Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)

by Rebecca Yarros

“Mira.” I bury my face against her shoulder, and my eyes burn as she rests her hand on top of the very braid she taught me how to do. It’s as if the weight of everything that’s happened over the last nine months comes crashing down, slamming into me with the force of a cross-bolt. The wind of the parapet. The look in Xaden’s eyes when he realized I was a Sorrengail. The sound of Jack swearing he’d kill me. The smell of burning flesh that first day. The look on Aurelie’s face when she fell from the Gauntlet. Pryor and Luca and Trina and…Tynan. Oren and Amber Mavis. Tairn and Andarna choosing me. Xaden kissing me. Our mother ignoring me. Mira pulls me back just long enough to look me over, as if she’s checking for damage. “You’re all right.” She nods, her teeth digging into her bottom lip. “You’re all right, aren’t you?” I nod, but she blurs in my vision because I might be alive, thriving even, but I’m not the same person she left at the base of that turret, and from the heaviness in her eyes, she knows it, too. “Yeah,” she whispers, tucking me in tight again. “You’re all right, Violet. You’re all right.” If she says it enough times, I might start to believe her. “Are you?” I jerk back to study her. There’s a new scar that stretches from her earlobe to her collarbone. “Gods, Mira.” “I’m fine,” she promises, then grins. “And look at you! You didn’t die!” Irrational, giddy laughter bubbles up. “I didn’t die! You’re not an only child!” We both burst into laughter, and tears tra...