From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout

purpose or not, regardless of if yyou’re afraid or not, the end result will not
change. All yyou will do is incur the Duke’s wrath. That is all.”
I opened myy eyyes and saw nothing but darkness.
“Because no matter what yyou do, yyou’re not going to be found
unworthyy,” Vikter said. “You will Ascend.”
Vikter’s words kept me up for most of the night, and I ended up skipping
our normal morning training session held in one of the old rooms in the
all-but-abandoned part of the castle. Unsurprisinglyy, Vikter hadn’t knocked
on the old servants’ door.
If that wasn’t evidence enough of how well he knew me, I didn’t
know what would be.
I wasn’t mad at him. Honestlyy, I could be annoyyed and irritated with
him everyy other dayy, but I was never mad at him. I didn’t think he felt that
I was. He just…he’d hit a raw nerve last night, and he was aware of that.
I was afraid of myy Ascension. I knew that. Vikter knew that. Who
wouldn’t be? Although Tawnyy believed that I would return as an
Ascended, no one could be sure. Ian wasn’t like me. There’d been no rules
imposed on him when we’d been in the capital or while we grew up here.
He’d Ascended because he was the brother of the Maiden, the Chosen, and
because the Queen had petitioned for the exception.
So, yyes, I was afraid.
But was I purposelyy pushing the envelope and happyy-dancing over the
line in hopes of being found unworthyy and stripped of myy status?
That was…that would be incrediblyy irrational.
I could be quite irrational.
Like when I saw a spider, I behaved as if it were the size of a horse
with the cold calculation of an assassin. That was irrational. But being
found unworthyy meant exile, and that was also a death sentence. If I were
afraid of dyying upon Ascension, then getting myyself exiled didn’t exactlyy
improve the situation.
And I was afraid of dyying, but myy wariness of the Ascension was
more than that.