Iron Flame (The Empyrean, #2)

by Rebecca Yarros

“Hopefully she doesn’t try any of her mindwork on Rhiannon, or she might find herself dangling off the edge. Rhi isn’t someone to mess with.” My eyebrows rise. “Shocked?”

“Don’t be. Liam didn’t hate many people, but Cat was on that list.” Right. Because he and Xaden were fostered together. He would have met her. “Angry,” Maren corrects her. “I was going to say ‘angry.’ And relax, Sloane—none of us would dare channel power from our gryphons when they need to stay completely focused on not falling to their deaths.”

“I don’t hate you,” Sloane says so quietly that I almost question hearing it. “It’s hard to hate you when Liam didn’t.” My confused look must be enough for her to continue. “I’m in the October letters now.”

“We both knew my brother well enough to say for certain that no one forced him,” Sloane replies, her shoulders dipping. “I just wish Xaden had asked someone else. Anyone else.” “Me too,”

“Which part? Tairn saving my ass? Or being grumpy about it? Because yes, both are normal.” “When you walk your parapet, there are rocks thrown at you?” she clarifies. “Oh.” I shake my head. “No. You just have to cross it, which is harder than it sounds. What do you go through to be chosen?”

“Aretia’s first hatchling has chosen to emerge,” Tairn tells me, his tone clipped, considering the news. “We have hatchlings?” I grin. “Why don’t you seem happy about it?” “The hatchling’s choice transforms the valley back into a hatching ground. It changes the magic. Every channeling creature within a four-hour flight of the valley will know.” “That’s just us. We’re on the edge of about three hours away.”

And the fights breaking out between fliers and riders aren’t helping, either. We’ve had to stop the march three times just to switch up where certain cadets are walking. Brennan might be right that we’ll respect the fliers for having climbed, but a daylong hike isn’t going to solve the years of hatred we’ve borne for each other.

“And you don’t have to whisper,” Maren states. “Gryphons have remarkable hearing.” “Just like dragons,” I mutter. “No privacy.” “Exactly.” Maren scratches just above Daja’s beak, reminding me of that spot above her nostrils that Andarna likes. “Gossiping busybodies,” she says with affection. “Don’t worry, Luella will win her over. She’s the nicest of us.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Sloane slows, waiting for us to come up with her. “Visia’s family was killed in the Sumerton raid last year.” “Lu wasn’t even a cadet when that happened,” Maren argues between shallow breaths.

“Good point,” Maren admits. “But it’s hard to hate Luella. Plus, she bakes really good cake. She’ll win Visia over with butterscotch

“What the fuck is he doing back here?” Sloane mutters. It doesn’t matter how many times I explain that Dain didn’t understand the consequences of stealing my memories; Sloane still despises him. There’s an overwhelming part of me that still does, too.

Rhiannon can’t retrieve something as big as a person. Cianna, our executive officer from last year, is up there, but wind wielding isn’t going to help here, either. Our signets are useless for this. “You jump first, Ridoc,” Dain orders.

Sloane’s right. Luella’s physically similar to me, small and shorter than average. She’s even my age, since fliers start a year after riders. But she’s suffering from altitude sickness, and I’m not. I’m just lightheaded, which might be a death sentence up here.

“What are you thinking?” Dain asks. “Don’t tell me nothing. You have those little lines between your eyebrows.” “I’m wondering how attached Ridoc is to his sword.”

“No.” Dain draws his shortsword, leaving the long one sheathed. “Use this one. It has a longer pommel, and it will be easier to work in.” He hands the sword to Ridoc, then looks over at me. “I still know how your mind works.” Sloane scoffs.

Her feet land just before the rope and her eyes lock on mine, widening with terror as she throws herself forward, like the trap won’t notice her misstep if she’s quick enough. Oh, fuck. Maybe Dain’s wrong. Maybe the trap is twelve inches before the rope line. Maybe she’s in the clear. Maybe we all are.

Luella dives forward, hurling her body where she was looking—at me instead of Cibbelair—and I barely have time to open my arms before she impacts, driving me backward at an angle into Visia…toward the edge of the cliff.

A hand grasps the waistband of the back of my leathers and pulls, changing the direction of my fall. Ridoc. My feet lose traction as my momentum shifts, and I hit my knees near the edge of the cliff just in time to see Visia and Luella start to slide over.

Visia grabs hold of my left hand and Luella grips my right wrist, the weight of both women nearly taking me to join them. My right shoulder pops from the socket, and agony rips from my throat with a scream.

Feet pound, but Luella’s grip slips from my wrist to my hand, and I chance a look back over my right shoulder, hoping for rescue as Visia’s weight disappears, plucked from the side of the cliff by a giant beak.

“All right.” His tone immediately softens. “I’ve got you.” His hands wrap around my rib cage, and he carefully lifts me to my feet, my right arm hanging uselessly at my side.

“Something feels wrong,” Tairn says. “It’s all fucking wrong.” “You dropped her!” Cat charges toward us from the other side of Cibbe, fury rightfully etched in every line of her scowl. “I never had her.”

“Cat, no.” Maren hurries around us, putting her hands out as if to block her best friend. “I saw it happen. It’s not Violet’s fault. Luella almost killed both of the riders because she couldn’t jump the trap.”

“You fucking dropped her!” Cat surges against Maren. “Cibbe saved your precious rider, and you dropped our flier! I will kill you for this!” “Knock it off!” Maren shouts. “You kill her, you kill Riorson. Everyone knows it.”

“Take one step toward Violet, and I’ll throw you off this fucking cliff myself,” Dain warns, his voice low and menacing. “Unlike Riorson, I don’t give a shit who your uncle is.” “I’ll do it just for fun,” Sloane adds.

“Cat, let it go. Cibbe doesn’t have long,” Maren says, her hand trembling as she reaches for the gryphon. Cat breathes deeply, then nods, moving to the gryphon’s side. “Gryphons die with their fliers,” Maren explains, her tone softening as she strokes the line where feathers turn to fur. Like Tairn and me.

“Wyvern,” I manage to whisper, my head swiveling toward Maren and Cat. They’re the only people here who’ve seen one. “Wyvern, right?” “Wyvern,” Cat replies, her eyes wide with shock. Maren is still as a statue. “Wyvern!” Dain bellows, and all hell breaks loose. “We can’t see anything in the cloud cover,” Tairn growls. “But they can see well enough to eat us!”

I kneel beside him and take his hand. “We made a deal, remember? All four of us live to see graduation. We. Made. A. Deal.” “Ridoc?” Sawyer pushes toward us, his eyes bulging with fear as he brings up the last of our squad and Tail Section begins.

“Take Sloane.” I look over at her as she draws back, clearly offended. “I had to hold Liam while he died, his dragon already eviscerated by the jaws of a wyvern, and I will not watch his sister suffer the same fate. Get up the fucking cliff!” Sawyer all but lifts Sloane to her feet, and the two join into the steady,

“Would Riorson let you rush off into a battle against gods know how many wyvern—or worse, the venin who created them—when you’re wounded?” His eyebrows rise. “Yes.” I step out onto the midpoint of Tairn’s tail, my stomach settling at the familiar territory beneath my boots as I look back over my shoulder at Dain. “That’s why I love him.” I don’t wait for his response, not when Tairn is a giant target. He holds remarkably steady as I walk forward, navigating his spikes and scales with ease. “The flier’s death is not your fault,” Tairn tells me as I find my saddle and lower into the seat. “We’ll save that for another day.”

fastening with my left. “You know I can’t wield with one hand, right?” “You don’t need me to tell you your limits.” Tairn dives and I’m thrown forward in my seat as we plummet through thousands of feet of dissipating clouds. “You can’t feel them, can you?” “I was aware something felt off, but if I could accurately detect wyvern—if any of us could—without seeing them, we wouldn’t be in this position.” Fair point.

“Good.” We fly straight through the thickest parts of the cloud, but there’s no trace of the wyvern. Until they—as in two of them—fly by on either side of us, streaks of gray in the otherwise endless white. “Shit.”

“I approve.” Tairn sails into the cloud cover. “I’ve told Gaothal to instruct his rider to stop eliminating the clouds and instead push them away from the cliff.” “Just from where the path is. Until then, keep the wyvern distracted.”

“Break free!” Tairn demands. I force my palms shut and shove the Archives door in my mind closed, blocking the endless torrent of Tairn’s power before I end up in the same condition I’d been in at Basgiath under Carr and Varrish’s punishment.

Four wyvern carcasses litter the ground, one in the middle of the very field we’d stood in this morning. Tairn flies over each just long enough to be sure that they are, in fact, riderless, and we’re joined by four others in the riot on one last sweep of the area.

“Wyvern are created with dark wielder magic, and Felix said something to me about energy fields the other day. I took a chance that the lightning would be drawn to their magic, and Tairn agreed to try.” Brennan’s jaw drops slightly and Dain bites back an uncharacteristic smile, reminding me of the years when he cared more about climbing trees than our curfew. “Chance panned out,” Bodhi says, flat-out grinning. “It did.” I nod. “Aren’t you going to tell me how brilliant that idea was?” Tairn scoffs. “I chose you last year for that brilliance, and now you’d like to be congratulated like it’s something new? How odd.”

“It’s only been three days, and you apparently already know,” Brennan counters. “And some things are beyond your clearance, cadet, especially information we haven’t finished analyzing.” “I know because I read the book my father gave me,” I argue, and I almost regret the emphasis when he flinches. He didn’t just separate himself from Mom when he changed his name—he distanced himself from Dad. “And Bodhi knows because it’s how I killed an entire horde of them at Resson.”

“I didn’t know,” Dain interrupts. “So if one of them felt that energy pulse… If one of them knows what it means…” “Whoever created them knows,” I finish for him, turning my gaze to Brennan.

listen while standing in formation. I

“I think that’s Isar’s brother,” Ridoc says from beside me. “Second Wing.” We both glance left, past Third Wing. Isar Panya bows her head from the middle of her squad in Tail Section.

“Yes, it is,” Sloane argues. “Hearing someone from a different wing died, or hell, even our squad, isn’t the same as being told your brother’s gone.” Her voice cracks.

glance right—just like I do every morning—and see Cat’s posture soften, her eyes close briefly from her drift on the closest edge of their formation. Syrena is still alive, too.

She looks over at me and I nod, which she returns, even if it’s curt. It’s our one daily moment of truce, the only time we seem to recognize each other as little sisters instead of enemies, and it’s over in less than a heartbeat.

“Agreed.” “Civil is overrated,” Andarna notes, flexing her claws in the grass. “I’ve never tasted gryphon—” “We do not eat our allies,” Tairn lectures. “Find another snack.”

“I was wondering if you…” He cringes, then sighs. “Never mind.” “He wants you to teach him how to sign,” Ridoc finishes, rocking back on his heels in clear boredom. “Ridoc!” Sawyer glares his way. “What? You made that way more painful than it had to be. For fuck’s sake, it was like you were leading up to asking her out or something.” He visibly shudders.

“It’s still wielded.” Professor Trissa all but sighs in disappointment at our ignorance. “But just like we store food for winter, a wielder can temper a rune using as much or as little power as they choose, then place it into something.”

“Like wood, or metal, or whatever object the wielder chooses. That rune will activate when triggered and perform whatever action it was tempered for. Unlike alloy, which houses power, runes are tempered with power for specific actions.” Rhi and I exchange a confused glance.

“Power can be shaped.” Her hands move quickly, pulling at pieces of air, then using her fingers to form invisible shapes. Circles? Squares? Was that a triangle? It’s hard to tell when we can’t see. “Every shape has meaning. The points where we tie the power change that meaning. All of which you will need to memorize.” She reaches into the air again, then creates…a rhombus? “The shapes we combine layer the meanings, changing the rune. Will it activate immediately? Sit in suspended state? How many times can it activate before the rune depletes? It’s all decided here.”

“Once it’s ready”—Professor Trissa bends and grabs the board, then stands—“we place the rune. Until it’s placed, it has no meaning, no purpose, and will fade quickly. It’s tempering the rune that makes it an active magic.” She grabs what I assume is the rune she’s been tempering with her right hand, then pushes her palm into the wooden board. “This particular one is a simple heating rune.” “That was simple?”

Every shape has meaning. The points where we tie the power change that meaning. I take another look at the multifaceted shape before she flips the board, holding it to face skyward, and my eyes widen with realization. “It’s a logosyllabic language,” I blurt. “Like Old Lucerish or Morrainian.” Professor Trissa lifts her eyebrows as she looks my way. “Very similar, yes.” Her mouth curves into a smile. “That’s right, you can read Old Lucerish, too.” She nods. “Impressive.” “Thank you.” “She’s ours,” Ridoc says to the fliers, pointing at me.