Onyx Storm (The Empyrean, #3)

by Rebecca Yarros

it wasn’t a big enough strike.”

Omg

“I’ve never been happier to be single. You two have some serious issues.”

He's an icon,he's a legend and he is the moment

I’m about to break under the weight of failure.

I’ve seen things he never will, touched pieces of history he didn’t know existed. Just like my father.

“Hmmm. Just like you, but without the arrogance.” I cock my head to the side. “Maybe I fell for the wrong—” “It would be a shame to kill my last living relative.”

Lmao

I just fought with every weapon in my arsenal, and it wasn’t enough.

it’s hard to love someone in power,

A dragon determines its last flight, and its rider’s.

“If I loved you in the way you deserve to be loved, I’d ignore that you’re the only form of peace I’ve ever known and put a thousand miles between us because stable still isn’t whole.”

Is it toxic? Maybe. Is it us? Absolutely.

“That we’ve debated killing each other multiple times and have always abstained?”

If it’s fight and die or don’t fight and die, we’d rather fight.”

I was infinite yet moored, and now I’m hollow and adrift in waters too vast to comprehend.

I exist for Tairn, but I live for Xaden.

everyone is here but her.

it takes all my energy to perform what should be the natural act of breathing.

If this is an emotional Gauntlet, I’m failing, but there’s no rope to grab to prevent my fall this time.

the world is still spinning beyond these doors. And I have to catch up to it.

I’m a master of pain, and Andarna’s loss is the deepest I’ve ever had to mask in order to survive.

I’d love to know why the King of Deverelli referred to my sister as your consort in his last offer.”

Lmao

I’m not embracing the fall, if that’s what you’re thinking. I won’t give up a single day I have with you. Not without a fight.”

You better

She has my sister. And our last words were in anger.

“That’s why we’ll fail. Because you will choose everyone over yourself, and he will choose you over everyone.”

nooo omg im gonna cry

omg

“Do not blame yourself for wounds you do not inflict,”

You’re not a weapon of destruction. You’re not venin. You’re the artery power chooses to flow through. You’re life.”

He’s the most powerful rider on the field, and she’s merciless. Their survival isn’t a question.

The only thing more stubborn than a dragon is its rider.

I’ll get the chance to kill her before she attacks anyone else I love.

I’ve prepared for the wrong fight. I know the feel of lightning charging, recognize the crackle in the air just before it strikes. I understand the limits, the boundaries of wielding it. Each strike requires its own burst of energy, and once it’s over, it’s done.

It must be killing you, realizing you don’t have every answer, aren’t the solution to every problem. You’re just another lightning wielder, mortally incapable of being everywhere at once.”

I make a mistake here, and innocent people die.

“My friends will continue to fight long after I meet Malek, and I’ll meet him with my soul intact. Do your worst.”

I’m not dying on this field.

Quinn noo

“We made it a good one.” She falls limp, and when I lift my shaking fingers to her throat, there’s no pulse. She’s gone. My hand slides to the side of her head, and I hold her tight.

omg noooo

You do realize we’re about to cross the walkway of death. Well, then it might be a short friendship, but we’ll make it a good one.

We’re in a war. Malek might claim more lives.

Houses burn. Wyvern and gryphon bodies lie in the middle of crumpled rooflines. Civilians scream. Cruth sails through the sky and takes a wyvern straight to the ground.

Riders don’t run. We fight.

Dying up here isn’t an option I’m willing to entertain, and I’m not about to let her kill my friends—or Xaden, either.

Heat singes my lungs, then burns, then fries, until I feel nothing but fire and rage.

Andarna. Xaden. Sgaeyl. Mira. Brennan. My friends. They slip through my mind in a whirl of pictures I can’t grasp on to, flickering too fast to fully feel.

“You have been the gift of my life,” I tell Tairn.

My lungs scream as I breathe the very thing I’ve become, heat and power and rage,

I breathe the very thing I’ve become, heat and power and rage,

The fire devouring me from the inside out threatens to consume my very bones, and for a second, I debate letting it.

Fire breathes through me, until I am char and cinder and agony.

I. Can’t. Kill. Him. I could no more raise a blade to his throat than I could Violet. The bond between Violence and me is the kind of magic that has no explanation.