behind Xaden. “You took off running and then couldn’t save a single one for me? Took me forever to clear the barricade of bodies in the staircase.”

My smile splits my lip all over again as I turn my face to rest my cheek above Xaden’s strong, steady heartbeat. “Hi, Garrick.”

He blanches, dropping his swords to his sides, but covers it with a quick smile. “You’ve looked better, Violet, but I’m glad you’re alive.”

“Me too.”

“It’s chaos up there,” Garrick tells Xaden, sparing a questioning glance for Dain. “Leadership is launching all over the place to get to the border.”

“Then it worked,” Xaden states.

Varrish groans and our heads all whip in his direction. “You’re turning traitor?” he accuses Dain as he struggles to his feet, still holding the wound in his side.

“Oh, is that what’s happening?” Garrick asks, looking between Dain and Varrish.

“Your father will be so disappointed,” Varrish hisses through bloody, clenched teeth. Coughing up blood means he doesn’t have long.

“If he already knows what Violet showed me, then I’m the one disappointed

in him,” Dain counters, picking up his sword and raising it at Varrish.

“No,” Xaden snarls. “Not you.” His hand flexes at my back, and shadows wrap around Varrish a second before they drag him across the floor. Horror widens his eyes as the strands of black dump him into the chair, then bind his wrists and ankles in place of the shackles. “That honor belongs to Violet, if she wants it.”