Chapter Text
At the age of twenty-one, everyone’s soulmark activates, allowing each individual to finally locate their missing halves- the other, or in some cases, others, that their soul is tied to.
It is also at this moment that each individual learns their rank within their pack. Some are destined to be ordinary members who strengthen their chosen pack with numbers and skills. However, some are born to lead. Each pack includes a soulbonded Alpha and Omega, on occasion including a pack Beta within this bond if the souls yearn for more than one person can give. Rarely will a bond include more than one of each subgender, but it is not unheard of for a pack to hold two pack Alphas, a pack Omega, and a pack Beta- especially in dark times, when a pack needs strength in numbers and extra leadership.
You are born to your subgender; there is no changing this. Your soul knows who you are. Even if born male, you will be born with the comforts of an Omega, as that is what you will grow into. But do not let this fool you. Yes, Omegas are prone to the finer things, their skin easy to bruise and their faces possessing a delicate beauty, but an Omega can still kill as ferociously as an Alpha. They can be as stubborn as a Beta, and fiercely possessive of their own.
Despite this, Omegas continue to face a stigma. Within the borders of Navarre, they are forbidden from testing their chances in the Riders Quadrant. Well, nearly all Omegas. For the children of the rebellion who hold the marking of their parents' disloyalty, subgender does not matter—they must enter the Riders Quadrant. I would not call this progressive of Navarre’s leadership; that word belongs nowhere near that kind of sycophantic admirer of a corrupted crown. No, it is a death sentence. It is a hope that the dragons will agree to these idiotic human ideals and torch each and every Omegan child bearing a rebellion mark should they reach Threshing.
Too bad the dragons have no care for human idiosyncrasies.
But to lose your soulmate is to rip a piece of your soul from your body. To have claimed one another and then lost them is lethal in itself, as the soul will cry out for what it has lost. Mates not yet of age will suddenly gain the mark they would have received at twenty-one early, all colour stripped away, left to mourn the soulmate they will never meet.
Many learn that their soulmate was amongst those who had hoped to bond a dragon, or who died in service while riding their bonded mount. If your mark reveals itself early, your parents look straight to that day's death roll published by the Navarrian military.
༺𓆩⚔𓆪༻
In the time after his father called for the apostasy, after Fen Riorson had sent his son across the border for safety. The battle for Aretia had started and Xaden had done his best to block out the worry, but while sitting on his bed after a long training session with Cat, Xaden Riorson felt his arm light up in pain. Biting back a cry of pain so as to not alert any guards, the first soulmark appeared a scale and thread band of grey and blacks weaving around his wrist colour drained from it in death.
Xaden isn’t an idiot, he knew what it meant and his heart sank as he stared at it as the pain subsided but remained staining his soul with loss. But the pain was not gone long as it rippled through him again minutes later as colour filled the previous mark, now the scales seem to gleam in orange and the thread turning a brownish-red, it was hair not thread.
But… another band would appear in greyscale, never to colour like the other, this soul truly lost.
Nothing could explain what he was seeing, it was an impossibility but one that could not be denied, one soulmate had died and come back while another embraced Malek, one that Xaden would never meet.
A small voice in his mind wondering if getting this mark early would mean when he is 21, or later, when he meets the soulmate who died and came back if they would recognize one another as mates…
He hadn’t needed to read any books on soulmarkings because he was years away from when he was supposed to get them.
As he looked at the beautifully woven band of dragon scale and hair, his gaze drifted to the one that was in grey, running a thumb over it and wondering what colour the scales of that one would have been, what colour hair would his mate have had?
But something strikes him looking at his markings, they are positioned in a way that it looks like there is something missing, someone missing.
Someone who hadn’t died, or been revived.
A missing link that Xaden could still hold the hope of finding on his 21st like he had hoped with all his markings, but Malek had other plans.
Xaden would not only lose a mate due to the battle of Aretia, not that he would have been able to stop this from happening, but he would also lose his father.
And as son of Fen Riorson, he would make the deal to save the other 107 children because he had to hope the opposite of the Navarrian leadership, that the dragons would allow him and the other omega children of the rebellion to bond with them. Let them live, let them fight, and give them another chance to reveal the truth behind the venin.
And because he had to survive, had to reassure his mate that he was not alone and that he and their missing mate would not embrace Malek, he had to make it past every trial thrown his way and make it to 21.
He had to hope that the missing soulmate, who likely saw all this happening just as Xaden had, even if younger or older then Xaden would be safe. That one day the three of them could hold each other in a nest of Xaden’s making and feel as whole as possible… as whole as missing a piece of your soul allows.
For now, he needed to break off an engagement. Start new negotiations for the luminary without his fathers counsel, while having to form a new assembly all under the noses of Generals Sorrengail and Melgren, not to mention the king.
If Viscount Tecarus had been hoping Xaden would abandon his mate or mates in this case, he would be dangerously wrong, especially after one clearly needed support and not rejection from their omega.
༺𓆩༒︎𓆪༻
Dain Aetos was sitting beside Violet Sorrengail within the library located in Calldyr having been discussing a book Dain had finished reading on Violet’s recommendation when the pain rippled through him, he grasped his wrist tight as it felt like it was on fire, Violet quick to turn in her best friend’s direction voiced laced with worry as she called his name.
“Dain…? Dain what's wrong? Show me your arm,”
Violet says as she gently tugs at her best friends arm to see what was causing the pain, expecting to see the muscles of the arm cramping painfully but a small gasp escapes her seeing the soulmark, and then colour filling it as another appears in greyscale as Dain breathes heavily from the pain. As it subsides Dain looks arm in Violet’s hands and breathes shakily.
“We- we can’t tell anyone-”
Dain speaks panic in his voice, they were both smart enough to know Dain was right, clearly someone had been able to bring another back from the dead and if either of their parents found out they would use it as a political piece and potentially hurt, torture and put Dain’s surviving mate in more danger.
Violet nods as she continues inspecting the soulmark, having seen few but she recognised it, she’d seen her brother's soulmarks when he had come to visit with Naolin during their second year after they’d both turned 21. Her face is a mix of horror and sadness that her best friend would never miss.
“Vi? What is it?”
Dain’s voice snapped her from her thoughts, a million of them running at once trying to understand.
“I’ve seen these before, not fully, you're missing a band but I know who these soulmate marks belong too and if I’m right…”
She trails off her mind racing, because surely Brennan would come back to them if he were alive.
"This... this is Brennan's soulmark..."
Dain’s face drained of colour as he looked down on the marks on his arm.
“Brennan would come home right? If he’s alive, and soulmarks don’t lie, he’d come home. He wouldn’t leave you and Mira to think he’s dead.”
Dain says, thumbing the mark now filled with colour.
“I’d hope so… but he was sent to the battle of Aretia, in hopes to finally end this rebellion, anything could have happened…”
Violet sighs, a mild headache coming on from overthinking and trying to analyze what was happening.
“But we keep this between us, I’ll see what my parents say and you find a way to hide your wrist from your dad, it’s our secret until you’re 21 and find the missing piece. Don't think I’ll tell you what I saw on Brennan and Naolin’s wrists. You need to figure that out like the rest of us”
Violet grins, trying to lighten the mood as she nudges her best friend.
“It’ll be alright, I'll research for you, your dad wants you focused on strategy and prep for the Riders quadrant in 4 years while mine wants me ready for the scribes.”
Violet reassures, getting Dain to give her a weak but genuine smile.
“Yeah, we’ll cross that bridge if both are on the death roll if we get to it, but there's nothing I can do as a potential cadet with no idea if I’ll survive to Threshing or past it.”
Dain hums looking at the books left abandoned on their table.
“You’ll survive, you’re an Aetos and the best friend of a Sorrengail, you’ll make it to threshing and bond a dragon.”
Violet hums as she moves to start shifting through books to clean up.
“I’ll keep those words in mind as motivation then.”
Dain laughs, shaking his head but his eyes are still drawn to his wrist, with so many unanswered questions, but the answers wouldn't be found in Calldyr's history books.
Violet offered him one last encouraging smile before turning back to her stack of research, her presence a quiet, steady anchor in the sudden storm of his reality. With a grounding breath, Dain pulled his cuff down, buttoning it tightly to conceal the brand-new markings from the rest of the world. The secret was safe between them, sealed by years of trust.
But as the library fell back into a familiar silence, a profound, hollow emptiness settled deep beneath his ribs. It didn't matter that the burning pain of the activation had faded into a dull throb; the true agony was spiritual. It felt as though a physical tether inside him had snapped, leaving a jagged edge where a piece of his very being should have been.
He pressed his thumb through the fabric of his sleeve, right against the cold, greyscale band of dragon scales. A phantom grief washed over him for a mate he would never meet, a soul permanently claimed by Malek.
Violet was right. He had to hide this. He had a quadrant to survive, a demanding father to appease, and a missing bond to protect. He would learn to live with the scar on his soul. He would learn to breathe past the emptiness.
Because somewhere across the jagged borders of Navarre, two other men were staring at their own wrists, feeling the exact same fracture, and counting down the days until they were whole again.