“Runes?” Xaden asks a few days later, leaning over my shoulder as I sit at the desk in his room, practicing today’s assignment, a triangular piece of torture that’s supposed to somehow boost hearing. He picks up one of my five discarded attempts, burned into hand-size wooden disks, and I breathe deeply, savoring the scent of soap on his freshly washed skin.
A private bathing chamber is definitely one of the perks of sleeping in his room.
“We’re the trial squad. I meant to tell you last night.” I take the delicate strand of pearlescent power and bend it into the third shape in the pattern Professor Trissa gave us for homework, then let it burn brightly in front of me while I gently reach for another. Now that I know what to look for, I see the flow of power clearly before me, somehow both solid and insubstantial, glowing strands that flex under my touch. Seeing it doesn’t make pulling individual strands any easier, though.
“I meant to tell you a lot last night, too,” he says, setting the disk back down on the desk with the others. “But once I found you in bed, my mouth was otherwise occupied.”
My lips curve at the memory as I form the next triangle, this one smaller, and set it within the larger ones floating in front of me. He’s been gone more than he’s been home, running the weapons from our forge to the front lines near the Stonewater River and filling Tecarus’s armory. This trip lasted an extra day when he and Garrick found themselves caught in an attack.
“Do you want my help?” he asks, skimming his mouth down the side of my neck.
“That is…” My breath catches when he reaches the collar of my armor. “Not helping.”
“Pity.” He kisses the side of my neck, then stands, leaving me to my homework. Good thing, too, since I have class in a few minutes.
“This is why you left me that book in Navarre, isn’t it?” I take the next strand and form the circle that should stabilize the shapes within and place it around the rune. That should do it.
“I wanted you to have a head start,” he says, picking up Warrick’s journal from where I abandoned it on the desk and thumbing through it.
“Thank you.”
“This is impossible to read,” Xaden mutters, closing the journal and setting it back on the desk before walking to where his uniforms hang next to mine in the large armoire.
I grin at the domesticity of it. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep it just like this between us. “My father taught me.” I shrug, examining my rune for anything I might have missed. “And Dain and I used it as a secret code when we were kids.”
“Never pictured Aetos as the Old Lucerish type,” Xaden notes.
Picking up the wooden disk in my left hand, I gently move the buzzing strands of power, pressing them into the disk. Much better than the last five. “You put runes into my daggers,” I say, turning in the wooden chair.
My lips part and I blatantly ogle Xaden as he pulls his uniform from the armoire, a towel wrapped around his hips. How did I not notice he’d been basically naked behind me this whole time? Such a missed opportunity…
“Keep looking at me like that and you’re not making it to class,” he warns, his eyes darkening as he crosses the floor and tosses his clothing on the bed.
I force myself to turn away. Brennan warned Xaden that the first time I was late for class because of my sleeping arrangements, I’d be back in my assigned room. “You put an unlocking rune into my dagger, didn’t you?” I ask, sliding all the disks besides the one I just finished into my pack, ignoring Warrick’s journal, which mocks me from the edge of the desk. “That’s how we got out of the interrogation chamber.”
“A variation of it, yes.”
Holding the best rune of my attempts, I lift my pack to my shoulders and slip my arms through the straps as I stand, turning to face him. His torso is still gloriously bare, but unfortunately—or fortunately for my schedule—he has pants on. “Care to elaborate?”
To my consternation, he goes for his socks instead of a shirt.
“You can do the unlocking rune. It’s simple enough.” He shrugs. “I added an element of need into the rune. So, you can’t walk up to any door and open it just because you want to, but if the dagger’s on your body and picks up on the need for a door to unlock, it will. If you’d made it up to the forge at Basgiath, it would have opened to your need.” Sitting on the edge of the bed, he puts on his boots.
“I had the key the entire time?” My eyebrows rise, and if I didn’t already love him, I would have fallen right then.
“You did. Are you feeling adventurous with questions today?” A corner of his mouth quirks.
I grip the disk and sink my teeth into my lower lip. The problem with being happy amidst the utter chaos we’ve caused is that I’m terrified to ask even a single question that might jeopardize it. “What’s the rune on the stone you keep by the bed? That’s what it is, right?”
“Yes, a complicated one at that.” He sits up and reaches for the little gray stone, then offers it to me as he stands. “There’s not a person alive who knows how to replicate this. Colonel Mairi was the last.”
Liam and Sloane’s mom. I take the palm-size stone and study the intricate lines of the rune. “It had to have been giant when she tempered it.”
“I assume so. She must have collapsed it to fit when placing them into the stones.”
“Stones?” I look up at him. “As in more than one?”
“A hundred and seven,” he answers, watching me with expectation.
The marked ones. He wants me to ask.
“What does it do?” I rub my thumb over the blackened design.
“Did. It’s a protection rune, but it was only intended to be used once.” He runs his hand through his damp hair and pauses. “As you get better with runes, you can pull elements into them. Things like strands of hair or even other full runes for locating things. Or protecting them. This particular rune was made to protect someone of my father’s bloodline.”
“You.” I look up and hand the stone back. “You’re his only child, right?”
Xaden nods. “Each of the children of the officers were given them before our parents left for the Battle of Aretia. We were told to carry them at all times, and we did, even to the execution.” His fingers brush mine as he takes the stone.
I damn near stop breathing, keeping my eyes on his.
“It was designed to counter the signet of the rider whose dragon would kill them.” He swallows. “But it could only activate when killed by dragonfire.”
“Which is the primary method of execution for traitors,” I whisper.
He nods. “I kept it closed in my fist—we all did—as we stood there, watching our parents put into lines for execution. And the second they were…” His shoulders rise as he takes a deep breath. “…burned, heat raced up my arm. The next time I felt anything like that was after Threshing.”
My eyes widen, and I close my hand over his. “The rebellion relics?” That must be why the swirling marks always start on the marked ones’ arms.
