The Letter (Ridoc x Riorson Reader)
Author's Note: Another Empyrean fic, blood, character death, Onyx Storm spoilers if you squint.
Being sent to the front lines as punishment by General Aetos had already put me on edge. Finding out Xaden wouldn’t be with us? Icing on the fucking chocolate cake.
The Samaran outpost comes into view just before dusk—stone walls, banners snapping in the wind, soldiers posted along the perimeter.
We land hard, boots hitting packed dirt, dragons restless beneath us.
“Make yourselves useful,” one of the officers barks, already turning away like we’re an inconvenience.
Useful. I bite back a laugh.
A rider stumbles in from the east, armor streaked with ash. “Newhall’s evacuating,” he calls out. “Venin sighted. Wyvern in the air.”
A ripple moves through our group. I look past the outpost walls. Smoke curls up in the distance—thin, steady, wrong.
“What are they doing about it?” someone mutters behind me.
I scan the outpost again. Soldiers stand at ease. No formations. No movement toward the village. No urgency. Nothing. My jaw tightens.
Right. So that leaves us.
An entire village evacuating under attack. An unknown number of venin. Wyvern overhead. And a handful of riders who weren’t even supposed to be here.
I roll my shoulders, already feeling the shift—the familiar edge of adrenaline sharpening everything.
So basically…just another Tuesday.
Ridoc catches my eye. A flicker of something passes between us—worry, sharp and quick. He jerks his chin back toward the outpost, subtly.
I shake my head. Not a chance. I love him, but if he thinks I’m letting him fly into that alone, he hasn’t been paying attention.
We don’t get time to talk. We’re already moving—already mounting. Already too late.
This battle feels lost before we even reach it. Smoke chokes the sky. The air burns going down. A trap for Violet.
And we walked straight into it.
We’re scattered within minutes—split, isolated, swallowed by wyvern and ash.
“Ridoc—” I search the sky, twisting in my saddle.
He’s fine, my dragon assures me. Aotrom is with him.
I latch onto that and push forward. Three venin. A handful of wyvern. Manageable.
We dive. Wind screams past as we race toward them. A venin stalks closer, slow, deliberate.
If Violet dies, Tairn dies.
If Tairn dies, Sgaeyl dies.
If Sgaeyl dies—Xaden…
I hit the ground running before my dragon fully lands. The venin turns toward me, head tilting slightly. Recognition flickers. “You are not the lightning wielder,” she says. “Nor the shadow wielder.”
I pull my daggers free. “And yet, here I am, the one who will introduce you to Malek.”
“You will die trying,” she sneers, lunging, and steel meets steel. She’s fast. Too fast. Each strike calculated—each movement… familiar. She’s watching me, learning me, mirroring me.I grit my teeth, forcing her back.
Movement catches my eye, Violet, struggling to dismount, her leg useless beneath her. No time. “Go!” I snap to my dragon. “Get her out of here!” With hesitation, she obeys. Now I just have to live long enough—
“Tiny mortal,” she sneers, circling. “You are not worth this effort.”
“You could always give up,” I shoot back.
I step wrong, and pain explodes through my side as her blade sinks in. My breath vanishes. Rage floods in to fill the space. I don’t fall, instead turning and slitting her throat in one clean motion. She collapses.
I don’t. Not yet. Wyvern begin to drop from the sky. I risk a glance back—Tairn stirs. Good.
You are injured, my dragon says sharply.
The battle is ending. I will call Aotrom.
My body locks, bringing me to my knees.
My breathing gets loud. Too loud.
I focus on the warmth on my face.
He’s there suddenly, dropping to his knees beside me.
“Hey—hey, look at me.” His hands are on me, steady but shaking. “You’re okay. You’re going to be okay.”
He’s lying. But I don’t know for whose benefit. I have made my peace with Malek, and he will be okay. I focus on Ridoc’s face, committing it to memory.
“Say something,” he pleads.
A broken laugh escapes him—half sob.
“Don’t move,” he says quickly, tearing his uniform, pressing it to my side. “Just stay with me. Help’s coming.”
“You’re cute when you’re worried,” I whisper.
“Shut up,” he snaps—but his hands are gentle. Careful. “Now’s not the time.”
“Now or never,” I try to joke, but it falls flat.
“Tell Xaden…” I swallow. “He owes me.”
“Tell him I saved Violet.”
Something shifts in his expression—fear cracking wide open.
She will not make it off this field. Aotrom’s voice cuts through the bond.
“No,” Ridoc breathes. “No, that’s not—”
The words barely make it out.
“Hey—HEY!” His voice breaks as he shakes me. “Stay with me—come on—look at me!”
“Say it back,” I beg. Not for me, but for him. I don’t want him to look back at this day and regret not saying it.
“Gods, of course I love you. Which is why you have to hold on. You can’t leave me. I don’t want to do this without you,” he sobs.
But everything is slipping.
The sound my dragon made was the most devastating thing Ridoc could remember hearing.
For a second, the world went completely still—the air, his thoughts, even Aotrom's low growl. His hands hovered over me uselessly as he refused to process what that meant.
"No," the word came out too sharp—too desperate. He pressed two fingers against my throat again, like it was some kind of cruel joke, and he was the punchline now.
Aotrom let out a mournful sound behind him as Ridoc felt something in his chest crack open violently at the realization that this was not a nightmare he could wake up from.
The squad may have won the battle, but none of it meant anything, not anymore. He couldn't move, hadn't even realized the others had landed. Aotrom nosed his shoulder, pushing at him. He didn't even have the energy to respond, staring numbly at the ground as the sounds around him slowly came back.
Violet choked back a sob. Rhiannon pulled her into her arms. Sawyer and Liam went to Ridoc; one of them tried to take you away, but ice shards shot out in all directions.
It was cruel. Ridoc had never felt so much pain, so much loss, and he wanted to be angry at something—the world, the venin, fate- but he couldn't. His eyes stayed fixed on me, taking in the peacefulness on my face that he knew wasn't real.
Eventually, Liam pulled him to his feet. He had no idea how much time had passed. It felt like an eternity and seconds all at once. He felt like he was in a daze, everything around him moving in slow motion. Before he made it back to Aotrom, Ridoc's body went limp as the last of his consciousness slipped away. He didn't even register the way Liam caught him, or how Violet and Sawyer were shouting—all he knew was that I was gone.
Aotrom roared in distress as Ridoc collapsed completely into darkness—into nothing at all.
________________________________________________________________
The next day, Ridoc woke up back in his room at Basgiath. His head felt like it weighed a thousand pounds as he woke up, the events of the day before flooding back to him all at once. He groaned softly, the sound ragged and broken as he tried to sit up.
Maybe it was all just a horrific nightmare?
When he saw Xaden, sitting in the chair by his bed, holding a letter in his hands, he froze, sorrow filling his gut.
Xaden looked more human than Ridoc had ever remembered. Not the intimidating wingleader, not the revolution leader, just Xaden.
"She loved you," Xaden broke the silence.
Ridoc's breath caught in his throat. The words hurt—too much, too soon—like a blade twisting between his ribs.
He didn't ask how Xaden knew. Didn’t question it at all because the truth was written in every line of my brother’s face—the grief, the resignation... the certainty.
And Ridoc? He felt like he'd been gutted and left to bleed out on dry land.
"...I know," he whispered back finally, voice cracking under something unbearable, “I loved her too,” he said, but it didn’t feel like enough. Nothing he could say would ever feel like enough.
"We burnt her stuff this morning, but she wanted you to have this," Xaden said, handing him the letter.
Ridoc's eyes flew open again, hope and grief warring in equal measure. Xaden was holding out an envelope, the paper looking too stark, too white in the otherwise darkened room.
Ridoc's hand trembled almost violently as he reached out to take the envelope, every movement feeling slow and forced. The paper crinkled softly as he held it, almost too afraid to look inside.
"I want you to know that I will watch out for you as she would have. If you need anything, I am here for you. You have a permanent home in Riorson House.”
A broken laugh slips out of Ridoc before he can stop it.
Ridoc swallows. “She told me to tell you… You owe her. For saving Violet.”
“She was worried about me the whole time.”
Ridoc swallowed, his throat constricting tightly. The words, the gesture, the weight behind them all threatened to break the last of his composure. He gave another jerky nod, unable to put the turmoil of his emotions into words. He just needed... time.
And maybe… To read what you'd left behind.
Xaden stares a moment, wanting to ask, but knowing better. He gives Ridoc one last nod and then exits, giving him privacy.
Ridoc waited until he heard the sound of the door closing, Xaden's steps fading away down the hallway, before he turned his attention back to the envelope in his hands.
His fingers trembled as he carefully started to open it, a sense of both anticipation and dread welling in his chest.
Whatever you'd left behind, you'd wanted him to have.
He took a slow, shaky breath, steeling himself, and slowly pulled out the contents of the envelope.
“My dearest Ridoc,
My life has been filled with tragedy, but I have decided I would endure it a hundred times over as it led me to you. You have been the best part of my time on this plane, and I promise to talk Malek's ear off about you when I meet him. I know what we are doing as riders is dangerous, especially as part of the revolution. There is a part of me that takes comfort in the fact that we will go down on the right side of history. If you are reading this, I have…”
Ridoc's vision blurred as he read, the words smudging under the wetness of unshed tears. He had to stop—stop—because if he kept going, that would mean it was real, and that you were really…
His hands shook violently now, his breathing coming in ragged bursts as Aotrom tried to force through the bond to make sure he was not in distress.
But Ridoc just pressed a fist against his mouth to stifle something dangerously close to a sob before finally forcing himself back into reading your letter—your final gift for him:
“run out of luck. Hopefully, I met a heroic death. No matter how it went down, I promise it was not your fault. I do not blame you. About a year ago, I saved your life, and you said that you owed me one. Well, I'm cashing in that favor now. I need you to keep moving forward. Do not drown in your grief, but find a way to make the most out of life. Find a girl who sees you, the real you, past the humor to the sincerity and intellect, to the emotionally motivated, loving, and protective man who is so easy to love and find peace and happiness. I will be thoroughly upset if you meet Malek without any little Ridoc juniors wandering around. I want you to be happy. I want you to thrive. I love you more than life itself, Ridoc, and I wish we had more time, I do. But that was not in the cards for us. Stay Gold, my beautiful boy.
PS. Please look out for Xaden for me. He acts all tough and indestructible, but he is just a scared 20-something-year-old who was thrown the weight of a title and revolution. We didn't fuck up the world, yet somehow it has fallen to our shoulders to fix it."
Ridoc’s breath left him in a sharp, ragged exhale.
The letter slipped from his fingers as he pressed both hands over his face—too late to stop the tears now. They spilled hot and furious down his cheeks, shoulders shaking with the force of silent sobs that threatened to tear him apart entirely. Ridoc finally broke—until he folded forward into himself with a choked sound no one would ever hear outside this room: your name on cracked lips.
You had known how badly it would destroy him if you were gone too soon... yet here you were anyway — writing things meant only for him, trusting that even after all this loss… He’d still be strong enough to do what needed doing next?
A broken laugh escaped at your P.S. Of course, even now, you were still looking out for Xaden like some kind of saint who never deserved any of this either.
And then there came quiet acceptance buried beneath grief so deep nothing could reach the bottom anymore:
"...I love y–" His voice failed mid-sentence; raw and ruined beyond repair while clutching crumpled paper
Ridoc pressed the letter to his chest, as if he could physically keep your words from leaving him.
Almost lets himself break completely.
But you didn’t give him that option.
He folded the letter neatly and placed it in his flight jacket. He forced himself into the shower and got dressed for his duties.
Liam stands there, hand raised to knock.
He freezes when he sees him.
For a second, neither of them speaks.
Liam's eyes flick over Ridoc—too quickly, like he can’t bear to look too long. Like if he does, it’ll make it real all over again.
Ridoc doesn’t say anything.
Something passes between them anyway. Understanding. Grief. The kind that doesn’t need words.
“…You ready?” he asks quietly.
Because what choice do I have?
We fall into step beside each other, neither of us speaking as we walk the familiar halls of Basgiath.
Everything looks the same.
Like the world didn’t just lose something it can’t get back.
Cadets pass us. Talking. Laughing.
And I will not be the reason her last request goes unanswered.
Even if every step feels like I’m leaving her behind.
