Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)

by Rebecca Yarros

“If you don’t use it, I’ll take personal offense.” He folds his arms across his chest and studies the rigging. “Considering I had it made for you and just about got myself burned alive in the process of trying to get it on him.” He lifts a brow at Tairn. “Even though he helped design it, I might add.” “The first models were unacceptable, and you had the gall to pinch my chest scales when clumsily assembling it this

“Fuck, that stubborn, feisty look always makes me want to kiss you.” Xaden’s expression remains bland, bored even, but his eyes heat as his gaze drops to my mouth. “And you say this now, where people will see if you actually do.” My breath catches. “When did I ever give you the impression that I give a fuck what people think about me?” A corner of his mouth rises, and now it’s all I can concentrate on, damn him. “I only care what they think about you.” Because he’s a wingleader. Nothing is worse than cadets gossiping that you’ve slept your way to safety. That’s what Mira warned at Parapet.

“No, it’s a collar,” Tairn snips, snapping his teeth together.

SCREAMIN

“Good.” Xaden nods once and turns toward me. “Bet it would be even more awkward if I kissed you now, huh?” Yes, please. “The next time we kiss had better not be just to piss off Dain.” The next time had better only be because we want it. “Next time, huh?”

“Of course you thought about—” I pause before climbing when a flash of gold gallops toward me. “Andarna?” “I want to battle, too.” She skids to a halt directly in front of me.

Aww let that baby battle

“The leather is a hazard on my chest if we take a fire attack, since your saddle would slide right off. But if you take a direct blast up there, sitting on a piece of metal isn’t going to save you.”

“Andarna?” If something happens to her because First Wing is out for blood… “Fireproof, remember?”

I am the sky and the power of every storm that has ever been. I am infinite.

My hand trembles as I sheathe the clean dagger at my ribs. The only blood to be found is on the rocks below, though I look at my hands as though they should be covered in death. Tairn roars with the unmistakable sound of pride. “Lightning wielder.”

Why am i cryin .? fuckinn tarin makes me happy for violent .hes like xa proud dad

“Damn, Sorrengail!” Sawyer calls out. “Lightning? You’ve been holding out on us!” Lightning I used to take a life. My stomach heaves and a dark shadow envelops me, but it’s not Xaden. Tairn has folded his wings over us, closing out the world while I retch up everything I’ve eaten today. “You did what was necessary,” Tairn says, but it doesn’t stop my stomach from clenching and tightening again, trying its best to force up what’s not even there. “You saved your friend,” Andarna adds.

“I’m proud you’re mine.” Andarna’s voice wavers, the blinks of her eyes becoming slower. “Even if I need a bath.”

*crying * dammit i love little golden

“Violet?” Dain appears on my left. “That was you with the lightning strike? The one that took down the tower?” The one that killed Jack. I nod, thinking of all the times I aimed for the shoulder instead of the heart. The poisons I used to incapacitate, not murder. I left Oren unconscious on the ground at Threshing and didn’t even go for the throat when he invaded my room. All because I didn’t want to be a killer. “I’ve never seen anything like it. I don’t think there’s been a lightning wielder in more than a century—” He pauses. “Violet?” “I killed him,” I whisper, studying the central chest plate of the saddle. That has to be where everything connects, right? He has to get out of this thing somehow. Mom will be so proud to know I’m just like the others now. Just like her. My empty belly turns over again, and I retch like my body is trying to expel the guilt. “Shit.” He rubs his hand over my back. “It’s all right, Vi.”

“Get the fuck away from her with that nonsense.” Xaden pushes Dain’s chest and tugs me out of his arms, then grips my shoulders, turning me to face him. “You killed Barlowe.” I nod. “Lightning. Your signet is lightning, isn’t it?” He looks at me with such intensity, as though my answer is the key to whatever he needs. “Yes.” His jaw flexes and his head bobs once. “I thought so, but I wasn’t sure until I saw you take that tower down.” He thought so? What the hell does that even mean? “Listen

I like X

can bend metal. Mira can extend the wards. Everyone has a signet that isn’t just useful for battle. They’re tools for good in the world. And what the hell am I, Xaden? I’m a fucking weapon.” “You don’t have to use your power, Vi,” Dain starts, his voice soft and comforting. “Stop. Fucking. Coddling. Her.” Xaden bites out every word at Dain. “She is not a child. She’s a full-grown woman. A rider. Start treating her like one and at least have the decency to give her the truth. You think Melgren or any other general—to include her own mother—is going to let her sit on a power like this? It’s not like she can hide it, not the way she just demolished one of the practice forts.”

“The blood in my veins is as warm as yours, Aetos, and if it’s my job you want next year, then you’d better start understanding that you never get used to killing, but you do understand that it’s necessary.” He turns back to me, his dark gaze

boring into mine. “This isn’t primary school. This is war—and you heard me say it once before, but the ugly truth those not on the front lines choose to forget is there are always body bags in war.”

“Tairn can get it off himself. It was one of his many design stipulations.” Xaden turns to leave but pauses. “Thank you for saving Liam. He’s important to me.” “You don’t have to thank…” I sigh at his back. “And he’s already gone.”

“Go,” Tairn urges. “But do not wallow in guilt, Silver One. Whatever you feel is natural. Allow yourself to feel it but then let it go. The wingleader made a valid point. With a signet like that, you are the best hope the kingdom has against the hordes of evil that seek to harm it. Rest and I will see you tomorrow. I’ll get my own saddle off.”

“As if I’d let them design something I couldn’t figure out how to get on myself. Remember where you get your power from, Silver One.” “How’s Andarna?” I ask as Professor Carr thrusts a

“Should I get the wingleader?” Tairn flat-out laughs in my head. “Shut up.”

You know what? Fuck this. Two can play at this game. “If you’d just man up and admit there’s something between us, I would strip down to my skin so you could see every single inch of me. And once I had you begging, I’d drop down to my knees, undo those flight leathers you’re wearing, and wrap my lips around—” Xaden chokes. Every head in the dining hall turns his way, and Garrick pounds on his back until Xaden waves him off, taking a drink of his water. I grin, which earns me about six looks of confusion from our table and one set of rolled eyes from Liam. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

“Even when I’m not with you, there’s only you. Next time, just ask. You’ve never had a problem being bluntly honest with me.” Wind blows around us, but he’s as

“We’ll see.” He’s unusually tense as we keep walking. We make it to our dragons, and I can’t help but notice that Tairn is standing in what should be Cath’s spot, forcing Dain’s dragon to the side as Dain does a head count. My egotistical dragon is already saddled with Andarna under his wing. Shit. They’re going to force Andarna to keep up with

“And if we take enemy fire, then you find the first available cover and hide just like last scenario. You’re too shiny for your own good,” Tairn tells her.

“What are you wearing?” I ask Andarna, who struts out from under Tairn’s wing with her head held high, boasting a contraption that reminds me of a saddle but isn’t. “The wingleader had it made for me. See? It hooks to Tairn’s.” I can’t help but smile as I see the shape of the triangle on Andarna’s back that I’m sure fits the one on Tairn’s chest. “It’s amazing.” “It’s just in case I can’t keep up. Now I can come along!”

“Don’t worry, Silver One,” Tairn interjects, his tone resolved. “Everything is as it should be.”

“You and Andarna lied to me, too.” The treachery of it is too much, and my shoulders dip from the weight of it. “You knew what he was doing.” “We both chose you,” Andarna says, like that makes it any better. “But you knew.” I look past where Liam dares to stare at me with sorrow, to Tairn, whose lethal focus lies straight ahead like he hasn’t quite decided if he’s going to burn Xaden alive or not. “Dragons are bound by bonds,” he explains as Xaden approaches. “There is only one other bond more sacred than that of a dragon and its rider.”

Lies are comforting. Truth is painful.”

“Try again.” “I don’t have enough control—” “Try again!” Tairn demands.

I deserve it. I’m the reason Liam is dead. I’m so weak-minded that I didn’t even realize Dain took my memories and used them against me—against Liam. “You have to fight, Vi,” Xaden whispers against my forehead as we move. “You can hate me all you want when you wake up. You can scream, hit, throw your fucking daggers at me for all I care, but you have to live. You can’t make me fall for you and then die. None of this is worth it without you.” He sounds so sincere that I almost believe him.

Liam would be alive. Liam. Guilt pairs with soul-sucking grief, and I can barely inhale around the pain in my chest. I’d ordered my foster brother to keep her safe, and that order got him killed. His death is on me.

I’ve allowed no one else—but I brushed it off as an undeniable attraction to a uniquely beautiful woman. When I watched her conquer the Gauntlet, then defend Andarna at Threshing, I stumbled, stunned by both her cunning and her sense of honor. When I burst into her room and found Oren’s treacherous hand at her throat, the rage that made it so easy to kill all six of them without batting an eye should have told me I was headed for a cliff. And when she smiled at me after mastering her shield in mere minutes, her face lighting up as the snow fell around us, I fucking fell. We hadn’t even kissed, and I fell.

“I gave you my trust for free once, and once is all you get.” She masks the hurt with a quick blink.

“You still love me. It’s possible.” Gods, do I ache to kiss her, to remind her exactly what we are together, but I won’t, not until she asks. “I’m not afraid of hard work, especially not when I know just how sweet the rewards are. I would rather lose this entire war than live without you, and if that means I have to prove myself over and over, then I’ll do it. You gave me your heart, and I’m keeping it.” She already owns mine, even if she doesn’t realize it.