As far back as I can remember, my future always had walls and roles and expectations built around it. It's unavoidable if you're born to the aristocracy; especially an eldest, an heir. As much as I despise Halden Tauri, I acknowledge he's the product of his birth.
Unlike him, I had my responsibility drilled into me from an early age. Responsibility for my cousin, and for my friends; their choices were my responsibility as well. Responsibility for the people in Riorson House, to treat the staff well, to carry myself with dignity, to not waste the work of others. Responsibility for Aretia, for our people. Responsibility for Tyrrendor, though that was... mostly implied.
As I got older, my options narrowed. Betrothal. Rebellion. My father's choices shaped my life again and again, creating a sharper and sharper outline until the fire that shattered all of it.
I held my breath, wondering who I even was, until I realized nothing had really changed. The outline of my that my father had crafted was melted in dragonfire, but it only melted tighter around me. I was told of the Assembly, of the tiny fragment of Aretia that had survived and was rebuilding. Everywhere in Tyrrandor I was still my father's heir, now Duke, regardless of what Calldyr wanted to play at.
Lilith Sorrengail offered me a deal to save my people, the other children my father's actions had orphaned, that formalized something I already felt. I took responsibility for the marked ones, and all of us had our futures narrowed from four quadrants to one.
I went to Assembly meetings. I trained for the Rider's Quadrant. I tried to imagine being married to Catriona. I wrote endless letters to the other marked ones, the ones whose guardians allowed it, and did everything I could to help them from where I was.
I walked the parapet, and if I'd thought for a minute there'd be any kind of freedom there, either in anonymity or in the change in rules, I was proven wrong immediately. All of us were under a microscope. Garrick kept me sane, but he also treated me a lot like I'd seen his dad treat my father my whole life. I wondered once or twice if he wanted that or if that was just... all we had.
When Sgaeyl came into my life, into my mind, she offered me a deal to save my people in another way. To give us the power to fight back against Navarre and against the real threat outside the wards. She and her supporters in the Empyrean knew what could happen when you bonded the descendant of a previous rider. She remembered my grandfather well and she promised my friends, my people would be safer if I agreed.
I didn't tell them, not even Garrick, not at first. Not when there was so much at stake. Not when I'd committed them to a second rebellion when they hadn't even started fighting the first yet. I thought I'd tell Garrick when I developed a second signet, and then- well, hiding my second signet from command was even more necessary than we'd expected. Sgaeyl said her supporters were going to be careful, go slow, not let anyone go beyond a single signet until they were ready.
They wouldn't end up in my situation, and that was good. And maybe they'd be angry when they found out I'd signed them up for Sgaeyl's war as much as I'd signed them up for the Riders Quadrant, but at least there was a chance we'd survive long enough for them to be angry.
We survived a year, some of us. More of Bodhi's year made it; we protected them as much as we could until we didn't have to anymore. There was so much pressure boxing me in from all sides as the venin kept moving, the Assembly kept pushing, and now command wanted to make me a Wingleader and I wondered- how much did Sorrengail know? Was this a trap or a gift?
Then she called in her favor, and I knew it was both. I called off my betrothal to Cat in a near-panic, unable to think about trying to play the role of her future husband any longer when I had so many other roles to play. I was running out of choices and that was one of the few things I had any control over, so I used it. Pissed the Assembly off in the process, but fuck it, Tecarus wasn't going to give us the luminary anyhow.
Liam arrived, and like Bodhi the year before, it was like a lifeline to have somebody there I could hold onto. I kept an eye on the new Sorrengail. Tried not to think about her. Got the new marked ones to threshing.
Fucking.
Tairn.
Okay. It was fine. I would make it work. I mean, I did have to keep her alive anyway. And I did, somehow, against all good sense, want to keep her alive anyway. Fuck.
Somehow the year when I'm supposed to have the most control is the year I feel myself losing it, because first there's the new Sorrengail driving me out of my mind with feelings, since when do I have fucking feelings like this. Somehow over the course of the year, caring about her, trying to be her... her what? Her boyfriend? I don't know how to be a fucking boyfriend, I barely knew how to be fucking betrothed and that had a fucking contract.
Suddenly I'm trying to run a fucking wing and a smuggling operation and a rebellion and get the marked ones through the year alive and teach this overgrown kitten of a woman how to not die and then Liam comes to me.
And tells me he has a second signet.
Which means finding time to for Masen to train him with ice wielding since we can't exactly tell Carr, and thank fuck Liam and Masen will both keep a secret for me, and by the end of the year I don't know if I'm looking forward to graduation or dreading it.
I should have known dread was the correct answer.
Here was my first real leadership test, my first real fight against fucking venin, I lost Soleil and my fucking brother, I nearly lost Violet and I wasn't letting myself admit how close I'd come to losing Garrick and Bodhi either. And then instead of getting to mourn I had to argue with the gods-damned Assembly for Violet's life.
Because of when we got back to Basgiath, we had no say in our postings. Tairn and Sgaeyl are on leashes. The fucking elder Sorrengail seems happy to let her daughter suffer under Varrish. I'm a first year all over again, but I'm a target so Garrick isn't. I can keep him safe. And apparently he's the only person I can keep safe, because one after another everyone who was at Resson is getting picked off.
Garrick and I can defend an entire outpost between the two of us but I can't do shit for anyone else, not even for fucking Sgaeyl. I asked her why the Empyrean was allowing command to act like they had control over dragons, and she told me there are those in her command who enjoy watching her and Tairn suffer as much as Aetos or Varrish enjoys themselves. I still can't shake the feeling that she's suffering because of me even though she denies it.
Violet won't listen when I tell her to stay safe. When I ask her. And it seems like there's a breath between when I relent and when she goes off-rader, when she fucking disappears.
The worst part is, I know my role. I know what I'm supposed to do here.
I'm supposed to be the leader. I'm supposed to put the cause ahead of everything else. We split up the journals specifically in case something like this happened. Garrick sits with me while I tear at my hair and he doesn't tell me what I should do.
I wonder where her fucking mother is now, but help's not coming. It never is.
"I should..." I start and stop a dozen times and Garrick just sits with me. Sgaeyl is nearly as out of her mind as I am.
"Gods what I wouldn't give to have a distance wielder," I murmur.
Finally, we scrape up a plan, the four of us. Sgaeyl and I, Garrick and Chradh. Sgaeyl asks me if I'm ready to be responsible for her dragons. Her riot? I don't know what's going to happen after this- going AWOL threatens every other marked one. I shouldn't. But I can't.
And somehow, somehow Violet and Sgaeyl turn it around so we leave with an entire fucking riot, and now I'm responsible for a hatching ground. Even with the Assembly it feels like I'm a wingleader again, somehow the one who has to make every godsdamned decision despite having to still go out and do patrols. Fighting wyvern and then doing paperwork.
Negotiating as a head of state and coming home to see if Violet's mad at me.
Even my friends are just reminding me what else I should be doing half the time- I'm not spending enough resources on getting the younger marked ones out of Navarre. What resources, I'm not sure. I'm relieved when Imogen and Bodhi just ignore what they're supposed to be doing and go.
I shouldn't be relieved that the rapidly-dwindling list of people I care about are too pissed at me to talk, but at least it's one less demand on my time.
I'm so fucking tired.
I'm starting to wonder why I do anything, because no matter what I do, it's perfectly clear what everyone expects me to do. I might as well just set up a little straw-stuffed effigy they can yell at during assembly meetings and then take out to drown in the river in the spring.
It feels like it's been ten minutes since I told Violet there hasn't been a distance wielder in centuries that Garrick tells me he hasn't been sleepwalking after all. He's a distance wielder.
Apparently I'm such a liar that even when I tell her the truth, reality bends to make one of me.
The time in Aretia blurs until I'm not sure what's keeping me sane. If anything's keeping me sane.
Before I know it I'm back at fucking Basgiath and I feel like I can only breathe when Violet's speaking to me, like I can only think when she's letting me touch her, like all I can do is run to keep up behind her and she's led me here. She's asking permission, somehow, impossibly, to raise the wards here, now, and I can't deny her anything even if it wasn't the logical choice, and it is, but she's still somehow making it my choice.
A choice that's no choice at all, again and again.
A fight where I can hear her thinking about burning out to save us all.
A fight where I can hear her thinking about pulling from the ground to do it.
I can't let her. I can't. I can't lose her and I.
I can't do anything else.
I can't lay down and die.
So I pull from the ground instead, stupid, reckless, but what else could I do?
A choice that was no choice at all.
When it came down to it, I was none of the things I was supposed to be, just a selfish brat after all. Like Imogen said when I told her we didn't have enough people to send after the younger marked ones. Like fucking Ulysses liked to tell me, like the whole fucking Assembly said when I broke the contract with Cat.
Like my father said, when I told him to let me stay and fight.
And now there are no choices at all, even though I try for Violet's sake. Even on the Isles, when there's no magic and no pull and I feel peaceful for five fucking seconds, I can see how much pain Sgaeyl is in and I know how much I owe her, how much I promised her. There's no choices, there's nothing but the inevitable and how long and how far and how much I can make it fucking hurt for Navarre before it happens.
I should feel bad about what I'm doing now, shoving Bodhi into my role, making plans to protect Violet when I'm gone. But that's all life is. My box is getting smaller by the day.
But something strange happens at Draithus. Berwyn thought he had me at his mercy. Maybe for the moment, maybe he was close.
When I pull again- pull with intent, pull for miles, let myself reach and kill... I feel something burning away from me. It's supposed to be my soul.
What it feels like is all of the choices I've had to make, the deals I had to say yes to, the fucking life that was wrapped around me like bands of iron. Everything I was. Everything I was supposed to be, supposed to do. All of that flickered and went up in ash.
I had failed every single person who depended on me. Not just a little. Not only in a minute of weakness. Completely and totally.
And in that moment, Amari forgive me, I felt free.