Page 64 - Fourth Wing

bonding and weave the protective wards they power around Navarre, I’m

pretty sure they’d eat us all and be done. But they like protecting the Vale—
the valley behind Basgiath the dragons call home—from merciless

gryphons and we like living, so here we are in the most unlikely of

partnerships.
My heart threatens to beat out of my chest, and I absolutely agree with it,

because I’d like to run, too. Just thinking that I’m supposed to ride one of

these is fucking ludicrous.
A cadet bolts out of Third Wing, screaming as he makes a run for the

stone keep behind us. We all turn to look as he sprints for the giant arched

door at the center. I can almost see the words carved into the arch from
here, but I already know them by heart. A dragon without its rider is a

tragedy. A rider without their dragon is dead.
Once bonded, riders can’t live without their dragons, but most dragons

can live just fine after us. It’s why they choose carefully, so they’re not

humiliated by picking a coward, not that a dragon would ever admit to
making a mistake.

The red dragon on the left opens its vast mouth, revealing teeth as big as I
am. That jaw could crush me if it wanted, like a grape. Fire erupts along its

tongue, then shoots outward in a macabre blaze toward the fleeing cadet.

He’s a pile of ash on the gravel before he can even make it to the shadow
of the keep.

Sixty-eight dead.

Heat from the flames blasts the side of my face as I jerk my attention
forward. If anyone else runs and is likewise executed, I don’t want to see it.

More screaming sounds around me. I lock my jaw as hard as I can to keep

quiet.
There are two more gusts of heat, one to my left and then another to my

right.
Make that seventy.