Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)

by Rebecca Yarros

dissipating in a heartbeat. Well, that’s…weird. Maybe it’s… No. It can’t be. It felt completely different when Andarna stopped time through me. That was a full-body flood that expanded through my fingers and toes, then…left afterward. 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. My knees hit the floor, and I throw my hands over my temples, trying to shove everything I am back into my skull, forcing myself to shrink. Energy pours in—a deluge of raw, endless power—eroding everything I was and forging something completely new as it fills every pore, every organ, every bone. My head screams, and it feels like Tairn has flown too high too fast and I can’t pop my ears. All I can do is lie there on the floor and pray the pressure equalizes. I stare at my brush, the hardwood floor biting into my cheek, and breathe. In and then out. In…and then out…surrendering to the onslaught. Finally, the pain ebbs, but the energy—the power—doesn’t. It’s simply…there, prowling through my veins,...