Black Sapphire | Xaden Riorson | S/H

LXV

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XADEN

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     "She'll be all right." Sgaeyl's voice is almost tender, a sacrilegious use of tone with her rider. Coddling is beneath her, which is precisely why she stands my presence, because I don't need it.
     "You don't know that. No one does." A fast breeze whistles through the barely cracked window and I slam my hand into it to shut it up with more force than I intend. She told me (N/N) needed the air, but her lips have adopted a blue tint better heeded by the fire behind me.
     Every moment, I feel my heart press into my sternum, trying to run away. Its beat is still distinct and strong despite the madness I find myself teetering on the edge of. Unlike hers, twitching with the strength of butterfly wings.

     I've never thought she was weak. Maybe her heart, somewhere deep in her chest. My father used to tell me the Caldera was holding her back, that she was too powerful for this world to handle at full strength. Never weak, but far too strong.
     The thin cloth draped over her face flares and falls rhythmically, telling me she's still breathing.
     She looks so frail. A small body lain loosely on a massive bed, one made for kings. The cloth draped over her face impresses you to think she's dead.

     I should've let her stay instead. Made her stay. I thought I was saving her from the torture of Dain Aetos and dragged her into the Colonel's instead. She's been his victim enough already, and I brought her into my punishment.
     I brought so many into it. I should've made Liam stay, too. Each breath splits a bone as grief and guilt invade my chest. I should've kept him stationed with Sorrengail. He would still be alive if I didn't break the order I gave him.
     His death is on me. (N/N)'s life is on me. I should've known what was at Athebyne.

     "You should have told her about the venin," Tairn growls in my head. "I waited for you to do so, and now she's suffering." Tairn is the monument of my shame and regret, living perpetually in my head and making it hell.
     "I thought she already knew," I plead, but it won't make any of this better.
     "She knew but she didn't trust it. She trusted you." Fire streams across my chest and agony fills my blood. She did trust me, and I completely betrayed it in every way possible.
     "I should've done a lot of things differently." He snorts and the pain swells once more, but I'd rather he be in my head, because it means she's alive. I will take any abuse if it means she's alive.

     There's only one thing I shouldn't have done. My eyelids are sore and painfully dry, like sandpaper run through an open wound, but each blink is worth the pain to see her.
     I never should've fought my feelings for her. Not the first time, but especially not the second. I would've thought I'd learned, but I didn't.
     My eyes drag themselves closed, as heavy as tungsten, begging me to sleep. I've been awake for days, but I can't let myself be lulled into that false security. All I can hear are her screams when I'm there. The image of her sobbing over Liam stains my vision, overlaid by the betrayal when she asked me if I remembered she was Tyrrish.

     I wavered. Somewhere in my shock seeing her on that turret's roof, between her showing up early in a fucking dress, skin speckled with white spots she'd never had before to the moment she willingly fell from the Parapet, I wavered. Hell, I'd begged my dragon to catch a woman I'd only ever known in theory, touch someone that wasn't her rider, or even a rider at all.
     I wavered when I let her sit in that tree, listening to lessons I knew she needed as much as the other Tyrs that were betrayed by Navarre. I wavered when she threw those daggers straight at my head in defiance, so close I had to cut my hair to fix what it chopped off, but I brushed it off as a simple, undeniable attraction to a uniquely beautiful woman.

     When I watched her scale the Gauntlet with ease, with mastery and true understanding like none I've seen before, I stumbled. When I watched her stand against three bigger opponents, risking her life for Andarna's even when she thought Sorrengail ran, I didn't catch myself. She was as much the woman my father spoke of to me—more than, even—and I'd always thought he was one to exaggerate.
     The rage I felt bursting into her room to find Oren's filthy hands on her throat should've told me I was headed for a cliff. When she smiled up at me in the snow after mastering her shields in a matter of minutes, I was captivated by the glimmer in her (E/C) eyes, and I fell.

     Gods. Maybe I was already falling by then. Maybe that's when I hit the ground.
     It always came back to her. One thousand ripples in still water, all reminders of when I failed to keep my composure.

     There's a steady knock on the door that sends a shock into my heart. She doesn't wait, but businesswomen don't like to do that. It's what's made her so successful.
     Her sigh is sharp and the door presses shut with one solid clunk. She's not light on her feet or silent like (N/N), but loud and commanding, almost like my father was.
     "I cannot believe you, Xaden Riorson," she hisses, but I keep my head down and away from her. "I'll have your head for this. What happened?"

     I press out a sigh from my nose and my eyes flutter closed.
     "She was stabbed by a poisoned blade." She grunts out a cough filled with righteous rage.
     Slowly, I manage my eyes open again. I'm prepared to see her glare leveled at me, perhaps even a mercenary's blade at my neck. We both know I would deserve it.
     What I find, instead, is a pitiful face. The lines of her skin are flooded with misery and tears and I remember her viciousness is a presentation of her care.

     Her hand rests on (N/N)'s face, the cloth folded up and resting on her forehead to reveal that beautiful paleness that strikes across her face like the lightning she wields. Then she pinches her lips into a tight line and I know her words are coming before she opens her mouth.
     "What did she see?" I've had three days to prepare for this question but my throat still catches just before I answer.
     "Venin." She puffs out a breath from her nose.
     "She knows about the fliers?"
     "She was avoiding me. We were..."

     I can't bear to say the words. This lying is exactly what (N/N) was so angry about, sprinkling in half-truths to knowingly give a false picture. That's what we were fighting about.
     I can't blame her for a moment but I can't explain either. Even the thought tears my chest open.
     Vayla seems to fill in the rest. A snarky smirk pulls her cheeks and her hand delicately brushes away a stray clump of white hair.

     "Never bring her here again, Riorson," she warns me with a low tone. "I will kill a royal for her, do you hear me?"
     "I didn't want to." Her gaze jumps to bear down on me instantly. Lack of agreement is opposition to her, but she's right.
     "I told you already and look where she is now, in your fucking bed. I entrusted you to keep her safe and she gets stabbed by mythological monsters and ends up in a second rebellion that killed our entire family once before. You are lucky I haven't broken your neck yet, young man, so be warned: I will not be as kind if there is a next time."

     Her breath shakes just slightly, almost indistinguishable from rage as her eyes fixate down on (N/N) again. She brushes the back of her finger over (N/N)'s cheek and then carefully folds the cloth back down to protect her skin.
     "Don't bring her into this." Her voice has grown mellow but hasn't lost its callous touch. "She already has so many expectations of her. She doesn't deserve the scars your regime will inevitably cause. And if she's grown to hate you, maybe consider it a gift. The gods spar your life."