Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)

by Rebecca Yarros

There’s nowhere in existence you could go that I wouldn’t find you, Violence.”

“Right now, I’d settle for wielding some lightning. Carr is staring at me, and it’s about to get really fucking awkward if I can’t figure out how—” Images of…me flood my mind. It’s last night, except I’m somehow seeing it through Xaden’s eyes, feeling the unmistakable burn of insatiable desire.

My Violet, By the time you find this, you’ll most likely be in the Scribe Quadrant. Remember that folklore is passed from one generation to the next to teach us about our past. If we lose it, we lose the links to our past. It only takes one desperate generation to change history—even erase it. I know you’ll make the right choice when the time comes. You have always been the best of both your mother and me. Love, Dad

His touch is gentle when he cups my cheek.

“You’re not going to want to see him. Not tonight, Sorrengail,” Garrick warns with a grimace. “Self-preservation is a thing. Notice we’re not with him, and we’re his best friends.” “Yeah, well, I’m his…” I open my mouth and shut it a few times because…fuck if I know what I am to him. But the longing that holds my heart hostage, this driving need to be at his side because I know he’s suffering, no matter if it means throwing myself headfirst into uncertainty…I can’t deny what he is to me. I kick off the leather slippers of my dress uniform—they’re more of a hazard than anything, and in this wind? Well, we’ll see how it goes. “I’m just…his.”

That ache in my chest burns brighter than the power coursing through my veins. I’m in love with Xaden.

“You want me,” I say, looking him in the eyes. “And no, I’m not just talking about in bed. You. Want. Me, Xaden Riorson. You might not say it, but you do one better and show it. You show it every time you choose to trust me, every time your eyes linger on mine. You show it with every sparring lesson you don’t have time for and every flight lesson that pulls you away from your own studies. You show it when you refuse to touch me because you’re worried I don’t really want you, then show it again when you take the time to hunt down violets before a leadership meeting so I don’t wake up feeling alone. You show it in a million different ways. Please don’t deny it.”

“You think we don’t have a future because you’re scared that I won’t like who you really are behind all those walls you keep. And I’m scared, too. I can admit it. You’re graduating. I’m not. You’ll be gone in a matter of weeks, and we’re probably setting ourselves up for heartbreak. But if we let fear kill whatever this is between us, then we don’t deserve it.” I lift one hand to the back of his neck. “I told you that I was the one who would decide when I’m ready to risk my heart, and I’m saying it.”

“And you are strong and fierce and have a ruthless streak, too. Not to mention you’re the smartest person I’ve ever met. That mind of yours is sexy as hell. Imogen and I are just friends. Trust me, she wasn’t looking at me, and even if she were…” He pauses, his hand slipping to cradle the back of my head as he holds us steady despite the gusting wind. “Gods help me, I’m only looking at you.”

“There’s only you, Violence. Is that what you needed to hear?” I nod. “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 immovable as the parapet itself. “As I remember, you’ve even thrown daggers at my head, which I greatly prefer over watching you get tangled up in your thoughts. If we’re going to do this, then we have to trust each other.”

“I saw Aetos kiss you after Threshing and nearly lost my shit.” If I didn’t already love him, that might have pushed me over the edge. “You wanted me then?” “I’ve wanted you from the first second I saw you, Violence,”

“Next year is going to be so much fun,” I tease, walking forward and lacing my fingers with his so he follows. “Liam will be here next year to make sure you’re not doing asinine things,” he mutters. “You’re going to love getting his letters,” I promise, jumping the final foot off the parapet to the courtyard below.

“Did you know that the first time I climbed these steps with Dain, I was horrified that there wasn’t a handrail?” “Did you know I can’t stand to hear his name on your lips while you’re leading the way to my room?”

I keep my eyes on his as I cup the unrelenting angles of his face, then trace the scar that bisects a brow. “Challenge?” “Sgaeyl.” He shrugs. “Threshing.” “Most dragons scar their riders, but Tairn and Andarna have never hurt me,” I say absent-mindedly, my hand slipping down his neck. “Or maybe they knew you already carried a scar.” He trails his fingers down the long silver scar on my arm from Tynan’s blade.

“I don’t deserve you.” His arm curls around my hips and he tugs me closer. “But I’m going to keep you all the same.” “Good.” I lean in and brush my lips over his. “Because I think I’m in love with you.” My heart beats erratically, and panic claws up my rib cage. I shouldn’t have said it. His eyes flare wide and his arms tighten around me. “You think? Or you know?” Be brave. Even if he doesn’t feel the same, at least I will have spoken my truth. “I know. I’m so wildly in love with you that I can’t imagine what my life would even look like without you in it. And I probably shouldn’t have said that, but if we’re doing this, then we’re starting from a place of complete honesty.”

“Oh gods.” “Which one are you calling out for?” he asks against my flesh. “Because it’s just you and me in this room, Vi, and I don’t share.” “You.” My fingers tangle in his hair. “I’m calling out for you.” “I appreciate the elevation to deity, but my name will do.”

“Though I do think we’re going to have to work on the fireworks show or people are always going to know what we’re doing.”

“I fucking love your hair. If you ever want to bring me to my knees or win an argument, just let it down. I’ll get the point.”

Someone pounds on the door. “Go the fuck away!” Xaden snarls, reaching up my back and hooking onto my shoulder to pull me down into his next thrust. I fall forward, muffling my moan in his neck. “I really wish I could.” There’s enough regret in the voice that I believe it. “Someone better be dead if I get out of this bed, Garrick,” Xaden retorts.

“Violet Sorrengail,” she whispers, moving closer. “Are you wearing Riorson’s flight jacket?” Liam’s head snaps in my direction, curse his stupidly good hearing. “Why would you say that?” I do a shitty job of feigning shock and shove the sheaths into every available pocket in this thing. All three of them, which are considerably deeper than the ones in my own jacket. “Oh, I don’t know. Because it’s huge on you and there are three stars right here?” She taps where there’s only one star on her uniform. Well, shit. Just goes to show that neither of us was thinking clearly. “It could be any third-year’s.” I shrug. “With a Fourth Wing shield on the shoulder?” She cocks an eyebrow. “That does limit it a bit,” I agree. “And a wingleader emblem beneath those stars?” she teases. “Fine, it’s his,”

“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.”

He swallows hard and leans in to whisper, “I’ll miss you, Violet.”

“I’ve never once forgotten how amazing you are, Liam.” And I mean it.

“I’m going to keep you,” he promises, just like he did last night. Or was it this morning? “You’re mine, Violet.” I lift my chin. “Only if you’re mine.” “I’ve been yours for longer than you could ever imagine.”

“We lost a village in the vicinity to a horde of venin two days ago. They decimated everything.” I startle, my eyes flying wide. She just said what? “Venin never come this far west,” Imogen says from my left. Venin. Yep, that’s what they both said. What the actual hell? I’d think someone was fucking with me if not for the two enormous gryphons looming behind the pair of riders. But no one is laughing.

“If you think you’ll ever convince a Sorrengail to risk their neck for anyone outside their own borders, then you’re a fool,” the man says with a sneer in my direction.

“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.” A dragon and its mate.

“Venin are the stuff of fables. Like the book my father—” I blink. The letter. What had he written? Folklore is passed from one generation to the next to teach us about our past. Was he trying to say… No. That’s impossible. “They’re real,” Xaden says softly, like he’s trying to lessen a blow. “You’re saying people who can somehow tap into the source of magic without a dragon or gryphon to channel, corrupting their power beyond all salvation, actually exist.” I say the words slowly just so we’re crystal clear. “They’re not just part of the creation fable.”

One brother bonded to gryphon, one to dragon, and when the third grew jealous, he drew directly from the source, losing his soul and waging war on the other two.”

“Yes. I should have told you months ago, but I couldn’t. I’m risking everything by telling you now—” “Because you have to, not because you want—” “Because if your best friend sees this memory, everything is lost,” he interrupts, and I gasp. “You don’t know that—” “Dain wouldn’t break a rule to save your life, Violet. What do you think he’d do if he had this knowledge?”

“You love me, and—” “Loved,” I correct him, sidestepping so I can get some fucking space and then taking it. “Love!” he shouts, stopping me in my tracks and earning us a glance from every rider within hearing distance. “You love me.”

Gods, Dad spelled it all out for me. He’d always told me scribes hold all the power. “Yes,” Tairn says as we curve around the last peak, its jagged top bare of snow from the summer heat, and the mountainside outpost of Athebyne comes into view at the same time as the Cliffs of Dralor. “One generation to change the text. One generation chooses to teach that text. The next grows, and the lie becomes history.”

“What did Dain say to you before we left? He leaned in and whispered something.” I blink, trying to remember. “He said something like…” I search my memory. “I’ll miss you, Violet.” His body goes tense. “And he said I was going to get you killed.” “Yes, but he always says that.” I shrug. “What would Dain have to do with emptying an entire outpost?”

“Did you tell him about my trips here?” Xaden questions, his eyes hardening. “No!” I shake my head. “Unlike some people, I never hid anything from you.” He draws back, his gaze shifting left and right as he thinks before settling on me again and widening. “Violence,” he says softly, “did Aetos touch you after I told you about Athebyne?” “What?” My brow furrows, and I shove an errant strand of hair out of my face as the wind swirls around us. “Like this.” He lifts his hand to my cheek. “His power requires touching someone’s face. Did he touch you like this?” My lips part. “Yes, but that’s how he always touches me. He would n-never…” I sputter. “I would know if he read my memories.” Xaden’s face falls, and his hand slips downward, cradling the back of my neck. “No, Violence. Trust me, you wouldn’t.”

We can live as cowards or die as riders.

“You’re a far cry from the trembling girl who stood in the courtyard and tried to mask her fear after Parapet. I approve.”

He shakes his head slowly and points to his neck, to the rebellion relic snaking around his throat. “Do you remember how I told you I realized it was a gift, not a curse?” “Yes.” Back when I was in his bed. “Just trust me—because of this, Melgren can’t see a fucking thing.”

“I need you to survive this, even if I hate that I still love you.” “I can live with that.”

“Why did you do that?” I cry, my fingers searching for purchase on his leathers to pull him closer. I settle for the back of his collar and yank. “Why would you risk it?” Gods, if anything happens to them… His gaze collides with mine. “That thing was going to take a chunk out of Tairn. You’ve saved my life and now it’s my turn. No matter what you think of me for keeping secrets, we’re friends, Violet.”

“At Parapet—” His face twists in pain. “You have to take care of my sister.”

“We both know I won’t. Just promise you’ll take care of Sloane,” he begs, his eyes searching mine as his breaths grow ragged. “Promise.” “I promise,” I whisper, taking his hand and squeezing, not bothering to wipe my tears. “I’ll take care of Sloane.”

“Thank you, Liam. Thank you for being my shadow. Thank you for being my friend.” He blurs in my vision as the tears come faster. “It’s been. My honor.”

Xaden’s head bows, and my breath freezes in my lungs as shadows momentarily whip out around him, like a blast of menace and sorrow. Seconds later, his soundless, soul-rending scream fills my head with such force that my heart shatters like glass against a stone floor. I don’t need to ask. Liam is gone.

“There is no me without you,” he says against my skin.

But it was the third brother, who commanded the sky to surrender its greatest power, who finally vanquished his jealous sibling at a great and terrible price.

“Such untapped power. No wonder we were called here. You could command the sky to surrender all its power, and I bet you don’t know what to do with it, do you? Riders never do. I’m going to split you open and see where all that astonishing lightning comes from.” She waves the other dagger at me, and I realize she’s playing with me. “Or maybe I’ll let him do it. You’ll wish for death if I hand you over to my Sage.”

When a dragon dies, so does its rider. But apparently when a venin dies, so do the wyvern they created. All of them. That’s how we can save everyone on this battlefield.

“You will burn out, Silver One!” he growls, dodging a flame Xaden misses. “You already walk the edge.” My arms shake as I lift them again. “This is the only way I can save them. I can save Sgaeyl. You just have to decide to live, Tairn. Even if I don’t.” “I will not watch another rider die because they do not know their own limitations. One more strike could be your last. I feel your waning strength.”

“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.”

She can’t die, and not just because there’s a chance I won’t survive. She can’t die because I know I can’t live without her even if I do. Somewhere between the shock of our attraction at the top of that turret to realizing she risked her own life by giving up a boot for someone else on the parapet that first day to her throwing those daggers at my head under the oak tree, I wavered. I should have realized the danger of getting too close the first time I put her on her back and showed her how easily she could kill me on the mat—a vulnerability 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.