Page 595 - Fourth Wing

You’re all cowards.

—THE LAST WORDS OF FEN RIORSON (REDACTED)

CHAPTER

THIRTY-NINE

XADEN

“She’ll be all right.” Sgaeyl’s voice is gentler than she’s ever deigned to
use with me. Then again, she didn’t choose me because I needed coddling.

She chose me for the scars on my back and the simple fact that I am the
grandson of her second rider—the one who didn’t make it through the

quadrant.

“You don’t know that she’ll be all right. No one does.” It’s been three
fucking days, and Violet hasn’t woken up. Three never-ending days I’ve

spent in this armchair, walking a knife’s edge between sanity and madness,

studying every rise and fall of her chest just to be sure she’s still breathing.
My lungs only fill when hers do, and the time between my heartbeats is

filled with sharp, all-consuming fear.

She’s never looked fragile to me, but she does now, lying in the middle of
my bed, her lips pale and chapped, the ends of her hair duller than their

usual bladelike hue. For three days, everything about her has felt as though
the life was leached from her body, only a shadow of her soul left beneath

her skin.

But today, at least, the morning light shows her cheeks have a little more
color along the darker line of her flight goggles than yesterday.

I’m a fucking fool. I should have left her at Basgiath. Or sent her with
Aetos, even if it strained Sgaeyl and Tairn. She never should have suffered