Chapter Text
It hurt, as it turns out.
Violet didn’t really know what else she expected.
It burned and scraped at the inside of her lungs, shook her muscles with effort, and scorched her bones. The sheer amount of power required to imbue the ward stone was likely more than she had, she knew, but what other option did she have?
Everyone she loved would die without it.
Everyone, full stop.
So she threw open the doors of her mental archives wider, dug deeper, gave more, and grit her teeth against the searing heat of approaching burnout, as sweat beaded at her temples, and her skin reddened and began to peel, as though she had sat in the blistering summer sun for hours.
“Silver One, you must stop!” Tairn’s furious voice echoed in her skull. Though he was not in the room with her, circling overhead, waiting to light the ward stone, she felt his anger like he was baring his teeth in her face.
“You know we don’t have time!” She spat back, pushing down the guilt, the raw grief, the knowledge that it wouldn’t just be her life she was sacrificing, but Tairn’s as well, maybe Sgaeyl’s and Xaden’s, too. Andarna would be fine, eventually, she reasoned. She’s only had one rider, so she can survive the loss. The unfairness of it beat a blazing rhythm against the inside of her ribcage, but really, when she weighed four lives against the Continent, the scales weren’t exactly balanced.
Four lives, for everyone else.
Her breath, heated beyond extremes by the crackling orange energy she was pushing into the stone, shimmered in front of her as she panted, as her fingers spasmed with agonising effort against the ward stone. Her chest, afire from her scalding breath, screamed as she hauled in another lungful of air.
More.
“Violet.”
Her head snapped to the side at her mother’s voice. She hadn’t heard her approach. Lilith Sorrengail stood, stoic and strong and blank-faced, as her youngest child’s lips pressed together grimly.
“You must not give your life for this,” Lilith said, and gently, more gently than Violet ever remembered her mother doing anything, curled her fingers around Violet’s bicep. She did not pull, not yet. “You will have more to do, after this.”
Violet felt her brow furrow, almost without her permission.
“Someone has to, Mom.” She didn’t quite have it in her to call her mother by her rank, in this moment. “Why not me?”
A flicker of something, in her mother’s eyes.
“If you burn out, Riorson is gone too. You will need him, for what follows.”
Her mother was being remarkably reasonable, for a woman watching her daughter on the verge of a decision she can’t take back. Something about the sentence bothered Violet, but she was so godsdamned tired, and even as her mother spoke, Violet still had her palm pressed to the ward stone, feeding it power. She watched, almost blankly, as the back of her hand blistered.
“If I stop, everyone dies. Including me.”
“The General is right, Silver One,” Tairn spoke softly, as if he didn’t want to spook her. His voice was tinged with sadness, though she wasn’t convinced it was his own.
Weird.
“Not if someone takes your place.” Lilith did pull at Violet’s arm, this time, still gentle, careful with Violet in an unfamiliar way. Not that her mother had ever been physically rough with her, but she was being almost kind with her words. Violet pulled her elbow back into her side, keeping her palm where it was.
“People don’t volunteer for that every day, Mom.” Mira had rounded the ward stone, casting a wary glance backwards at where Brennan remained hidden.
“I am not people, Mira.” Lilith roved her eyes over her oldest daughter, appearing satisfied with the visible lack of, at least severe, harm. Mira paled at a frankly impressive rate under her tan, and Violet finally blinked herself back into the room fully. The flow of power slowed to a trickle as her attention shifted.
“What did you say?” Her voice shook, though she wasn’t sure if it was from exhaustion or whatever twist of emotion had risen at her mother’s words.
“Mom.” Brennan stepped into view, shoulders squared as if for a fist fight. “Are you sure?”
Lilith didn’t freeze, but she did falter, military training too ingrained to let her son’s presence fully knock her off centre.
“Brennan? How...?”
“It’s a long story, and you clearly intend not to be around to hear it.” He motioned to Sloane, half tucked behind Aaric, pale-faced, and Aaric had a bizarre look on his face that didn’t quite fit the situation. Sloane had taken hold of the cuff of his sleeve at Brennan’s words.
“What are you talking about?” Mira ground out, though her eyes said she knew, and that she didn’t like it. Lilith turned her attention back to Violet.
“Violet, I am ordering you to stop. I will take over from here, and you will live to fight this war.” Lilith pulled at Violet, and this time, she cut the trickle of power entirely and let her mother move her away.
Violet’s mind rattled through options.
Knock her out, go for Sloane, pour her own power out so fast that Lilith couldn’t stop her, talk her out of it…
None of them would work.
“Mom…”
Lilith shook her head.
“We don’t have time, Cadet.”
Violet’s spine straightened automatically at her tone. Brennan’s mouth twisted, and Mira’s eyes had a faint glimmer in them; her hand clenched around the hilt of her sword, knuckles white. Lilith didn’t wait for any of them to process, or protest. She turned to Sloane and beckoned her forward.
“General?” Sloane’s hair was a mess, blonde strands escaping her braid, frizz and dirt and blood in it, as she stepped around Aaric. Her face said she knew what was coming.
“You’re a siphon. You must siphon my power, and Aimsir’s power and imbue it into the ward stone.”
Sloane’s hands shook.
“Please don’t make me.”
Lilith’s eyes held sympathy, but she was unmoving.
“That’s an order, Cadet Mairi.”
Sloane’s voice was barely a whisper.
“I’ll kill you. Both of you.”
Lilith held her gaze.
“Yes.”
A tear slipped down Sloane’s face, clearing a track through the dirt. Violet clenched her jaw so tight her teeth squeaked against each other.
“Violet, I am so sorry.” Andarna’s sweet voice rang through Violet’s mind. Violet didn’t reply, a tickle at the back of her eyes taking all her willpower to suppress. She took a step closer to her mother.
“Win,” Lilith said, staring down at Sloane, still. “Do not allow this sacrifice to be in vain.”
A flicker, in the back of her mind.
Fury.
Violet brushed it aside as her mother turned and drew her into an embrace for the first time since her father’s death.
“I’ll try.” She whispered.
“Do not try. Win. You must win, Violet.” With that, she released Violet and stepped away towards Mira and Brennan. “I don’t know how you are alive, my son, but I am glad. Look after your sisters.” Her face softened some as she looked at Mira. “I am proud to be your mother. All of you.”
Lilith’s face settled back into the composure Violet was used to, as she crossed the room to stand by the ward stone and turned to look at Sloane.
“It’s ok.” She said, holding eye contact with the girl who was about to kill her. “Come.”
Sloane swallowed visibly, but followed, settling one hand on the stone, and the other on the General. Her eyes closed briefly, and she sniffled slightly and then turned her gaze to the woman she was about to kill. Off to the side, Aaric’s expression did not change, face twisted in some emotion Violet had never see on him before, though his shoulders had relaxed a fraction.
Lilith smiled as she started to pull Aimsir’s power into herself.
“Good girl.”
And then Lilith’s face began to grey, and Sloane’s palms began to glow ever so faintly, and the ward stone began to hum, and then to gleam, and Lilith’s knees buckled and then…
She was gone, body slumped on the cold ground, and Violet knew that somewhere her mother’s dragon was falling from the sky, and then Andarna was breathing kaleidoscope flame upon the ward stone, and then…
“Silver One!”
Violet twitched hard.
“Sgaeyl?” Violet was confused. She could count the number of times Sgaeyl had spoken directly to her on the fingers of one hand.
“My idiot rider is about to do something very, very stupid. You must stop him.” Sgaeyl sounded nearly feral, far more desperate than Violet had ever heard any dragon. “He means to channel from the earth.”
Violet’s heart stopped, then restarted at a rapid pace, slamming against her sternum. Bypassing Sgaeyl entirely, she found her bond with Xaden in her Archives and screamed down it.
“Don’t you dare!”
She heard vague noises behind her but didn’t turn to look. Heat prickled at the back of her neck.
“Violence. I’m sorry. I’m losing.” Xaden’s voice was strained through the bond, tinged with desperation and fear and love and regret.
“That’s not good enough.” She held her head in her hands, gripping fistfuls of her braid, nails scratching at her scalp, something unfamiliar, yet familiar, welling up in her gut.
“I love you.” He replied, and Violet dropped to her knees, the impact barely registering through her turmoil. Her stomach churned violently, flashes of the dreams she’s been having panning across her mind.
Xaden and the Sage, Xaden channelling, Xaden with red-rimmed eyes…
She thought she might throw up.
“No.” She whispered.
She mentally scoured her archives for any scrap of power she had left. Maybe she could hit the Sage from here? But Tairn’s door was closed, now, and she could feel that if she opened it there would be nothing left of her. “No!”
“Violet?” Mira, somewhere behind her.
The feeling in her stomach was stronger now, as tears streamed down her over-warm cheeks.
“Xaden, if you do this, I will…” Violet couldn’t finish her sentence. Her stomach turned over once, then again, and then she felt it climb into her chest, up her throat, into her head.
“What…?”
“You’re channelling from me!” Andarna exclaimed. Violet groaned, the fingers of one hand digging into her braid, the other clenched so tightly that her nails were cutting crescent moons into her palm. With Tairn, it had forced its way through her, exploding outwards and nearly sweeping her away in the current.
This felt different. This felt like looking into the sun at midday, in the height of summer.
She planted one foot in her archives and turned towards Andarna’s window. It was glowing so brightly she reflexively closed her eyes, then cracked them back open, mind whirling almost faster than she could keep up.
Her body reached for the glimmering light behind the window. Something was happening, and she wasn’t really in charge of herself anymore.
All she could give was a warning, such as it turned out.
“Xaden, don’t channel!” She could feel his confusion, and his exhaustion, and the strain of keeping the Sage away.
“Vi?”
And then she lost the ability to speak, because light was spilling out of Andarna’s window, and Violet was too focused on trying to direct it into Xaden’s swirling pool of shadows with pure force of will, no idea if it would work, and a refusal to believe that it wouldn’t, because she couldn’t.
And then the power drained out of her, absorbing into shadows, and her mental archives shimmered at the edges… or wait, no. The ward stone room shimmered at the edges, because she’d opened her eyes, and as the heat of dragon fire bathed the stone and the room spun a little, and then a lot…
She passed out.