⛥

We're not just friends, you know that. The memory rang loud in Vyshena's mind as the rain fell against her face. She had her hands stuffed into the fur-lined pockets of her jacket and kept her eyes on the boots in front of her to try and avoid attention on her. "He's there." The voice spoke softly, and Vyshena looked up slowly. To the right of her, five people ahead, her greatest nightmare.

"Just, they know who you are, so just go," Liam said to Vyshena, who nodded. For once, she kept her stark white hair tucked into her black hood, praying to Malek to finally allow her to succeed in death as she crossed the parapet. Next!" Her nose flared slightly at the voice, and Liam urged Vyshena to go before him.

She glanced up, seeing him, all of him, and paid no mind to speak her name. Instead, the girl beside him nodded her head once she recognized the purple in her eyes and Vyshena walked onto the bridge. It was easy, she kept her hands in her pockets and debated on if she wanted to show people she could struggle. But she wanted to hide, so she continued taking strides as if there wasn't a 200-foot drop below her, and the wind and rain wouldn't help her fall to her death.

The wind whipped at her hair, hard enough to knock her hood off and for a second she felt her foot lose its grip on the slick stone. And then it grew dark under her, and she cursed at herself once feeling the familiar warmth at her feet. Not fair, cheater.

Liam was quick behind, seeing Bodhi who was jumping up and down in excitement as he waited for Vyshena to cross. He spoke nonsense while wrapping his arms around her shoulders, squeezing around her head while the girl at the podium wrote down her name. Vyshena Lenayon, 21.

"Gods, I wish I was as agile as you." Bodhi hummed while walking away. Liam quickly following them to not get lost in the sea of excited cadets.

Vyshena waited until the groups were called, and felt a sting at the back of her head. Gently glancing from her view point to examine the others in the crowd she met eyes with another girl. Hair similar to hers, but only at the end. Vyshena paid no mind to it, already knowing who she was. She didn't have a problem with the Sorrengail girl, or cared about her enough to want her dead. But that couldn't be said about a few other cadets who she examined around her that seemed to have their entire focus on the frail girl.

"Incoming," Liam whispered and Vyshena rolled her eyes. Keeping her mouth shut and smelled him before he got to their small group. She wanted to talk to him, yell at him, scream at him. You shouldn't of helped me! I could do it! I don't need your protection, just as I didn't need it back then. She forced herself not to pay attention as he stood beside Liam, clapping his hand in his own before bringing him in for a hug.

I hate you. Her face was stone, staring at her feet as she rubbed the soles of her shoes into the wet gravel. Still, that same burning sensation at the back of her head. She knew it was the Sorrengail girl staring at her, maybe a few others since she didn't raise her hood back over her head. Her hair was a dead giveaway to who she was, to what she was. That was enough talk for the entire first year.

Groups were called, cadets that passed the parapet died merely minutes after almost meeting Malek over the bridge. Vyshena had a sour look on her face as one of the dragons blew fire, and she sniffed at the sulfer smell. "Barbecue already." A girl said beside her.

"Vyshena Lenayon, Second Squad, Flame Section, Fourth Wing." She'd have words with Zinnal later. Moving to the section, his section, she stood behind her group. Liam was in Second Squad, and she shared a glance with him. He sent her a look of sympathy before facing forward again in formation.

Violet, the Sorrengail girl, stood in front of her with another girl. Hearing their conversation, hearing her as she looked at him. It made Vyshena's stomach churl at the thought every other girl had here and she folded her fingers together in front of her.

This was eternal damnation, and she wasn't sure if she wanted to survive in this hell for the next three years. Especially with Xaden Riorson finally getting what he wanted all along. Control.

⛥

She was thankful that the squads didn't need to stay in their groups during meals. She sat besides the Mairi boy, who laughed and slapped a hand to the table at something Bodhi said who broke away from his group to catch up with Vyshena, Garrick joining them. She ate her food silently, as her leathers pressed into her skin. "We have royalty here, ladies and gentlemen!" A loud voice, arrogant, voice shouted through the cafeteria and Vyshena slowly looked up from her dish to meet eyes with a man who had no soul.

A tall, muscular, blond boy who had a smile on his face that told Vyshena everything she needed to know about him. He leaned over the table, "won't you taste good," he snarled and Liam slowly stood up. Along with Bodhi, and Garrick. Vyshena kept quiet, despite knowing everyone was looking at her. "Walk away." Bodhi instructed to the boy, who had a good two inches on him. "See you brought guard dogs with you." He teased and the girl, truly wanted to laugh. If anything she was their guard dog.

"Who was that?" Vyshena asked quietly under her breath, "Jack Barlowe." A voice next to her answered and she turned her head. Violet Sorrengail. "Good luck, seems like you're on his list too." She didn't give her a chuckle, or a smile. She only turned her head in his direction and stared. "He think's he's the shit." Another cadet chimed in, and Vyshena honestly wanted to ask why it was any of their business.

As if Liam could tell Vyshena was agitated, he leaned forward. "Who're your bunk mates?" He asked and Vyshena shared a surprised look with him. "Where did you sleep?" Bodhi asked with a gasp and wondered for a second if she had rekindled what she once had with his cousin. "Outside." Answering and Violet couldn't help but remember the empty bunk in their dorms the previous night. Vyshena would be bunking with them.

"You didn't get caught?" Liam asks, and Vyshena remembered her sitting in the dark, then the utter darkness until dawn came and the shadows fell away. Vyshena shook her head slowly as she finished her meal and set the fork down. Again, smelling him before he walks in.

"You guys should talk," Liam sucked in a breath at Bodhi's suggestion and quickly apologized from the look he gained because of it. "It's been two years. I'm just saying." Vyshena looked up, seeing the shadow himself start his way over to their table. Straight posture, shoulders taut, face void of any emotion. "Get that, will you?" She asked Liam who sighed but nodded, and Xaden watched as she picked herself up and left the cafeteria.

"Not even 24 hours and she's already miserable." Xaden said while taking a seat beside his cousin. "She's always been miserable." Violet couldn't help but overhear, or try to at least. Something was up, and it wasn't any of her business but she was curious. Curios as to how Vyshena walked the parapet like it was nothing. Curios as to why she hasn't heard her speak a word. And curios how a princess of the rebellion is everything but, strong and mighty, which is everything she's heard about.

Even Mira told her that Vyshena Lenayon is in her year, and to pray to not get on her bad side. But she seemed distant, nothing like what Mira warned her about. She seemed sad.

⛥

Violet stood beside Rhiannon in the sparring gym. During battle brief, Vyshena was called on once and answered with such certainty she didn't bother looking up from her notes. It left the room dead silent, not only at her answer, but at her voice. Her accent was different than anything Violet had heard before. Her voice was deep, but her 'R's' rolled and 'A's' were drawn out. She kept the language of her parents, the parents who had to be mauled in order to kill them during the Rebellion. The thing that ended the war, the death of the King and Queen of Navarre.

She noticed how Vyshena stayed by herself until Bodhi had walked over to her and she lifted herself from the wall. Violet knew she was a child of the rebellion, but she couldn't find a mark, even with the cutoff shirt she wore to sparring. "Where do you think her mark is?" Violet whispered to her friend who looked over at Vyshena and Bodhi. "She's probably hiding it. You know what they did to her parents."

Violet grew nausea's at the memories her mother recalled to her. How the King and Queen had were commanded to be burnt by their own dragons, and when the beasts wouldn't comply, General Melgren set Codagh on them, and when that didn't work and they emerged from the flames almost laughing, their heads were cut off, then burned. And they still remained intact, as fire could not burn a dragon. No one knew how they were unable to be incinerated, and even Violet wondered about it.

"Jack Barlowe," Violet's heart leaped from her chest, "and Vyshena Lenayon." Rhiannon's mouth dropped open as she watched Jack rub his hands together as he stepped onto the 20 foot long mat. And then Vyshena, as Bodhi followed her.

Jack said something inappropriate to get Garrick's attention, but it fell deaf to Violet's ears as she noticed Vyshena pull her blades from unknown places and hand them to their section leader. Why was she not fighting with her blades when Jack is so eager to grab his.

"And... go!" Violet kept her eyes wide, just enough for them to water. And when she blinked, Jack had been on his back with Vyshena's legs wrapped around his throat tightly. Garrick, Bodhi, and a couple other cadets had all cheered at the intensity of the fight, which lasted all of fifteen seconds.

Vyshena had Jack's arm pulled tight next to her head, and noticed how his fingers darted out but she bent them backwards instead. He yelped, actually yelped. "Do you yield?" Emmetterio asked and saw the frustration on Jack's as his face grew purple. "No!" He choked out, and Violet winced when Vyshena visibly tightened her thighs and his arm strained more.

Jack would not yield to her, he would not yield to a girl. "He yields!" Emmetterio called just as Jack's eyes began to slowly shut and Vyshena pushed him off of her.

Violet looked behind Garrick and Bodhi, to see Xaden leaned against the wall. A look she couldn't describe on his face as his eyes followed her back to her previous position. She noticed the visible sigh, then how Vyshena stole a glance just as he looked away. Heart-ache, and betrayal.

There was visible sweat dripping from Jack as he gulped down water. His face red, from either lack of oxygen or embarrassment. And Vyshena looked as if she didn't just spar, because she truly didn't. It was second of her time, and she wiped the mat with a man three times the size of her as if he was a burden.

⛥

Violet couldn't stand it. By the time she figured out a way to use anything but her strength during sparring, she was half-way up the tree that Vyshena decided to sit under. Pulling a book out, Violet cursed silently to herself as she prepared to spend the rest of the night in the tree knowing this was the spot Vyshena stayed the night in.

"When was the last time you slept?" Violet heard, and her heart begun racing faster than it ever has. Faster than crossing parapet, faster then when her mother told her that her father was dead. Faster than pressing her blade against Jack Barlowe's balls. But silence remained and Violet squinted her eyes to see the utter stillness of Vyshena.

If I can't see you, you can't see me. But he stood there, in front of her. Vyshena had no where to go, and Violet debated on pulling one of her daggers out to protect the girl, but had an awful feeling Xaden would just be on another list. His name against stone, if he dared to hurt the princess.

"I've allowed the silent treatment the last two years, but now?" Xaden squatted down, his knee's slowly bending as he was face to face with the silver haired girl. "You can't run from me." It sounded like a threat, one he'd share with Violet. But she heard Vyshena chuckle, and that chuckle turned into laughter. "God, you're a cliché, Riorson." She said and shook her head in response. "How so?"

He was trying to egg her on, trying to get her mad, Violet understood that much. "How so?" Vyshena asked, and stared into his golden eyes as they flashed everywhere but her own. Taking her in, entirely. "I will never run from you because I'm not running from anything. I'm locking you out." She said and Xaden furrowed his brows. "Thought we moved past that." Violet's eyes widened as he took a seat, his legs bent in front of him.

Gods, they were the size of Vyshena's head. Both of them paused, as if they heard something and remained silent until Vyshena squinted her eyes. "Guess we haven't?" Xaden asked and the princess looked back down to her books. "I can't keep protecting you out here, Hena."

"I'm not asking for your protection. I never have." Violet's eyes widened, and eyebrows shot up. Never have. They know each other, surely. "So you'll allow yourself to be caught out here in the dead of night? Awaiting any consequence because of that?" He asked, tilting his head to the side. "I never asked to be here, never asked to be taken from them. There's more going on than you'll ever know."

"Right. So you're doing to me what you think I did to you?" Vyshena slammed the book shut and Xaden's shoulders jumped slightly. Was he scared of her? "I'm protecting myself the only way I know how and that is staying as far away from you as I can. It's bad enough I'm here, bad enough you're my leader."

"Who are you?" It wasn't harsh, wasn't coated with venom. But it was sad, depressing as Violet focused harder on the two. Vyshena leaned forward, close to him. As close as Violet wishes she was. "Who am I with out her?" It was broken and it seethed past her chapped lips. "No one. I am no one."