Chapter Text
The ring is still on my finger.
I notice it every morning when I wake; the weight of it, the unfamiliar coolness of metal against skin that has known nothing but the warmth of Xaden's hands for so long. I don't remember him putting it there. I don't remember the vows. I don't remember anything after Theophanie fell.
Imogen won't tell me what I asked her to take.
"You asked," she says, every time I corner her. Her jaw is set, her eyes hard with a grief I don't understand. "That's all you need to know."
But it isn't… it can't be. Because Xaden is gone, and I am married, and there's a hole in my memory the size of the man I love, and I can feel him. Not through the bond, not through Sgaeyl, not through anything I can name… but I can feel him. In the quiet moments before sleep claims me, in the space between heartbeats, I feel the phantom echo of shadow.
I feel him in my dreams.
The first time, I don't mean to find him. It's been three months since I woke up in that bed in Aretia, three months of pretending to be functional while Tairn's grief howls through my bones and Andarna curls around me like a wounded child. Three months of navigating the fallout of a battle that changed everything, of watching the Assembly argue about Tyrrendor's future while I stand in the corner with my husband's ring on my finger and no memory of becoming his wife.
Sleep is the only escape, and even that is treacherous.
I'm falling; not physically, but through something. Through darkness, through the membrane between waking and dreaming, through the veil that separates my consciousness from the vast, terrifying expanse of every sleeping mind in the world.
Andarna called it a gift. A dangerous one according to the irids. An inntinnsic ability so rare and so feared that even the Archives barely mention it.
Dreamwalker.
The word still feels foreign on my tongue, like a language I haven't learned to speak. But my body knows it. My mind knows it. And tonight, something in the dark reaches for me, and I let it pull me under.
The nightmare hits me like a physical blow.
I'm standing in a field of ash. The sky is the color of dried blood, and the ground beneath my feet is cracked and blackened, as if something burned here and left nothing but ruin behind. There are bodies; I can't look at them too closely, can't let myself see the faces. The air is thick with the smell of smoke and copper and something that tastes like decay.
And in the center of it all, Xaden.
He's on his knees, his dark hair falling across his face, his shoulders heaving with breaths that sound like they're being torn from his chest. His hands are buried in the ash, and I can see the veins the pulsing, spidering veins that crawl up his forearms, that twist around his wrists like living organisms. When he lifts his head, his eyes are red. Not the warm golden flecks I first fell for. Not the onyx I've lost myself in a thousand times. Not even the amber I was beginning to force myself to get used to. Red. The color of the source. The color of the power he took to save me, to save Sgaeyl, to save us all.
"Xaden," I breathe, and the word is a plea, a sob.
He doesn't hear me. He's not really here; not the way I am. This is his nightmare, his guilt driven manifestation, and I'm just a ghost walking through the wreckage of his soul.
I watch as he draws power from the earth. I watch as the veins pulse and darken, as his body arches with the force of it, as a sound tears from his throat that is neither human nor dragon but something in between. I watch as he kills; venin, soldiers, anyone who stands between him and whatever he's trying to reach… and I understand, with a clarity that cuts like a blade, that this is what he's become. What he's becoming. The asim. The monster I promised I’d never allow him to become.
I wake up gasping, my sheets soaked with sweat, my heart pounding so hard I can feel it in my teeth.
For a long moment, I just lie there, staring at the ceiling, trying to remember how to breathe. The bond is silent. Tairn is silent.
I get up and splash water on my face. I don't look at the ring on my finger.
The next night, I go back.
I learn quickly that dreamwalking isn't something I can entirely control. It's not like wielding lightning, where I can summon the power and shape it to my will. It's more like... falling. Like standing at the edge of a cliff and letting gravity take me, trusting that I'l land somewhere, even if I don't know where that somewhere is.
But I can search, and I can reach. I can cast my consciousness out into the darkness like a net, and I can look for him.
The second time I find him, the nightmare is different. We're in a cavern; one I don't recognize; jagged rock and dripping water.
Xaden is fighting something. A venin, maybe. A sage, with those terrible spiderwebbed veins and eyes that burn like coals. I watch him kill it— watch him rip the power from its body and take it into himself, and I feel something twist in my chest, something that is equal parts horror and desire.
Because even now, even like this, he is beautiful.
The asim transformation has changed him. His cheekbones are sharper, his jaw more angular, as if the humanity is being slowly carved away from his face. The veins are always there now, pulsing beneath his skin, and his eyes... his eyes are the color of a dying sun, red and amber and terrible. But he is still Xaden. Still the man who held me in the dark and promised me forever. Still the man who married me and then disappeared before I could remember saying yes.
When the nightmare shifts; when the cavern dissolves and we're somewhere else, somewhere that feels almost like a memory; I realize that I'm not just watching anymore. I'm here. I'm present in his dream, and he can see me.
"Violence," he says, and his voice is rough, broken, like he's been screaming for days. "You shouldn't be here."
"I'm always going to be here," I tell him. "You should know that by now."
He closes his eyes. The veins pulse at his temples. When he opens them again, the red is brighter, angrier. "You don't understand what I am now.”
“I understand everything." I step closer, and the dream world shivers around us, as if my presence is disrupting it. "I understand that you took more power to save Sgaeyl. I understand that you're asim now. I understand that you married me and then left because you thought you were protecting me, and the continent.”
His laugh is bitter, hollow. "You don't understand anything."
"Then explain it to me."
He moves so fast I don't see it coming. One moment he's standing ten feet away; the next, his hand is wrapped around my throat, and he's backing me against a wall that wasn't there a second ago. His grip isn't tight enough to hurt, not yet, but it's a warning. A threat, and a promise.
"This is what I am," he growls, and the sound vibrates through my bones. "This is what I'll always be. A monster. A dark wielder. An abomination that takes and takes and never stops taking."
"You're still you."
"I'm not." His thumb brushes over my pulse point, and I feel the heat of his skin, the strange, electric charge of the power that lives inside him now. "I'm not the man you fell in love with."
"You're the man I married," I say. “And I'm not letting you go."
Something breaks in his expression. Shatters. Then his mouth is on mine, and the world dissolves around us. The kiss is nothing like the ones I remember. It's not gentle. It's not not even filled with the rough warmth of our first time. It's desperate, hungry, and edged with a violence that should terrify me but somehow doesn't. His hands are everywhere; in my hair, on my hips, sliding beneath my shirt to trace the lines of scars, and muscle, and skin that he's memorized a thousand times. I arch into him, and he groans against my mouth, a sound that is half-human and half-monster.
"Violence," he gasps, and the way he says my name; like a curse, like the only thing keeping him tethered to the world, undoes me.
"I'm here," I tell him. "I'm not going anywhere."
The dream shifts. The wall disappears. We're in a bed, our bed, the one I slept in before everything fell apart, the one that still smells like him if I close my eyes and pretend hard enough. He lays me down on the sheets, and for a moment, he just looks at me. The red in his eyes is changing, replaced by something icier, something almost like fear.
"I don't want to hurt you," he whispers.
"You won't."
"I will." He closes his eyes. "I always do."
I reach up and touch his face; his sharp cheekbones, thin lips, the veins that pulse beneath his skin like breathing rivers of fire.
He shudders at the contact, and I feel it through the bond, feel the way his control wavers and snaps back into place.
"Then hurt me," I say. "I don't care. Just don't leave me again."
He doesn't answer with words. He answers with his mouth, with his hands, with the weight of his body pressing me into the mattress. He kisses me like he's drowning and I'm air, like he's been starving for months and I'm the first meal he's seen.
His teeth graze my lower lip, and I gasp, and he takes advantage of the opening to deepen the kiss, to taste me, to claim me in a way that feels almost primal.
He moves lower, his mouth trailing down my neck, across my collarbone, over the thin fabric of my shirt. I arch into him, and he groans, the sound vibrating through my chest, through my bones, through the dream-stuff that surrounds us.
When his hand slides beneath my shirt, I feel the heat of his palm against my bare skin, and I shiver. He's always been warm; dragon-rider warm, shadow-wielder warm, but now there's an entirely new heat. A charge. As if the power he carries is bleeding into me through his touch, and I want it. I want all of it
"Xaden," I breathe, and it's a promise.
He lifts his head. His eyes are bright red again, but there's something else there-a piece of his humanity, his desperation.
"Tell me to stop."
"No."
"Tell me to stop, Violet."
“Never."
His control snaps. I feel it happen; feel the moment when the last thread of restraint breaks and the asim inside him takes over.
The shift is violent. One second his hands are cradling me, the next they're fisting in my shirt and tearing. The fabric gives way with a sound like a scream, and so do I; not in fear, but in a sharp, electric thrill that races down my spine. He doesn't bother with the rest.
His hands shred through my pants, through my panties, leaving me bare and exposed beneath him. His mouth crashes back onto mine, all teeth, tongue, and desperation. He bites my lip hard enough to draw blood, and the coppery taste floods between us. He groans at it, a low, guttural sound that rumbles through his chest and into mine, and I feel his cock twitch against my thigh, hard and heavy and hot in the best possible way.
He flips me onto my stomach before I can process the movement. His hand presses between my shoulder blades, pinning me to the mattress, and I hear him behind me; the ragged breath, the low growl that's more monster than man. His knees shove my thighs apart, rough and impatient, and I'm still trying to catch my breath when I feel the head of his cock pressing against me, hot and thick.
He doesn't ease in. He slams.
The sound I make is barely human. He's bigger than he used to be, harder, and the stretch borders on pain; but it's the kind of pain that lights up every nerve ending, that makes my back bow and my fingers claw at the sheets. He doesn't give me time to adjust. He pulls back and drives in again, and again, each thrust rougher than the last, each one punching the air from my lungs.
"That's it," he growls, and his voice is layered now, the human rasp tangled with something darker, something that echoes. "Take it. Take all of it."
His hand tangles in my hair and yanks my head back, exposing my throat. His teeth find the curve of my shoulder and bite, not a nip, not a graze, but a true bite that breaks skin. I scream, and it's not pain. It's pleasure so sharp it's indistinguishable. I feel him shudder behind me, feel his hips stutter, feel the way he groans against my bleeding shoulder like he's tasting something sacred.
"More," I gasp. "Xaden, more."
He gives me more. He fucks me like he's trying to break me, like he's trying to crawl inside my skin and never leave. The rhythm is punishing, animalistic.
His hips slap against my ass with a sound that echoes through the dream, and I can feel every inch of him, every ridge and vein, every pulse of the monstrous power that's bleeding through the bond.
His hand slides around my throat. Not squeezing, not yet, but holding— claiming.
His thumb presses against the pulse point, feeling my heartbeat race, and he laughs. It's a dark, broken sound.
"You feel that?" he rasps against my ear. "That's how fast your heart is beating for me. That's how much you want this. Want me."
"Always," I choke out. "Always you."
His grip tightens, and my vision swims. The pleasure is building, coiling low in my belly, tighter and tighter, and I know — I know — this is going to destroy me.
He pounds into me harder, faster, and I can feel the shift in him; the way the asim is clawing at his control, the way his rhythm is becoming less human, more frantic. He's growling constantly now, a low, continuous rumble that vibrates through my bones. His free hand grips my hip hard enough to bruise, his fingernails digging in, and I want the bruises. I want the marks. I want him to leave evidence of this on my skin even after I wake.
"Come for me," he commands, and it's not a request. "Come on my cock like the good little rider you are. Show me you're mine."
The bond between us flares. I feel his pleasure like it's my own; the tight, hot clench of my body around him, the way my climax is building to pull him over the edge with me. It's too much. It's everything.
The orgasm rips through me like a thunderstorm. I scream his name, and lightning answers.
The dream shatters around us, sky cracking open, bolts of pure, violet light forking down from nowhere and everywhere. The air smells like ozone and sex. The lightning courses through me, through us, arcing along the bond that ties us together, and I feel it inside me, a second climax that has nothing to do with my body and everything to do with my power.
Xaden roars behind me. Not a human sound, not even close, and I feel him swell inside me, feel the first hot pulse of his release. But it's not like before. It's not like anything l've ever felt.
He cums like a monster claiming his mate.
The heat floods me in waves, thick and scalding, and there's so much of it; more than should be possible, more than any human man could produce. I feel it filling me, feel it spilling out around where we're joined, and he keeps cumming, keeps pumping into me with a snarl that sounds like it's being torn from his chest. His fingers dig deeper into my hips. His teeth find my shoulder again, worrying the bite mark he already left, and the pain — pain and pleasure spiral sends me into another orgasm, smaller but no less devastating.
"Mine," he growls against my skin, and the word is a brand. "Fucking mine. No one else. Never anyone else."
I can't speak. I can only nod, can only tremble beneath him as the last waves of pleasure ebb and the lightning fades, leaving the dream dark and quiet and smelling of ozone and sweat.
He collapses over me, his weight pressing me into the mattress, his breath hot and ragged against my neck. His fingers release their death grip on my hips. His heart hammers against my spine, and I feel it; feel the slow return of his control, the way the asim recedes and leaves behind the man who loves me, who would burn the world for me, who just fucked me like a monster and made me love it.
We lay tangled together afterward, the dream still holding us, still keeping us safe from the waking world.
"I miss you," I whisper against his chest. “Every day. Every night."
His hand strokes my hair. The red in his eyes has faded to something almost human.
“I know."
"Come back to me."
He doesn't answer, and when I wake up, I'm alone.
The dreams continue. Night after night, l reach for him, and night after night, I find him. Sometimes the nightmares are waiting for me; terrible visions of violence, death, and the slow unraveling of his soul— and sometimes they're not. Sometimes we just... are. Together. In a place that exists only between sleep and waking, between nightmare and dream.
But the sex is always there.
It's not always the same. Some nights he's rough and demanding, taking what he needs and leaving marks that fade when I wake.
Other nights he's slow and tender, whispering my name, making love to me like he's trying to forge his soul with mine. And some nights— some nights he kneels between my thighs and worships me with his mouth until I forget how to speak, until the only word left in any language is his name.
I've never experienced anything like it. The dream heightened senses make every touch more intense, every sensation more vivid. I can feel the phantom echo of his hands on my skin for hours after I wake. I can taste him on my lips long after the dream has faded.
But I can't find him. No matter how hard I try, no matter how deep I reach into the dreamscape, I can't figure out where he is.
The dreams don't show me geography. They don't show me landmarks. They just show me him; and that's not enough.
"You're getting stronger," Andarna observes one morning, watching me from her perch on the window ledge. The morning light catches her scales, making them shimmer like spun gold glinting through her preferred black scales. “You’re dreamwalking. It's changing."
"Is that a good thing?"
"It's a powerful thing." She tilts her head, and her big eyes are knowing. "But power always has a price, Violet.”
I don't ask her what she means. I'm afraid I already know.
Four and a half months.
That's how long it's been since I woke up in that bed in Aretia with a ring on my finger and a hole in my memory. Four and a half months since Xaden left. Four and a half months of dreamwalking, of searching, of finding him in the only place I can; the dark, tangled landscape of his nightmares.
I've stopped throwing up in the mornings. Now I just wake up nauseous, my stomach rolling with a sickness that has nothing to do with the venin dreams. It's been going on for a week, maybe two. I've been telling myself it's stress, exhaustion, the toll that grief has taken on my body. But I know my body too well to believe that.
I'm in the healer’s quadrant, sitting on a cot that smells like antiseptic and herbs, watching as Brennan checks my pulse, my temperature, my eyes.
“When was your last cycle?" he asks, his face suddenly as white as the sheet I’m sitting on.
I have to think. My cycles have always been irregular; the stress of war, the toll of wielding lightning, the constant push and pull of my own body against itself. But this time... this time it's been longer than usual. Much longer.
"Six weeks?” I say. "Maybe seven."
He nods, and there's something in his expression that makes my heart stutter in my chest. "I'd like to run a test."
The test is simple. A few drops of blood, a murmured incantation, a wait that feels like hours but is probably only minutes. I sit on the cot and watch the my brother’s face, looking for clues, for answers, anything that might prepare me for what he’s about to say.
When he looks up, there's wonder in his eyes. And something else. A combination of fury and fear.
"You're pregnant," he says. “Six weeks, approximately."
The words don't make sense. They can't make sense. I haven't seen Xaden in several months. The real Xaden. The physical Xaden. And it’s been even longer since we last had actual sex…
“Brennan that doesn’t make any sense” I stare at him, convinced he must be wrong.
“I’m going to fucking kill Riorson” Brennan mutters.