The Squad Battle is more important than the wingleaders let on. Everyone is watching to see who will rise. They're salivating to see who will fall. Keep your wits about you.
Excerpt of recovered correspondence of Lieutenant Xaden Riorson to Thana Valaren.
~
"Tap out!" Rhiannon's voice rang through the gym.
Mikael, a rider from Second Wing, gritted his teeth and clawed at the mat, his body trembling with exertion as Liam tightened the leg lock. He wasn't going anywhere.
The last challenge of this portion of the squad battles was nearly over. If Liam won, their squad would jump from seventh place to third. It would have been higher, maybe, if Violet hadn't dragged them down in the gauntlet sky race. Thana was even more pissed that her former squad was in second place and her former squad leader Exo Halt made sure that she didn't forget that.
Mikael let out a strangled cry, the sound high-pitched and nearly unbearable. The gym was suffocating with heat and the metallic scent of sweat.
Beside her, Garrick stood still, arms crossed, drawn into the match. Bodhi sidled up next to her, his stance rigid, arms locked across his chest, jaw clenched tight. His gaze never left the fight.
"So, he's forgiven then?" Bodhi's voice was even, but there was something sharp beneath it.
Thana furrowed her brows. "What?"
"Liam." His name landed between them like an accusation. "Is he forgiven for choosing to protect Sorrengail over you?"
The question hit harder than she expected. Not because she had an answerâbut because she didn't. Ever since she left his room the other night, she couldn't stop questioning whether it was the right thing to have gone there in the first place. If she could ever really forgive him.
"I don't... know," she said, trying to keep her voice even.
"How do you not know, Thana?" he snapped.
She looked up at him. The tension in his jaw, the way he stood with that sphinx-like countenance. She didn't understand why it mattered so much to him whether she forgave Liam or not. But maybe that was the problemâmaybe everyone else saw the truth before she did. Maybe she was the only one still pretending she hadn't already made her decision.
"You know the answer, Thana," his voice was laced with anger and desperation. "You deserve more than the scraps of loyalty he's willing to offer."
The words landed, thoughts she had harboured for so long were finally acknowledged and voiced by someone else. Bodhi, of all people.
Bodhi turned on his heels and headed for the doors. With that, the room erupted as Liam won the fight.
His face was flushed from exertion, his chest heaving with heavy breaths, but his eyesâhis eyes sought her out, searching, hopeful. For a moment, she held his gaze. But where his eyes reached for her, hers did not reach back. The distance was there, vast and unspoken.
~
Thana gazed out over the valley, her legs dangling from the edge of the clock tower. A soft breeze brushed her skin, and the sprawling landscape below seemed to shrink in its vastness. It all seemed distant up here, wrapped in a stillness that made her feel both part of everything and apart from it all.
She lingered in the moment, lost in its stillness, until the sharp slam of a door broke the silence. Footsteps echoed up the stone steps, growing closer, and when she turned, Dain appeared. He paused, looking at her with a hint of surprise. "Sorry, I didn't know anyone was up here," he said.
"It's fine, I can leave," she replied, already rising.
"No, no," he protested. "I can go. You were here first."
"You can stay," she said, her voice steady.
She was supposed to hate him and maybe on another day she would have thrown him from the Clock Tower but, she was starved for company and something about his tone made her think he wasn't going to whack her with the rider's codex today.
He hesitated for a moment, his confusion still evident. Wiping his hands on his trousers, he sat beside her, leaving as much space as possible between them. Thana turned her gaze back to the valley, but the simplicity of the view now felt different. Heat crept up her neck when she realized Dain was watching her.
"Can I ask you something?" she spoke quietly.
Dain shifted, meeting her eyes. His expression was unreadable. "Sure," he said, his voice steady. "What's on your mind?"
"You and Violet are friends, right?" she asked, her words measured, deliberate.
"We were," he answered, the weight of those words carrying more than he meant to admit.
Thana's chest tightened. She understood that feelingâhow relationships can just slip through your fingers.
"If she did something horrible... if she betrayed you... could you ever forgive her?" The question left her lips before she could second-guess herself.
Dain let out a sharp exhale, a hollow laugh escaping him. "I think it's me who needs forgiveness," he said, his tone tinged with bitterness.
"That's not what I asked," Thana replied, her gaze unwavering.
He exhaled slowly, as if considering the weight of her question. A brief silence passed between them. Finally, Dain spoke, his voice softer now.
"Violet and I... we've got a lot of history. A lot of things that should've been left in the past. But some things, I think, even time can't heal."
And there it was. Her answer, from the most unlikely of sources. She knew what she had to do.
~
Thana stood in front of Liam in the kitchen, gloves dripping with soapy water. "One minute we're fine, and the next we're not? I don't get it, Thana," he said.
She trusted Liam, and he broke her trust so completely and irreversibly. And she was fooling herself to think she could forgive him for what he did. She could never look at him again and not see Violet and the choices he made.
"Haven't we moved past this whole Violet thing? I'm doing what I have to, Thana," he said.
"Gods, are you even sorry for what you did?" she asked, incredulous.
"I'm not sorry for doing what's right, Thana," Liam said, his voice steady and unwavering. "I owe Xaden. And I won't apologise for protecting Violet."
At that moment, every lingering trace of affection for Liam evaporated. If he truly knew herâreally knew herâhe would understand that forgiving Violet Sorrengail wasn't even an option. Violet's very existence was a painful reminder of a past she couldn't escape, and all Thana cared about was avenging her father's death. But Liam didn't seem to grasp that. Not truly.
Maybe it wasn't that he had changed since the Apostasy. Maybe it was that he hadn't. Maybe he was able to reconcile the execution of their parentsâbut she could never do that.
When she didn't respond, he asked, "Are you ever going to forgive me?"
She exhaled, shaking her head. "I would do anything for you." A smile cracked across his face, relief breaking through his features. "And I'm trying to figure out if that's because you mean so much to me or if I just mean so little to myself."
The smile was gone, replaced with a look of heartbreak. And certainty. The certainty that she could never forgive him. And he knew that now. "Thana..." His voice cracked.
"This has to be it, Liam. I can't betray myself the same way you betrayed me."
She watched grief and regret settle in the lines around his eyes. She slipped the gloves off her hands and she left.