Page 77 of Fourth Wing

My heart lurches as I see a rider fall from the back of a Red Swordtail and, unlike Tairn, the dragon doesn’t dip to catch the first-year. I look away before the body hits the ground.

It’s not anyone you know. That’s what I tell myself. Rhiannon, Ridoc, Trina, Sawyer… They’re all probably safely bonded and already waiting at the field.

“We’re going to have to put on a show.”

“Awesome.” The idea is anything but.

“You will not fall. I will not allow it.”The bands around my legs extend to my hands, and I feel the pulse of invisible energy.“You will trust me.”

Not a question. An order.

“Let’s get it over with.” I can’t move my legs, my fingers, my hands, so there’s nothing I can do but sit back and hope I enjoy whatever hell he’s about to put me through.

His wings give a mighty beat, and we lurch upward in what feels like a ninety-degree climb, leaving my stomach back at the lower altitude. He crests the top of the snow-dusted peaks, and we hang there for a breath of a second before he twists, diving back down at the same terrifying angle.

It’s the most horrifying and yet exhilarating moment of my life.

Until he twists again, sending us into a spiral.

My body is wrenched this way and that as he completes turn after turn, pulling us out of the dive only to bank so hard, I swear the land becomes the sky, then repeats it all until my face splits into a grin.

There isnothinglike this.

“I think we made our point.”He pulls us level, then banks right, starting up the valley that leads to the box canyon of the training fields. The sun is close to setting behind the peaks, but there’s plenty of light to see the golden dragon up ahead, hovering as though it’s waiting. Maybe it didn’t choose a rider, but it will live to decide again next year, and that’s all that matters.

Or maybe it will see that we humans aren’t so great after all.

“Why did you choose me?” I have to know, because as soon as we land, there are going to be questions.

“Because you saved her.”Tairn’s head inclines toward the golden as we approach, and she follows after us. Our speed slows.

“But…” I shake my head. “Dragons value strength and cunning and…ferocity in their riders.” None of which defines me.

“Please, do tell me more about what I should value.”Sarcasm drips from his tone as we pass over the Gauntlet and crest the narrow entrance to the training fields.

I suck in a sharp breath at the sight of so many dragons. There are hundreds gathered along the rocky edges of the mountain slopes behind the bleachers that were erected overnight. Spectators. And at the bottom of the valley, in the same field I’d walked only a couple of days before, are two lines of dragons facing each other.

“They are divided between those still in the quadrant who chose in years past and those who chose today,”Tairn tells me.“We are the seventy-first bond to enter the fields.”

Mom will be here, on the dais in front of the bleachers, and maybe I’ll get more than a cursory glance, but her attention will mostly be on the seventy or so newly bonded pairs.

A ferocious roar of celebration goes up among the dragons as we fly in, every head swinging our way, and I know it’s in deference to Tairn. So is the parting of the dragons at the very center of the field, making room for Tairn to land. He releases the bands holding me in my seat, then hovers over the grass for a few wing beats, and I see the golden dragon flying furiously to catch up.

How ironic. Tairn is the most celebrated dragon in the Vale, and I’m the most unlikely rider in the quadrant.

“You are the smartest of your year. The most cunning.”

I gulp at the compliment, brushing it off. I was trained as a scribe, not a rider.

“You defended the smallest with ferocity. And strength of courage is more important than physical strength. Since you apparently need to know before we land.”

My throat tightens from his words, emotion forming a knot I have to swallow past.

Oh. Shit. I hadn’t spoken those words. I’d thought them.

He can read my thoughts.

“See? Smartest of your year.”

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