THIRTY-ONE

There’s a knock at my door as I take an armful of clothes from the skeletal remains of what used to be my armoire.

“Come in,” I call out, dumping them on the bed.

The door opens and Xaden walks in, his hair windblown like he’s just come from the flight field, and my pulse jumps.

“I just wanted—” he starts, then pauses, surveying the wreckage of my room from last night. “Somehow I’d convinced myself today that we hadn’t done that much damage, but…”

“Yeah, it’s…”

He looks at me, and we both crack a smile.

“Look, this doesn’t have to be awkward or anything.” I shrug, trying to ease the tension. “We’re both adults.”

His scarred brow rises. “Good, because I wasn’t going to make it that way. But the least I can do is help you clean up.” His attention shifts to the armoire, and he winces. “I swear it didn’t look quite that ruined in the darkness when I left this morning. Turns out you set more than a few trees on fire last night, too. Took two water wielders to get them out.”

My cheeks heat. “You took off early.” I try to make my tone as nonchalant as possible as I walk toward my desk—which miraculously survived—and bend down to gather a few of my books we’d knocked to the floor.

“I had a leadership meeting and needed to get an early start.” His arm brushes against mine as he leans down and picks up my favorite book of fables, the one Mira slipped into my rucksack once we’d gotten back to Montserrat that night.

“Oh.” My chest lightens. “That makes perfect sense.” I stand, putting my texts on the desk. “So it wasn’t because I snore or anything.”

“No.” A corner of his mouth rises. “How did training with Carr go?”

Nice subject change.

“I can wield, but I can’t aim, and it’s completely exhausting.” My mouth purses, thinking back to the first strike I wielded. “You know, you were kind of an asshole on the flight field yesterday.”

His grip tightens on the book. “Yes. I told you what I thought you needed to hear to get through the moment. I know you don’t like other people to see you vulnerable, and you…”

“Were vulnerable,” I finish.

He nods. “If it makes you feel better, I couldn’t keep anything down after the first time I killed anyone, either. I don’t think less of you for having a reaction like that. Just means you still have your humanity.”

“So do you,” I say, gently taking the book from him.

“That’s debatable.”

Says the man who has one hundred and seven scars on his back. “It’s not. Not to me.”

He looks away, and I know he’s going to have his defenses up any second now.

“Tell me something real,” I say, desperate to keep him with me.

“Like what?” he asks, just like he did before when we were flying, when he left me sitting on that mountain when I had the nerve to ask about his scars.

“Like…” My mind races, looking for something to ask. “Like where you went the night I found you in the courtyard.”

His brow furrows. “You’re going to have to be more specific than that. Third-years get sent away all the time.”

“You had Bodhi with you. It was right before the Gauntlet.” I nervously run my tongue over my lower lip.

“Oh.” He picks up another book and sets it on the desk, clearly stalling while he decides whether or not he’ll open up to me.

“I would never tell anyone anything you tell me,” I promise. “I hope you know that.”

“I know. You never told a soul about what you saw under the tree last fall.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Athebyne. You can’t know why or ask anything else, but that’s where we were.”

“Oh.” That definitely wasn’t what I expected, but not out of the ordinary for cadets to run something to an outpost. “Thank you for telling me.” I move to put the book back and see that the binding is definitely worse for wear after we knocked the antique tome off the desk last night. “Damn.” I open the back cover and see that it’s split at the binding.

Something is peeking out.

“What is that?” Xaden asks, looking over my shoulder.

“Not sure.” Balancing the heavy book with one hand, I tug what looks to be a stiff piece of parchment free from where it’s been tucked behind the binding. Gravity shifts as I recognize my father’s handwriting, and it’s dated just a few months before his death.

My Violet,

By the time you find this, you’ll most likely be in the Scribe Quadrant. Remember that folklore is passed from one generation to the next to teach us about our past. If we lose it, we lose the links to our past. It only takes one desperate generation to change history—even erase it.

I know you’ll make the right choice when the time comes. You have always been the best of both your mother and me.

Love,

Dad

My brow furrows, and I pass the letter to Xaden, flipping through the book. The tales are all familiar, and I can still hear my father’s voice reading every word, as if I were still a child curled on his lap after a long day.

“That’s cryptic,” Xaden remarks.

“He got a little…cryptic in the years after Brennan died,” I admit softly. “Losing my brother made my father even more reclusive. I only really got to spend time with him because I was always in the Archives, studying to be a scribe.”

The pages flutter as I flip through stories of an ancient kingdom that spanned from ocean to ocean and a Great War among three brothers who fought to control the magic in this mystical land. Some of the fables tell stories of the first riders who learned to bond with dragons and how those bonds could turn on the rider if they tried to consume too much power. Others talk of a great evil that spread across the land as man became corrupted by dark magic and turned into creatures known as venin who created flocks of winged creatures called wyvern and scourged the land of all magic in the thirst for more power. Another talks about the dangers of wielding power from the ground instead of the skies, as one could easily start drawing magic from the earth and eventually be driven mad.

One of the purposes of the fables is to teach children about the dangers of too much power. No one wants to become a venin; they’re the monsters that hide beneath our beds when we have nightmares. And we certainly never want to try to control magic without a dragon to ground us. But that’s all they are, children’s bedtime stories. So why did my dad leave me this cryptic note—and hide it inside the book?

“What do you think he was trying to tell you?” Xaden asks.

“I don’t know. Every fable in this book is about how too much power corrupts, so maybe he felt someone in leadership was corrupt.” I glance up at Xaden and joke, “I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if General Melgren ripped a mask off one day and revealed he was a terrifying venin. That man has always given me the creeps.”

Xaden chuckles. “Well, let’s hope not that. My dad used to say venin were biding their time in the Barrens and one day were coming to get us—if we didn’t eat our vegetables.” He glances out the window to his left, and I know he’s remembering his father. “He said one day there would be no magic left in the kingdom if we weren’t careful.”

“I’m sorry—” I start, but when he tenses, I decide a subject change is what he really needs. “So, which mess should we tackle first?”

“I have a better idea of how to spend our night,” he says as he puts another pile of clothes on my bed.

“Oh?” I glance over and catch his eyes darkening as he stares at my mouth. My pulse immediately quickens, the thought of touching him sending a burst of energy through me.