Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)

by Rebecca Yarros

It bears a female rider in maroon flight gear that resembles our own,

“Soleil!” I yell, but it’s already too late. The third-year stumbles a few steps into the dead zone, her dragon reaching for her as they both buckle and fall, Fuil throwing up a cloud of dirt with her heavy impact. They desiccate in a matter of seconds, their bodies shriveling. A vise clamps around my chest, and for a second, I can’t breathe. The venin has even more power now.

Tairn puts us into position, hovering about

twenty feet aboveground as Liam flies for the gryphons above us, wielding spears of ice into the injured wyvern’s throat. Blood streams as the wyvern falls from the sky with an ear-piercing cry.

The agony in his eyes steals my breath. “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.”

Deigh screams again, the sound weaker and higher-pitched than the last. It’s a cry. “We have to pull up!” Tairn warns. “He’s dying!” Liam lunges across Tairn’s back, reaching for his dragon as if so he can touch the Red Daggertail one last time.

“Just hold—” I start, but Deigh’s shriek of pain closes my throat, strangling the words. He’s being eviscerated, and there’s nothing

we ca...

“DEIGH.” Tairn’s grief blasts through my body as he streams fire at the wyvern’s retreating back, and Andarna’s cry fills my head. No. If Deigh… “Is he—” I can’t bring myself to finish. “He’s gone.” Tairn reverses course, barreling for the hillside outside the city walls where Deigh has fallen.

“Liam!” I grab for my friend as we land at speed, Tairn’s claws digging into the ground to stop us close to Deigh’s body. “You only have minutes,” Tairn warns. “Deigh,” Liam whispers, falling limp against Tairn’s back.

“I’ll get you to him,” I promise, already fumbling with the strap’s buckle. “Deigh’s

gone,” I cry to Xaden, my voice a trembling mess....

“No.” I feel his terror, his sorrow, and his overpowering anger wrap around my mind, mixing with my o...

“Just hold on,” I whisper to Liam, fighting not to cry as he looks up at me with those sky-blue eyes, wide with shock and pain. After everything Liam has given up for me, this is the least I can do for him. I can get him to Dei...

Not Deigh. Not…Liam. They’re the strongest of our year. They’re the best of us. “Can’t make it,” Liam says, stumbling forward and tripping.

rush to catch him as he goes down, but his substantial weight is too much for me, and we both fall to our knees. “We can make it,” I force out through my tightening throat, trying to hook his arm over my shoulders. We’re so close.

“We can’t.” He crumples against me, sliding down my side. I fall back on my heels and his head lands in my lap as his body goes limp. “It’s all right, Violet,” he says, looking up at me, and I shove my goggles on top of my head so I can see him clearer.

“None of this is all right. Please stay,” I beg, tears I can’t fight rolling unchecked down my cheeks. “Fight to stay. Please, Liam. Fight to stay.” “At Parapet—” His face twists in pain. “You have to take care of my sister.” “Liam, no.” I choke on the words as tears clog my throat. “You’ll be there.” I stroke his hair. He’s fine. He’s physically, perfectly fine,

and yet I’m watching him slip away. “You have to be there.” He has to smile at the sister he’s missed for years and flash that dimple of his. He has to give her the stack of letters he’s written. He deserves it after all he’s been through. He can’t die for me. “Tairn,” I cry. “Tell me what to do.” “There’s nothing you can do, Silver One.” “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.” He’s dying and there’s nothing I can do. Nothing anyone can do. How can all this power be so fucking useless?

The pulse under my thumb slows. “Good. That’s good.” He forces a weak smile, and that dimple makes a faint appearance before his expression falters. “And I know you feel betrayed, but Xaden needs you. And I don’t just mean alive, Violet. He needs you. P...

smile. He could ask for anything right now, and I’d give it to him. “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...

“No, Liam,” Xaden chokes out as he crouches in front of us, the muscles in his face working to control his expression, but there’s no hiding the despair that pushes at our mental connection. “Deigh,” Liam pleads in a strangled whisper, turning his head toward Xaden. “I know, brother.” Xaden’s jaw flexes and our gazes lock above Liam as tears overflow my eyes. “I know.” He leans forward and lifts Liam into his arms, then stands, carrying him. “I’ll take you.”

Xaden lowers Liam, sitting him against Deigh’s unblemished shoulder, then kneels beside him, nodding slowly at whatever Liam has said.

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.

Liam, who never complained about being my shadow, never hesitated to help, never bragged about being the best of our year. He died protecting me. Oh gods, and I just asked him if we’d ever really been friends an hour ago.

“Because he knew I’d have to be the one who holds off the wyvern as long as possible.”

“You can kill them.” He yanks me close and kisses my forehead. “There is no me without you,” he says against my skin.

He’ll be the first to die if I’m not exactly what he called me under that tree all those months ago. Violence.

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.

We want the same exact thing. Revenge.

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. —“The Origin,” The Fables of the Barren

He used lightning to kill but at great price what is the price

whip around in the saddle and see a venin—the one who killed Soleil, distended, branchlike veins spreading from her red eyes—grasping the sword she’s stabbed in between Tairn’s scales in the area behind his wings. “There’s a venin on your back!”

The second Tairn levels off, the venin stares at me like I’m her next meal, striding for me with nothing but resolve in her eyes and fisting serrated green-tipped daggers. “Three more riderless ones on my tail!” Tairn shouts.

Fuck. There’s something I’m missing. It’s taunting me from the edge of my mind like the answer to a test I know I’ve studied for. “Aren’t you a little small for a dragon rider?” the venin hisses. “Big enough to kill you.” Tairn and I are dead if I don’t do something. “I need you to stay level,” I tell Tairn, unbuckling my thigh straps. “You will not unseat!” Tairn growls. “I won’t let her kill you!” I climb to my feet and unsheathe the two daggers Xaden gave me today. Every challenge, every obstacle, every hour Imogen spent in the weight room, every single time Xaden has taken me to the mat has to be worth something, right? This is just a challenge…with a not-so-fictitious dark wielder…on the parapet.

can’t even cradle my ruined, throbbing arm as she advances, gaining on me with every lunge and swipe of her green-tipped daggers. It’s as if she knows exactly what I’m going to do before I do it. She counters every one of my attacks with a quicker one of her own, as if she’s adapting to my fighting style from mere moments of combat. She’s unnaturally quick. I’ve never seen Xaden or Imogen move this fast.

Pain flares in my side, hot and sharp, and I fall back in disbelief when I find one of her daggers protruding low in my side, just beneath the edge of the dragon-scale armor. Tairn roars and Andarna shrieks. “Violet!” Xaden screams. “She’s too fast!” I doubt the dagger has struck anything vital from its position, and I fight through mouthwatering nausea to balance the only venin blade I have left and yank hers out. But something isn’t right. The wound begins to burn, and I immediately battle to keep my balance as acid races through my veins. The tip on the knife is no longer green as it falls from my fingers.

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.

You’ll wish for death if I hand you over to my Sage.” ...

“Level the playing field,” Xaden orders. He’s split his power and shadows rush in from the cliffs at my left, throwing the world around me—and the venin—into a cloud of complete darkness. And I have the power of light. I’m the one in control now, and I know the terrain of Tairn’s back like my own hand. Moving to the right, where I can feel the slope of his shoulder, I take up a fighting stance, grip my dagger in my good hand, and let my power explode through the dark, illuminating the sky for one crackling, priceless second.

The venin is disoriented, her back turned toward me. I plunge the runed dagger between her ribs—right where Xaden showed me all those months ago—and yank it out so I don’t lose it. She staggers backward, her face turning an ashen gray

before she falls from Tai...

“She’s dead,”

“They’re falling,” Tairn says, and I jerk my gaze from my side to see three wyvern tumble from the sky and crash to the earth. Riderless wyvern.

Created by venin.

And they all died because I killed one venin. That’s what Liam was trying to tell me. 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 ever...

Xaden is holdi...

“We have to take out the riders,” I whisper. “Yes,” Tairn agrees, following my thoughts. “Excellent idea.” “You’re willing to gamble your life on it?” If I’m wrong, we’re both dead, and so are Xaden and Sgaeyl. “I will bet my life on you as I have from the first day,” he says, banking to fly back to the valley as the other dragons rush with their riders to follow us, no doubt following Tairn’s command. Only Garrick and his B...

watch in horror as a venin with a staff as tall as he is strides out of the darkness, his menacing gaze locked on Xaden....

“A general can recognize another general, and that’s their leader,” Tairn says. The Sage? “I can’t hold them back much longer!” Xaden yells, his arms shaking so hard, it looks like his body is tearing itself apart at the very seams as we rush toward the mouth of the valley. “New plan,” I tell Xaden as Tairn pushes himself to the max. “I need you to let the shadows fall.”