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“You should end the enemy at your feet.'
...
'I can't kill an unconscious man.'
...
'He would kill you given the same chance.'

'Well, that's a statement on his character. Not mine.”
― Rebecca Yarros, Fourth Wing

“You're all fucking dead.' His voice is eerily calm and all the scarier for it.

Every head in the room turns.

'Riorson!' Orsen's dagger clatters to the floor.

'You think surrendering will save you?' Xaden's lethally soft tone sends goose bumps up my arms. 'It is against our code to attack another rider in their sleep.'

'But you know he never should have bonded her!' Orsen puts his hands up, his palms facing us. 'You of all people have reason enough to want the weakling dead. We're just correcting a mistake.'

'Dragons don't make mistakes.' Xaden's shadows grab every assailant but Orsen by the throat, then constrict. They struggle, but it doesn't matter. Their faces turn people, the shadows holding tight as they sag to their knees, falling in an arc in front of me like lifeless puppets.

I can't find it in my head to pity them.

Xaden prowls forward as though he has all the time in the world and holds out his palm as yet another tendril of darkness lifts my discarded dagger from the floor.

'Let me explain.' Orsen eyes the dagger, and his hands tremble.

'I've heard everything I need to hear.' Xaden's fingers curl around the hilt. 'She should have killed you in the field, but she's merciful. That's not a flaw I possess.' He slashes forward so quickly that I barely catch the move, and Oren's throat opens in a horizontal line, blood streaming down his neck and chest in a torrent.

He grabs for his throat, but it's useless. He bleeds out in seconds, crumpling to the floor. A crimson puddle grows around him.

'Damn, Xaden,' Garrick walks in, sheathing his sword as his gazes rakes over the room. 'No time for questioning?' His glance sweeps to me as if cataloguing injuries, catching on my throat.

'No need for it,' Xaden counters...”
― Rebecca Yarros, Fourth Wing