Iron Flame (The Empyrean, #2)

by Rebecca Yarros

“To our surprise, the outposts have successfully dispatched with the wyvern Lieutenant Riorson gifted to them, and General Melgren has kept the news from reaching the general public, though obviously all present military now knows. And unfortunately, they are still turning away every Poromish citizen at the border.”

don’t bother looking at Anca. My gaze is locked on Cordyn, where Viscount Tecarus has the only other known luminary. It’s the next largest city between Zolya and Draithus, and still outside venin-controlled territory. The seaside city was a two-day flight from Basgiath, but from here? I bet Tairn could make it in twelve hours.

“Silver One!” Tairn’s tone changes. “A riot approaches!” My breath seizes as my head swings toward the back of the theater, as if the small windows there will give me any clue of what’s coming.

“Can Tairn take Codagh?” Aaric asks as I throw my pack onto my back. My mouth opens and shuts as I think of General Melgren’s dragon. I don’t even want the answer to that question. And Tairn is suspiciously quiet. “Shortest revolution in history.” Sawyer mutters a swear word and yanks the drawstrings of his pack tight. “Forty. Sgaeyl is approaching as well, but she’s too far out to—” Tairn pauses. “Wait. Teine leads the riot.”

Rock flies in a dusty barrage from the impact of the Green Clubtail’s claws, and I throw up my arms to cover my face as Teine lands directly in front of the courtyard doors, blocking the exit into the town, and two others flank him, their landings just as abrupt.

“Here,” he answers a moment before dropping out of the sky like a damned meteor. The ground shudders with the force of his landing to my left, and the shade of his wing blocks out the sun overhead. He roars so loudly my teeth rattle, then lowers his head, his neck only inches from my shoulder, and streams a river of fire in a clear warning shot across the legs of the dragons. Heat blasts my face for the length of a heartbeat before he draws back, his head darting in a serpentine motion.

Teine steps forward, and time feels like it slows to milliseconds as Tairn lunges, opening his massive jaw and latching onto Teine’s throat just like he had Solas’s.

“Dain killed the vice commandant. I just finished him off. Well, Xaden helped. It was more of a team effort,” I admit, shaking my head to clear it. “Did you know? When I tried to tell you and you said I needed more sleep, did you know?”

didn’t know. I swear, I didn’t know.” Her wide, brown eyes search mine. “Not until the wyvern was dropped at the front gates of Samara. Mom arrived about ten hours later and told me the truth—told all of the riders the truth.”

“Yes.” Her chin dips as she nods. “She probably figured out there was no lying her way around a giant dead wyvern.” And we’d already been on our way here. “Xaden.”

“If she said your mother confessed, then she’s telling the truth. We’re at the edge of the city now, just flying with the stragglers.” “And what, she just let all forty of you leave?” I step out of her hug and gesture at the dragons perched on the walls around us. There’s no way they’d let dozens of riders desert.

Brennan hurries down the steps, his mouth curving into a smile I can’t help but mirror. All three of us are here, and there are no words for how complete it feels. My eyes burn, blinking back the bittersweet yet wholly joyous emotion that threatens to overwhelm me. We’re finally together again. “Brennan?” Mira croaks, and I move back a couple of steps to give them room. “How?” “Hey, Mira.” He’s less than a dozen feet away, his grin widening. “You’re alive?” She stumbles forward, shaking her head. “After… I mean… It’s been six years, and you’re…alive?” “In the flesh.” He opens his arms. “Gods, it’s good to see you.” She draws back her fist and punches him straight in the face.

The blood of life of the six and the one combined and set the stone ablaze in an iron rain.

“And as for our mother.” Brennan stands. “I hope my death haunts her every damned day. She was so willing to sacrifice my life for a lie.” “That’s not fair!” Mira snaps. “I may not agree with what she did, but I understand how she thought it was best to keep us safe.”

I let my hands fall from Xaden’s face, then glance at my brother and sister. Everything I really, truly love—everyone I can’t live without—is here, and for the first time in my life, I can protect them. “I need the blood of the six most powerful riders.”

I move toward it, soaking in every detail. “Is it onyx?” I ask Xaden. It’s massive. Too heavy for even a dragon to carry. They had to have carved it in this very chamber. “We can’t say for certain, but my father thought it was polished iron,” he answers. Iron rain. My heart

We have no wards. No weapons. Almost no experienced riders. All because I acted recklessly. Power builds, vibrating my fingertips. Felix moves to my side, his somber gaze studying me before he holds out his hand. I blink, glancing at his palm, then up to his face. “Your hand.” He lifts his brow.

“Take me to Tecarus,” I demand. His gaze flies to mine and his jaw flexes. “I would rather die.” “We all will if you don’t.” “Not going to happen. Subject closed.” He folds his arms across his chest and goes back to his discussion with Kylynn. Fuck this. I walk straight past him, taking the path out of the chamber. There’s no way I’m going to leave my friends defenseless when I’m the reason they got dragged into this. “Violet!” Brennan shouts, running to catch

“I ignored a direct order so I could protect my dragon.” The sizzle heats to a burn, and I flex my hands, letting the strike rip free. The cloudy sky cracks open and lightning strikes on the opposite side of the bowl, hitting far above the tree line, easily a quarter mile from the boulders. Felix blinks. “Try again.”

“You can aim well enough to hit a dark wielder atop a flying wyvern.” “That’s because Andarna stopped time, but she can’t do that anymore, so I’m left with what got us through the other portion of the battle—the good old strike-and-pray method.”

And lightning comes from the sky or the ground depending on the storm, so why not your hands?” Anger reddens my skin, raises my temperature, prickles my fingers, and pushes the power within me to a roar.

“Xaden can control and increase what already exists. It’s why he’s more powerful at night. No two signets are alike, and you create something that was not there before. You wield pure power that takes the form of lightning because that’s what you’re most comfortable shaping it as. Apparently Carr never taught you that, either.”

“As for Tecarus, he wants to see you wield, not necessarily see you wield well. Your biggest obstacle there is convincing Xaden to fly with you, since I hazard to guess he’s not budging on the topic of you going. He already shut down the possibility in July.” He shrugs. “But we’re done for today. We’ll meet again in a week, and I’ll be able to tell by the amount of power stored in that alloy whether or not you’ve been practicing. Store enough, and I’ll continue to teach you.”

He might be a weapon, but I’m a natural disaster. And I’m done letting everyone around me suffer because I can’t get my shit together. “I want to learn,” I call after him. As soon as I get back. “Good. Show me.”

“It’s just the sun reflecting off the white marble,” he grumbles. “The entire thing is ridiculous and indefensible.”

“Be careful what you say in here. Tecarus will hold us to whatever deal we make. He doesn’t take kindly to broken words. And keep your shields up, though I’m not sure they’ll do much good,” Brennan orders when we’re less than a dozen feet from the fliers. “Fliers might not wield signets, but most of their lesser-magic gifts involve mindwork, and it’s the one area where they have the upper hand on us.”

His jaw flexes, his hands curl at his sides, and his beautiful face… Well, he hasn’t looked at me with that much anger since discovering my last name at Parapet, back when he wanted to kill me. Guess I should be careful what I ask for, because I’m so fucked. “You aren’t where I left you, Violence.”

You will not be happy with the welcome we’re about to receive. That’s what Tairn said when we landed. “You and I are going to have a discussion,” I send his direction. “You promised.”

“Don’t worry if you haven’t brought anything fit for the occasion,” Tecarus says to me. “I took the liberty of having a selection of clothing pulled from my best collection once Riorson told me you were inbound. My niece will see you properly attired, won’t you, Cat?” he calls back over his shoulder.

“He wouldn’t be if he thought you were strong enough to stand at his side,” Cat counters.

“Did Zara not know how to attend your hair?” Cat asks with a pitying glance back at me as we approach a guarded set of double doors. “Surely, she could have come up with something a little more refined than just leaving it down like that. I thought you always wore it up in case of a fight?” How does she know that? I’ve had enough.

Swallowing hard, my fingernails biting into my palms, I fight the urge to blast her. What is it about Cat that brings out the irrational in me? “How sweet of you to worry about me, but you’re not the one I’m picking a fight with tonight,” I assure Cat. “With Xaden?” Her eyes narrow, then drip with false sympathy. “If you don’t already know that he’s not the kind of man who gets flustered or loses control, then there’s really no hope for you. Save yourself the energy, because he’ll simply think any fight you pick is childish.”

“And probably shocked Cat enough to make her stop fucking with your head.” “What do you mean?” “She has the gift of heightening the emotions of the people around her, and she’s exceptionally powerful. If you hadn’t blocked me out all evening, I would have told you sooner.”

She’s been waging a war I didn’t even realize we were in. Wait. He would have told me sooner? He’s had weeks to tell me.

“An alliance my father made that I officially denied last year. The chest is priceless. If he wants you to destroy it with lightning, then this is more a statement about me and less about you.” “Why am I not surprised?” My hands crush the delicate silk of my gown as I put the pieces of a sickening puzzle together. “Would that alliance have anything to do with Cat?”

“Yes.” “That information would have been valuable before arriving.” To say the fucking least. No wonder she despises me. I’m not self-centered enough to think I’m the reason he called off whatever alliance they had, but I’m definitely a barrier to resuming it now. Her uncle wants me to blow up the very symbol of whatever it is they’d agreed upon.

Purple robes billowing. Soleil charging forward, Fuil running behind her. The spread of death and decay reaching them both. The fall. Their bodies becoming nothing more than husks, drained of power and life. “Silver One!”

“We need to surround him,” Brennan says, grabbing the alloy-hilted dagger from the sodden grass. Water collects quickly, soaking my feet, my hair, and what’s left of my dress. “And how would you like to do that if we can’t see him through this shit?” Mira asks. “I’m minutes out!” Tairn bellows.

She’s going to burn out. Shadows stream toward us, but they won’t make it. “I love you.” I push the thought Xaden’s way and wait for my power to bleed out, wait for my death to make the venin unstoppable. But it doesn’t come. “You will live!”

Tecarus tears ineffectually at the shadows strangling his neck and, from the garbled sound of his breathing, he’s slowly asphyxiating. “Xaden, please don’t!” Cat cries. Xaden’s grip only tightens as the rain dissipates to a drizzle. Tecarus gurgles, and fliers draw their weapons, but one growl from Sgaeyl is enough to keep them from advancing on Xaden.

“I have a gift for knowing what it is people want, what motivates them to give up their treasures.” Gods, he’s Varrish’s opposite. Our signets really aren’t that different than mindwork. “I think you and I could strike a deal if you consider that I could deliver your wildest dreams.”

“Peace.” Tecarus nods, his movements growing more erratic the more excited he becomes. “Not for you, of course. That’s not what motivates you. Peace for the people you love.” Xaden’s fingers still. “Peace for him,” Tecarus finishes. My next breath is shaky. “I’m listening.”

“They’ve never been given the chance to adjust,” Tecarus argues. “And I want you to educate them just as I assume you are doing with the rider cadets. Keep them safe, teach them to work together, and we might have a chance of surviving this war. We’ve seen riderless wyvern patrolling the skies, no doubt reporting what they see instantly to their creators, in the last few weeks. Our reports say they’ve ventured as far west as Draithus. It won’t help the fliers to stay safe here in the south—not when they want to fight. And who better to teach the fliers how to kill wyvern than dragon riders?”

Train with gryphon fliers? Take Cat back to Aretia? I would rather face down a dozen venin. Unarmed. Without Tairn or Andarna. “There’s no way to fly them into Tyrrendor,” Mira points out.

“Watch your back,” Xaden warns, his voice already fading as he flies east with Sgaeyl on a mission I’m not privy to. “I didn’t have time to question every flier about their intentions.” As if his personal recommendation would help the lack of trust between our two colleges. “You’ve already warned me,” I remind him, feeling him slip away. “Don’t die. I’ll see you in a few days.” There’s a rush of warmth, and then it fades along with his shadowy presence in my mind.

“Those best suited for altitude, for flying the summits of the Esben range,” she explains. “Daja might not want to admit it, but she’s a lowland girl.”

“Like you wouldn’t rather be stationed with the seawing drifts after graduation?”

“That’s what I thought. Trust me, we don’t want to be headed into Tyrrendor any more than you want us...

“Imagine our surprise when he shows up ready to defend you to the death last year.” I look back at her because I don’t hear the animosity I’d expect. There’s none of it in her eyes, either. “Were you disappointed?”

“I was disappointed for Cat, but I wasn’t exactly rooting for that toxicity any more than you would for your best friend. She’s the one up there with Cat, now, right? Your squad leader?”