Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)

by Rebecca Yarros

This lesson is just for me.

He’s all I can see, all I can feel. And I can’t let him win.

You are not attracted to toxic men, I remind myself, and yet, here I am, getting all attracted.

“I’m not a damned liability.” My chest tightens again, because deep down I know, on the physical level, that I am.

Coming in last is better than coming in dead.

Be with me, Zihnal.

It’s almost been two months, and I’m still here. Still waking every morning to the sunrise. Doesn’t that mean something? Isn’t there a chance, no matter how small, that I might just be enough to make it through Threshing? That I might just belong here?

“Hopeful.” The word tastes sour.

Hope is a fickle, dangerous thing. It steals your focus and aims it toward the possibilities instead of keeping it where it belongs—on the probabilities.”

Fuck. Him.

He who does not burn for Malek will be burned by Malek.

“He’s hot. He has that whole boy-next-door-who-can-still-kick-your-ass vibe going for him.”

The leaves of the trees are all turning gold, as though someone has brought in a paintbrush with only one color and streaked it across the landscape. And then there are the dragons.

Full-body-shudder gross.

I pity whatever dragon—if any—chooses him.

Standing at the end of the line is a small golden dragon. Sunlight reflects off its scales and horns as it stands to its full height, flicking a feathered tail around the side of its body. The feathertail.

“You should totally bond it, Sorrengail. You’re both freakishly weak.

There is nothing quite as humbling, or as awe-inspiring, as witnessing Threshing… for those who live through it anyway.

I will not die today.

I can’t just stand here and do nothing. You can get there first and warn it.

In the six centuries of recorded history of dragon and rider, there have been hundreds of known cases where a dragon simply cannot emotionally recover from the loss of their bonded rider. This happens when the bond is particularly strong and, in three documented cases, has even caused the untimely death of the dragon.

Being chosen isn’t the only test, and if you can’t hold your seat, then you’ll fly straight into the ground.

“Now get in the seat and actually hold on this time, or no one is going to believe that I’ve actually chosen you,” he growls.

I have Tairneanach.

And now she’s staring at my dragon without even bothering to look down and see if I’m all right. Fuck. Her. It’s everything I expected and yet still so disappointing.

Her eyes fly wide. “Both dragons?” she squawks. I nod. And all hell breaks loose.

Oh. Gods. I’m tethered to Xaden Riorson.

I belong to Tairn and Andarna…and, in some really fucked-up way…Xaden.

It was over in an instant. It was everything I’ve ever wanted…except… Shit. I don’t want it anymore.

Xaden Riorson is now in the business of keeping his mortal enemy alive.

“The closest translation for humans is probably ‘for fuck’s sake.’

There is nothing more sacred than the Archives. Even temples can be rebuilt, but books cannot be rewritten.

Frustration is a living, breathing thing inside me, eating up all rational thought.

Jeremiah’s signet power is manifesting. He can read minds—an inntinnsic. His power is a death sentence.

“She should have killed you in the field, but she’s merciful. That’s not a flaw I possess.”

“I’m freakishly flexible. It’s part of the whole bones-snapping, joints-tearing thing,” I answer over my shoulder.

Now I know I’m in shock because I’m anything but precious to Xaden Riorson.

“Masochist, huh?” A corner of his mouth quirks into a smirk.

“And what are they going to do if they find out I can stop time?” Terror freezes the blood in my veins.

“At some point, you and I are going to have to start trusting each other, Sorrengail. The rest of our lives depend on it.”

If you’re wrong, you’re dead.

Even the most effective poisons come in pretty packages, and Xaden’s exactly that—as beautiful as he is lethal.

celebrated like the rest of my perfectly normal friends. This feeling is why I haven’t wanted anyone…else. Because I want him.

“I miss sex.” I really do, and it’s not just the physical gratification, either. There’s a sense of connection in those moments that I crave, a momentary banishment of loneliness.

He’s the last person I should be craving, but lust and logic never seem to go hand in hand.

It’s a tiny slice of normalcy in an otherwise macabre environment.

Tyrrendor knows one another. “Riorson and I were fostered at the same estate after the apostasy,” he says, using the Tyrrish term for the rebellion, which I haven’t heard in ages.

Subject change noted.

Immense, incredible hunger strikes, my stomach gnawing on emptiness that demands to be appeased with the blood of—

My stupid, foolish heart feels like there’s a fist around it, squeezing tight.