A reality in which I wasn’t remotely quiet.

My cheeks flush even hotter.

“You want me to sleep in here with you?” I ask once I can form words.

“Every night.” He kisses me softly.

“You might not be able to ward it yet, but you’d better sound shield this room today.” I lift my brows so he knows I mean it.

His mouth curves into a heart-stopping smile. “Already done.”

I roll my eyes. “Of course it is.”

By the time we emerge from Xaden’s room an hour later, there are cadets everywhere.

“This is… ” Words fail as we descend the right side of the sweeping double staircase to the foyer.

“Noisier than the last time we were here,” Xaden supplies, glancing over the crowd. Some riders stand in groups while others sit along the walls.

Every single one of them wears an expression that’s a variation of exactly how I’m feeling right now—what the hell did we do? Aretia wasn’t ready for this, and yet I brought them anyway.

Xaden may have risked the revolution by coming for me, but I smacked a giant target on it.

“Can we even fit all these riders here?” I ask Xaden as we pick our way through the mayhem.

“There are a hundred barracks rooms between the top three floors,” he tells me. “And that doesn’t account for the family quarters on the second. The question is if they’re all serviceable. Not everything has been repaired and rebuilt.”

“Violet!” Rhiannon waves from where she stands with our squad, waiting in front of the archway that leads into the great hall. Her gaze sweeps over me. “You look better.”

“I feel better,” I assure her, noticing that Imogen isn’t with them. “What’s going on?”

“I was hoping you’d know.” She glances over our squad, then leans in, lowering her voice. “They took a quick roll last night, put us in our rooms, and fed us breakfast this morning, but that was an hour ago. Now we’re just… ” She gestures to the foyer. “Waiting.”

“I think we may have caught them off guard,” I admit, guilt hollowing my stomach.

“Let’s go find out exactly how off guard,” Xaden says. “We’ll get some answers for you, Rhiannon.” He gestures toward a hallway. “We need to meet with the Assembly.”

“If you could just make that sound a little less foreboding.” I pause when we pass Aaric.

He’s standing off to the side of the squad, his arms folded over his chest, watching everything and everyone around him. “What now, Sorrengail?” he asks, his mouth tightening.

“He isn’t asking about the schedule,” Xaden says.

“Picked up on that.” I glance from Xaden to Aaric. “Your secret is safe with us.”

“So presumptuous.”

I shoot Xaden a glare. “It’s up to you if you want to tell anyone about your family. Right, Riorson?”

A muscle in Xaden’s jaw ticks, but he nods.

“You swear it?” Aaric bites out.

“I do,” I promise.

It’s all I get to say before Xaden takes my hand and tugs me down the wide hallway, where the crowd finally thins.

“I think I may have fucked up,” I whisper, apprehension growing with each step we take.

“We may have fucked up,” he says, squeezing my hand and stopping us in front of a tall wooden door with more than a few angry, raised voices behind it. “Doesn’t mean we weren’t right.”

“The last time we were here, the people in that room wanted to lock me up as a security threat.” My chest tightens. “I’m starting to think maybe they were right.”

“Only four of them did,” he says, his fingers poised on the black metal door handle. “And I guarantee they’re more pissed at me than they are you. I didn’t exactly answer their summons last night after Brennan mended you.” He pulls open the door, and the raised voices become almost shrill as I follow him in.

“You’ve exposed everything we’ve worked for!” a woman shouts.

“Without so much as a vote from this council!” a man agrees.

“I made the call,” Xaden says once we’re clear of the doorway. “You want to yell? Yell at me.”

Six members of the Assembly look our way from their chairs at the long table, as Bodhi, Garrick, and Imogen stand in front of them as if on trial. We’re all that’s left of the squad that fought in Resson.

“We’re happy to address your choices, Lieutenant Riorson,” Suri says. “Though I’m not sure what the general’s daughter is doing here.”

“Well, the general’s son is right here,” Brennan counters from the other end of the table as Xaden and I walk forward, putting ourselves between Garrick and Imogen.

“You know what I meant,” the woman fires back, shooting Brennan a frustrated look.

The massive, empty armchair Xaden had sprawled across at our last meeting has been moved near the others. Guess they’re still waiting on someone. I glance at the high, intricately constructed back and the figure of a sleeping dragon perched on its pointed tip, then do a double take. In this lighting, I realize that one half is a rich, polished walnut, and the other has a black sheen to it, as if someone polished and sealed burned firewood… as if the chair has been half burned.

Because it probably was.

“And I think I know why she’s here.” Hawk Nose glares with his one eye like I’m something that needs to be scraped away from his boot, but at least he doesn’t reach for the sword at his side when he looks pointedly at our joined hands.

I pull mine from Xaden’s grasp.

He sighs like I’m his biggest problem and snatches it back. “What’s done is done. You can stay in here and chastise us all day, or you can figure out what to do with the hundred riders we brought you.”

“You didn’t bring us riders—you brought us cadets!” Suri shouts, pounding her fist on the table. “What the hell are we supposed to do with them?”

“Such theatrics are above you, Suri.” Felix scratches his beard and all but rolls his eyes at her. “Though the question is valid.”