Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)

by Rebecca Yarros

We’re moving to Fourth Wing. Xaden’s wing. It takes a minute, maybe two, and we take our place in the new formation. I force myself to breathe. There’s a fucking smirk on Xaden’s arrogant, handsome face.

I’m now entirely at his mercy, a subordinate in his chain of command.

I’m pretty sure he won, considering my heart is galloping like a runaway horse.

“Take a look at your squad. These are the only people guaranteed by Codex not to kill you. But just because they can’t end your life doesn’t mean others won’t. You want a dragon? Earn one.”

I’ve spent my life around dragons, but always from a distance. They don’t tolerate humans they haven’t chosen. But these eight? They’re flying straight for us—at speed.

Now I understand why the walls are ten feet thick. It’s not a barrier. The edge of the fortress is a damned perch.

There are three dragons in various shades of red, two shades of green—like Teine, Mira’s dragon—one brown like Mom’s, one orange, and the enormous navy one ahead of me. They’re all massive, overshadowing the structure of the citadel as they narrow their golden eyes at us in absolute judgment.

If they didn’t need us puny humans to develop signet abilities from bonding and weave the protective wards they power around Navarre, I’m pretty sure they’d eat us all and be done.

Just thinking that I’m supposed to ride one of these is fucking ludicrous.

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

The armored corset Mira made me isn’t regulation, but I fit right in among the hundreds of modified uniforms around me.

My skin is agitated from wearing the armor all night like Mira suggested, and my knee aches, but I resist the urge to bend down and adjust the wrap I managed to put on in the nonexistent privacy of my bunk in the first-year barracks before anyone else woke up.

“We commend their souls to Malek.” The god of death.

it’s hard to reconcile this stern-faced, serious leader with the funny, grinning guy I’ve always known.

“Then I won’t have to be concerned with learning your name, since it will be read off tomorrow morning,”

He’s one of the repeats—a cadet who didn’t bond during Threshing and now has to start the entire year over.

A bird whistles to the left, and I look over the crowd, my heart leaping because I immediately recognize the tone. Dain.

Equally spaced around the rotunda, shimmering in their various colors of red, green, brown, orange, blue, and black, stand six daunting marble pillars carved into dragons, as if they’d come crashing down from the ceiling above.

“I figured, since you were the one birdcalling me.” I grin, shaking my head. He’s been using that signal since we were kids living near the Krovlan border while our parents were stationed there with the Southern Wing.

“It hurts, but I’ll live.” I’ve had far worse injuries and we both know it, but there’s no use telling him to relax when he’s obviously not going to.

His worry sits on my chest like a stone.

There was something to be said for the emotional exhaustion of the day.

“Fuck,” he mutters, ripping his hand over his hair. “Xaden Riorson wants you dead. It’s common knowledge among the leadership cadre after yesterday.”

So he can do whatever he wants and no one will question a thing.

That signet will more than set Dain apart. It will make him one of the most valuable interrogation tools we have. “And you say you haven’t changed,” I half tease.

They want it to sever your previous bonds so your loyalty is to your wing.

But a year doesn’t change that I still think of you as my best friend. I’m still Dain, and this time next year, you will still be Violet. We will still be us.”

The marble floor is gray, so it shouldn’t be that hard for the staff to get the blood out.

Fewer people mean fewer witnesses, but I’m not foolish enough to think Xaden won’t kill me in front of the whole quadrant if he wants.

“I already knew your parents are tight,” Xaden calls out, a cruel smile tilting his lips. “But do you two have to be so fucking obvious?”

“Let me guess,” Xaden continues, glancing between Dain and me. “Childhood friends? First loves, even?”

years, but at least the first-years in our squad are all seated together.

“And if they were, they were always third-years who’d spent time shadowing forward wings, but we expect you to graduate with the full knowledge of what we’re up against. It’s not about just knowing where every wing is stationed, either.”

she’ll be a major before she leaves her rotation teaching here,

“You need to understand the politics of our enemies, the strategies of defending our outposts from constant attack, and have a thorough knowledge of both recent and current battles. If you cannot grasp these basic topics, then you have no business on the back of a dragon.”

“This is the only class you will have every day, because it’s the only class that will matter if you’re called into service early.”

Her eyes flare wide for a heartbeat, but she gives an approving smile and nod before moving on.

He leans in when she whispers something to him, and his thick eyebrows fly high as he whips his head in my direction.

There’s no approving smile when the colonel’s weary eyes find mine, only a sigh that fills my chest with heavy sorrow when I hear it. I was supposed to be his star pupil in the Scribe Quadrant, his crowning achievement before he retires. How absolutely ironic that I’m now the least likely to succeed in this one.

we’re doomed, not only as a kingdom but as a society.” Which is exactly why I’ve always wanted to be a scribe. Not that it matters now.

A smile curves my lips. There could definitely be perks to being a rider. There will be.

Those greedy assholes are never content with the resources they have.

But if we’re not on high alert, then they must have gotten the wards rewoven, or at least stabilized.

My initial question would be why the hell the wards faltered, but it’s not like they’re going to answer a question like that in a room full of cadets with zero security clearance.

especially since gryphons don’t tolerate altitude nearly as well as dragons, probably due to the fact that they’re half-lion, half-eagle and can’t handle the thinner air at higher altitudes.

and we’ve successfully defended our land in this never-ending four-hundred-year-long war.

our dragons can channel more power than gryphons.

Surviving graduation doesn’t mean we’ll survive service. Statistically, most riders die before retirement age, especially at the rate riders have been falling over the last two years.

I swear I can feel him staring at the back of my neck from seven rows behind me, but I’m not going to turn and look, not when I know Xaden’s up there somewhere, too.

“Why don’t you tell me why that’s