Page 590 - Fourth Wing

In the event that you come across a poison you do not recognize, it is

best to treat with any and every antidote. Either way, the patient
will die, but at least this way you would have learned something.

—MAJOR FREDERICK’S MODERN GUIDE FOR HEALERS

CHAPTER

THIRTY-EIGHT

I think I might die today.
Air rushes by and my stomach feels like it’s somewhere above me.

Because I’m falling.
Endlessly falling.

Tairn roars, and it’s the panic, the pitch of that bellow that forces my eyes

open just long enough to see him diving for me, but I can’t feel him in my
head, can’t feel my feet on the Archives floor, can’t access my power. I’m

cut off, no longer grounded.

My back slams into something, knocking the breath from my lungs,
slowing my descent but not stopping it, and shimmering gold rises and ebbs

around me. Wind stills, the cries of mayhem and destruction pause, but the

burn inside rages on, consuming me with fiery teeth. Time.
Andarna has stopped time with what strength she has left.

I’m on her back, falling…because she isn’t strong enough to carry me,
but she’s brave enough to fly into this battle. Now my eyes are burning, too.

She shouldn’t be here. She should be tucked away in the outpost, safe from

the wyvern three times her size.
Are there any wyvern left? Did we get them all?

When time starts again, wind whipping at my exposed skin, I slip from
her back and am gathered close by strong human arms.