Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)

by Rebecca Yarros

Her gaze siphons every ounce of my confidence down to the marrow in my bones.

My fingernails bite into my palms as I curl my hands into fists.

Don’t borrow tomorrow’s trouble.

I hate how beautiful he is, how lethal his abilities make him as he strides toward me, shadows curling around his footsteps. He’s like one of those poisonous flowers I’ve read about from the Cygnis forests to the east. His allure is a warning not to get too close, and I am definitely too close.

There is nothing more sacred than the Archives. Even temples can be rebuilt, but books cannot be rewritten. —Colonel Daxton’s Guide to Excelling in the Scribe Quadrant

The Archives smell like parchment, book-binding glue, and ink. They smell like home.

Another wave ripples through me, stronger this time, and I drop the brush, clutching the edge of the dresser so I don’t fall as my knees threaten to buckle. The energy doesn’t dissipate this time; it sticks around, humming under my skin, ringing in my ears, overwhelming every sense. Something within me expands, somehow too big for my own body, too vast to be contained, and pain sears every nerve as I crack open, the sound reverberating through my skull like bones shattering. It’s as though I’ve been split at the very seams of the fabric of my being.