Page 564 - Fourth Wing

Rocks tumble down the mountainside.

Soleil throws up her hands, stopping the slide before it can crush the
people running into the mine below. Her arms shake, but the boulders fall

on either side of the evacuation path, leaving the escape clear.

I whip back toward the venin and gasp.
Raw power is palpable in the air, lifting the hairs on my arms as the venin

stands with her palms lowered to the ground. The grass around her turns

brown, then the flowers of the wild clover bushes wilt and the leaves curl,
losing all their color.

“Tairn, is she…”

“Channeling,” he growls.
I fling another flare of energy as the blight spreads outward from the

venin, as though she’s draining the very essence of the land, but it hits too
close to the road, and the straggler racing toward safety, for my comfort.

“Watch out. Deigh says that building on the other side of the road has a

crate of something marked with Liam’s family crest,” Tairn tells me as I fire
off another blast that lands nowhere near the venin. “He says it’s highly…

unstable,” he finishes, pausing as he relays the information.
“Not worried about the building,” I reply as the circle of death expands

under Tairn’s beating wings, and I draw more power from Tairn, poising to

strike again.
Soleil charges toward the venin with Fuil on her heels, her dagger palmed

and ready as the rest of the group of townspeople make it into the tunnel.

This is all worth it as long as they survive.
The wave of death pushes forward from the venin, flowing outward and

catching up with the fleeing civilian in the middle of the road. He falls, then

screams soundlessly, curling in on himself as his body becomes nothing but
a husk of a shell.

Air freezes in my lungs and my heart stutters. The venin just…
“Soleil!” I yell, but it’s already too late. The third-year stumbles a few