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WINGLEADER: A Xaden Riorson POV Fanfiction

CHAPTER 8

“They don’t have the numbers to continue defending the outer towns and villages from the Venin.”

Garrick says, his voice bleak as we walk back to the third-year dormitory.

I don’t have any words of encouragement, any speech prepared to combat the harsh reality that the Braevi fliers are facing right now. We’re making as many weapons drops as possible, but they’re losing numbers quickly, and no amount of weaponry can replace able bodied fighters.

But I won’t sacrifice my people. Not now.

Everytime I make a run I put every single person with me in danger. Everytime we sneak out of the citadel with our dragons, I put my people at risk.

“There has to be something more we can do,” Bodhi says, his features cast in stark relief from the glow of the mage lights.

“We’re doing everything we can,” Garrick says angrily.

As we enter the courtyard I take stock of our surroundings, darkness unspooling from my fingers. It’s empty, save for two second-years, too engrossed in each other to pay attention to much else.

The shadows continue their sweep of the courtyard, swirling around every dark corner and hidden alcove.

As we get close to the barracks I can feel the moment my shadows find the figure pressed against the dark wall.

Violet Sorrengail.

My steps stutter to a halt.

It’s as if she’s haunting my every waking moment these days. Sometimes my dreams too.

As much as I try to deny the physical attraction I feel towards her, my self awareness is still intact enough to see the lie for what it is.

A poor defense.

It takes Garrick and Bodhi a breadth to realize I’m no longer in step with them.

“What’s wrong?” Garrick says, his eyes dart to the couple who are now engaged in what seems to be far more than kissing.

“Go on. I’ll meet you inside.” I say, waving my hand at him.

“You sure?” Bodhi asks, concern overtaking his features as he surveys the courtyard.

I’m exhausted, and my patience is nearing non-existent. “Go.” I order, and Garrick and Bodhi start towards the barracks without a backwards glance.

Once I know they’re out of ear shot I turn to face the wall but keep quiet, waiting.

“I know you know I’m here” Violet’s voice pierces through the darkness in front of me. Her body comes into view a second later as she walks forward to meet me. “And please don’t prattle on about commanding the dark. I’m not in the mood tonight.”

“No questions about where I’ve been?” Whatever she’s been doing tonight has drained her. Every bit of her usual defiance is gone, and in its place is something numb and broken.

“I honestly don’t care.” She shrugs, and pain flashes across her face at the movement.

My eyes rove over her, looking for any sign of the fierce, angry, woman I’ve come to know. “You really don’t, do you?”

“Nope. It’s not like I’m not out after curfew myself.” She says, heaving a sigh.

Why am I disappointed?

“What are you doing out after curfew first-year?” I tease, but there’s a hint of worry making its way to the space between my brows.

“Debating running away. How about you?” She asks and nods her head towards me, “Feel like sharing?”

“The same.” I blurt before clamping my mouth shut.

It’s the truth. Right now, I’d love to lock myself away in the keep at Athebyne and spend the rest of my days looking out over the mountain peaks.

Her eyes crackle with electricity, “Look, are you going to kill me or not? The anticipation is starting to annoy the fuck out of me.”

There’s my Violence.

She lifts her arm to rub her shoulder, and I track the movement, her finger tips pressing into the fabric of her dark undershirt. “I haven't decided yet.” I say lightly. My eyes flick back to her face and narrow as I try to get a good look at the scabs dotting her cheek. Gauntlet training started today, and of course Violet wouldn’t go unscathed.

“Well, could you?” She grumbles. “It would definitely help me make my plans for the week.”

My lips tip up into a smile, “Am I affecting your schedule, Violence?”

She curls her fists, anger heating her expression. I’m pushing my luck, but it’s better than the darkness that she was cloaked in a moment ago. “I just need to know what my chances are here.” She says, her voice wavering.

Come on, Violet, play with me.

I grin at her, “That’s the oddest way I’ve ever been hit on–”

“Not my chances with you, you conceited prick!” She screeches before darting past me.

Without thinking I wrap my fingers around her wrist, my grip gentle, like she’ll turn into smoke if I grasp too tightly. “Chances at what?” I ask, tugging her to my side, close enough that she has to look up past my shoulder to meet my eyes.

“Nothing.”

“Chances at what?” I repeat.

I don’t have the patience for whatever bullshit answer she’s about to give. Whatever conversation we’re about to have, I want to have it now, and I want the real thing. “Do not make me ask three times.”

She doesn’t meet my eyes, but her voice goes up a half octave. “At living through all of this! I can’t make it up the damned Gauntlet.”

Words from months ago echo in my ears. Kiernan’s words that night at the Iakobos River,

“I can’t do this! The death. The fighting. Any of it. A guy had his neck snapped right in front of me on assessment day!”

She gives her arm a tug, but not enough to break the hold I have on her. If she’s trying to leave, she’s going to have to want to leave, I’m not going to let her give up so easily.

“I see.” I say succinctly.

“No, you don’t. You’re probably celebrating because I’ll fall to my death and you won’t have to go to the trouble of killing me.”

Guilt tears its way through my chest, and shadow’s swirl around me in time to hide the anguish on my face.

“Killing you wouldn’t be any trouble, Violence.” I know I’m about to say too much, but it bubbles up past my lips anyway. “It’s leaving you alive that seems to cause the majority of my trouble.” Lots of trouble. The kind of trouble that has my eyes trained to search for her in every room. Trouble that puts my shadows on edge, begging to brush against her skin. The kind that has me lying in bed at night, fisting my cock, imagining it’s her hand, her lips, her body under mine.

“Sorry to be a hassle.” She snaps, and I blink once, my eyes refocusing on the Violet in front of me, very clothed, and very irritated. “You know the problem with this place?” She asks, giving her arm another halfhearted tug, “Besides you touching things that don’t belong to you?”

“I’m sure you’re going to tell me.” I say softly, letting her wrist fall from my grasp.

“Hope.”

“Hope?” I ask, tilting my head towards her. I can hear her just fine, but there’s an innate part of me that yearns to comfort her, to be close to her.

“Hope. Someone like you would never get it, but I knew coming here was a death sentence. It didn’t matter that I’ve been trained my entire life to enter the Scribe Quadrant; when General Sorrengail gives an order, you can’t exactly ignore it.”

I clench my jaw. Her assumption’s gotten under my skin. As if General Sorrengail’s daughter really understood the death sentence before me.

“Sure you can.” I shrug, my tone settling back to indifference. “You just might not like the consequences.”

She rolls her eyes, and I think she’s about to go, but instead she leans into the space between us, surprising me.

“I knew what the odds were, and I came anyway, concentrating on that tiny percentage of a chance that I would live. And then I make it almost two months and I get–” She stops mid sentence and shakes her head, mouth twisting into a disgusted grimace, “Hopeful.”

Everything starts slipping into place as her mouth closes around that last word.. She’s going to leave. She’s going to give up and let Dain Aetos smuggle her to the Scribe Quadrant like she’s no more than stolen property.

“Ah. And then you lose a squadmate, and you can’t quite get up the chimney, and you give up. I’m starting to see. It’s not a flattering picture, but if you want to run off to the Scribe Quadrant–”

She interrupts me with a gasp, “How do you know about that?” Her eyes are wide, bordering on panicked.

I smile ruefully at her. She should know better by now. Why doesn’t she know better? “I know everything that goes on here.” I let the darkness swirl around us, the shadowy black becoming dense. “Shadows, remember? They hear everything, see everything, conceal everything.”

And then it’s just she and I in the darkness, the rest of the world pushed behind a curtain of night black.

Her voice goes soft, not in fear or comfort, but the calm that comes with embracing something out of your control. Someone who’s giving up.

“My mother would definitely reward you if you told her about Dain’s plan.”

“She’d definitely reward you for telling her about my little…what did you call it? Club.” I remind her.

“I’m not going to tell her.” She snips.

“I know, It’s why you’re still alive.”

Her gaze has gone fiery again and I can’t look anywhere else.

“Here’s the thing, Sorrengail. Hope is a fickle, dangerous thing. It steals your focus and aims it toward the possibilities instead of keeping it where it belongs–on the probabilities.”

“So I’m supposed to what? Not hope that I live? Just plan for death?”

“You’re supposed to focus on the things that can kill you so you find ways to not die.” I shake my head. It feels as though she’s being purposefully obtuse. “I can barely count the number of people in this quadrant who want you dead, either as revenge against your mother or because you’re just really good at pissing people off, but you’re still here, defying the odds.” As the words leave my mouth all pretense of irritation is gone, and I’m left with the same state of admiration she always leaves me in. Darkness swirls and I give into them for a moment, letting them trail across her shoulders, soothing the scratches on her cheek. “It’s been rather surprising to watch, actually.”

Her gaze turns hard, “Happy to be your entertainment. I’m going to bed.” She spits before turning on her heel.

I’ve pushed too far. She stomps to the barracks and flings the door open so quickly I have to throw my hand up to keep it from slamming in my face.

She doesn’t bother to look back at me as she continues down the hall, and some of that earlier frustration comes roaring back to the surface.

“Maybe if you stopped sulking in your self-pity, you’d see that you have everything you need to scale the Gauntlet.”

She spins towards me, her face radiating pure fury, “My self-what?”

“People die,” I clench my jaw, trying to master the pressure that wants to settle over me at the thought. I suck in the cold night air still swirling through the door, “It’s going to happen over and over again. It’s the nature of what happens here. What makes you a rider is what you do after people die.” My words echo down the hallway. My father’s words. “You want to know why you’re still alive? Because you’re the scale I currently judge myself against every night. Every day I let you live, I get to convince myself that there’s still a part of me that’s a decent person.” Almost a lie, I stopped wanting to kill her after that night by the river, but her hate for me has always outweighed everything else. And if that’s what it takes to get her to stay… “So if you want to quit, then please, spare me the temptation and fucking quit. But if you want to do something. Then do it.”

“I’m too short to span the distance!” She almost yells it at me.

I don’t know how else to tell her that she’s enough. How else to convince her she’s capable of surviving, and more than that, conquering whoever and whatever comes her way. This narrative that she has of a weak, cowardly girl is failing her.

“The right way isn’t the only way. Figure it out.” I order, before turning and walking away.

#fanfiction #fourth wing #violet sorrengail #xaden riorson #xadenviolet #violet and xaden #fourth wing fanfic #sgaeyl #tairn and sgaeyl #liam mairi #imogen moreno #rhiannon #jack barlowe

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