Iron Flame (The Empyrean, #2)

by Rebecca Yarros

“Violence, remember it’s only the body that’s fragile. You are unbreakable.”

“There’s nowhere in existence you could go that I wouldn’t find you, remember?”

“You want to know something true? Something real? I love you. I’m in love with you. I have been since the night the snow fell in your hair and you kissed me for the first time. I’m grateful my life is tied to yours because it means I won’t have to face a day without you in it. My heart only beats as long as yours does, and when you die, I’ll meet Malek at your side. It’s a damned good thing

“Less than a minute,” Xaden whispers as Sgaeyl moves toward him—toward us. “That’s how long it took for you to fall out of love with me.”

“If you didn’t figure it out, you weren’t worthy of knowing.” She huffs. “I waited six hundred and fifty years to hatch. Waited until your eighteenth summer, when I heard our elders talk of the weakling daughter of their general, the girl forecasted to become the head of the scribes, and I knew. You would have the mind of a scribe and the heart of a rider.

“You must save yourself,” Tairn demands. “I chose you not as my next, but as my last, and should you fall, then I will follow.”