Fourth Wing - The Empyrean 1

A dragon without its rider is a tragedy.
A rider without their dragon is dead.
ARTICLE ONE, SECTION ONE, THE RIDERS' CODE

"Anyone else want to change their mind?" Xaden shouts, looking at the other cadets with the same malicious glare as the blue dragon behind him. "No? Perfect. About half of you will be dead by next summer."

Everyone in the formation is silent, with only stifled sobs heard to my left.

"A third of you will have died by the second year, and as many again by the third. Here, no one cares who your mom or dad is. Even King Tauri's second son died during the Choosing. So tell me again: Do you feel invincible now that you've made it to the Riders Quadrant? Do you feel indestructible? Do you feel like you're elite?"

No one is cheering now.

Another hot wave hits me, this time directly in the face, and I tense up, bracing myself for the incineration that awaits.
But it's not flames... it's just steam, tossing Rhiannon's braids back as the dragons exhale simultaneously.
The pants of the first-year in front of me blacken, the color spreading down his legs.
They want us to be afraid of them. They succeeded. "Because to them, you are neither indestructible nor special."
Xaden points to the blue dragon and leans slightly forward, looking us in the eyes as if he wants to tell us a secret. "To them, you're just prey."

Discover the brutal and elite world of the military school for dragon riders in Rebecca Yarros's best-selling book.

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail would normally enter the Scribes Quadrant and live a quiet life among her books.
Now, the commanding general – and her hard-hearted mother – has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates who yearn to become the elite of Navarre... after first becoming dragon riders.

But because she is the most petite of all and her body is fragile, death seems only a breath away...
On the one hand, because dragons do not bond with "fragile" people. On the contrary, they incinerate them.

On the other hand, because the other aspiring riders want to kill Violet. As there are fewer dragons willing to bond than there are cadets, most candidates see Violet's death as an increase in their own chances.
Many, however, want to kill her simply because she is her mother's daughter – like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wing leader in the Riders Quadrant.
Violet will need every ounce of her intelligence to see the next sunrise.

However, with each passing day, the war outside grows fiercer, the kingdom's magical wards weaken, and the dead continue to increase. And what's worse?
Violet begins to suspect that the leaders are hiding a terrible secret.

Friends, enemies, lovers.
Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda – because once you're in, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.