The skies were too clear for betrayal.

Warm air pressed gently against Garrick’s skin, the first hint of spring on the war-college horizon, and yet everything felt wrong. The breeze carried no warning. Just quiet. Watching. Waiting.

He’d survived storms and battles, carved a place in this brutal world on skill and silence. But none of it had prepared him for this.

For her.

The moment unfolded slowly—painfully—like a sword dragged from a wound. One minute, they were focused on the exercise. The next, the gryphons descended.

Not as enemies.

Not as strangers.

But allies.

Her scream never came, and that was what terrified him most. She didn’t shout or demand answers. She didn’t even look at Xaden, who now stood still beside the other riders, his expression unreadable as he talked with them.

No—she looked at him.

The moment their eyes locked, the air left his lungs.

She was a third-year now. One of the strongest he knew, even unmarked. Unmarked, and still feared. Still respected. She’d worked twice as hard for half the recognition, and never once had she asked him to defend her—not when others whispered about them, not when riders scoffed behind cupped hands that he, a marked one, had fallen for someone with no sign of rebellion inked into her skin.

But he had fallen.

Hard.

Gods, he loved her.

He loved the way she argued with him, trained with him until their bodies ached, stood up for herself when the world tried to make her smaller. She understood his silences. His nightmares. The weight he carried.

And now she stood across from him, silent, as if trying to solve an equation she couldn’t believe.

Her voice was barely audible over the soft thud of gryphon talons hitting the earth, but it landed sharper than any blade.

“You lied.”

Two words.

And they gutted him.

He stepped forward instinctively, his hand twitching at his side—wanting to reach for her, to fix it. “I didn’t lie. I just—” Protected you. Kept you safe. Couldn’t risk it. But none of those words would matter. Not when she’d spent two years trusting him more than anyone, and now stood shaking in place as everything unraveled.

“I was going to tell you,” he tried, voice hoarse. “I was trying to find a way—”

“To what? Soften it?” Her voice cracked then, not with rage—but grief. And that broke him more than anything else.

Behind her, Violet turned slowly to Xaden, her features drawn tight with betrayal. But even her fury seemed quieter than this.

His girlfriend—his light in this brutal, blood-soaked world—took a single step back. A rejection of him. Of all they'd built.

Bodhi hovered behind her, silent. Not interfering. Not comforting. Just there. Watching her fall apart while Garrick stood helpless and hated himself for it.

Because he’d known this might happen. Had spent months weighing the consequences, calculating the safest outcome.

And still—

He’d gambled with her trust.

And lost.

She didn’t yell. She didn’t cry.

But she looked at him like he was a stranger in a familiar body.

And that hurt more than if she’d drawn her dagger and run him through.