Page 230 of Fourth Wing

“Positive.”

Blue fire erupts from the horde, and I barely draw breath before a torrent of shadows rises from the edges of the valley, snuffing out the flame.

Power ripples in my bones, vibrating my very being with the amount of energy I’m forcing my body to contain.

“Tell me your plan isn’t to try and jump on the wyvern’s back?”Tairn asks as my breath hitches. Just a few more seconds and we’ll be close enough.

“I don’t have to,”I tell him.“Didn’t you hear what the venin said? I can command the sky to surrender all its power,but I’m going to need every ounce of yours to do it.”I unleash my signet and strike once, missing the wyvern, then again, missing once more.

They’re almost on us as I strike again and again, pushing myself to the limit as Xaden smothers the blue flames before they have a chance to burn me alive.

I can’t aim. I’m not ready. Maybe if I had another year or two to practice, but not now.“I need more, Tairn!”

“You will burn out, Silver One!”he growls, dodging a flame Xaden misses.“You already walk the edge.”

My arms shake as I lift them again.“This is the only way I can save them. I can save Sgaeyl. You just have to decide to live, Tairn. Even if I don’t.”

“I will not watch another rider die because they do not know their own limitations. One more strike could be your last. I feel your waning strength.”

“I know exactly what I’m capable of,”I promise as energy fills my body once again, and my heart jolts, struggling to find the right rhythm. Hot. I’m so damned hot, I feel like I could burst into flame myself. I’ve taken too much power.“I’m not Naolin.”

Fear threatens to consume me as the venin rides at us, close enough that I can see his snarling mouth, but it’s not my terror. It’s Tairn’s.

“Let me help!”Andarna shouts, and my heart swells even as it stutters from the energy flowing through my veins. I don’t have time to look to see where she is—I only hope she’s still in the outpost.

“Only what I need,” I say to her.

I swallow hard, my good hand clutching the blood-tipped dagger as we fly toward the wall of wyvern. I reach for her golden power, and it spreads down my spine and explodes through me, time pausing around us.

Tairn flares his wing, bringing us to a hover as the wyvern move toward us inch by precious inch, fighting against Andarna’s magic with their own.

I have towantto kill that venin, and gods help me, I do.

“Now!”I push my arms toward the venin and command lightning to split the sky, and it does, branching out in every direction, but I only need to control one of its silver-blue veins. I focus on the one closest to the venin, bringing it down in slow bursts that defy time. My arms vibrate, and I feel Tairn’s power push the boundaries of my body as I yank the branch sideways in its descent, inch by inch with the last of my strength, positioning it over the venin.“More, Tairn!”

He roars and lightning itself rips through me, sizzling my lungs and charring my very breath as Andarna’s gift ebbs. I don’t have to be near her to feel her fatigue, her strength ebbing. But I only take what I need. Andarna will live today, even if she is the only one.

I have only a few heartbeats or this much power will burn through me and take me under.

Xaden screams through the barrier in my mind, and the sounds of his anguish and fear are nearly more than I can bear. But there’s no time to focus on him, to wonder what will happen if I don’t succeed. Because right now, I am focused on vengeance with a coldness that would make even my mother proud.

Finally dragging the lightning down into place as my skin sizzles and burns, I release time and hold myself upright long enough to see it strike true, killing the venin at the first touch of its energy. As if time were still frozen, his body slowly topples from the top of his wyvern.

In the next breath, more than half the monsters fall from the sky, as if they were struck themselves, and, as if it had been waiting for me to accomplish my goal, the wound in my side threatens to burn me alive.

“On the left!” Tairn roars, swinging toward the wyvern and its rider as they barrel toward us with murder in their eyes.

A rope of shadow flies up, wrapping around the venin’s neck as Tairn banks left to avoid the hit, and I barely manage to keep my seat.

Xaden pulls the venin from the wyvern’s back and yanks him downward, right into the dagger he holds in his outstretched hand.

Damn, sometimes I forget just how beautifully lethal he is.

Knowing they’ll all live, I let gravity claim my body and slide from Tairn’s back.

“VIOLET!”I hear Xaden’s scream as I fall.

In the event that you come across a poison you do not recognize, it is best to treat with any and every antidote. Either way, the patient will die, but at least this way you would have learned something.

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