Page 153 of Fourth Wing

“Will we get to participate in any active scenarios?” Heaton asks, practically vibrating with excitement.

“Absolutely not!” Devera snaps.

“If you see combat, then I’ve failed as this being the safest place on the border to send you,” Quade answers. “But you get bonus points for enthusiasm. Let me guess. Third-year?”

Heaton nods.

Quade turns slightly and smiles at three indistinct figures in rider black as they walk under the portcullis. “There they are now. Why don’t you three come and meet—”

“Violet?”

My head whips toward the gate, and my heart combusts in a series of erratic beats that leaves me clutching my chest with the best kind of shock.No way.There’s no way. I stumble for the gate, forgetting to be stoic, to be emotionally untouchable, as she breaks into a run, her arms opening just before we collide.

She sweeps me up, yanking me against her chest and squeezing tight. She smells like dirt and dragon and the coppery tang of blood, but I don’t care. I hug her back just as hard.

“Mira.” I bury my face against her shoulder, and my eyes burn as she rests her hand on top of the very braid she taught me how to do. It’s as if the weight of everything that’s happened over the last nine months comes crashing down, slamming into me with the force of a cross-bolt.

The wind of the parapet.

The look in Xaden’s eyes when he realized I was a Sorrengail.

The sound of Jack swearing he’d kill me.

The smell of burning flesh that first day.

The look on Aurelie’s face when she fell from the Gauntlet.

Pryor and Luca and Trina and…Tynan. Oren and Amber Mavis.

Tairn and Andarna choosing me.

Xaden kissing me.

Our mother ignoring me.

Mira pulls me back just long enough to look me over, as if she’s checking for damage. “You’re all right.” She nods, her teeth digging into her bottom lip. “You’re all right, aren’t you?”

I nod, but she blurs in my vision because I might be alive, thriving even, but I’m not the same person she left at the base of that turret, and from the heaviness in her eyes, she knows it, too.

“Yeah,” she whispers, tucking me in tight again. “You’re all right, Violet. You’re all right.”

If she says it enough times, I might start to believe her.

“Areyou?” I jerk back to study her. There’s a new scar that stretches from her earlobe to her collarbone. “Gods, Mira.”

“I’m fine,” she promises, then grins. “And look at you! You didn’t die!”

Irrational, giddy laughter bubbles up. “I didn’t die! You’re not an only child!”

We both burst into laughter, and tears track down my cheeks.

“Sorrengails are weird,” I hear Imogen state.

“You have no idea,” Dain answers, but when I turn to look, his lips are curved into the first genuine smile I’ve seen from him in months.

“Shut up, Aetos,” Mira barks, throwing her arm over my shoulder. “Catch me up on everything, Violet.”

We might be hundreds of miles from Basgiath, but I’ve never felt more at home.

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