Iron Flame (The Empyrean, #2)

by Rebecca Yarros

sweet. I stare at my older brother across a scarred wooden table in the enormous, busy kitchen of the fortress of Aretia and chew the honeyed biscuit he put on my plate. Damn, that’s good. Really good. Maybe it’s just that I haven’t eaten in three days, since a not-so-mythological

Brennan is alive. Venin, dark wielders I’d thought only existed in fables, are real. Brennan is alive. Aretia still stands, even though it was scorched after the Tyrrish rebellion six years ago. Brennan is alive.

Stone doesn’t burn. That’s what Xaden told me.

And standing in front of that map, one arm leaning against a massive chair as he stares down the table at its occupants, is Xaden.

He looks good, even with bruises marring the

tawny-brown skin under his eyes ...

sleep. The high slopes of his cheeks, the dark eyes that usually soften whenever they meet mine, the scar that bisects his brow and ends beneath his eye, the swirling, shimmering relic that ends at his jaw, and the carved lines of the mouth I know as well as my own all add up to make him physically fucking perfect to me, and that’s just hi...

Which really hurts, considering how pathetically in love with him I am.

“It’s an Assembly meeting,” Bodhi whispers to me. “Only a quorum of five is required to call a vote, since all seven are almost never here at one time, and four votes carry a motion.”

“And what would you have done with the knowledge had he shared it?” Tairn asks. “Stop bringing logic into an emotional argument.” I fold my arms across my chest. It’s my heart that won’t fully let my head forgive Xaden.

we were thrown into battle, and…me. Nausea rises like a tide. The War Games. We’re supposed to be finishing the last competition of the year between the wings of the Riders Quadrant at Basgiath, and instead, we entered deadly battle with an enemy I’d thought were only folklore last week, and now we’re…well, we’re here, in a city that isn’t supposed to exist. But not all of us. My throat tightens, and I blink back the burn in my eyes. Soleil and Liam didn’t survive.

Liam. Blond hair and sky-blue eyes fill my memory, and pain erupts behind my ribs. His boisterous laugh. His quick smile. His loyalty and kindness. It’s all gone. He’s gone.

All because he promised Xaden he...

“Xaden has already taken responsibility for her.” Imogen sidesteps, moving slightly closer to me. “As brutal of a custom as it may be.”

What the vuck Xaden?!

“Decision was simple. She’s worth a dozen of me,” Xaden says, and my breath catches at the intensity in his eyes. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he means it. “And I’m not talking about her signet. I would have told her everything discussed here anyway, so an open door is a moot point.” A spark of hope flares to life in my chest.

Maybe he really is done keeping secrets.

“I alone am responsible for Violet.” Xaden’s voice lowers in pure malice. “And if I’m not enough, there are not one but two dragons who have already vouched for her integrity.”

I gesture toward Xaden with my left hand.

“Go,” Xaden urges. “We won’t leave without you, and we’re not going to let the Assembly dictate what we do. The eight of us will decide what to do together.” He gives me a long look that makes my traitorous heart clench, and then he walks away. Bodhi and Imogen follow. Which leaves me to turn toward my brother, armed with six years of questions.

It is the valley above Riorson House, heated by natural thermal energy, that is its greatest asset. For there lie the original hatching grounds of the Dubhmadinn Line, from which two of the greatest dragons of our time—Codagh and Tairn—descend.

“Did you eat enough?”

“I’m sorry I let you believe I was dead. It was the only way.”

“I knew. And then Riorson showed up with you stabbed and dying.” He looks away and clears his throat, then takes a deep breath before continuing. “I’m so damned glad you’re healed, that you’ve made it through your first year.” The relief in his eyes takes some of the sting out of my anger.

I think back to the naive, sheltered girl who crossed the parapet, and everything she survived in the crucible of her first year to forge me into the woman I am now.

“I’m sorry your rider died saving my brother.” “We will no longer speak of the one who came before.” Tairn’s voice is rough.

“That’s where Xaden has been? Guarding Andarna?”

revolution

“You call it a revolution, not a rebellion.”

misery.

Because love, at its root, is hope. Hope for tomorrow. Hope for what could be. Hope that the someone you’ve entrusted your everything to will cradle and protect it. And hope? That shit is harder to kill than a dragon.

I’ll spend every single day of my life earning back your trust.

Fucking Dain.

“Love you, too,” I whisper, turning long enough to pat his leg and Andarna’s before running forward to get the hell out of their way.

“And we’re not intimate?” He lifts his brows. “Because I can think of more than one occasion that you’ve been wrapped around—” I jolt forward and cover his mouth with my hand. “Don’t.” Ignoring the explosive chemistry between us is hard enough without him reminding me what we feel like together. Physically, our relationship—or whatever we are—is perfect. Better than perfect. It’s hot as hell and more than addictive. My entire body warms as he kisses the sensitive skin of my palm. I drop my hand.

“Honestly, I’ve considered scrapping the plan and just throwing him off the parapet.”

I’m about ninety-nine percent sure I can’t trust him, either.

“With my life. After all, it’s your life, too.”

No, this Xaden is the wingleader who slaughtered every attacker in my bedroom without breaking a sweat or losing a minute of sleep over it afterward.

and I don’t argue when Xaden plasters himself to my side.

Liam slept in that bed a matter of nights ago. He

studied at that desk. He worked on the half-finished figurines on the bedside table.

“Promise you won’t let them have these when they come for his things if I’m not—”

and he puts his hand on my lower back like he’s worried we might get separated.

“And I sure as hell have never lied to you.

“Yeah, well, it cost me you.”

“Because you didn’t fall for an ordinary rider. You fell for the leader of a revolution,”

“Whatever you want.” I shake my head. “And that’s not going to work for me. Not this time. I can’t trust you again without full disclosure. Period.”

“Then I held Liam as he died,” I state, quick to hide the quiver in my chin. “There was nothing we could do for him once Deigh passed.” It takes me a second to shove the memories, the emotion, back into the box they have to stay in for this to work. “And before his body was even cold, I was stabbed with a poison-tipped blade.”

He got Liam and Soleil killed.

“Touch me and I swear to the gods, I’ll cut your fucking hands off and let the quadrant sort you out in the next round of challenges, Dain Aetos.”