Page 217 - Fourth Wing

My body is wrenched this way and that as he completes turn after turn,

pulling us out of the dive only to bank so hard, I swear the land becomes the
sky, then repeats it all until my face splits into a grin.

There is nothing like this.

“I think we made our point.” He pulls us level, then banks right, starting
up the valley that leads to the box canyon of the training fields. The sun is

close to setting behind the peaks, but there’s plenty of light to see the

golden dragon up ahead, hovering as though it’s waiting. Maybe it didn’t
choose a rider, but it will live to decide again next year, and that’s all that

matters.

Or maybe it will see that we humans aren’t so great after all.
“Why did you choose me?” I have to know, because as soon as we land,

there are going to be questions.
“Because you saved her.” Tairn’s head inclines toward the golden as we

approach, and she follows after us. Our speed slows.

“But…” I shake my head. “Dragons value strength and cunning and…
ferocity in their riders.” None of which defines me.

“Please, do tell me more about what I should value.” Sarcasm drips from
his tone as we pass over the Gauntlet and crest the narrow entrance to the

training fields.

I suck in a sharp breath at the sight of so many dragons. There are
hundreds gathered along the rocky edges of the mountain slopes behind the

bleachers that were erected overnight. Spectators. And at the bottom of the

valley, in the same field I’d walked only a couple of days before, are two
lines of dragons facing each other.

“They are divided between those still in the quadrant who chose in years

past and those who chose today,” Tairn tells me. “We are the seventy-first
bond to enter the fields.”

Mom will be here, on the dais in front of the bleachers, and maybe I’ll get
more than a cursory glance, but her attention will mostly be on the seventy