It was stunningly easy to hide it, even with the expected paranoia after Jack Fucking Barlowe's betrayal became common knowledge. Barlowe's friends were under suspicion, two or three of them disappeared into some Navarran hidey-hole and one of the unbonded riders was suspected of running off with the surviving venin after the battle. But who the fuck was going to look at me?
Nobody wanted to make eye contact with me when I was a cadet, they sure as fuck weren't doing it now. And that was fine. That had always been fine. Eye contact was a weapon just like everything else.
Sgaeyl didn't forgive me, of course, and our relationship would probably never really recover. But as angry as she'd been in the moment, she was willing to admit afterwards that there hadn't really been a better option, or at least she didn't argue with me. I knew there was more to it than that, that she still had her fight with the Empyrean and I was her weapon in that war just as she gave me my weapons in my fight with Navarre. That was fine. I loved her and I was willing to be her weapon; neither of us would get what we wanted if I was dead.
Violet did forgive me, not that it seemed like she thought something needed to be forgiven. I wanted to protect her from me, I was so worried what would happen in the days afterward. What would it feel like to lose my soul? How much of a danger would I be to her?
"I won't do it again," became my mantra, my promise. To Sgaeyl, to Violet, to myself. Violet added her own promise: to find a cure. To save me.
But I held it together. And then I kept holding it together, mostly. Enough. I held it together enough. And I kept carrying everything, because that was my job, that was what I'd been born to do and what my father had told me to do the last time I saw him. I'd been screaming myself hoarse and he just told me to take care of everyone.
His eyes were vacant and tired then, and I see way too fucking much of him in the mirror these days, but I keep my promises.
I won't do it again. I'll take care of everyone.
On the bad days it hurts like needles under my skin, and on the good days... I don't think too hard about the good days, because I'm not sure where the extra energy is coming from, I'm not drawing, I'm not, but the good days are a struggle of trying to keep myself from ending this whole mess myself.
"Just let me deal with it," I tell the Assembly, probably more than I should. "I'll handle it."
I won't do it again. I won't hurt you. I'll take care of everyone. I'll handle it.
Garrick keeps trying to pull me aside. He's worried, I don't have to read his intentions to know that. Is he scared of me or for me? A little of both, probably. He tells me I'm being a little too abrasive with people, especially with Imogen. She hates this diplomacy shit, but I'd asked them to help me reestablish the Council so she'd done it for me. I tell him I'll be more patient. I don't tell him to just fucking fuck her already, but I think about it.
Imogen corners me, yells at me for being too hard on Bodhi, for putting too much on my cousin without paying enough attention to what he's dealing with. He's acting Wingleader for the Aretian cadets, he's backing me up with the Assembly, he's running recon missions, why don't I see how much he just wants to live up to my expectations? I tell her I'll pay more attention, I'll take more of it off of him.
Bodhi finds me in my dad's office--will it ever be my office? I have no idea--and wants me to know Garrick is worried about me, as if I'm too self-centered to notice it myself. I tell him I'll stop being so selfish.
I won't do it again. I won't hurt you. I'll take care of everyone. I'll handle it. I'll be more patient. I'll pay more attention. I'll stop being so selfish.
I'm fine. It's fine.
Violet likes the bruises I leave on her collarbone, she begs me to mark her, to tear her apart, to make her forget her name and the war and the rings around my eyes that have faded but I swear I can still see when I look close enough.
I walk in on her explaining to the three of them, to my three best friends in the entire world that I'm not hurting her against her will, that what we do in private is between the two of us, that she's not afraid of me.
"Xaden!" Bodhi says. "It's not--we were just checking. To make sure she was okay."
"Because you thought I was hurting her."
"Xaden, you haven't been yourself lately, we're worried about you. You've been really-"
"Busy?"
"Distant."
"An asshole," Imogen adds.
"I've always been an asshole."
"Not always," Bodhi sounds sad about it.
"I've had to be an asshole."
The room goes black and I hear Violet and Bodhi both gasp. A second later I feel Bodhi forcing my shadows back, countering my connection to them. Fuck, I lose control for two seconds and he's countering me. He's good. I'm proud of him, except I've already got too many feelings in my chest. I close my eyes and try to focus before I do something I'll regret. "I won't do it again, I won't hurt you, I'll take care of everyone-" I start whispering, but Garrick's stupid good hearing picks it up.
"You won't do what again?" Garrick asks.
"Don't tell them," Sgaeyl warns.
I school my face to be calm and I shoot a look at Violet. Can I pass it off as saying I won't bruise her again? But if I do that, that'll just make them think I really did hurt her. Fuck.
"You can tell us," reaches out awkwardly, like he wants to put his hand on my arm or my shoulder or... Somewhere, but he can't decide where and after a minute he lets it drop back to his side. "If you can trust anyone, you can trust us, right?"
In that moment, I so badly want that to be true. I'm breaking I'll handle it and there's no excuse for it, no explanation except that it was a moment of weakness, but I do.
"What won't you do again?" Garrick asks again, more insistent this time, and it just falls out of me.
"Last year, during the battle, I drew from the earth."
Bodhi's face crumple like he's seven again and I'd knocked into him and made him drop his slice of cake. Only worse because he's old enough now that his face looks like his mother's now the way mine looks like my dad's, the way they'd looked like each other, and what I see is my aunt's face when we'd gotten the news Bodhi's father had been killed.
I reach out to him, wanting to fix it, but Garrick steps between us like he thinks he needs to protect Bodhi from me. Like he thinks he could if I wanted to hurt Bodhi, but I don't, and why would he think that? Imogen rounds on Violet. "You knew, didn't you?" she snaps. "You fucking knew what he'd become and you defended him anyway!"
"He didn't become anything!"
"That's not how the venin work, Sorrengail, they're fucking monsters."
I realize I'm laughing. "I've been a monster for a lot longer than that," I manage to say, pushing away the memory of our first year at Basgiath, Garrick telling me I'm not the monster everyone says I am.
I knew I was, though. From the moment my second signet manifested. Before that, even, but that solidified it.
Imogen has a dagger in her hand--is that one of Violet's? Fuck. Garrick's hand is twitching. I don't want to fight them. I don't want to kill them.
No, I won't make them. I'll take the choice from them.
"Don't you dare run," Sgaeyl says when she sees what I'm thinking.
"Let me come with you," Violet says at the same time.
I shove all the love I have through the bond at both of them. I won't have room for it where I'm going.
Imogen's about to move, she thinks I'm distracted. I'm already moving a half-second later when she lunges, ready to redirect her so the dagger finds Garrick's side. It's not deep, but it doesn't need to be. Imogen pulls back before it can go very deep, but her grip's gone slack enough for a shadow to pull the dagger from her hand and put it back in Vi's empty sheath. I can't read Bodhi but I'm sure he's going to counter me again if I try anything.
"Don't follow me," I tell them as I step back out of the room, closing the door behind me and warding it to stay shut as I walk. It's more dignified than actually running would be, and I don't need it to hold forever. Just long enough for me to get-
My father's bedroom. I hadn't even thought about moving into it, and I think it will take them a while to check. Through the armoire into the passage we used to escape when Aretia was burning. The floor in here's covered in dust, and let my shadows brush away my footsteps behind me in case they do actually check.
Nobody knows the tunnels in here better than me, not even Bodhi.
Game's over. It's time for me to end this my way.