Page 68 of Fourth Wing

The one on the right blinks.

The one on the left sticks its nose in again, sniffing loudly.

“The scales have saved me a few times,” I whisper. “But no one else knows they’re in there. Just Mira and Teine.”

They both blink at me, and I lower my gaze, bowing my head because it feels like the thing to do. Professor Kaori taught us every way to approach a dragon and exactly zero ways to disengage one.

Step by step, they retreat until I see them take up their places in line in my peripherals, and I finally raise my head.

Taking several deep breaths, I try to lock my muscles to keep from trembling.

“Violet.” Rhiannon is only a few feet away, a look of terror in her eyes. She must have been right behind their heads.

“I’m fine.” I force a smile and nod. “I have dragon-scale armor under the vest,” I whisper. “They smell my sister’s dragon.” If she wants trust, there it is. “Please don’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t,” she whispers. “You’re all right?”

“Other than having a few years of my life shaved off.” I laugh. The sound is shaky, bordering on hysteria.

“Let’s get out of here.” She swallows, her gaze darting toward the line of dragons.

“Good idea.”

She turns and walks back to her place, and once there’s fifteen feet between us, I follow.

“I think I just shat myself,” Ridoc says, and my laughter only pitches higher as we move through the field.

“Honestly, I thought they were going to eat you,” Luca remarks.

“Me too,” I admit.

“I wouldn’t have blamed them,” she continues.

“You’re insufferable,” Ridoc calls back.

I focus on the path and keep walking.

“What? She’s obviously our weakest link after Pryor, and I don’t blame them for snuffing him out,” she argues. “He could never make a decision, and no one wants someone like that as their rider—”

A blast of heat singes my back and I halt.

Don’t be Ridoc. Don’t be—

“Guess the dragons think she’s insufferable, too,” Ridoc mutters.

Our squad is down to six first-years.

There is nothing quite as humbling, or as awe-inspiring, as witnessing Threshing…for those who live through it anyway.

—Colonel Kaori’s Field Guide to Dragonkind

CHAPTER

THIRTEEN

October first is always Threshing.

Monday, Wednesday, or Sunday, it doesn’t matter where it falls on any given year. On the first of October, the first-year cadets of the Riders Quadrant enter the bowl-shaped forested valley to the southwest of the citadel and pray they come out alive.

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