Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)

by Rebecca Yarros

“The reason we’ll never be anything more than friends isn’t because of your rules. It’s because you have no faith in me. Even now, when I’ve survived against all odds and bonded not just one dragon but two, you still think I won’t make it. So forgive me, but you’re about to be some of the bullshit that this place cuts away from me.”

“Jeremiah!” someone shouts, coming forward. “You!” Jeremiah spins, pointing his finger at the third-year. “You think I’ve lost it!” His head tilts, and his eyes flare. “How does he know? He shouldn’t know!” His tone shifts, like the words aren’t his own.

“And you!” He spins again, pointing at a second-year in First Wing. “What the hell is wrong with him? Why is he screaming?” He turns again, focused on Dain. “Is Violet going to hate me forever? Why can’t she see that I just want to keep her alive? How is he…? He’s reading my thoughts!” The impression is uncanny, embarrassing, and terrifying.

“And you!” Jeremiah turns, his gaze locking on Garrick. “Damn it all to hell. He’ll know about—” The shadows around Jeremiah’s feet snake up his legs in a heartbeat, winding around his chest until they cover his mouth in bands of black. I swallow the boulder in my throat. A professor pushes through the crowd, his shock of white hair bouncing with every step of his large frame. “He’s an inntinnsic!” someone shouts, and that seems to be all that’s necessary. The professor grips Jeremiah’s head with both hands, and a crack echoes off the walls of the silent courtyard. Xaden’s shadows melt away and Jeremiah falls to the ground, his head at an unnatural, macabre angle. His neck is broken. The professor bends down and lifts Jeremiah’s body with surprising strength, carrying him into the rotunda.

No one is. Everyone in this room is frozen in place…except me.

He slashes forward so quickly that I barely catch the move, and Oren’s throat opens in a horizontal line, blood streaming down his neck and chest in a torrent.

“Unless it has something to do with why you sleep in your leather vest.” “Trust him,” Tairn demands. “It’s not that easy.” “It has to be for now.” “It’s dragon-scale.” I lift my right arm and pivot slightly so he can see the gaping hole in my nightdress. “Mira made it for me. It’s why I’ve lived this long.”

Garrick and Bodhi following closely after. They’re all…dressed. Fully clothed at—I glance at the clock—two a.m.

The hallways are dimly lit by blue mage lights, the kind that signal it’s still night for those without windows. “Keep talking loud enough for others to hear, and someone will stop us before we get anywhere.” “Can’t you just hide us in shadows or something?”

“I’m not going to baby you like Aetos does,” he says without turning around. “That’s only going to get you killed once we get out of Basgiath.” “He doesn’t baby me.” “He does and you know it. You hate it, too, if the vibe I’m picking up on is any indication.” He falls back to walk at my side. “Or did I read that wrong?”

awe, I blink up at the navy-blue daggertail as Xaden moves to my side. “She talked to me.” “I know. I heard.” He folds his arms across his chest. “It’s because they’re mates. It’s the same reason I’m chained to you.”

“Nature likes all things in balance,” Andarna says like she’s reciting facts, just like I do when I’m nervous. “That’s the first thing we’re taught.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asks me, not her. Guess that means he can hear Tairn, but not Andarna. “Well, not the first thing.” Andarna sits, flicking her feathertail along the frost-laden grass. “The first thing is we shouldn’t bond until we’re full-grown.” She cocks her head to the side. “Or maybe the first is where the sheep are? I like goats better, though.” “This is why feathertails don’t bond.” Tairn sighs with a hefty dose of exasperation.

“Feathertails shouldn’t bond because they can accidentally gift their powers to humans,” Andarna continues. “Dragons can’t channel—not really—until we’re big, but we’re all born with something special.”

“But I gave my gift directly to you. Because I’m still a feathertail.” I repeat again, staring at the smaller dragon. Almost nothing is known about feathertails because they’re never seen outside the Vale. They’re guarded. They’re… I swallow. Wait. What did she say? “You’re still a feathertail?” “Yep! For another couple of years, probably.”

“You’re…you’re a hatchling,” I whisper. “I am not!” Andarna puffs steam into the air. “I’m two! The hatchlings can’t even fly!”

“And if I thought she’d actually bond, I would have objected harder to her Right of Benefaction.” She chuffs at Andarna in obvious disapproval.

“Hold on. Is Andarna yours?” Xaden walks a step toward Sgaeyl, and the tone in his voice is one I’ve never heard. He’s…hurt. “Have you hidden a hatchling away from me these last two years?” “Don’t be ridiculous.” Sgaeyl blows out a blast of air that ruffles Xaden’s hair.

“Her parents passed before hatching,” Tairn answers. My heart sinks. “Oh, I’m sorry, Andarna.” “I have lots of elders,” she responds, as though that makes up for it, but having lost my dad…I know it doesn’t.

“Feathertails don’t bond because their power is too unpredictable. Unstable.”

She doesn’t even roll her eyes. “If leadership knew riders could take her gifts for themselves, rather than depending on their own signets…” Xaden says, staring at Andarna as she blinks slower and slower.

“I made time stop.” Her mouth drops open into another jaw-cracking yawn. “But only for a little bit.”

“She can pause time,” I force out, stumbling over my words. “Briefly.”

“Jeremiah was an inntinnsic.” Xaden’s voice lowers. “A mind reader is a capital offense. You know that.”

“He’s right,” Tairn says. “They can’t find out. And there’s no saying how long you’ll have the ability. Most feathertail gifts disappear with maturity when they begin to channel.”

The guy is massive, as tall as Sawyer and as built as Dain, with light-blond hair, prominent nose, blue eyes, and the sprawling rebellion relic that begins at his wrist and disappears under the sleeve of his tunic gives his mission away. “I do not need a bodyguard,” I snap at Xaden.

Liam

“Liam is statistically the strongest first-year in the quadrant. He has the fastest time up the Gauntlet, hasn’t lost a single challenge, and is bonded to an exceptionally strong Red Daggertail. Any squad would be lucky to have him, and he’s all yours, Aetos. You can thank me when you win the Squad Battle in the spring.”

“It’s like Rhiannon and what’s-her-name…” “Tara,” Rhiannon offers.

“As it was a matter of life and death, I personally executed six of the would-be murderers, as witnessed by Flame Section Leader Garrick Tavis and Tail Section Executive Officer Bodhi Durran.”

“A rider who had access to the map of where all first-years are assigned to sleep, and that rider must be brought to swift justice.”

“Wingleader Amber Mavis.”

“That’s impossible.” He lifts his hands, as though ready to cup my face. “Let me see.” The shock of what he intends to do has me stumbling backward. How have I forgotten that his signet allows him to see others’ memories?

“Believe me now?” I hurl it like the accusation it is. “You’re supposed to be my oldest friend, Dain. My best friend. There’s a reason I didn’t tell you.”

His eyebrows hit his hairline. “How does anyone think long-term around here?” “Not everyone is in a quadrant where death is less of a chance and more of a foregone conclusion.”

“Exactly, and those some people is Jesinia. Trust me, I’ve known her for years.”

“How do you know Xaden anyway?” I’m not foolish enough to think that everyone in the province of Tyrrendor knows one another. “Riorson and I were fostered at the same estate after the apostasy,” he says, using the Tyrrish term for the rebellion, which I haven’t heard in ages.

King Tauri’s response after the rebellion was swift, even cruel, but I was a fifteen-year-old girl too lost in her own grief to think mercifully on the people who’d caused my brother’s death.

“No. No, that’s not right. Your father was Isaac Mairi, right? I’ve studied all the noble houses in every province, including Tyrrendor.”

“But he wasn’t a part of the rebellion.” I shake my head, trying to make sense of it. “He isn’t on the death roll of the executions from Calldyr.” “You read the death roll from the Calldyr executions?” His eyes flare. It takes all my courage, but I hold his stare. “I needed to see that someone was on it.” He draws back slightly. “Fen Riorson.”

“He killed my brother at the Battle of Aretia.”

He looks away, his throat working. “Then I was sent to Tirvainne to be fostered by Duke Lindell, the same as Riorson. My little sister was sent elsewhere.” “They separated you?” My jaw practically unhinges. Neither fostering nor separating siblings is mentioned in any text I’ve read about the rebellion, and I’ve read a ton.

“She could always choose another quadrant,” I say softly, hoping it will soothe him. He blinks at me. “We’re all riders.” “What?” “We’re all riders. It was part of the deal. We’re allowed to live, allowed a chance to prove our loyalty, but only if we make it through the Riders Quadrant.” He stares at me in bewilderment. “You don’t know?” “I mean…” I shake my head.

He nods. “And the youngest is almost six now. Her name is Julianne.” I think I’m going to be sick. “Is she marked?”

The conditions at Sumerton are of particular concern. A village was ransacked and a supply convoy looted last night— “What does it say?” Liam asks. “Sumerton was attacked.” I flip the scroll to see if it’s marked as classified, but it isn’t. “On the southern border?”

“Still sleeping. She’ll be out another few days after using that much power.” “Does it ever get any easier?” I ask Liam. “Being tackled by what they’re feeling?”

“Figured.” I hold up my middle finger and keep my eyes forward. Not that I don’t like Liam, but I’m still pissed at Xaden for assigning him.

you can open it.” Shit. I don’t know how to feel about that. It’s more than slightly controlling, and way out of line, but also…sweet. “But if he’s the one who warded it, then he can get in, too, right?”

“If we can get started?” Markham calls over the room, and we fall silent as he places the scroll Liam and I had delivered to him before breakfast on the podium. “Excellent.”

I write Sumerton down at the top of the page and Liam trades his knife for a quill.

“First announcement,” Devera says, stepping forward. “We’ve decided that not only will the winners of this year’s Squad Battle receive bragging rights—” She grins like we’re in for a treat. “But they’ll also be given a trip to the front lines to shadow an active wing.” Cheers break out all...