Onyx Storm (The Empyrean #3)

by Rebecca Yarros

“I am as unknown as he is, and you still trust me,” she says. “I will not be another battle you have to fight.”

Xaden is mine. My heart, my soul, my everything. He channeled from the earth to save me, and I’ll scour the world until I find a way to save him right back. Even if it takes bargaining with Tecarus for access to every book on the damned Continent or capturing dark wielders one by one to question, I’ll find a cure.

“We’ll find a cure,” Andarna promises. “We will exhaust every closer resource first, but if I’m right and I somehow altered that venin inadvertently while changing my scales, then the rest of my kind should know how to master the tactic. How to change him. Cure him.”

I will not die today. I will save him.

“‘Your wings won’t hold the weight of this ice,’” Andarna blatantly mocks him. “And yet yours miraculously carry the burden of your ego.”

“Pain isn’t a competition,” I assure him. “There’s always enough to go around.”

“Bring their bodies outside once you’re done killing them so we can roast them for fun,” Andarna suggests.

I love her sassy self

His eyes flare in confusion for all of a millisecond before shadows explode around us, immediately devouring every speck of light in a sea of endless black I instantly recognize as home. A band of darkness wraps around my hips and yanks me backward, then brushes my cheek gently, steadying my galloping heartbeat and quieting my power.

Heyyyyyy shadow daddddyyyyy 🤭

Gods, I love this man.

Me too Violet, me too 🤭

“I never realized how much I like alone time until I didn’t have any.”

“I could reach the rank of Maven, lead armies of dark wielders against everyone we care for, and watch every vein in my body turn red as I channel all the power in the Continent, and I would still love you. What I did doesn’t change that. I’m not sure anything can.”

“You’d be so sad to lose your rival, wouldn’t you?” Her dark eyes narrow on mine. “Or are you more intimidated by the thought that I could win and once again prove why I’m the better match for—” “Oh, shut up.” It takes everything I have not to shake her.

Caaaattttt shut upppp 😂

Never turn your back on a rider.

The last time a shadow and lightning wielder fought side by side, they managed to drive the venin back into the Barrens for a few hundred years. We’ll figure out how to do it again.” I fumble the conduit and nearly drop it. Xaden and I are the first of our signets to live simultaneously since the Great War?

When I look over to Xaden, I find him watching, his scarred eyebrow rising as his gaze jumps to Dain before finding mine again. My eyes narrow. Is that… No, it can’t be jealousy, can it?

“So, we kill him if he makes her uncomfortable,” Andarna suggests. “Problem solved.” “You cannot kill the heir to the throne.”

He’s the Duke of Tyrrendor. This is so much bigger than how I feel about him now.

“You can feel both.” She takes my hand in hers and squeezes, and my chest lightens as we watch a spot on the top line of runes differentiating Navarre’s wardstone from Aretia’s bubbling outward.

I love Violet and Rhis friendship 🥹

“Violet Sorrengail!” Colonel Aetos shouts from the doorway, his face a mottled shade of red as his narrowed eyes search the briefing room. “Here.” Bracing my hands on the edges of my seat to fight a sudden wave of dizziness, I rise to stand as four riders follow Aetos in.

I giggled 😂

“Brilliant, reckless woman.” His gaze heats, and I fight a smile.

You might be angry when you realize I didn’t wake you to say goodbye. But it’s only because I no longer fully trust my ability to walk away. —Recovered Correspondence of His Grace, Lieutenant Xaden Riorson, Sixteenth Duke of Tyrrendor, to Cadet Violet Sorrengail

“I am yours and you are mine, and there’s no law or rule in this world or the next that will change that.”

The bond surrounds me in the same instant that he wraps his arms around me from behind, and a stronger shadow—his—tilts my chin toward my shoulder and up. “Only you.”

“You’re going to be the death of me.”

He has literally said this multiple times in each book, which has me thinking this mf is really going to die..

“Sorry about that,” Xaden says, his tone implying otherwise. “I was blocking a potentially lethal blow to the first-year and seem to have knocked the wind right out of you.”

😂

“Yes, love, I’m jealous.” He splays his hand over the small of my back and tugs me toward him. “I’m jealous of the armor that holds you when I can’t, the sheets on your bed that caress your skin every night, and the blades that feel your hands. So, when the prince of our realm walks into my classroom and starts talking to the woman I love with what can only be considered intense familiarity, and then has the audacity to ask her out right in front of me, naturally, I’m going to get jealous.”

“I never loved Cat.” Xaden’s head whips up. “Sure, the idea of”—he swallows like he might puke—“Halden putting his hands on you makes me want to put him back into the wall, especially given the fact that he can touch you and I can’t, but knowing he’s been here—” Xaden puts his hand just beneath my collarbone. “Has me considering murder so there’s no chance of him worming his royal ass back in.”

“Violet,” he groans, his hands capturing mine, pinning them above my head— No. Not his hands. Shadows.

“You will wait until our welcome is assured,” Tairn orders, and Andarna huffs a breath of steam in his direction, then sits on her back legs and glowers. “Pick your tail up off the ground right now. Where do you think we are? The Vale?”

Andarna is by far the cutest dragon ever

“You’re such a centenarian. Perhaps my kind will not be such killjoys. Perhaps they will feast as they see fit. Perhaps they will— Ooh! What is that?” “A Mammoth Red-Horned Tortoise and absolutely not! The shell will embed between your teeth, and I will not carry you and a festering tortoise shell— Get back here!” His voice fades as they fly out of range.

I need to see them on the big screen like immediately

Ridoc slowly lifts his hands and scrapes the slime off his face. “Yelling at me doesn’t help. It’s like shouting in a language I don’t speak.”