Iron Flame (The Empyrean, #2)

by Rebecca Yarros

Turns out, falling in love with someone only brings that blissful high all the poets talk about if they love you back. And if they keep secrets that jeopardize everyone and everything you hold dear? Love doesn’t even have the decency to die. It just transforms into abject misery. That’s what this ache in my chest is: 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.

“The first year is when some of us lose our lives,” he says softly, tucking my damp hair behind my ear. “The second year is when the rest of us lose our humanity.

“Violence, remember it’s only the body that’s fragile. You are unbreakable.”

“Are you serious right now?” I unbutton the fucking jacket and tug at the sleeves, but leather is a bitch when wet, and it takes a moment to yank it free. “I ran out of Battle Brief the second Devera clued me in that you’d been wounded. Yes, I left without leave. Then I flew eight hours at breakneck speed with an absolutely irrational Tairn, who thought if you’d been hurt, then Sgaeyl could have been, too. And now you pull some possessive, jealous, whose-jacket-is-that bullshit just because your cousin knew I was so panicked that I wouldn’t stop for my own flight leathers?” I flat-out glare at his nonsensical ass and drop the jacket to the floor. “You can fuck right off!”

“I’m not mad at you for not being hurt. I would never want you hurt. I’m pissed at myself for being so reckless, so wrapped up in you, having such little control over my emotions that I just ran after you like… like…” Like a lovesick little fool. “And you, you’re always calm, collected, and in control. You would have waited for all the information, and you sure as hell never, ever would have let Sgaeyl’s emotions take over—”

“I would have done the same thing you did because I’m just as reckless for you as you are for me.”

“Just when I think I can handle you, I completely fucking lose it.” “That’s my favorite part.” “Why does that not surprise me?”

“Death of me, I swear.”

Shit. What is this? Jealousy? Anxiety? Insecurity? “All three,” Tairn responds in utter annoyance. “To which I will remind you that not a single dragon chose her. You were selected by two. Pull yourself together.”

“And at one point, you thought gruel was a satisfactory meal, until you grew some teeth and found the rest of the world’s food waiting. Now cease this line of thinking. It does not serve to make you stronger.”

“She makes a good point,” Andarna agrees. “Can you carry a luminary?” “That question insults me.” “Can you carry a luminary while insulted?” she prods. Tairn growls.

“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.” “You’re impossible to impress.” “I’m a dragon, a Black Morningstartail. The descendent of—” “Yeah, yeah.” I cut him off before he makes me recite his entire lineage.

The problem with mankind is we too often find our souls to be a fair price for power.

“The little Mini-Tairn is becoming ferocious, isn’t she—” “I am no one’s miniature.” Andarna’s head darts toward him, and she snaps her teeth less than a foot in front of his face.

“Perhaps I will be the eldest of my own den.” Andarna arches her neck, tracking a flock of birds in the sky. I follow her line of sight, then quickly look away when the brightness of the sun stings my eyes, burning into my vision for a second and making her scales look a shiny, sky blue before I blink the spots away. “I’m still in my middling years,” Tairn grumbles. “You’ll be waiting awhile.” “Really?” She shimmies the harness into a more comfortable position. “I figured you were decades into your elder era. You certainly act like it.” Tairn turns his head slowly, his eyes narrowing on Andarna. “You don’t act a day over a hundred,” I reassure Tairn, then offer a smile to Maren as she approaches with Cat.

“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.” A thousand questions go through my head, none of which we have the time for, so I give her exactly what I wanted—to be seen for who and what she is. “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.

“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.”