Survival Of The Fittest- A Fourth Wing Fan Fiction

Chapter 4

I sit curled up on the roof, bawling until I can hardly breathe. The weight of the last six years lays heavily on my chest. I feel like I am suffocating under the pressure. It's not like I want to tell Remi, but she already has enough to deal with. It has been at least an hour since the sun is fully set.

I hear someone approaching, and I try to pull myself together to the best of my ability. Xaden sits down beside me and says nothing. I felt his hand gently start rubbing against my back comfortingly. He takes a deep breath, and I do the same, trying to calm down. “Before she died, I was friends with your sister.” I have no clue what he was trying to get at because the last thing I wanted to hear about was my dead sister. She is the entire reason I was in tears.

“In a way, she was like an older sister to me for a little while.” Another wave of grief and turmoil rolls through me. “I was there the day she died. Do you want to know what her final words were to me after she saved my father?”

I look at him for the first time since the sparring gym. “She asked me if I ever saw or met you, to look after you like she did me.” A tear rolls down my cheek. “She loved you, you know that?” I nod slightly. She was the only one who did. He takes a dagger out of the sheath at his hip and hands it to me. “This was hers.” I study it for a minute. The rubies in the hilt glint in the fading light. “She would want you to have it.” I clutched the dagger to my chest, the only thing I had left from my sister. “You look like her,” I can hear the smile in his voice and let out a faint laugh.

Once I was calmer, our conversation continued. “What did you mean earlier when you had said ‘you didn't take responsibility for me’?” I could tell that statement had been bugging him. “I only took responsibility for the marked ones, and you aren't marked.”

“How often are you wrong, Riorson?” I ask, the previous sadness now gone from my voice.

“Never,” he says arrogantly.

“You should get used to the feeling.” I lift up the back of my shirt enough that he can see the silvery relic that covered my back. I hear a slight gasp escape his lips. “I am marked.” I can see the questions formulating behind his eyes. I notice his gaze flick down to my shoulder, catching on the scars. I can tell he knows they have more meaning to them than he thought.

His thumb brushes over my left shoulder lightly, tracing the two scars. “Who did you take responsibility for?” I can tell it is bugging him that someone had carved into me the way they had into him. “Who did it?”

“Same person who did it to you.” I take a breath before I get ahead of myself. “And I took responsibility for the only person who matters in my life and her sister.”

“What did you get from the deal?”

“I got my life. According to the generals, that was gracious. Neither of my parents were executed because they stayed loyal to Navarre. My mother was promoted to Major, and my father is now a Colonel. They are responsible enough to handle a marked one.”

We sit in silence for a little while longer before I voice what has been on my mind since I made the deal. “If either of the Sorrengails are killed,” I take a shaky breath, “if one or both of them die, I want you to kill me.” His head whips up, and his eyes search mine for any hint that I could be joking.

“Why would I even consider doing that?” His tone was sharp, but there was a soft undertone. “I was just telling you how your sister wanted me to protect you, and now you want me to kill you? Why?”

“I would rather die to you than die by fire. You just have to keep them alive outside of challenges, correct?” He nods slightly. “I have to keep them alive no matter what. If either of them die at any point, General Sorrengail will see it as me not training them enough. In her eyes, I would have failed in some way.” His onyx eyes are filled with sympathy. I no longer can take pouring my soul out to him. I stand up and head back to the barracks before I say too much.