Fourth Wing ✰

“You’re shaking,” he observed, his voice a low rumble that competed with the storm.

Xaden Riorson stood directly above me, his hand extended. Not in mercy. In curiosity.

I stepped onto the stone.

This is where you die, whispered a voice that sounded like every healer who’d ever looked at my chart. Fourth Wing

I threw myself forward.

“And if you survive the Threshing,” he added, turning his back on me, “try not to die during the War Games. It’s a waste of a good uniform.”

I was standing in it.

A crack spiderwebbed beneath my left foot. The ancient mortar, dissolved by a century of autumn rains, gave way. A chunk the size of my fist tumbled into the abyss. I didn’t hear it land.

I placed my palm against the cold stone of the Riders’ Quadrant gate. The bas-relief of a wyvern, wings pinned in eternal agony, seemed to sneer at me.

Don't look down. Looking down is a confession of fear. “You’re shaking,” he observed, his voice a low

His mouth twitched—not a smile, never a smile—and he grabbed my forearm. His grip was iron. He hauled me over the edge and onto the muddy, blood-stained soil of the Riders’ courtyard.

My body betrayed me. I looked.