Chapter Text
“I love you Bren.”
I kiss my fingers and pretend to fling it into the sky as I look up at the stars.
Maybe Malek’s realm is above the clouds and he’s looking down on me right now, catching my kiss on his hand and feeling the love that’s never faded.
Not once in the year since he died.
“Vi, your mother is looking for you.”
I turn my head over my shoulder and give Dain the look that comment deserves- which would be pure disbelief.
He slumps his shoulders a bit and stuffs his hands in pockets as he shuffles his feet.
“Okay, so it wasn’t exactly her that sent me out here, it was her gaurd, but that’s got to mean something, right?”
I roll my eyes and look back up at the stars. “Not really, not today. She doesn’t even care Dain. For all the tears she spilled when he died, she didn’t even care about today.”
I hear his sigh as he comes up behind me, “I know, but I do. Your dad does. Just come back inside, it’s not exactly safe at this outpost.”
I ignore his comment, it’s not exactly safe anywhere for me apparently. I love Dain, but his constant hovering has become more grating as I’ve gotten older. I turn 16 next week, I don’t need a babysitter, I need a friend, and why would he think that Summerton is unsafe? My mother never lets me come with her on her trips, until now. Unless she is finally planning to exact her revenge on me for being a disappointment of a daughter, then I think I’m fine.
“I’ll come in soon Dain, I just want to stay out here a bit longer.” He doesn’t say anything but I can feel the heat from his body at my back as he stands there unmoving.
“Alone.” I add quietly. He sighs again and gives my right shoulder a gentle squeeze before I hear his footsteps retreating back into the outpost.
I run my hands up and down my arms to stave off the chill blowing in from the mountains nearby. It’s peaceful here at least, unlike Basgiath. I can’t get one moment of peace there, people are always milling about in the halls, looking down their noses at the tiny freak daughter of the newly appointed General of the war college. Most didn’t even realize she had another daughter after Mira, the perfect one. Perfect bones, perfect joints, the very picture of our mother at that age. A squad leader in her second year at Basgiath in the deadly riders quadrant. I make a disgusted noise in the back of my throat.
Barbaric, the entire school. They treat riders as if they are better than everyone else because they can stab a pointy end into a body while they fly about. If only they knew how lethal books could be, especially the ones my dear brother showed me about poisons and where to find them, how to use them.
One day maybe I'll exact my own revenge on all of the disgusting people who smile respectfully at my mother and then sneer at me behind her back.
My head turns slightly as a group of infantry walk by and I nod at them politely. First to engage and first to die, tragic really, that so many people still choose to join that quadrant when the odds of survival after you leave are just as bad as the odds the riders have during their first year. I roll my eyes, annoyed with my own thoughts.
Odds, percentages, numbers, facts. That’s all I can speak to having no real life experience. No adventures of my own, and none that will happen for me in the future. I’m to frail and to weak to ever know a life beyond the archives. Beyond those facts and odds.
I stare down at the ground outside of the outpost trying to will my body to do the impossible and fly away. What if I just left? Dissapeared? Poof.
Would anyone besides Dain realize it? Would anyone really care?
“Miss Sorrengail?”
Im jolted from my depressing musings as a man touches my shoulder.
I instantly rear back and take him in.
He has dark ebony skin with a black trimmed beard that has silver streaking through it.
He is wearing rider black, so he’s probably someone stationed at the outpost that I’ve never met before, but my eyes zero in on the large cuts going down his flight leathers and the darker black patches around his abdomen.
Blood. It has to be blood.
My eyes flick back up to his alarmed. -“Violet Sorrengail?”
His voice is deep and it rumbles through my mind as I try and process what to do.
“What? I mean yes.” I say blinking. “What’s happening? Is it my mother?”
Gods, was Dain right? Is this outpost dangerous? Did this man just come back from patrol bloody and hurt to tell me I lost someone else? Even if she isn’t all that much of a mother, I don’t think I could survive it.
“Everything is fine dear.” His voice is laced with pity and his eyes scream it as well before he raises his hand. “I’m sorry, but it’s for the best.”
I open my mouth to scream as I see the flash of silver from his blade but his large hand covers my mouth before a sound can escape and he slashes down on my left bicep in a quick motion.
I shriek in the palm of his hand and start thrashing around wildly.
Have to escape, have to alert them, we’ve been breached. He can’t be a rider with Navarre, they would never dare touch me.
“Stop moving so much, it will open the wound more.”
He murmurs calmly as he clamps my arms down with his and picks me up easily as if i am a sack of grain.
My legs kick out as they look for anything to help me gain some kind of leverage and I feel the tendons in my shoulders strain as he lifts me.
My eyes widen in horror as I see him putting me on the ledge I was looking down from.
I squeeze them shut so I don’t have to see myself fall to my death.
Oh gods, i didn’t mean it.
Please Amari, I know they will miss me.
Mira, Dad, Dain, maybe even my Mother. I take it back!
Tears well in my eyes and I feel them run down my cheeks until they hit the man’s hand.
When I don’t immediately fall I crack one eye open and look behind me quickly before I see the height I’m at and vomit.
The man is smearing my blood over the stone flooring with his boot. He seems to think his job is done and then finally looks back at me.
“No squirming.” He says deeply and then his hand is removed from my mouth and I’m falling.
I’m dying. This is it. From that height I quickly do the math at how long someone of my weight would take to hit the ground. Factor in wind resistance and my terrible attempts at defying gravity, and I have 36 seconds. Max.
A small shrill scream echoes around me as I throw my limbs out as if my dream from earlier will come true, and I’ll fly.
I shut my eyes again so I don’t have to look up at the man who just killed me and then I gasp as I’m jerked suddenly in the air.
My hands fly out and hit something large and smooth that is draped around my body and when I finally dare to open my eyes my mouth drops in shock.
I’m flying.
I’m flying because a gigantic red dragon is holding me in its..claws?
I whip my head around as he circle back to the outpost wall and I see the man jumping on his back, and then we are turning.
Leaving, we are leaving! I’m not even being killed, at least not yet.
I’m being kidnapped. But why? I’m no one, nothing. Just the daughter of a General and a scribe. No one would need to go to these lengths to get to my mother, and if they did, they picked the wrong daughter to take.
I start to move and I can feel myself slip slightly in the dragons grasp and it clench’s around me tighter, almost too tight.
I am now stuck in an odd position, my face pressed against a large talon not able to turn my head. I stare at the ground as it blurs by.
No wonder the man said no squirming, to bad I did not listen to my kidnapper.
We are going too fast for me to see any discernible landscape beneath us, and I can feel tears rip from my eyes in the wind as my heart beats wildly against my chest.
I should have gone with Dain, I should have listened.
I can’t believe I’m going to do this to my father, leave him. Even if he hasn't been the same since Brennan, I know he loves me, and this will shatter him.
I’m going to make Mira and only child.
I’m so weak, and despite all of my efforts, apparently I am also an idiot.
My breathing starts to come in shallow gasps and I feel a pressure on my chest I haven’t felt since exactly one year ago, panic.
I’m having a panic attack.
I’m sure my vision would be darkening if I weren't looking at the dark back of my eye lids already and I let my irregular breathing continue. After what feels like hours of listening to myself lose it, I blessedly pass out.
✨_____✨_____✨_____✨
My body jerks up right when I feel my face land on what I think is solid ground.
Why am I on the ground? I look around at the dark field and squint my eyes as if that will make it easier for me to see anything.
They widen as the memories of what happened come rushing back to me and I try to fly up to my feet but get stuck on my knees as my legs buckle from being stuck in one position for too long.
Where’s the man and the dragon?
I hear a loud thump and turn my head over my shoulder and then immediately look at the grass under my fingertips. Huge gold eyes are seared into my brain as I stare at the ground.
I just locked eyes with a huge and terrifyingly beautiful red dragon, and now it might kill me for the lack of deference. My own mothers dragon hated me on every occasion I have seen it, this one will surely dislike me as well.
“Don’t worry baby sister, Nuirlach won’t harm you.”
I small noise escapes my throat at the voice.
His voice.
How? Maybe I died and Maleks realm is really just a large grass field in the middle of nowhere. He must have dragons and riders working for him too, with how many we offer to him every year, his realm must be overflowing with them. I would have really loved it if feelings were left behind with our bodies, because when I pictured being a soul and reuniting with my brother, i didn't feel quite this much fear and uncertainty.
I finally garner enough courage to lift my gaze back up and I am met with familiar amber colored eyes, the small lines that crinkle in the corners when he smiles, and his dimple as his cheeks strain.
“Brennan!” I sob and throw myself forward into his arms. The arms I never thought I’d feel again. They envelope me in a loving hug as I clutch to his tunic. How weirdly solid for a spirit. “How?” My voice muffled into his shoulder.
“There is so much I have to tell you Vi, but I’m just going to start with where.”
He pulls my head away from him gently and tips my head back with a finger on my chin.
“Welcome to Aretia.”
My eyes widen and I scramble back from him trying to look around me once more.
“I’ve been trying to get to you for a year Vi.”
His voice is hoarse and i flick my gaze back to his and see his eyes glassy with tears.
“I swear I never wanted to leave you, or Mira.”
“Not dead?” I barely whisper. He huffs a small laugh. “No ones dead.”
I nod slowly as I meet the apologetic gaze of the large man who brought me here.
If my brother, one of the smartest men I’ve ever met, one of the bravest riders to ever graduate Basgiath stayed here instead of returning home. Faked his death and then brought me here.
He’d have a damn good reason. I want to be strong right now and demand answers, listen to everything he’s got to say and walk around this city that is supposed to be ash. But my vision swims again as I stare behind Bren at the outline of a huge…castle?
“I’m going to-“ I start to say through trembling limps.
Mourning my dead brother, being cut, kidnapped, flying, thinking I was definitely dead, seeing my not so dead brother. It’s just to much for a girl to take. My warning dies on my lips as I pitch forward and feel the world dull at the edges. The last thing I hear is my brother screaming my name.
✨_____✨_____✨
I feel my mind wake up before my body does. The first few times this happened, I panicked. I could hear and feel, but could not move a muscle, until it was like a string was cut and then all my limbs were able to listen to my command again.
But after waking up like this for a week straight after Bren died, I started realize this is a good way for me to be extremely intune with my less than stellar body. I can slowly take stock of each pain and twinge, and in times like these where I would normally wake up jerkily and hurt myself, my body is making me stay still as my mind races and replays everything.
“I have no idea Liam. If you don’t remember we just got here at the same time together” a voice growls near me. I make sure I don’t even try to strain and open my eyes, I’m in Aretia. My brother is alive. There is something big I do not know yet, and I’m not above eavesdropping.
“Well, isn’t he worried?” A higher voice says from somewhere close. “I mean he’s a mender and she’s still passed out.”
I hear a small snort. “There is nothing physically wrong with her dipshit. She just saw her dead brother after a year, give her a minute.”
Yes please do.
Give me just a small moment to stop the whirlpool of questions in my mind. It gets quiet again and I hear a small scraping noise. “But what if she just stays this way-“ the higher voice says and it’s cut off by a frustrated noise.
“Gods above Li, we talked about this. Silence is a virtue.”
Feelings rush back into my limbs and I curl my fingers in the soft blanket on top of me.
“Where?” I croak through parched lips before I decide to open my eyes.
I hear something slam down at my voice and rushed shuffling
“Go get him!” The deeper voice says as I feel the air move beside me.
When I blink my eyes and they start to focus I can see a younger man looking down at me in concern. His mouth is set and his brows are furrowed over the most mesmerizing dark brown, almost black eyes I’ve ever seen. His hair is longer, curling over his forehead in loose waves, and it makes him look more boyish then the cut lines of his cheekbones and strong jaw. The tawny skin around his mouth pulls down in a small frown, possibly because of my intense staring. “We are getting your brother, don't worry.” He murmurs still looking at me intently. It’s as if I can’t remember how to form words in the weight of his gaze, his frown deepens as he pushes hair I didn’t even notice out of my eyes.
“I’m Xaden. You’re safe, I promise.”
I swallow harshly but all I do is nod, because gods watch over me, I believe him.
For the first time in I don’t know how long, in this strange place, with these peculiar people, and my dead brother, I feel the emotion swell up inside me for the first time since watching Mira leave for the quadrant.
Safe.