Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)

by Rebecca Yarros

“We watched as our parents were executed because they had the courage to do the right thing. I’d like to think my death would be just as honorable.” My chest tightens. Their parents died to expose the truth while mine sacrificed my brother to keep this heinous secret.

A blur of blue shoots between us, and the wyvern is knocked away by the body of a navy dragon—Sgaeyl. Her jaws tear through the side of the wyvern in several rapid, brutal bites, flesh ripping and blood spraying in the most vicious midair meal I have ever seen. Then she flips and catches the devoured wyvern by the head with her daggertail, sending its dead body sailing several hundred feet before crashing to the ground.

The wyvern roars in victory a heartbeat before they crash into the hillside with a sickening thud. The wyvern limps away on its hind legs and the talons that tip its wings. Deigh doesn’t move. Liam’s raw scream shatters my heart, and Tairn flares his wings, banking hard to keep us from the same gruesome fate. “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.

“Deigh’s gone,” I cry to Xaden, my voice a trembling mess. “Liam is dying.” “No.”

“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?

“And I know you feel betrayed, but Xaden needs you. And I don’t just mean alive, Violet. He needs you. Please hear him out.” “All right.” I nod, fighting to force a watery 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. My honor.” Liam’s chest rattles as his lungs struggle.

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 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.

Yassss bitch

As soon as we get close enough, I throw my hands out, letting all my power loose with a guttural scream. Lightning hits the wyvern on the first shot, sending the monster plummeting to the ground near the city walls. But I never see the one coming at us from the left. Not until I feel Tairn’s roar of pain.

Noooooooooo

I 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.

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 Tairn’s back.

“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 everyone on this battlefield.

“I need more, Tairn!” “You will burn out, Silver One!” he growls, dodging a flame Xaden misses. “You already walk the edge.” My arms shake as I lift them again. “This is the only way I can save them. I can save Sgaeyl. You just have to decide to live, Tairn. Even if I don’t.” “I will not watch another rider die because they do not know their own limitations. One more strike could be your last. I feel your waning strength.” “I know exactly what I’m capable of,”

“Now!” I push my arms toward the venin and command lightning to split the sky, and it does, branching out in every direction, but I only need to control one of its silver-blue veins. I focus on the one closest to the venin, bringing it down in slow bursts that defy time. My arms vibrate, and I feel Tairn’s power push the boundaries of my body as I yank the branch sideways in its descent, inch by inch with the last of my strength, positioning it over the venin. “More, Tairn!”

Finally dragging the lightning down into place as my skin sizzles and burns, I release time and hold myself upright long enough to see it strike true, killing the venin at the first touch of its energy. As if time were still frozen, his body slowly topples from the top of his wyvern. In the next breath, more than half the monsters fall from the sky, as if they were struck themselves, and, as if it had been waiting for me to accomplish my goal, the wound in my side threatens to burn me alive.

Xaden pulls the venin from the wyvern’s back and yanks him downward, right into the dagger he holds in his outstretched hand. Damn, sometimes I forget just how beautifully lethal he is. Knowing they’ll all live, I let gravity claim my body and slide from Tairn’s back. “VIOLET!” I hear Xaden’s scream as I fall.

My back slams into something, knocking the breath from my lungs, slowing my descent but not stopping it, and shimmering gold rises and ebbs around me. Wind stills, the cries of mayhem and destruction pause, but the burn inside rages on, consuming me with fiery teeth. Time. Andarna has stopped time with what strength she has left. I’m on her back, falling…because she isn’t strong enough to carry me, but she’s brave enough to fly into this battle. Now my eyes are burning, too. She shouldn’t be here. She should be tucked away in the outpost, safe from the wyvern three times her size.

Gods, I wish he’d just let me die. I deserve it. I’m the reason Liam is dead. I’m so weak-minded that I didn’t even realize Dain took my memories and used them against me—against Liam.

“You can hate me all you want when you wake up. You can scream, hit, throw your fucking daggers at me for all I care, but you have to live. You can’t make me fall for you and then die. None of this is worth it without you.” He sounds so sincere that I almost believe him.

Liam. Guilt pairs with soul-sucking grief, and I can barely inhale around the pain in my chest. I’d ordered my foster brother to keep her safe, and that order got him killed. His death is on me.

She can’t die, and not just because there’s a chance I won’t survive. She can’t die because I know I can’t live without her even if I do.

We hadn’t even kissed, and I fell.

“Don’t panic. Everything is fine. Andarna isn’t quite the same, but she’s…her.” She’s fucking huge now, but I’m not about to say that to Violet. Her gift is also gone, according to Tairn, but there’s plenty of time to share that news.

“Melgren can’t see the outcome when more than three of you are together. That’s why you’re not allowed to assemble.”

“Is Liam really dead?” Liam. A fresh stab of sorrow pierces my ribs. Heartbeats pass in silence as I try to find the right words, but there aren’t any, so I take from my pocket the palm-size, freshly finished carving of Andarna Liam had been working on.

Funny how people rename everything that makes them feel uncomfortable. We lost faith that our king would ever do the right thing. And they call us traitors.

“Just because I believe you and am willing to fight with you doesn’t mean I’ll trust you with my heart again. And I can’t be with someone I don’t trust.” Something in my chest crumples. “I’ve never lied to you, Violet. Not once. I never will.”

“I’m not afraid of hard work, especially not when I know just how sweet the rewards are. I would rather lose this entire war than live without you, and if that means I have to prove myself over and over, then I’ll do it. You gave me your heart, and I’m keeping it.” She already owns mine, even if she doesn’t realize it.

“That definitely wasn’t an accident, little sister,” he says from the doorway. I sigh and move to the side, watching Violet’s eyes widen as she sees him standing in the doorway. “Told you I knew better poison masters,” I tell her softly. “You weren’t healed. You were mended.” “Brennan?” She stares at her brother in open-mouthed shock. Brennan just grins and opens his arms. “Welcome to the revolution, Violet.”

What??? No wayyyyyy