Iron Flame (The Empyrean, #2)

by Rebecca Yarros

“You lost two of your daggers fighting Solas. I had two new ones made.” A slow smile spreads across his face. “Just have to disarm me, and they’re yours.”

every spare second and ounce of energy they have. But mine has a special addition I asked him for after our battle with Solas: a strap of a bracelet to keep from losing it in combat. It’s long enough to let the orb slide into my palm, but keeps it strapped to my arm in case I need to free myself for hand-to-hand.

“Not everyone has the means to pick up their entire lives and move just because a war is coming, you elitist prick,” Avalynn counters, her voice rising. She has a point, and the mutters of agreement throughout the wings rise in volume and pitch. “This is not what Battle Brief is for!” Devera shouts.

“If you were Melgren, what would you be doing right now?” “Shitting myself,” Ridoc answers. Brennan rubs the bridge of his nose. “Other than that?”

“I’d have pulled every dagger from the coastal outposts to reinforce and boost the power supplies at the border outposts. They’re powerless once they cross the wards. Wyvern die. Venin can’t channel. That leaves them with hand-to-hand combat—” “Or artillery,” Cat adds. “Exactly.” I glance at her and nod. “As long as the Navarrian forces can physically repel the dark wielders and keep them from scattering the power supply in the armory, then there’s no real danger of incursion.”

“That portion of the wards would fall back to its natural distance, about a three- or four-hour flight from Basgiath, just like ours. The power supplies in the outposts extend the wards, they don’t create them, so while a large piece of Navarre would be unprotected—” Blinking, my gaze finds my brother’s.

“We act now.” Tairn’s voice rumbles through my head. I stuff everything into my bag as Devera calls on another rider to answer a question. “What are you doing?” Rhi asks in a whisper, and I notice almost every member of my squad has turned to watch. “I need to find Xaden.”

“It’s not Samara.” “All right.” Rhiannon puts her things away, and the rest of the squad follows her lead. “We’re coming with you.”

“Wyvern aren’t going to take down the wards at Samara. They can’t fly past them. Plus, smaller hordes were moved along the full border. I think Samara is just a distraction. I think they’re waiting for them all to fall.”

“Not if we’re there,” Sloane counters. “Melgren can’t see the outcome if three of us are there, remember?” She holds up her forearm, where her relic winds above the edge of her sleeve. “Exactly.” My fingernails bite into my palms. “He can’t see the real fight if we’re there. He has all his forces concentrating on Samara, when they should be—”

“At Basgiath,” Xaden finishes my thought, his eyes searching mine. “The Vale.” “Yes.” “Do you want to go back?” he asks. “Of course we do,” Ridoc answers. “I wasn’t asking you.” Xaden holds my gaze. “Do you want to go?” Do I? Navarre has lied to their people—lied to us—for six hundred years.

I don’t want to put Tairn and Andarna into danger. I would rather die than gamble with Xaden’s life. But is there really a choice? Going might risk death, but staying risks us becoming just like our enemy. “We have to.”

It’s where I studied, where I climbed trees with Dain, and where my father taught me the wonder of the Archives. It’s where I fell in love with Xaden and learned just how much had been omitted from those very Archives. “The wards are still up. We’ve made our presence known to the Empyrean, and I can definitely sense their displeasure, if that’s what you mean.”

“But Greim is in residence, and she’s reaching out to her mate, who is at Samara to contact Codagh.” “At what point will you and Sgaeyl be able to cover distances like that?” We pass the parapet in nothing more than a heartbeat, and then Tairn banks left. “Years. Greim and Maise have been mated for many decades.”

“We’re not here to fight you. We’re here to fight for you,” I tell her. “You might not believe me, but your wards are in danger.” “Our wards are perfectly fine, as I’m sure you can feel.” Mom crosses her arms as Dain joins us. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” She calls across the courtyard, “Hollyn, open the damned gates before one of these dragons takes off the roof.” She looks pointedly at the shadows blocking her path.

“Let the others know the gates are opening,” I tell Tairn. “I will position myself accordingly.”

“Trust me, Mom. The battle you’re expecting isn’t at Samara: it’s here.” I explain my line of thinking in the few minutes it takes for my squadmates to reach us. “Someone is going to take down your wards.” “Not possible, cadet.” She shakes her head as night descends in true around us. “They’re heavily guarded every moment of every day. The biggest threat to the wards would be you.” “Let us check,” Xaden says at my back. “You know your daughters would never strip Navarre of its protection.” “I know exactly who my daughters are. And the answer is no.” Her dismissal is curt. “You’re lucky to be alive crossing enemy airspace. Consider retaining your lives a personal gift.” “I think not.” Mira’s gaze sweeps the courtyard. “This courtyard should be full at this hour with

“Chradh is worried,” Tairn remarks, his voice tense. “What would Garrick’s dragon be worried about?” Xaden asks on the pathway shared by all four of us. “Runes,” Sgaeyl answers. That’s right. The Brown Scorpiontail found the lure in Resson because he’s highly sensitive to them. “Basgiath was built on runes,” I remind them. “This is different. He senses the same energy that he detected in Resson.” Tairn’s tone shifts. “His rider officially has control of the dormitory with Devera.” Garrick’s in place.

“See, it’s guar…” Mom’s words die, and we see them the same moment she does. Two bodies in black uniforms lie on the ground, pools of their blood slowly expanding toward each other. Their eyes are open, but they’re glazed and vacant, freshly dead. My heart lurches and the shadows fall away with Xaden’s hand as we both reach for weapons. “Oh, shit,” Ridoc whispers as the others file through the bottleneck behind us, drawing swords, daggers, and battle-axes.

“Do you know where the ward chamber opens to the sky?” I ask Tairn as my boots pound the stone floor of the corridor. It has to, if it’s constructed anything like Aretia. “According to you, I cannot supply fire to more than one—” He pauses as though taking stock of my situation. “On my way.”

Not just any dragon. Baide. “Get out of there!” Tairn orders as Baide lowers her head, and I get a single glimpse of her eyes—opaque instead of golden—before Mom charges toward her nose, lifting her sword to swing.

Baide knocks her aside with a single swipe of her head, and Mom flies into the stone wall of the chamber, cracking her head before falling into a heap. Xaden throws his hand out, and shadows stream past, grasping both Mira and Mom, pulling them back to us as Baide roars, steam and spit flying from her mouth. She stalks forward, her talons clicking on the floor as she maneuvers around the stone, revealing Jack Barlowe in his seat on Baide’s back. The smile he gives me twists my stomach. “You’re right on time, Sorrengail.”

“Anytime you want to show up would be very appreciated,” I tell Tairn as Xaden’s shadows release Mira at my side but drag my mother’s unc...

“What the hell are you doing, Barlowe?” Dain snaps. “What I promised,” he answers, glee shining in his eyes. Xaden sends another stream of shadows, this one shooting toward Barlowe, and Baide drops her jaw, her eerie eyes flashing as fire glows up her throat.

Baide is up on her back legs, her front claws grasping the top of the flaming wardstone, and Barlowe isn’t in his seat. It takes a precious second we don’t have to spot him holding on to the top of Baide’s neck, clutching one of her horns. Not even Xaden is fast enough to stop the downward plunge of Jack’s shortsword between the scales alongside Baide’s neck. The dragon’s cry shakes the foundation of the chamber and stops abruptly when Jack pushes the blade all the way through the front of her throat. Jack’s head swings in our direction, and he wields with an outward-facing palm, throwing a shield that deflects Xaden’s shadows as blood sprays from Baide’s throat onto the wardstone. The black flames extinguish an instant before Baide collapses, her weight pitching forward. The wardstone tips and Jack fumbles to hold on, giving me the perfect opportunity to flick my wrist and release the dagger. I

At its core, magic demands balance. Whatever you take will be recouped, and it is not the wielder who determines the price. —Magic: a Universal Study for Riders

“That’s the thing,” Barlowe says, his blond hair covering his forehead as he falls forward onto a hand. “I’m not. They have us thinking we’re the inferior species, but did you see how easily I controlled her? How easily the energy she bonded us with is replaced?” His eyes slide shut as his fingers splay on the stone. “Jack! Don’t do this!” Nolon storms past Rhiannon, his features slackening when he takes in the destruction around him. “You…you’re better than this! You can choose!” My chest tightens. “The way he said that is almost like he expected this.” “Because he did,” Xaden answers, his gaze locked on Jack. “He wants to mend him. He’s been trying to mend him since May. He’s too weak to shield his intentions now.”

“Jack’s

turned venin. Somehow, he managed it within the wards.” I think I might be sick. “There is no choice!” Jack shouts. “And if there was, I made mine the second I saw her”—he shoots a glare my way—“bond the most powerful dragon available at Threshing. Why should they determine our potential when we’re capable of reaching for fate all on our own?”

“You’ll be working within your squads tonight. Remember that wyvern are the distraction and the weapon. You take down one of the venin, and you kill the wyvern they’ve created. No one takes on a dark wielder alone. That’s how you get killed. Work together, rely on each other, complement each other’s signets just like it’s the Squad Battle.” “Except it’s real battle,”

There’s no need to reach for power; it’s already there, both racing through my veins and charging the sky overhead. Energy sizzles at the ends of my fingertips, and just as I aim to wield, the riderless wyvern drops his jaw and breathes out a stream of green fire. My heart lurches into my throat as the flames barrel toward us, and Tairn rolls left, narrowly missing the blaze.

“I can’t strike here. I chance hitting someone above if I draw from the sky, they’re too far to pull from myself, and if I miss from the ground up—” “Hold on.” I throw both hands on the pommel and do just that, spotting the rider on the center wyvern as we drop hundreds of feet in seconds, power a constant buzz in my ears.

But Sawyer is outmatched fifty feet below as Sliseag goes head-to-head with three wyvern, one of whom bears a rider. I grip the conduit, then flood my body with another wave of power and lift my hand. “Don’t miss,” Tairn warns.

I am the storm. “You tire,” Tairn warns. Fuck exhaustion. “People are dying.” A quick glance over the sunrise-lit battlefield reveals more and more spots of color among the gray carcasses littered on the ground, but I only stop quickly enough to note my squad is still fighting, handling each wyvern that crosses into our sector with teamwork and efficiency.

“You’re the one he wants,” the dark wielder announces, shoving his wet, stringy blond hair out of his eyes and striding down Tairn’s neck as I yank at the belt with my left hand, but the buckle doesn’t give. He looks so…young. But so did Jack. Tairn releases the wyvern, his shoulders bunching to push off the dying creature, but it snaps at his neck, and Tairn retaliates with a stronger bite, bleeding the life out of it as we fall and fall and fall. “Your Sage?” I wrench on the leather, but the belt is stuck, and so am

“You’ll meet them all soon enough,” he promises, raising my own blade as he marches toward me. A green blur comes at us from the right, and we both look as Rhiannon jumps from Feirge to Tairn, landing in front of my saddle in a crouch.

In the second, it blasts green fire across Sliseag and Sawyer dives backward out of the seat, narrowly avoiding being burned to death and rolling down Sliseag’s spine with a smoking boot. In the third, it completes its assault, snapping at Sliseag’s exposed side. Sawyer kicks at the gaping jaws to save his dragon from the bite, but in the next, he takes it himself, his leg disappearing between the wyvern’s massive teeth.

Sawyer’s scream rips into my soul, and I nearly echo it when the wyvern’s jaw locks with an audible click as Tairn slows his descent directly overhead, only a dozen feet above Aotrom as the remaining wyvern ducks under the fight. Tairn’s weight shifts, and I know he’s chosen an angle of attack and is about to dive, but in this position, there’s only time to save Sawyer or Sliseag, not both. Sawyer bellows in pain as the wyvern half drags him off Sliseag, wrenching away its ugly gray head before snapping again. My stomach twists and my breath threatens to seize.

The sluggish beat of his pulse jolts my own. He’s losing too much blood too quickly, and there’s no help in sight, though it’s obvious we’re not the first wounded to have landed here. “I will call for aid,” Tairn replies. You can’t have him, I tell Malek, shifting to kneel in the scarlet snow. You took Liam. You may not have Sawyer.

“Sawyer?” I wrench the buckle on the belted sheath around my left thigh, and mercifully, it gives. Knives and all, I wrap it over the wrecked leather beneath Sawyer’s knee, inches above raggedly torn flesh, thread the leather through the buckle, and pull as hard as I can, crying out when pain sings through my left shoulder. “You have to wake up! Open your eyes!”

“Oh, thank the gods!” I smile down at him, my lower lip trembling uncontrollably. “Hold on—” “Violet!” Maren calls from across the field, and I look up to see her on Daja’s back, the gryphon sprinting forward through the rain, covering the distance quickly with Cat and Bragen on foot a bit behind. Tairn’s head snaps upward toward the battlefield. “Sgaeyl—”

“You look like shit.” Cat crouches in front of me, her braid as sodden as mine as she looks me over. “I heard what you did up there. Well, Kira saw, and she told me. That took guts.” “You would have done the same.” Exhaustion sweeps in, my shoulders drooping as adrenaline fades. “I would have run faster.” She slips one of her alloy-hilted daggers free and hands it to me. “Looks like you’re missing one. I have another.” “Thank you.” I take it like the

“I’ll look after Sawyer,” she promises as she stands. “And don’t you dare thank me for that,” she calls back over her shoulder, walking toward the southwest tower without another word.

Cat. I don’t want to draw attention to the retreating flier if the venin doesn’t already see her. “There’s no point running,” the dark wielder says, walking forward slowly, as if I’m no more of a threat than a butterfly. “We both know I’ll drain the very ground underneath you, and then this all will have been for nothing.” She throws her arms out, gesturing to the mayhem around us. “Sorrengail!” Cat yells, and I hear the sloshing sound of her running toward me.

“Run, Cat!” I shout, glancing up at Tairn and spotting him mid-dive, about a minute out, but the footsteps don’t slow. The dark wielder’s eyes flare as she spots Cat, and she drops to a knee, splaying her hand out over the icy ground. “Stop!” I yell, my heart lurching into my throat and lodging there. This is so much worse than my nightmare. Even if I could run, there’s no telling what she’d do to Cat. Flicking my wrist, I grasp the conduit in my left hand and lift my right—dagger and all—throwing open the doors to Tairn’s power I’d never fully closed.

“Her, I don’t care about.” She glances at Cat. “But you, I’m under orders not to kill, so let’s not make this difficult.” “Me?” What the hell? She takes a step forward, and I release a strike, hitting the ground right in front of her, stopping her in her tracks. “You’ll be so much fun for him to wield.” The nightmare comes back full force, the Sage’s words tumbling over me just enough to make my hand tremble. A wild look comes over her narrow-set eyes. “And I will be his favorite for delivering you. I will be more than just an asim soon.” Her words flow faster and faster. “I will be given the Vale when this is over!”

“You can kill her at any time now,” Cat reminds me, her gaze locked on the dark wielder. “I want to know what the hell she means about delivering me,” I murmur under my breath. “You will turn for something much more dangerous…” Wasn’t that what he said in the nightmare? “It will be me! Me!” The venin shoves her shaking hand into her scraggly red hair. Cat’s doing this, heightening the woman’s greed, spinning her out on her own emotions. Have to admit, it’s a pretty badass ability when she’s not using it on me.

“You breathe fire,” Tairn acknowledges, a note of pride in his voice. “I breathe fire.” Andarna extends her neck to the fullest. “Melgren orders us to the Vale.” Tairn’s eyes narrow, and his head swivels toward Sgaeyl. “They’re pulling the whole squad to the Vale?” I glance upward, noting there are only two wyvern left in our sector.

Shoulders drooping, I sigh. Seven dragons is impossible. There are only six dens: black, blue, green, orange, brown, and red. I hand her the journal. “Then maybe it’s not a seven. Maybe you mistranslated?” She shakes her head, flipping to the very first page of the journal, then gives it back. “Here.” She taps the symbols, then lifts her hands. “‘Here is recorded the story of Lyra of the First Six.’” She taps the six, then turns the pages to the previous spot in the middle. “Seven.”

Could it mean a gryphon? Is that what it meant by six and the one? No. If a gryphon contributed to the wards, flier magic would work within the boundaries. But there aren’t seven breeds of dragon— I stumble, catching myself with a hand along the stone wall, while my brain trips down the path that makes the only sense. Even if that path is ludicrous. But… Holy shit. I immediately shut the thoughts down before anyone connected to me can break through my shields and catch me thinking them. “Absolutely not,” Xaden snaps at Melgren, who stands between two of his aides.