Chapter Thirty-Five

Violet and Xaden must navigate the newly enforced Code of Conduct that prohibits their relationship now that Xaden is a professor, while a mission planning meeting introduces a squad tasked with finding the seventh dragon breed. Xaden joins the team despite resistance, and Violet suspects their assigned northward search route is strategically wrong.

After Xaden's appointment as a professor is announced, Violet learns that Article Eight, Section One of the Code of Conduct prohibits relationships between cadets and faculty. She seeks out Dain to ask for help retrieving her father's hidden research from General Aetos's quarters before he confiscates it. Xaden pulls her into Professor Kaori's office, insisting their relationship hasn't ended, and plans to request an exemption from Panchek. General Aetos arrives and summarily denies the exemption, warning Xaden that any Code violation will give him grounds to expel him. Outside, Violet reveals to Aetos that she, not Xaden, killed Vice Commandant Varrish, shocking both Aetos and Dain. Dain agrees to help her retrieve the research when General Aetos visits Calldyr the following weekend. A week later, Violet sits through a mission briefing where Captain Grady introduces a specially selected squad tasked with finding the seventh dragon breed within six months. The team includes infantry officers, air wielders, a farsight user, and others, but notably lacks fliers or Aretian riders. Xaden arrives uninvited and insists on joining, leveraging his authority over Tyrrendor to override objections. During the meeting, Violet proposes searching the southern merchant isle of Deverelli based on her father's secretive research into connections between isles and dragons, but Grady dismisses the idea as too risky and expensive, ordering the squad to prepare for a northward coastal search instead. Violet's instincts tell her this route is wrong. Aura Beinhaven assumes the role of chaperone to ensure Violet and Xaden do not violate the Code of Conduct.