Page 160 - Fourth Wing

various shades of apricot to carrot, are the most—I throw myself to the next

rail—unpredictable of dragonkind and therefore always a risk. I move
across the rail with the same hand-over-hand motion, ignoring the outright

protests of my shoulders. Descending from the Fhaicorain line—

My right hand loses purchase and my weight swings me into the face of
the steep mountainside, my cheek slamming into the rock. A high-pitched

ringing erupts in my ears and my vision darkens at the edges.

“Violet!” Rhiannon shouts from the top.
“Next to you! The rope is next to you!” Aurelie calls up.

Iron scrapes my fingertips as my left hand slips, but I spot the rope and

take hold, bracing my feet on the knot beneath me and clinging tight until
the ringing fades in my head. I have to swing over or climb down.

I’ve survived seven weeks in this damned quadrant, and this course isn’t
going to beat me today.

Pushing off the edge, I swing out for the rail and make it, immediately

starting the hand over hand to get me to the next one and then the next, until
I finally let go, landing on the first shaking iron pillar. My brain is rattled as

the thing shudders violently, and I leap to the next, barely gaining a
foothold before jumping to the gravel path at the end of the ascent.

Aurelie is right behind me, landing with a grin. “This is the best!”

“You clearly need to see the healers. You must have hit your head if you
think this is fun.” My breaths are choppy gasps, but I can’t help but smile at

her obvious joy.

“Just run straight across this one,” she says as we reach the twisting
staircase posts jutting straight from the side of the cliff face.

Each three-foot-wide timber rotates from its base in one of the steepest

sections of the course. I quickly calculate if you fall off one of the posts,
you’d probably drop at least thirty or forty feet onto the rocky terrain below.

I swallow down the terror trying to crawl up my throat and focus on the
possibility my agility and lightness will give me an edge on this particular