A scream rips from my throat just as lightning splits the sky with a terrifying crack of thunder.
The bluish streak of silver death slams into the tower, and sparks flare as it explodes in a blast of stone. Tairn banks to avoid the blast, and I pivot in the saddle.
Jack falls down the mountainside in an avalanche of rock that I know he can’t survive.
From the way Baide cries beneath us, she knows it, too.
My hand trembles as I sheathe the clean dagger at my ribs. The only blood to be found is on the rocks below, though I look at my hands as though they should be covered in death.
Tairn roars with the unmistakable sound of pride.
“Lightning wielder.”
The death of a cadet is an inevitable yet acceptable tragedy. This process thins the herd, leaving only the strongest riders, and as long as the cause of death does not break the Codex, any rider involved in extinguishing another’s life shall not be punished.
—Major Afendra’s Guide to the Riders Quadrant
(Unauthorized Edition)
CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
We land in the flight field what feels like minutes later. Or maybe it’s been a lifetime. I’m not sure.
The ground shakes as dragons arrive to the left and right, the field quickly filling with celebrating riders from Fourth Wing and angry ones from First. The dragons take off as soon as their riders dismount, with the exception of Andarna, who waits between Tairn’s forelegs as I fumble with the buckles.
Jack is dead.
I killed him.
I’m the reason his parents will get a letter, the reason his name will be etched into stone.
Across the field, Garrick lifts the crystal egg above his head as Dain waves the flag, and those in Fourth Wing cheer, rushing toward the pair like they’re gods.
Tairn’s weight shifts beneath me as the last buckle slips through my fingers, and I slide out of the saddle. My head swims, stress no doubt bringing on the dizzy spell that makes it hard to keep my balance as I make my way to his shoulder and dismount.
I stumble in the mud, hitting my knees when I reach where Andarna lies between Tairn’s forelegs, clearly exhausted.
“Tell me Liam is alive. Tell me it was worth it.”
“Deigh says that he lives. The sword went through his side,” Tairn says.
“Good. Good. That’s good. Thank you, Andarna. I know how much that cost you.” I look up into her golden eyes, and she blinks slowly back.
“Worth it.”
Nausea holds me in its grip, and my mouth waters. Killed him. I killed him.
“Damn, Sorrengail!” Sawyer calls out. “Lightning? You’ve been holding out on us!”
Lightning I used to take a life.
My stomach heaves and a dark shadow envelops me, but it’s not Xaden. Tairn has folded his wings over us, closing out the world while I retch up everything I’ve eaten today.
“You did what was necessary,” Tairn says, but it doesn’t stop my stomach from clenching and tightening again, trying its best to force up what’s not even there.
“You saved your friend,” Andarna adds.
Finally, my stomach settles, and I force myself to my feet, dragging the back of my hand over my mouth. “You need to get some rest, don’t you?”
“I’m proud you’re mine.” Andarna’s voice wavers, the blinks of her eyes becoming slower. “Even if I need a bath.”
Tairn draws back his wings, and Andarna walks forward, then launches into the sky with steady wingbeats toward the Vale.
I stare up at the saddle. I need to get him out of this so he can rest, too. But all I can think is that I finally have a signet, a real, true signet, and the first thing I did with it was kill a man.
“Violet?” Dain appears on my left. “That was you with the lightning strike? The one that took down the tower?”
The one that killed Jack.
I nod, thinking of all the times I aimed for the shoulder instead of the heart. The poisons I used to incapacitate, not murder. I left Oren unconscious on the ground at Threshing and didn’t even go for the throat when he invaded my room.
All because I didn’t want to be a killer.
“I’ve never seen anything like it. I don’t think there’s been a lightning wielder in more than a century—” He pauses. “Violet?”
