Chapter Text
Smoke from the distant burned city still sat hazy in the air when Xaden Riorson was dragged out of the cell where he’d been waiting the past seven days.
Had it been seven days? Eight? A hundred?
He couldn’t remember; time had stopped meaning anything to him the moment he’d stood in a terrible, trembling line with one hundred and seven other children and watched their parents be incinerated one by one.
That was the cruelty of it—the final tipping point of horror in that already horrifying day. While General Melgren’s terrible beast could have done it all in one fell swoop—raking the entire line with fire and completing their execution quickly—he instead chose to incinerate one Apostate at a time, while their children screamed for them and fought the iron hard grips that held them back.
Xaden had not screamed.
For one, he knew even through his waves of nausea and the dried tears on his face that it was pointless, and he didn’t want to give them the satisfaction—-the grim-looking gathering of generals and their dragons that loomed behind, watching the display as if it were nothing more than an event at the Summer Games.
For another, the last thing his father had said to him, before they were ripped apart by the same iron-hard hands that held Xaden fast, was ‘We are on the side of good, son—-and good will always win out in the end. Be strong, for the rest of the children… they will need you. You are my son—always. And I love you. Don’t let them see you break.’
Despite endless hours being left alone to his thoughts, replaying those moments over and over again in his head, Xaden still couldn’t be quite sure which “them” his father had meant—-his fellow orphans whose parents had died in front of them, or the people responsible for the tragedy.
Nevertheless, Xaden had stood on that barren plain outside the Aretian walls, not screaming, not crying, just meeting his father’s sorrowful eyes until the last moment, when Fen Riorson had turned his gaze to hatred and lifted it to General Melgren, saying in a loud, firm voice that betrayed no fear:
“You’re all cowards.”
It had happened in a blink, and Xaden had felt the blast of heat on his face even from forty feet away, just like with the others. But unlike with the others, Xaden hadn’t been able to look away.
One minute his father was there—battle worn and haggard, but sparking with life and determination, his shoulders proud and his chin high—the next, Fen Riorson was a charred husk.
Xaden hadn’t screamed even then. But he had vomited the meager contents of his stomach onto his already-filthy tunic. His legs gave out, and he would’ve fallen, except for the Navarrian infantrymen who held his arms up with bruising grips.
He felt those grips again now, as he was lead in harsh jerks over the gravelly, uneven ground of the courtyard, somewhere just past the Tyrrish border in a stronghold in Navarre. At least he thought that was where they were.
As the last pile of ash had settled, General Melgren’s great beast had turned its head on the terrified children of the people he had just murdered, and released a horrific roar and a torrent of energy that had knocked them all backwards.
Xaden had felt a radiating pain like molten fire running up his arm, as if his sinews were being ripped apart, or his flesh dug open.
He had vaguely heard the screaming of the terrified children around him, and was himself certain that he was dying—but then he’d woken up with his sweat-caked face pressed against the hard ground, his body trembling and the world slowly coming back into focus.
He’d still heard screams and sobs, but as feeling slowly returned to his limbs, he’d realized that he was not dead—that Melgren’s dragon had not executed them all as he had done their parents. Instead the monster had left them with a mark—a reminder of who they were. A sign to everyone of what they could become.
A relic.
Trying and failing not to stare at the hideous, burning mark that curled its way from his wrist up to his chin, Xaden had been taken with the others in windowless carts on a bumpy road, his hands and feet shackled, and a cloth put over his head until he was dragged into a dark, damp cellar.
He had thus spent the last seven-odd days alone in that cellar, feeling a terrible clenching in his gut and waves of panic that he tried to fight down, and hearing the echoed noises of the other Apostate’s children around him—cries and fearful voices and gut-wrenching sobs. He was unable to find them.
He thought he might have been put in a cell by himself whereas the others were grouped together, perhaps to gain what comfort they could in the face of their own impending deaths—a luxury the son of Fen Riorson was not afforded.
Now, however, Xaden was being marched over hot gravel on bare feet, his relic still burning, a bag around his head—not towards his death, but towards his once chance— their one chance—to avoid it.
They will need you.
That’s what his father had said, and amidst his own obliterating grief, Xaden had understood that the carnage wasn’t over after the last of the Apostates had been turned to ash.
There were still one hundred and seven souls that had to be accounted for—the legacy of the people who had turned their backs on Navarre.
A legacy that the generals could never allow to flourish.
Xaden realized that they were all in danger, that their fate balanced on a knife’s edge, and that he would have to be the one to save them. As he’d sat in the cellar fighting down despair, Xaden knew there were missives being exchanged between the King and his generals, to decide whether the Marked Ones would be spared or executed. He knew he had to make sure their decision fell in his favor, and to plead for their mercy, despite how the idea made his stomach churn.
They will need you.
So Xaden had invoked the right of Audience—as the eldest surviving prisoner of war—to have a chance to parlay with a ranking officer. He’d then been grudgingly taking before General Lillith Sorrengail—a dark-browed, terrifying Rider with an unflinching gaze—and Xaden had held his father’s last words against his heart as he pleaded for the lives of the one hundred and seven innocents who awaited their fate in the keep.
He’d been afraid that he would have to offer his own life in exchange—to be publicly executed in the same brutal manner. He’d been afraid, but willing.
However, in the stuffy, candelit office of the keep, General Sorrengail had asked of him something almost worse—something he hadn’t been sure he could give. She’d demanded from him a promise, a binding oath, which she could take to Melgren and to the King himself, as collateral for the lives of the Apostate’s children.
Xaden would be able to save them all, but he would have to vouch for their lives, for their loyalty to Navarre, for their repentance in the face of their parents’ deeds. He would have to force them all into submission, spur them into silence, just as his father had spurred the Tyrrish people to speak against what they knew was wrong.
And it got worse.
Their chance at survival would be only that—a chance. Because Sorrengail wouldn’t accept Xaden’s word on its own; she wouldn’t accept his betrayal of everything he had believed in—everything his father had believed in. She wouldn’t accept them all taking on a physical reminder of their parents’ supposed misdeeds, or their open, official repentance. No. They would be offered a chance at living, but nothing more.
Because every single child who had stood on that smoking plain before the ashes of Aretia would—when they came of age at twenty—be forced to enter the Riders’ Quadrant at Basgiath War college.
A chance to win back honor , Sorrengail had called it.
A death sentence , Xaden knew.
And yet he had agreed.
Because what choice did he have?
Melgren was ready to end them all now, the King had no interest in quelling another rebellion in fifteen or twenty years, when these children grew up and wanted to avenge their parents’ death.
Killing them all was the easy fix; and Xaden had no doubt that they would spin the story in some way, make it seem justified, make it seem like an accident, like an unavoidable tragedy, or—and this boiled his blood—somehow blame it on their parents.
Sorrengail at least had seemed open to something else—something besides the easy fix—and Xaden had done what he had to to exploit that small nugget of humanity. Perhaps the woman had children of her own, perhaps she had heard the screams on the plain that day.
That was why, less than two weeks after his father had been executed, Xaden was being lead to a stage in the middle of a courtyard in some nameless Navarrian stronghold, a bag over his head, his heart beating quickly in anticipation of what was about to happen.
Be strong. Be strong. Don’t let them see you break. Be strong, He repeated to himself as the stones cut his bare feet and his arm throbbed from the relic marking.
“Xaden!!”
He startled at the terrible cry, the sharp scream of anguish that came from close by, from a voice he knew.
“Xaden, no! Please!”
It was Bodhi—his cousin Bodhi—with whom he had hid that last day in the keep, while Aretia was under assault. They’d both been gripping weapons they had never used except in training, pretending not to be as terrified as they were.
The bag was ripped off Xaden’s head and the wooden steps of the dais appeared before him, as he whipped his gaze around to find his cousin struggling in the arms of two guards, looking desperate.
“It’s alright, Bodhi,” Xaden said, trying to keep his voice from cracking, “Don’t; it’s alright—”
“Please don’t!”
He thinks they’re going to kill me, Xaden thought, forcing his eyes away from his cousin as he was brought to the front of the dais and turned to face the crowd—a crowd of Navarrian guards and the one hundred and seven children of Apostates.
One hundred and six, actually—Xaden knew there was one who had not yet been born: the child of Lieutenant Merrythoughton, whose pregnant widow was being sequestered in a room in the keep until she gave birth.
One hundred and six children under twenty, whose lives had been spared during the slaughter at Aretia, and Xaden–at seventeen–the eldest of them.
Gods did they look young.
In the harsh sunlight, Xaden blinked painfully, his eyes unused to the brightness, as one hundred and six pairs of frightened eyes looked up to him, and he felt rather than saw General Sorrengail step up next to him.
The courtyard was deathly quiet, as Xaden fought to keep from shaking, and Bodhi finally gave up his struggle, waiting in the guards’ grip with terror and tears on his face.
“You have all been gathered today,” General Sorrengail’s voice rang out, and Xaden found a piece of stone to focus his gaze on, tearing it from the fearful faces that looked up—looked to him —for aide.
“To make an oath. And to watch an oath be made.”
The air was heavy with the silence.
“...Xaden Riorson, son of The Great Betrayer, has come to us to repent of his father’s actions.”
Xaden felt bile rise in his throat, but forced himself to be still.
Be strong. Don’t let them see you break.
“He has taken it upon himself, to see that all of you will keep on the right path, and avoid falling into the same deception that your parents fell to.”
Xaden could feel the beating of his heart like iron in a forge, pulsing with terrible fire. He fought not to be dizzy.
“Today we give you a new chance, Marked Ones—a chance to right your parents’ wrongs. You will not die today, nor be put to death hearafter, as some might think deserving.”
There were audible sobs of relief in the crowd.
“But let your relics be a reminder of the danger of listening to false voices… and let these marks…” She gestured with a Navarrian ceremonial dagger.
“...be a reminder that your fates are bound together. Riorson today pays for your chance at a new life. And if you should squander it… rest assured, the consequences will not end with you.”
With that, Sorrengail turned to him.
“Xaden Riorson, do you renounce your father’s actions in the rebellion against Navarre, and swear your allegiance to the Unified Kingdom and His Majesty King Tauri?”
Xaden swallowed, his fingers gripping hard as he said,
“I do.”
“And do you lay your life in pledge of the fact that your fellow Marked Ones will do the same?”
Xaden’s heart fluttered, his eyes stinging.
“I do,” He managed, trying not to hear the betrayed murmurs and gasps in the gathered crowd.
After a nod and a moment of awful silence, General Sorrengail gestured, and Xaden felt the soldiers who held him walk him to the back of the dais, where two wooden pillars stood about six feet apart.
“Let it be an oath of blood—the strongest and most unbreakable,” Sorrengail pronounced.
Amid his own flurrying fear, Xaden heard murmuring from the crowd behind him as he was forced to his knees, and his wrists were roughly bound to the pillars.
He fought to control his breathing, and to keep from pulling away from the hands of his captors. This had been his deal, his agreement, his bid to save their lives.
He would renounce his father, he would take the relic mark, he would enter the Riders Quadrant, and he would take responsibility for the faithfulness of all one hundred and seven of them—binding them to him as surely as a dragon would bind its rider. They had no choice. He would make the choice for them. Because someone had to. And he was Fen Riorson’s son.
Their fates would be intertwined forever, and Sorrengail would see to it that the others knew exactly what Xaden was sacrificing for them.
Someone placed a piece of leather between Xaden’s teeth, and he felt gruff hands rip open the back of his shirt. There was a breath of cold air and a moment where all Xaden could hear was the pounding in his own head.
But then he heard the first name.
“Ximena Alcantross!” A soldier called out.
And there was a sharp, slicing pain in his shoulder.
“Alec Ashery!”
Xaden squeezed his eyes shut and fought not to scream as the second cut dug in.
“Gerain Broadwaithe!”
The blade pierced again.
“Bodhi Durran!”
He only vaguely heard Bodhi’s cry as he struggled to contain his own.
“Insinia Eltross!”
In less than a minute, he was sweating everywhere, and shivering, and could suddenly taste ash, as the names continued and the pain of each cut worsened one by one.
Be strong. Don’t let them see you break. You are my son… always.
The hot blood splattered to the wood beneath him, or else trailed down his back and soaked the band of his trousers.
Fearful of the shadows that started to drag him under, Xaden forced his eyes open, but the world was fuzzy and tilting, as the steady, cruel voice continued to call out names behind him.
“Jemisa Luperco!”
Pain.
“Imogen Maethis!”
Pain.
“Liam Mairi!”
Pain.
“Sloane Mairi!”
Pain.
And on and on. Fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine…
Somewhere around “Garrick Tavis!” Xaden started to lose consciousness.
He’d already screamed, despite his best efforts, and then gone past screaming to some primal guttural groan that seemed ripped from his vocal chords without conscious thought.
His fingers had dug into his palms so hard they began to bleed too, as his vision flickered in and out and the cuts continued in terrible rows down his back. His head was hanging back and his eyes rolled towards the grey-streaked sky, trying to remember who he was or how he’d gotten here—or why it felt so cold.
Be strong. They will need you.
He felt his father’s gentle hand on his shoulder, as if he were five years old again and sitting by a mountain stream in the hills above Aretia, trying to get a fishhook unstuck from his finger.
“Alright, alright,” Fen murmured comfortingly as Xaden winced.
“I know it hurts, just a little more and it’ll be over. Got to be careful with this things.”
Xaden hissed as the hook slid from his bleeding finger.
“There. See? All done.”
Fen held up the hook, as if to show Xaden that it was intact.
“Sorry,” Xaden murmured as Fen put the hook down and took out his kerchief, pressing it against Xaden’s throbbing finger.
They’d been having a good day fishing, but Xaden had thrown the line too far, gotten it tangled in the trees above the stream, and tried to get it down himself, instead of asking for help.
“Don’t be sorry, Xay,” Fen said gently, ruffling his hair, “It was a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes. All we have to do is learn from them, right?”
The older man expertly wrapped Xaden’s finger so the pain ebbed a bit, and Xaden nodded.
Fen gave him a long look then, something lingering in his eyes that Xaden could feel deeply, even without knowing what it meant. He didn’t know why, but he wanted his father to stop it—stop looking at him like that. Like he was mourning.
“What matters isn’t our mistakes,” Fen assured softly, his gentle hand on his son’s hair, “But what we do to fix them. A man of honor will own up to his failure. Not pretend it never happened.”
Xaden wasn’t sure what all that had to do with a fish hook, but he nodded anyway.
His dad had said it, after all, and he believed his dad.