...

"I'm just surprised he let you live," Dain says later that night in his room as his thumbs dig into the muscle between my neck and shoulder.

It hurts so deliciously, it was well worth the pain of sneaking up here. 

"Don't." Violet whispered to Xaden, shaking her head as she took his hand in hers. 

"You were in his room?" Xaden's voice asked, a tinge of jealousy in his voice that made her smile slightly in amusement. 

"Not like that, and not for a long time." She told him honestly, and she watched as a little of the tension left him, causing her to smile a bit more. 

"I hardly think he'd command respect by snapping my neck on the mat." His blankets are soft against my belly and chest as I lay on his bed, bare from the waist up except for the constricting band around my breasts and ribs. "Besides, that's not his way." 

Xaden raised an amused brow. 

Dain's hands pause on my skin. "Because you know what his way is?"

The guilt of keeping Xaden's secret makes my stomach drop. "He told me he didn't see a reason to kill me himself when the parapet would do it," I answer truthfully. "And let's face it, he's had plenty of chances to take me out if he really wanted."

"Hmm." Dain hums in that thoughtful tone of his, continuing to work out my stiff and aching muscles as he leans over from the side of his bed. Rhiannon drilled me for another two hours after dinner, and I was barely able to move by the end of it. 

"Oh, so it's my fault your so tense, huh?" Rhiannon asked, amused. 

"Really?" Violet asked, just as amused. 

Guess I wasn't the only one Xaden scared this afternoon.

"Do you think he could be plotting against Navarre and still have bonded Sgaeyl?" I ask, my cheek against his blanket. 

Sgaeyl rolled her eyes, but glanced at Xaden who shook his head ever so slightly, hoping no one would notice. But, naturally, the Mikaelson's, and extended Mikaelson's, all noticed. 

"I did at first." His hands move down my spine, pressing into the knots that made lifting my arms almost impossible that last half hour of training tonight. "But then I bonded Cath, and I realized that dragons would do anything to protect the Vale and their sacred hatching grounds. There's no way any dragon would have bonded Riorson or any of the separatists if they weren't honest about protecting Navarre."

"But would a dragon even know if you were lying?" I turn my head so I can see his face. 

All three dragons looked at her insulted. 

"I know, I know." Violet said, rolling her eyes. 

"Yeah." He grins. "Cath would know because he's in my head. It's impossible to hide something like that from your dragon."

"Is he always in your head?" I know it's against the rules to ask— almost everything about bonds are off-limits for discussion, given how secretive dragons are, but it's Dain.

"Yeah," he answers, his smile softening. "I can block him out if I need to, and they'll teach you that after Threshing—" His expression falls.

"What is it?" I sit up, sliding one of his pillows across my chest and leaning back against the headboard.

"I talked to Colonel Markham this evening." He walks over and pulls his chair out from his desk and takes a seat, then rests his head in his hands.

"Did something happen?" Fear races down my spine. "Is it Mira's wing?" 

"Always worrying about other people." Mira said, shaking her head with a sigh. 

"You can't really blame me, Mira. I lost- or I thought I had lost- one sibling, I wasn't about to loose another." Violet said, shooting Brennan a look at made him grimace, before looking back at her. She got... scary, over the years. 

"No!" Dain's head snaps up, and there's so much misery in his eyes that I swing my feet off the bed. "It's nothing like that. I told him... that I think Riorson wants to kill you."

I blink, sitting fully back onto the bed. "Oh. Well, that's not really news, is it? Everyone who's read a history of the rebellion can put two and two together, Dain." 

"Yeah, well, I told him about Barlowe, too, and Seifert." He rubs his hand over his hair. "Don't think I didn't notice the way Seifert shoved you into the wall before formation this morning." He lifts his brows at me. 

"He's just pissed that I took his dagger at that first challenge." I squeeze the pillow tighter.

"And Rhiannon told me you found crushed flowers on your bed last week?" He stares me down. 

"Damn it, Rhiannon. We don't share stuff like that." Caroline said, sighing. 

"I was worried!" Rhiannon said defensively. 

"Well, next time let Vi take care of it. Trust me, she can." Caroline told the girl who sighed. 

I shrug. "They were just dead flowers."

"They were mutilated violets." 

A few gasps were heard and Violet rolled her eyes. 

"They were dead flowers, it's nothing I can't handle." She said to them. 

His mouth tightens and I go to him, resting my hands on his head. 

"It's not like they came with a death note or anything," I tease, stroking his soft brown hair.

He looks up at me, the mage lights making his eyes a little brighter above his trim beard. "They're threats." 

"If I backed down every time I got a threat from someone, I wouldn't have left my room since I was 15 years old in my first life." Violet told him, and everyone raised a brow in confusion. Except Elena and Jeremy, they knew what she meant. 

I shrug. "Every cadet gets threatened."

"Every cadet doesn't have to wrap their knees every day," he fires back.

"The injured ones do." My brow furrows, annoyance taking root in my chest. "Why would you tell Markham about it anyway? He's a scribe, and there's nothing he would do even if he could."

"He said he'd still take you," Dain blurts, his hands flying to my hips, holding me in place when I try to step away. "I asked him if he'd allow you into the Scribe Quadrant for your own safety, and he said yes. They'd put you with the first-years. It's not like you'd have to wait until next Conscription Day or anything." 

"You what?" Brennan asked, frowning. "Who do you think you are?" 

"I'm the guy who was trying to keep her safe." Dain shot back. 

"By controlling her?" Brennan asked, his glare hardening. 

"You what?" I twist, breaking my hold, and back away from my best friend.

"I saw a way to get you out of danger, and I took it." He stands.

"You went behind my back because you think I'm not cutting it." The truth of the words tightens around my chest like a vise, cutting off my air instead of holding me together, leaving me weak and breathless. Dain knows me better than anyone, and if he still thinks I can't do this after I've made it this far... 

Tears well in my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall. Instead, I tuck my chin and grab my dragon-scale vest, pull it over my head, then wrench the laces together at the small of my back and tie them.

Dain sighs. "I never said I don't think you can cut it, Violet." 

"You may have never said it, but you show it every day." Katherine said, narrowing her eyes at the man. It was safe to say she didn't like him. 

"You say it every day!" I snap. "You say it when you walk me from formation to class, which I know makes you late for flight line. You say it when you yell at your wingleader when he takes me to the mat—"

"He had no right to—" 

"I'm a wingleader, I can do whatever I fucking please." Xaden said, glaring at Dain, who glared right back, but didn't say anything. 

"He's my wingleader!" I shrug my tunic over my head. "He has the right to do whatever he wants—including execute me."

"And that's why you need to get the hell out of here!" Dain laces his fingers behind his neck and begins to pace. "I've been watching, Vi. He's just toying with you, like a cat plays with a mouse before the kill." 

"More like a cat before it fu-" Garrick's words were cut off when he was shoved out of his seat and into the floor by the shadows. 

"I've held my own so far." My satchel is heavy with books as I settle it over my shoulder. "I've won every challenge—"

"Except today when he wiped the floor with you time and again." He grasps my shoulders. "Or did you miss the part where he took every weapon so you knew exactly how easy it is to defeat you?"

I raise my chin and glare at him. "I was there, and I've survived almost two months in this place, which is more than I can say for a fourth of my year!"

"Do you know what happens at Threshing?" he asks, his tone dropping.

"Are you calling me ignorant?" Rage bubbles in my veins. 

"It's not just about bonding," he continues. "They throw every first-year into the training grounds, the ones you've never been to, and then the second- and third-years are supposed to watch as you decide which dragons to approach and which to run from."

"I know how it works." My jaw clenches.

"Yeah, well, while the riders are watching, the first-years are taking out their vendettas and eliminating any... liabilities to the wing." 

"She is not a liability!" Hope said, anger rising in her chest over how the man was talking about her mother, and a light nearby flickered, something Violet noticed. 

Uh oh. 

"I'm not a damned liability." My chest tightens again, because deep down I know, on the physical level, that I am.

"Not to me," he whispers, a hand rising to cradle my cheek. "But they don't know you the way I do, Vi. And while the first-years like Barlowe and Seifert are hunting you, we'll have to watch. I'll have to watch, Violet." The break in his voice takes the anger right out of me. "We are not allowed to help you. To save you." 

Xaden scoffed, remembering how he was ready to jump in and kill the three of them if not for Tairn showing up. 

"Dain—" 

"And when they gather the bodies for the roll, no one's going to document how that cadet died. You're just as likely to fall under Barlowe's knife as a dragon's talon." 

I breathe through the jolt of fear. 

"Markham says that he'll put you through the first year without telling your mother. By the time she finds out, you'll already be inducted as a scribe. There's nothing she can do after that." He lifts his other hand so he's holding my face between both palms, tipping it up toward his. "Please. If you won't do it for yourself, then do it for me." 

My heart stutters, and I sway, his reasoning tugging me toward exactly what he's suggesting. But you've made it this far, a part of me whispers. 

"You don't back down because things are hard. Remember? That's what you always tell me." Elena told her sister who glanced at her and sighed with a nod. 

"I can't lose you, Violet," he whispers, resting his forehead against mine.  "I just... can't." 

I squeeze my eyes shut. This is my way out, and yet, I don't want to take it. 

"Just promise me you'll think about it," he begs. "We still have four weeks until Threshing. Just... think about it." The hope in his tone and the tender way he holds me cuts through my defenses. 

"I'll think about it." 

"I, in fact, did not think about it." Violet said, getting a few laughs of amusement.