CHAPTER ONE

Revolution tastes oddly…sweet.
I stare at my older brother across a scarred wooden table in the
enormous, busy kitchen of the fortress of Aretia and chew the
honeyed biscuit he put on my plate. Damn, that’s good. Really good.
Maybe it’s just that I haven’t eaten in three days, since a not-so
mythological being stabbed me in the side with a poisoned blade
that should have killed me. It would have killed me if it hadn’t been
for Brennan, who won’t stop smiling as I chew.
This might go down as the most surreal experience of my life.
Brennan is alive. Venin, dark wielders I’d thought only existed in
fables, are real. Brennan is alive. Aretia still stands, even though it
was scorched after the Tyrrish rebellion six years ago. Brennan is
alive. I have a new, three-inch scar on my abdomen, but I didn’t die.
Brennan. Is. Alive.
“The biscuits are good, right?” he asks, snagging one from the
platter between us. “Kind of remind me of the ones that cook used
to make when we were stationed in Calldyr, remember?”
I stare and chew.
He’s just so…him. And yet he looks different from what I
remember. His brownish-red curls are cropped close to his skull
instead of waving over his forehead, and there’s no lingering
softness in the angles of his face, which now has tiny lines at the
edges of his eyes. But that smile? Those eyes? It’s really him.
And his one condition being me eating something before he takes
me to my dragons? It’s the most Brennan move ever.
Not that Tairn ever waits for permission, which means—
“I, too, think you need to eat something.” Tairn’s low, arrogant
voice fills my head.
“Yeah, yeah,” I reply in kind, mentally reaching out for Andarna
again as one of the kitchen workers hurries by, offering a quick smile
to Brennan.
There’s no response from Andarna, but I can feel the shimmering
bond between us, though it’s no longer golden like her scales. I can’t
quite get a mental picture, but my brain is still a little groggy. She’s
sleeping again, which isn’t odd after she uses up all her energy to
stop time, and after what happened in Resson, she probably needs
to sleep for the next week or so.
“You’ve barely said a word, you know.” Brennan tilts his head just
like he used to when he was trying to solve a problem. “It’s kind of
creepy.”
“Watching me eat is creepy,” I counter after I swallow, my voice
still a little hoarse.
“And?” He shrugs shamelessly, a dimple flashing in his cheek when
he grins. It’s the only boyish thing left about him. “A few days ago, I
was pretty sure I’d never get to watch you do, well, anything again.”
He takes a huge bite. Guess his appetite is still the same, which is
oddly comforting. “You’re welcome, by the way, for the mending.
Consider it a twenty-first-birthday present.”
“Thank you.” That’s right. I slept right through my birthday. And
I’m sure my lying in bed on the brink of death was more than
enough drama for everyone in this castle, house, whatever it’s
called.
Xaden’s cousin, Bodhi, strides into the kitchen, dressed in uniform,
his arm in a sling and his cloud of black curls freshly trimmed.
“Lieutenant Colonel Aisereigh,” Bodhi says, handing a folded
missive to Brennan. “This just came in from Basgiath. The rider will
be here until tonight if you want to reply.” He offers me a smile, and
I’m struck again at how closely he resembles a softer version of
Xaden. With a nod to my brother, he turns and leaves.
Basgiath? Another rider here? How many are there? Exactly how
big is this revolution?
Questions fire off in my head faster than I can find my tongue.
“Wait. You’re a lieutenant colonel? And who is Aisereigh?” I ask.
Yeah, because that is the most important inquiry to make.
“I had to change my last name for obvious reasons.” He glances at
me and unfolds the missive, breaking a blue wax seal. “And you’d be
amazed at how fast you get promoted when everyone above you
continues to die,” he says, then reads the letter and curses, shoving
it into his pocket. “I have to go meet with the Assembly now, but
finish your biscuits and I’ll meet you in the hall in half an hour and
take you to your dragons.” All traces of the dimple, of the laughing
older brother are gone, and in their place is a man I barely
recognize, an officer I don’t know. Brennan may as well be a
stranger.
Without waiting for me to respond, he scrapes his chair back and
strides out of the kitchen.
Sipping my milk, I stare at the empty space my brother left across
from me, chair still pulled out from the table as though he might
return at any moment. I swallow the remaining biscuit stuck in the
back of my throat and lift my chin, determined not to ever sit and
wait on my brother to return again.
I push up from the table and head after him, out of the kitchen
and down the long hall. He must have been in a hurry, because I
can’t see him anywhere.
The intricate carpet muffles my footsteps along the wide, high
arched hallway as I come to— Whoa. The sweeping, polished double
staircases with their detailed banisters rise three—no, four—more
floors above me.
I’d been too focused on my brother to pay attention earlier, but
now I blatantly gawk at the architecture of the enormous space.
Each landing is slightly offset from the one below, as though the
staircase climbs toward the very mountain this fortress is carved
into. The morning light streams in from dozens of small windows
that provide the only decoration on the five-story wall above the
massive double doors of the fortress’s entrance. They seem to form
a pattern, but I’m too close to see the whole of it.
There’s no perspective, which pretty much feels like a metaphor for
my entire life right now.
Two guards watch every step I take but make no move to stop me
when I pass by. At least that means I’m not a prisoner.
I continue to stride through the main hall of the house, eventually
picking up the sound of voices from a room across the way, where
one of two large, ornate doors is pitched open. As I approach, I
immediately recognize Brennan’s voice, and my chest tightens at the
familiar timbre.
“That’s not going to work.” Brennan’s deep voice echoes. “Next
suggestion.”
I make it through the massive foyer, ignoring what look to be two
other wings off to the left and right. This place is astounding. Half
palace, half home, but entirely a fortress. The thick stone walls are
what saved it from its supposed demise six years ago. From what
I’ve read, Riorson House has never been breached by any army,
even during the three sieges that I know of.
Stone doesn’t burn. That’s what Xaden told me. The city—now
reduced to a town—has been silently, covertly rebuilding for years
right under General Melgren’s nose. The relics, magical marks the
children of the executed rebellion officers carry, somehow mask
them from Melgren’s signet when they’re in groups of three or more.
He can’t see the outcome of any battle they’re present for, so he’s
never been able to “see” them organizing to fight here.
There are certain aspects of Riorson House, from its defensible
position carved into the mountainside to its cobblestone floors and
steel-enforced double doors in the entryway, that remind me of
Basgiath, the war college I’ve called home since my mother was
stationed there as its commanding general. But that’s where the
similarities end. There’s actual art on the walls here, not just busts
of war heroes displayed on stands, and I’m pretty sure that’s an
authentic Poromish tapestry hanging across the hall from where
Bodhi and Imogen stand in the open doorway.
Imogen puts her finger to her lips, then motions at me to join in
the empty place between her and Bodhi. I take it, noticing Imogen’s
half-shaved hair has been recently dyed a brighter pink while I’ve
been resting. Clearly she’s comfortable here. Bodhi, too. The only
signs that either has been in a battle are the sling cradling Bodhi’s
fractured arm and a split in Imogen’s lip.
“Someone has to state the obvious,” an older man with an
eyepatch and a hawkish nose says from the far end of a table that
consumes the length of the two-story room. Tufts of thinning gray
hair frame the deep lines in his lightly tanned, weathered skin, his
jowls hanging down like a wildebeest. He leans back in his chair,
placing a thick hand on his rounded belly.
The table could easily accommodate thirty people, but only five sit
along one side, all dressed in rider black, perched slightly ahead of
the door, at an angle where they’d have to turn fully to see us—
which they don’t. Brennan paces in front of the table but not at an
angle he can easily spot us, either.
My heart lurches into my throat, and I realize it’s going to take
some time to get used to seeing Brennan alive. He’s somehow
exactly the same as I remember—and yet different. But here he is—
living, breathing, currently glaring at a map of the Continent on the
long wall, the map’s size only rivaled by the one in the Battle Brief
lecture hall at Basgiath.
And standing in front of that map, one arm leaning against a
massive chair as he stares down the table at its occupants, is Xaden.
He looks good, even with bruises marring the tawny-brown skin
under his eyes from lack of sleep. The high slopes of his cheeks, the
dark eyes that usually soften whenever they meet mine, the scar
that bisects his brow and ends beneath his eye, the swirling,
shimmering relic that ends at his jaw, and the carved lines of the
mouth I know as well as my own all add up to make him physically
fucking perfect to me, and that’s just his face. His body? Somehow
even better, and the way he uses it when he has me in his arms—
Nope. I shake my head and cut off my thoughts right there. Xaden
may be gorgeous, and powerful, and terrifyingly lethal—which
shouldn’t be the turn-on it is—but I can’t trust him to tell me the
truth about…well, anything. Which really hurts, considering how
pathetically in love with him I am.
“And what is the obvious thing you need to state, Major Ferris?”
Xaden asks, his tone completely, utterly bored.
“It’s an Assembly meeting,” Bodhi whispers to me. “Only a quorum
of five is required to call a vote, since all seven are almost never
here at one time, and four votes carry a motion.”
I file that information away. “Are we allowed to listen?”
“Meetings are open to whoever wants to attend,” Imogen replies
just as quietly.
“And we’re attending…in the hallway?” I ask.
“Yes,” Imogen answers with no other explanation.
“Returning is the only option,” Hawk Nose continues. “Not doing so
risks everything we’re building here. Search patrols will come, and
we don’t have enough riders—”
“It’s a little hard to recruit while trying to stay undetectable,” a
petite woman with glossy black hair like a raven counters, the umber
skin at the corners of her eyes crinkling as she glares down the table
at the older man.
“Let’s not get off topic, Trissa,” Brennan says, rubbing the bridge of
his nose. Our father’s nose. Their resemblance is uncanny.
“No point increasing our numbers without a working forge to arm
them with weapons.” Hawk Nose’s voice rises above the others.
“We’re still short a luminary, if you haven’t noticed.”
“And where are we in negotiations with Viscount Tecarus for his?” a
large man asks in a calm, rumbling voice, his ebony hand tugging at
his thick silver beard.
Viscount Tecarus? That isn’t a noble family in any Navarrian
records. We don’t even have viscounts in our aristocracy.
“Still working on a diplomatic solution,” Brennan answers.
“There’s no solution. Tecarus isn’t over the insult you delivered last
summer.” An older woman built like a battle-ax locks her gaze on
Xaden, her blond hair brushing just past her square alabaster chin.
“I told you, the viscount was never going to give it to us in the first
place,” Xaden replies. “The man only collects things. He does not
trade them.”
“Well, he’s definitely not going to trade with us now,” she retorts,
her gaze narrowing. “Especially if you won’t even contemplate his
latest offer.”
“He can fuck right off with his offer.” Xaden’s voice is calm, but his
eyes have a hard edge that dares anyone at the table to disagree.
As if showing these people they aren’t worth his time, he steps
around the arm of the massive chair facing them and settles into it,
stretching his long legs and resting his arms on the velvet armrests
—like he doesn’t have a care in the world.
The quiet that falls on the room is telling. Xaden commands as
much respect from the Assembly of this revolution as he does at
Basgiath. I don’t recognize any of the other riders besides Brennan,
but I’d bet Xaden is the most powerful in the room, given their
silence