Page 231 of Fourth Wing

—Major Frederick’s Modern Guide for Healers

CHAPTER

THIRTY-EIGHT

I think I might die today.

Air rushes by and my stomach feels like it’s somewhere above me.

Because I’m falling.

Endlessly falling.

Tairn roars, and it’s the panic, the pitch of that bellow that forces my eyes open just long enough to see him diving for me, but I can’t feel him in my head, can’t feel my feet on the Archives floor, can’t access my power. I’m cut off, no longer grounded.

My back slams into something, knocking the breath from my lungs, slowing my descent but not stopping it, and shimmering gold rises and ebbs around me. Wind stills, the cries of mayhem and destruction pause, but the burn inside rages on, consuming me with fiery teeth.Time.

Andarna has stopped time with what strength she has left.

I’m on her back, falling…because she isn’t strong enough to carry me, but she’s brave enough to fly into this battle. Now my eyes are burning, too. She shouldn’t be here. She should be tucked away in the outpost, safe from the wyvern three times her size.

Are there any wyvern left? Did we get them all?

When time starts again, wind whipping at my exposed skin, I slip from her back and am gathered close by strong human arms.

“Violet.” I know that deep, panicked voice.Xaden. But I can’t move, can’t even force my lips apart to scream with the pain of it all when he puts pressure on the wound. “Fuck, it must be poison. You have to fight it.”

Poison. The green-tipped dagger.

But what poison could paralyze me not only physically but magically?

“I’ll take care of you. Just…just live. Please live.”

Of course he wants me to live. I’m integral to his survival.

It takes all my strength, but I manage to lift my eyelids for a second, and the blatant fear in his eyes jolts my heart before I lose consciousness.

…

“Maybe it isn’t poison,” someone says in a deep voice as I wake but can’t pry my eyes open. Garrick, maybe? Gods, everythinghurts.“Maybe it’s magic.”

“Did you see the way she whipped that lightning straight at that venin’s head?” someone asks.

“Not now,” Bodhi practically growls. “She saved your fucking life. She savedallour lives.”

But I didn’t. Soleil and…Liam are dead.

“Her blood is fuckingblack,” Xaden snaps and his arms tighten, holding me to his chest.

“It has to be poison,” Imogen cries—a sound I’ve never heard from her. “Look at it! We have to get her back to Basgiath. Nolonmightbe able to help.”

Yes. Nolon. They need to take me to Nolon. But I can’t say it, can’t make my lips move, can’t even reach out along the mental pathways that have become as familiar to me as breathing. Being cut off from Tairn, from Andarna…from Xaden is a torture all on its own.

“That’s a twelve-hour flight.” Xaden’s voice rises. “And I’m pretty sure her arm is broken.”

I’ll be dead in twelve hours. The promise of sweet oblivion already hovers at the edge of my consciousness, a promise of peace if I agree to just let go.

“There’s somewhere closer,” Xaden says quietly, and I feel his fingers skim over my cheek. The motion is unnervingly tender.

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