Page 126 of Fourth Wing

“You held your own and controlled your temper,”Tairn says, an immense swell of pride flooding my chest.

“She’s ready,”Andarna adds with a giddy jolt of joy that makes me instantly light-headed.

“She’s ready,”he agrees.

…

A couple of hours later, I rip my brush through my hair in the privacy of my room, still fully dressed down to my bootsandarmor. I still can’t believe I made an ass of myself in front of my entire squad simply because Xaden decided to train shirtless.

I really need to get laid.

I pause mid-brushstroke when a rush of energy races down my spine, 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, saturating every cell in my body. It is everything I am and everything I can be all at once.

I sit up slowly and flip my hands to examine my tingling palms. It feels like they should look different, changed, but they’re not. They’re still my fingers, my slender wrists, and yet they’re so much more now. They’re strong enough to shape the torrent inside me, to mold it into whatever I desire.

“This is your power, isn’t it?”I ask Tairn, but he doesn’t answer.“Andarna?”

There’s only silence.

Go figure, they’re always around, pushing into my head when I could use a little space, then nowhere to be found when it’s the other way around. I’d heard them say I was ready earlier, but I figured it would take a day or two for my mind to fully open that pathway once Tairn started channeling. Guess not.

Rhiannon. I have to tell Rhiannon. She’s going to flip that I can finally go to Professor Carr’s class with her. And Liam? He can stop pretending that he can’t channel just so he isn’t forced to leave me for an hour a day.

Heat washes over me, prickling my skin and centering low in my stomach.

Odd, but whatever. It’s probably just a side effect of the power. I throw open the lock on my door and yank it open.

My vision blurs and need slams into me, robbing me of every logical thought besides satiating the overwhelming—

“Violet?” The fuzzy shape of a man stands in the hallway, and I blink Liam into focus. “You all right?”

“Are you sleeping in the hallway?” I grip the doorframe as an image of falling fills my mind, and I feel the sizzle of flakes as they make contact with my heated skin. It’s gone as quickly as it appeared, but the driving, thundering desire remains.

Oh shit. This is…lust.

“No.” Liam shakes his head. “Just hanging out here before turning in.”

I look at him then. Really, honestlylookat him. He’s more than handsome, with strong features and sky-blue eyes that are startlingly beautiful.

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