Chapter Twenty-Eight

Violet's squad undergoes a mandatory interrogation exercise in a hidden training facility beneath the Riders Quadrant. After discovering the drink contains a substance meant to dull their connection to dragons, they refuse it and prepare for torture. The interrogators escalate their brutality, and Vice Commandant Varrish arrives to take personal charge, bringing an unexpected and terrifying participant.

Violet, Rhiannon, Sawyer, and Ridoc are led to a secret underground facility hidden in the cliffside and locked in a dome-shaped chamber. Professor Grady explains this is a survival training exercise where they must protect classified information and share a personal secret with each other. Before eating, Violet recognizes the drink as containing a substance meant to disconnect them from their dragons—similar to what was used before the land navigation course—and warns the others not to consume it. They dump the mugs and resolve to survive three days without water.

When Professor Grady returns and they report losing their dragon connection, he reveals they're always in scenario and immediately chains Rhiannon, Sawyer, and Ridoc to the wall while Violet is shackled to a wooden chair in the center of the cylindrical chamber. Two unmemorable riders arrive to interrogate them. When Violet refuses to divulge secrets, the female interrogator beats her repeatedly across the face and then turns to brutalize her squadmates, attempting to make them blame Violet or break their unity. After hours of escalating violence with no clear sense of time, Varrish arrives, dismisses the standard interrogation protocol as too slow, and summons someone from the hallway—revealed to be Wingleader Aetos, causing visible fear in Rhiannon.