Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)

by Rebecca Yarros

“Only if you do. I want to be wherever you are.” And I mean it. Everyone else—everything else in the world can fall away and I won’t care as long as I’m with him.

“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.”

Embarrassment heats my cheeks. I could change the subject or deflect, but it’s not going to do our relationship—if that’s even what this is—any favors if I hide my feelings, no matter how weak the irrational ones might make me seem.

That mind of yours is sexy as hell.

Hope is a stronger buzz than anything they were serving at the party.

“Oh no, if I have to trust you and tell you what I’m thinking, then I expect the same from you.” I’m not going to be the only vulnerable one out on this ledge.

There’s nothing about this man that scares me anymore, except the magnitude of my feelings for him.

“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.”

“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.”

It’s beautiful and menacing at the same time.

I can’t help but note both of the important men are walking away from me right now, in opposite directions, and given the one I’ve chosen to follow, my life is about to change forever.

He makes a decent point, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it.

The sweet glow of happiness, of love, trust, and affection that burned so brightly in my chest just a few minutes ago sputters painfully, gasping for oxygen like a campfire put out by a bucket of water once it outlives its usefulness. All I can do is watch as the embers drown and die.

I might be the villain to some, but not you.”

“Did you ever once stop to think that sometimes you can start out on the right side of a war and end up on the wrong one?”

“What was the fable again? 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.”

I ask. Not because I believe him, not yet, but because he’s not trying to convince me. The truth rarely needs effort, my dad used to say.

Sure. Right. “And how do I know this is the truth?” “Because it hurts to think we’re the kind of kingdom that would do this. It hurts to rearrange everything you think you know. Lies are comforting. Truth is painful.”

It only takes one desperate generation to change history—even erase it.

“One generation to change the text. One generation chooses to teach that text. The next grows, and the lie becomes history.”

I gave him everything, and he never truly let me in.

“Because magic corrupts their blood as they lose their souls,”

We can live as cowards or die as riders.

“You kept us alive all these years; we get to decide how we die. I’m with you.”

He’s dying and there’s nothing I can do. Nothing anyone can do. How can all this power be so fucking useless?

I have to be as strategic as Brennan and as confident as Mira. I’ve spent the last year trying to prove to myself I’m nothing like my mother. I’m not cold. I’m not callous. But maybe there is a part of me that’s more like her than I care to admit. Because right now, standing near the dead body of my friend and his dragon—all I want is to show these assholes exactly how violent I can be.

“I should have done a lot of things differently.” What I shouldn’t have done was fought my feelings for her. I should have grabbed on to her after that first kiss the way I wanted and kept her at my side, should have let her all the way in.

And I never told her. Not until she was delirious with poison. Why? Because I was scared to give her power over me when she already held it all? Because she’s Lilith Sorrengail’s daughter? Because she kept giving Aetos second and third chances? No. Because I couldn’t give her those words without being totally, completely honest with her,

Funny how people rename everything that makes them feel uncomfortable.