Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)

by Rebecca Yarros

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” Dain steps forward and cups my face, his thumb stroking over my cheekbone in a soothing motion.

It’s wild the things you notice on a re read 👀

Xaden fills the doorway like some kind of dark, avenging angel, the messenger of the queen of the gods.

Xaden’s gaze snaps to mine, his onyx eyes flaring in shock for no longer than a millisecond before he strides forward, his shadows streaming before him as he stands at my side. He snaps his fingers and the room illuminates, mage lights hovering above us. “You’re all fucking dead

I’m alive. I’m alive. I’m alive. I repeat the mantra in my head as Xaden wipes the blood from my dagger on the back of Oren’s tunic. “Yes. You’re alive.” Xaden steps over Oren’s body and two others, retrieving my dagger from the fallen woman’s shoulder before reaching my armoire. I don’t even recognize her, and yet she tried to kill me. Garrick and Bodhi haul out the first bodies. “I didn’t realize I’d said that out loud.” The trembling starts in my knees, and then nausea overpowers me. Fuck, I thought I’d worked past this kind of reaction to adrenaline, but here I am, shaking like a leaf as Xaden sorts through my armoire like he hasn’t just taken out half a dozen people. As if this kind of slaughter is commonplace. “It’s the shock,” he says, whipping my cloak from its hook and retrieving a pair of boots.

just re-read things 🫣

The inches between us feel like kindling, ready to burn at the first suggestion of heat, and I’m a living, breathing flame.

There’s nowhere in existence you could go that I wouldn’t find you, Violence.”

“Did you know that the first time I climbed these steps with Dain, I was horrified that there wasn’t a handrail?” “Did you know I can’t stand to hear his name on your lips while you’re leading the way to my room?”

“Oh gods.” “Which one are you calling out for?” he asks against my flesh. “Because it’s just you and me in this room, Vi, and I don’t share.”