Iron Flame (The Empyrean, #2)

by Rebecca Yarros

I pull back at the first splatter on my head. “Rain?” Xaden looks up. “In December?” Warmth. Rain. The charge in the air. “It’s my mother.” A slow smile spreads across my face. “It’s her way of imbuing her favorite weapon.” Me.

I am the storm.

Andarna lands directly in front of him, then opens her mouth and breathes fire down upon him, roasting the dark wielder before she snaps her jaws down and rips his head straight off his body.

“You breathe fire,” Tairn acknowledges, a note of pride in his voice. “I breathe fire.” Andarna extends her neck to the fullest.

“You ward wherever you are, which is here.”

“But your home…” It’s softer than a whisper. “You are my home. And if we all die here today, then the knowledge dies with us anyway. Ward Basgiath.” “You’re sure?” My heart beats like the second hand of a clock, ticking down what time we have left. “I’m sure.”

“You court death?” Tairn asks, pushing past my shields. “I needed to confirm a secret that isn’t mine to share,” I answer. “Please don’t push.”

“You and I both know you can’t raise the wards and stay to fight. When we were in Resson, I held them back while you fought. I trusted you to handle yourself. Now trust me to handle myself while you get the wards up before more people die. End this.” He kisses me hard and quick, then looks at me like this will be the last time he ever sees me. “I love you.”

I run because I couldn’t save Liam, couldn’t save Soleil, but I can save the rest of them. I can save him. And if I give myself even a moment to linger on the possibilities of what he might be facing, I’ll turn around and run straight back to Xaden.

I know all the first-years’ names.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Her golden eyes blink in the darkness. “Tell you what?” “I know.” I shake my head at her. “I should have known earlier. The second I saw you after Resson, I knew something was different about the sheen of your scales, but I figured I’d never been around an adolescent, so what would I know?”

“Say it. Don’t just guess,” she demands. Even a slow breath won’t calm my racing heart. “Your scales aren’t really black.” “No.” Even now, her scales are changing, taking on the grayish hue of the stone around us. “But he is, and I so badly want to be just like him.” “Tairn.” It’s not hard to guess. “He doesn’t know. Only the elders do.” She lowers her head, resting it on the ground in front of me. “They revere him. He is strong, and loyal, and fierce.” “You are all those things, too.” I wobble under the strain of wielding but keep my balance, keep the power flowing into the stone. “You didn’t have to hide. You could have told 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 would be mine.” She leans into my hand. “You are as unique as I am. We want the same things.” “You couldn’t have known I would be a rider.” “And yet, here we are.”

“You are not a black dragon, or any of the six that we know of. You’re a seventh breed.” “Yes.” Her eyes widen in excitement. I suck in a quick, steadying breath. “I want you to tell me everything, but our friends are dying, so I need to ask if you are willing to breathe fire for the stone.”

“You both have to live. Promise me you’ll choose to live.”

“What’s your signet?” Mom shouts, but I lack the strength to lift my head. “You can’t do this,” Andarna argues in a shriek. “You have your purpose.” Even my mental voice is a whisper. “Maybe this is mine.”

“You will cease!” Tairn orders. “I’m so sorry.”

“You shouldn’t have to lose two riders this way.”

“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.” “No.” Steam rises from my skin. “Let go,”

“Andarna!” I scream. “I’m so sorry. I choose your life, too. You are mine. I can’t let you die.”

“Don’t do it!” I cry. “Sloane, that’s my mother.” This isn’t happening. Maybe Sloane won’t listen to me, but she’ll listen to Xaden. I throw down my shields— Pain. Agonizing, blistering pain roars down the pathway. Hopelessness and…helplessness? It hits me from every angle, stealing my breath, overwhelming my senses and my strength. My body sags—my full weight in Aaric’s arms—as my mind fights to separate Xaden’s emotions from mine.

“Xaden’s dying,” I whisper. Sloane’s gaze snaps to mine, and that’s all it takes. “You don’t have to do anything but stand there,” my mother promises somewhere in the distance. “Your signet will take over for you. Think of yourself as nothing more than a conduit for power. You’re simply facilitating mine flowing into the stone.”

“It’s all right,” Mom says to me, her eyes softening as Sloane’s body goes rigid. “As soon as my power—Aimsir’s power—lives within the stone, fire it. Raise the wards. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you safe. Do you understand? Everything was to get you to this moment, when you’d be strong enough—” She falls to her knees but doesn’t let go of Sloane. “No, no, no.” I fight Aaric’s arms as my chest threatens to collapse, to crumple in on my heart. Mom blinks in and out of my vision, blurry one second, then clear. “I’m so sorry,” Aaric whispers. “You’re everything we dreamed you would be,” Mom says quietly, her skin paling even as Sloane’s flushes scarlet. “All three of you.” She looks down at Brennan. “And I’ll get to see him soon.”

I can’t breathe. She’s the tide, the storms, the very air, a force too big to be extinguished without ripping the world itself apart to the core. How can she just be gone? “I’m so sorry.” Sloane cries softly. “What did you do?” Mira yells again, the full force of her wrath turned on Brennan.

“Xaden needs you,” Andarna says, but I can’t move. “Tairn and Sgaeyl wait with him.” “We need to get them out,” Aaric says,

Most generals dream of dying in service to their kingdom. But you know me better than that, my love. When I fall, it will be for one reason only: to protect our children. —Recovered, Unsent Correspondence of General Lilith Sorrengail

“Wyvern bodies,” Andarna tells me, pivoting to peek her head through the doorway. “Please forgive me.” Her golden eyes blink. Forgive her?

“You are alive. You will live today. You will wake tomorrow,” Tairn promises me as I force one foot in front of the other. “Xaden?” I reach through the bond, but his shields are up. “He lives.” Thank you, Dunne.

“I’m so fucking sorry.” “She killed your father. Why would you be sorry?” I swipe at another tear that leaks out. “I didn’t want her dead,” he says softly. “I could never want anyone you love dead.”

“Me,” he whispers, a faint, almost indistinguishable red ring emanating from his gold-flecked onyx irises. “You should be scared of me.”

“You cannot!” Sgaeyl shrieks. “I chose you!” But Violet chose me, too.

“I love you,” I whisper, just because I can, and then I climb from the bed as quietly as possible and dress quickly in the moonlight.