Sgaeyl lands close to Tairn, and I breathe in my last moments of peace and prepare myself for the battle to come before the actual war reaches us.

It isn’t long before I hear his familiar footsteps coming my way.

“No sightings on this side of the cliff,” I tell him as he reaches my side, keeping my shields firmly in place. “Tairn thinks we have fifteen minutes.”

“There’s no one else out here.” His words are clipped.

“Right. We’re the only pair.” I shift my weight, energy tingling in my fingers, slowly filling my cells, saturating me in preparation instead of drowning me as usual. “I know that goes against your full riot—”

“That’s not what I mean.” He shoves his gloves into his pockets, leaving his hands bare and ready to wield, the perfect picture of composure and control. “There’s no one within miles to hear us.”

My eyebrows shoot up, and I turn toward him in sheer incredulity. “I’m sorry, are you suggesting that the reason you didn’t answer my question back in Aretia was because you don’t trust your own sound shield on our room?”

“There is always someone better at something than you, including wards.” He winces. “And maybe that wasn’t the entire reason.”

“Spare me from whatever bullshit you’re about to impart.” My stomach twists, and I lower my voice into my best Xaden impression. “‘Ask me.’” I shake my head. “Yet, the first real question I pose, you duck out the door like a coward.”

“It never occurred to me that you’d ask about a second signet,” he argues.

“Liar.” I whip my gaze forward, studying the sky for movement and fighting the scalding anger that tests the Archives doors of my power. “You wouldn’t have told me that Sgaeyl bonded your grandfather if you never wanted me to know. Whether it was a conscious or unconscious choice, you made it. You knew I’d figure it out. Was it just another one of your ask me tests? Because if so, you failed this one, not me.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” he shouts, the words coming out strangled, like they had to be ripped from his throat.

The admission earns him my full attention, but his outburst is quickly smothered by his self-control, and we fall into strained silence as he stares off into the distance.

“Sometimes I feel like I don’t know you.” I study the harsh lines of his face as his jaw flexes. “How am I supposed to really love you if I don’t know you?”

I can’t, and I think we both know it.

“How long do you think it takes for someone to fall out of love?” He studies the skyline. “A day? A month? I’m asking because I don’t have any experience with it.”

What the fuck? I fold my arms to keep from giving in to the impulse to jab him with the sharp point of my elbow.

“I’m asking,” he continues, his throat working as he swallows, “because I think it will take you all of a heartbeat once you know.”

Apprehension slides up my spine and knots in my throat as I slightly lower my shields just enough to feel ice-cold terror along my bond with him. What the hell could his signet be that I wouldn’t love him?

Oh shit. What if he’s like Cat? What if he’s been manipulating my emotions this whole time? I swallow back the bile inching its way up my throat.

“I would never do something like that,” he retorts, sending a sideways, wounded glare at me as he continues to watch the sky.

“Shit.” I rub my hands over my face. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

He doesn’t respond.

“Just tell me what it is.” I reach for him, curling my fingers around the back of his arm. “You said that you trust me to stay because even if I don’t know your darkest deeds, I know what you’re capable of, but I don’t if you won’t tell me.” Somehow, we’re right back where we were months ago, neither of us fully trusting the other.

His mouth opens, but he snaps it shut, as if he was going to talk, then thought better of it.

“Signets have to do with who we are at our core and what we need,” I think out loud. If he won’t tell me, then I’ll figure it out my damn self. “You are a master of secrets, hence the shadows.” I gesture at the ones curled around his feet. “You’re deadly with every weapon you pick up, but that’s not a signet.” My brow furrows.

“Stop.”

“You’re ruthless, which I guess could have something to do with an ability to shut off your emotions.” I shift my weight and study his face, watching for even the most minute sign that I’m onto something, and keep guessing, trusting Tairn to spot the wyvern before we do. “You’re a natural leader. Everyone gravitates toward you, even against their better judgment.” That last part comes out as a mutter. “You’re always in the right place—” My eyebrows rise. “Are you a distance wielder?” I’ve only read about two riders in all of history who could cross hundreds of miles in a single step.

“There hasn’t been a distance wielder in centuries, and don’t you think if I was one, I would have spent every night in your bed?” He shakes his head.

“But what do you need?” I ponder, ignoring the tense set of his jaw. “You need to question everyone to make your own impressions. You need to be a quick judge of character in order to know who to trust and who not to in order to have run those smuggling missions at Basgiath for years. More than anything, you need control. It’s woven into every aspect of your personality.”

“Stop,” he demands.

I ignore the warning completely, just like I ignored Mira’s warning last year to stay away from him. “You need to fix— Never mind, if you could mend, you wouldn’t have brought me to Aretia. Let’s try eliminating signets instead. You can’t see the future, or you never would have led us to Athebyne. You can’t wield any element, or you would have done so in Resson—” I pause as a thought pushes past the others. “Who knows?”

“Stop before you go somewhere we can’t come back from.” Shadows move across the inches that separate us, winding up my calves as if he thinks he’s going to have to fight to keep me at his side.

“Who knows?” I repeat, my voice rising with my temper. Not that it matters. There’s no one else for miles, and there are no sound-seekers in Aretia capable of hearing across miles of distance like Captain Greely in General Melgren’s personal unit, hence why our communication times lag. “Do the marked ones know? Does the Assembly? Am I the only person close to you who doesn’t know, just like last year?” My hand falls away from his arm.

It’s impossible to have a signet that no one has detected, no one has trained. Has he played me for a fool again? The space between my ribs and my heart shrivels and shrinks, my chest threatening to crumple.

“For fuck’s sake, Violet. No one else knows.” He turns toward me in a move so fast it would intimidate someone else, but I know he’s incapable of hurting me—at least physically—so I merely tilt my chin and stare up into those gold-flecked eyes in blatant challenge.

“I deserve better than this. Tell me the truth.”

“You’ve always deserved better than me. And no one knows,” he repeats, his voice dropping. “Because if they did, I’d be dead.”

“Why would—” My lips part, and my pulse jumps as my head starts to swim.

He has to have full control. He has to make snap character judgments. He has to intrinsically know who to trust and who not to. In order for the movement to have been as successful as it was within the walls of Basgiath, he has to know…everything.

Xaden’s most pressing need is information.

Tairn shifts, angling his body toward Sgaeyl instead of beside her.

Oh gods. There’s only one signet riders are killed for having. Fear churns in my stomach and threatens to bring up what little I’ve had to eat today.

“Yes.” He nods, his gaze boring into mine.

Shit, did he just—

“No.” I shake my head and take a step backward out of his shadows, but he moves as if he takes the step with me.

“Yes. It’s how I knew I could trust you not to tell anyone about the meeting under the tree last year,” he says as I retreat another step. “How I seem to know what my opponent has planned on the mat before their next move. How I know exactly what someone needs to hear in order to get them to do what I need done, and how I knew if someone remotely suspected us while we were at Basgiath.”

I shake my head in denial, wishing I’d stopped pushing like he’d demanded me to.

He crosses the space between us. “It’s why I didn’t kill Dain in the interrogation chamber, why I let him come with us, because the second his shields wavered, I knew he’d had a true epiphany. How would I know that, Violet?”

He’d read Dain’s mind.