Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)

by Rebecca Yarros

I shake my head. “Too heavy. I’m pretty quick with daggers, though.” Really damned quick. Lightning quick.

“Violet Sorrengail,” I answer as thunder cracks above me, the sound oddly comforting. I’ve always loved the nights where storms beat against the fortress window, both illuminating and throwing shadows over the books I curled up with, though this downpour might just cost me my life.

Spinning, I rip a dagger from its sheath at my ribs just as Jack skids to a halt above me on the parapet, his breath choppy and his face ruddy. Murder is etched in his narrowed, glacial blue eyes as he glares down at me…and

He takes my chin between his thumb and forefinger, turning my face left and right for his inspection.

Dain

Steam blasts my face as the navy-blue one directly in front of me exhales through its wide nostrils. Its glistening blue horns rise above its head in an elegant, lethal sweep, and its wings flare momentarily before tucking in, the tip of

their top joint crowned by a single fierce talon. Their tails are just as fatal, but I can’t see them at this angle or even tell which breed of dragon each is without that clue.

A dragon without its rider is a tragedy. A rider without their dragon is dead.

The navy dragon seems to tilt its head at me, as if its narrowed golden eyes can see straight through me to the fear fisting my stomach and the doubt curled insidiously around my heart. I

Don’t borrow tomorrow’s trouble.

“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.

“I’m still learning, and of course I’m better at it the closer I am to Cath, but yeah. I just put my hands on someone’s temples, and I can see what they saw. It’s…incredible.”

The hairs on the back of my neck stand up and a chill races down my spine as I cross the center of the rotunda, then my steps halt. Cadets move around me, but my eyes are drawn upward, toward the top of the steps that lead to the gathering hall.

Knowing I am in direct disagreement with General Melgren’s orders, I am officially objecting to the plan set forth in today’s briefing. It is not this general’s opinion that the children of the rebellion’s leaders should be forced to witness their parents’ executions. No child should watch their parent put to death. —The Tyrrish Rebellion, an official brief for King Tauri by General Lilith Sorrengail

“Fascinating. You look all frail and breakable, but you’re really a violent little thing, aren’t you?”

He looks at me like he’s trying to see through me, and ice prickles my scalp.

“Violet? Did you hear me?” Dain asks, lifting a hand to cradle my face.

“No, jackass,” Jack scoffs, his icy-blue gaze narrowing on the cadet.

“And not all strength is physical,

There’s no ignoring the prickle at my scalp, and I let my gaze shift to meet Xaden’s.

I don’t think. I just act, going low and kicking out the backs of his knees.

Like mint and leather and something I can’t quite identify, something that borders between citrus and floral.

die. You want to know why you’re still alive? Because you’re the scale I currently judge myself against every night.

“Violet!” Dain reaches me, his smile wide as he cups my face. “You kept both of them!”

blink, and my vision is mine again, and Dain’s hands lace up my corset quickly, then are on my face, tipping it up toward his.

A sigh rips from Dain’s lips, and he palms my face gently, his gaze dropping to my lips for a heartbeat before he steps back.

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.”

“We need to know what happened in that room.” Xaden’s dark gaze cuts through me like a knife for a millisecond before he glares back at Tairn. “Do not dare to try and read me, human, or you’ll regret it.” Tairn’s mouth opens, his tongue curling in a motion I know all too well.

“What did she say?” Xaden asks, gripping my shoulders to steady me. Tairn growls and a puff of steam blasts us both. “I’d take your hands off the rider,” Sgaeyl warns.

He reaches up to cup my cheek,

His sadistic grin and a red rim around his eyes are all I can see as he forces more and more power into my body, but his hands are occupied and he’s too obsessed with his victory to hear that I’ve stopped screaming, to see that I’m moving.

There are three folded missives in the middle, and I pick up the first, revealing a sharp dagger with an alloy-infused hilt and what looks to be a Tyrrish rune in the handle that she must be using as a letter opener or something. I unfold the letter with as much care as I can.

It takes mere minutes to grab my pack and Rhiannon’s, since we’ve left them intact, even cramming in our cloaks. Then I’m back in the hallway where Xaden waits, his own pack slung over his shoulder. It looks considerably smaller than the one he arrived with, and I don’t want to even think about what he’s left behind in order to force me out faster.

“The leather is a hazard on my chest if we take a fire attack, since your saddle would slide right off. But if you take a direct blast up there, sitting on a piece of metal isn’t going to save you.” I don’t bother pointing out that the only fire we’d be taking is from other dragons, which is a problem that doesn’t exist, since gryphons are all beak and claw. Instead, I find the straps for my thighs and buckle in.

He grins, and it’s all too easy to remember how many events just like this we’ve attended together over the years. His touch is gentle when he cups my cheek. “You look beautiful tonight, Vi.”

I’m not going to survive this. I’m going to die right here in this bed. “Then I’m going to die with you,” he promises, kissing me. I’m so far gone, I didn’t even realize I said the words out loud, and then I remember that I don’t have to.

He watches me with apprehension as he draws closer. “I know what you’re thinking,” Xaden says in that deceptively soft voice of his, and there’s a flicker of fear in those onyx depths. “You have no idea what I’m thinking.” Fucking. Traitor. “You’re thinking I’ve betrayed our kingdom.”

My lips part. “Yes, but that’s how he always touches me. He would n-never…” I sputter. “I would know if he read my memories.” Xaden’s face falls, and his hand slips downward, cradling the back of my neck. “No, Violence. Trust me, you wouldn’t.” There’s no accusation in his tone, just a resignation that hurts what’s left of my heart.

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