This document is Chapter 22 from *Iron Flame* by Rebecca Yarros (the sequel to *Fourth Wing*), in which Violet Sorrengail begins with a terrifying nightmare of being confronted by a venin — a dark wielder who immobilizes her with magic and demands she either join him or die, revealing he has waited centuries for someone with her power. After waking, Xaden leads Violet toward Basgiath’s forge to show her the revolution’s secret operations, and she shares her research breakthrough about the First Six and the wardstones. However, before they can reach the forge, they are intercepted by the antagonistic Major Varrish and Professor Grady, who have come to take Violet and her squadmates — Ridoc, Rhiannon, and Sawyer — for interrogation training. Xaden fiercely tries to protect Violet, raising shadow barriers and arguing that she’s injured and on leave, but Varrish threatens to cancel her next weekend’s leave and leverages his authority over her. Violet defuses the standoff by reaching out to Sgaeyl (Xaden’s dragon’s mate) to convince Xaden to stand down, recognizing that his stubbornness could expose the contraband he’s carrying. She submits to being bound and led away for what promises to be a brutal interrogation session, with Xaden’s parting reminder that she is “unbreakable.”
F
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
aster. I have to run faster. Fear holds my throat shut as a tidal wave of
death chases me across the sunburned field to where Tairn waits, his
back turned.
Wind roars around me, stealing every other sound, even my own
heartbeat. Tairn’s going to die, and he doesn’t even see it coming for him.
Gold flickers near the tip of his wing.
Gods, no. Andarna. She’s here. She shouldn’t be here.
The wave nips at my heels, transforming the ground beneath my feet
into an ashen, desiccated wasteland.
“There is nowhere to run, rider.” A hooded figure steps into my path out
of nowhere, raising one arm.
I’m yanked off my feet by an unseen force and lifted into the air,
completely immobilized. The wave of death halts and the wind falls silent,
as if he’s stopped time.
He shifts his staff to the other hand, then pulls back the thick maroon
hood of his floor-length robes with gnarled fingers, revealing the white of
his scalp under his slicked-back, thinning hair. Shadows mark the gaunt
hollows of his cheekbones on an eerily youthful face, and his lips are
cracked and dry, just like the land behind me, but it’s his red-rimmed eyes,
the distended veins spiderwebbing across his temples and cheeks, that have
me fighting to open my mouth, straining to scream.
“A
Venin.
“So disappointing,” he lectures, as if he’s my Sage and not the teacher of
the dark wielder I killed on Tairn’s back. “All of that power at your
fingertips, and yet you insist on fleeing over and over, using the same failed
tactics, and expecting what?” He tilts his head to the side. “To escape?”
My ribs tighten around my lungs as terror takes hold, and I force a
garbled sound through my throat, but it does nothing to warn Tairn and
Andarna.
“There is no escaping me, rider,” he whispers, his fingers ghosting over
my cheek but not quite touching. “Fight me and die, or join me and live
beyond the ages, but you will never escape me, not when I’ve waited
centuries for someone with your power.”
“Fuck you.” It comes out as a whisper, but I mean it with every bone in
my body.
“Death it is.” He looks so…disappointed as he lowers his hand.
Wind howls as I fall to the ground. A scream tears through my body as a
wave of agony rolls over my skin and bones, leaching the very essence of
my energy until—
I wake, my heart pounding, my skin clammy, my fingers wrapped
around my black-hilted dagger.
Just a dream. Just a dream. Just a dream.
re you going to tell me where we’re going?” I ask Xaden on
Saturday as he leads me down the stairs from my dorm room.
“To Basgiath’s forge,” he says as we emerge from the academic wing
into the empty courtyard. It’s finally the time of year when the temperature
outside matches inside. Autumn is settling in.
My chest tightens as I realize he’s taking me to see where they steal the
weapons—and what that means. He’s letting me in.
“Thank you for trusting me.” The words don’t do the feeling justice.
“You’re welcome.” He looks down at me, his expression shifting. “Will I
earn a little trust back now?”
I nod, tearing my gaze away from his before I do something reckless like
let those three little words he wants spill out just because we’re having a
moment. But I can share with him a secret of mine as well. “I found a text
that said the First Six didn’t just establish the wards but personally carved
the first wardstone.”
“We knew that.”
“Partially.” We cross down to the tunnels to the flight field, and I nod at
one of our first-years. Channing? Chapman? Charan? Shit, it’s something
like that. I’ll learn it in a couple of weeks—after Threshing. “The text said
first wardstone,
which means if they carved the one here, there’s a good chance they
carved the one in Aretia. I’m on the right track.”
“Good point.” He jerks open the door to the tunnels, and I walk inside.
“I know what I need to look for, but I’m not sure where it would even
exist.”
“Which is?” He asks as we move toward the stairs.
My pulse is thrumming with excitement to finally see the forge, get a
look at the luminary that the revolution needs so badly, too.
“I need a firsthand account from one of the six. My father talked about
seeing one once, so I know they exist. Question is if they’ve been translated
and redacted into uselessness.” We turn into the staircase and both stop
abruptly.
Major Varrish blocks our path. “Ah, nice to see you, Lieutenant
Riorson.” His smile is just as greasy as ever.
Fear squeezes my heart. Xaden is carrying enough contraband to see him
executed two dozen times.
“Wish I could say the same,” Xaden retorts.
“Found her!” Varrish calls up the stairs. “Shouldn’t you be headed over
to the main campus, Riorson? Surely that’s where officers lodge when
visiting.” His gaze flicks my way.
It takes all my willpower not to retreat.
