Chapter Text
Dear Elise,
This is likely to be my last letter to you before you leave Calldyr. On Conscription Day, find Liam Mairi, my foster brother, before you enter the southern turret. Blond hair, blue eyes, taller than most, in case you don’t remember him. He’ll be there early and looking for you, so he shouldn’t be too hard to find.
Read the Codex. Pack only what’s essential. Get your hands on some easily concealable weapons if you can. Rubber-bottomed shoes as well. If that’s not an option, sandpaper the soles. I know the parapet doesn’t scare you, but don’t let your confidence make you reckless. If you attempt a cartwheel on the damn thing, I swear I’ll feed you to Sgaeyl.
Love,
Xaden
With a sigh, I toss the last of my brother’s letters into the burn pit. It feels wrong, almost ominous to do this in Malek’s temple. This is for purely practical reasons, I remind myself. It’s July, so the hearths in the palace are cold, I’m not welcome in the kitchens even though I know nothing about poisons, and the guards don’t trust me with any flammables. I had to get rid of these letters somehow.
Over the past five years, with Xaden’s first year in the Riders Quadrant being the exception, we wrote to each other what we could, knowing our communication is more than likely to be monitored. Still, I considered those letters private. I didn’t want anyone else to get their hands on them, but I couldn’t take them with me either. Like Xaden said, I must pack lightly. My whole life fits into a rucksack I’m going to take with me tomorrow. There was a time I owned a dollhouse bigger than that rucksack.
“It hurts, doesn’t it? Burning your brother’s letters? Try burning his body.”
Halden’s voice, dripping with bitterness, gives me goosebumps. Damn, what does he want now? One last beating for the road?
Avoiding him only makes things worse for me, so I turn around and do a quick curtsy. “My prince.”
He’s in his crisp, well-tailored blue infantry uniform as usual. His sandy brown hair has been combed back, not a single strand out of place, his face clean-shaven. During my time here, I’ve never seen him disheveled, not even in the immediate aftermath of Alic’s death, but I’m not blind. I know grief when I see it. Halden might be a monster, but he loved his brother. He misses him.
I side-step away from the pit, in case he gets any funny ideas. We’re alone here. There are no priests or worshipers in sight. It gives me a few funny ideas of my own, but I know better than acting on them. If I kill Halden, it won’t be just my crime. It will be Xaden’s, too. One of the scars on his back is for me.
Halden scoffs, circling me like a predator. “Relax, I’m not going to throw you into the fire. I have other uses for you. But first, answer my question: Why has little Cam been training you in secret?”
Shit . How does he know? It takes every ounce of self-control I have to keep my face flat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, come now. All these years, you did a good job, hiding the change under baggy clothes, but you see, I tend to notice such things. You’ve grown strong. And quite shapely, I must add.” Now he’s blatantly staring at my ass, even though my loose, flowy pants don’t reveal much to look at.
“Must be the Riorson blood.”
He comes to stand in front of me, bearing those hateful green eyes into mine. “Are you lovers?”
“No.”
“I’m not going to ask again. Why has Cam been training you for the Riders Quadrant?”
The full truth would turn his pants brown and get me hanged for treason, so I decide to give him half of it. “It was his way of apologizing on your behalf… and Alic’s.”
He strikes me so hard that the world goes white for a second. Before my vision can return, he grabs me by the hair. My scalp burns, but I distract myself from the pain by imagining how easy it would be to break his arm in three places.
“Don’t you dare speak my brother’s name, you treacherous slut! Not when yours is the reason he’s dead!”
He releases me, but I sway on my feet, appalled. Has he gone insane at last? I always assumed Alic fucked around with a dragon and found out. He was the more unhinged of the twins, so it wasn’t a stretch. But if Xaden killed him… No, Xaden knows I’m a hostage here. He’d never put me in danger by killing Tauri’s son. Unless he had to defend himself. In that case, I’m glad he did what he did. I’ll happily suffer the consequences.
But first, I have to be certain this isn’t one of Halden’s games. “You can’t possibly know that. He died at Threshing.”
“You don’t think my father just shrugged his death off, do you?”
“You’re just bullshitting me. It’s been almost two years. If you wanted Xaden dead, he’d be dead by now.”
“Who said we want him dead? We want him to suffer. Like I suffered. Eye for an eye, sibling for a sibling.”
“You’re going to kill me,” I realize. The actual truth here is irrelevant. The royal family’s truth is the only one that matters, and it is that Xaden killed Alic. My stomach lurches. Not that I’m particularly attached to my godsforsaken life after everything I’ve been through, but like Halden said, my death will make Xaden suffer.
“Oh, no. You’ll do it yourself. On Conscription Day. Jump off the parapet, tell a dragon to burn you, pick a fight and get stabbed, I don’t care. If it happens in front of him, all the better. Die, and I’ll consider the score settled. Refuse, and I’ll kill the other people he gives a shit about before I kill him, too.”
A bubble of laughter forms in my throat and expands until it erupts. Halden watches me warily as I cackle like a lunatic, but I can’t help it. The irony is just… too good. Five years ago, Cam offered to train me in secret, not only because he felt morally obliged, but also for the greater good. I didn’t give a shit about the greater good, or the glory of being a rider. I trained my ass off only because I didn’t want to be a weakness to Xaden. I thought that involved staying alive. Now, it turns out I have to do the opposite.
Fine, I’ll die. How hard can it be in that slaughterhouse of a war college?