fourth wing xadens pov

chapter 13

Chapter 13:Fight Or Flight

“Did you do this on purpose?” It spills angrily out of my mouth before I can stop it, but Sgaeyl ignores me, her head stoically facing forwards as she flies us towards the mountain’s peak.

“Sgaeyl, please,” I plead, opening up to her through the bond. “Tell me what happened.”

“Andarna was in danger.” Andarna? The little golden dragon, I realise. “I couldn’t interfere, just like you. So I called for someone who could.”

“Tairn.” His name tastes like ash in my mouth.

Sgaeyl’s head swivels back to look at me, eyeing me like I’ve lost my mind. “Obviously.”

She starts to descend towards the mountain, looping in long, lazy spirals like we’ve got all the time in the world. I realise she’s giving me space to process this before reality hits thick and fast on the ground.

We fly in silence for a few beats of her wings, and I lean back, taking a deep, steadying breath. But the second I try to focus, a million thoughts begin pinballing round my head.

“Violet was Tairn’s choice.” She cuts into the chaos of my mind. Her tone is insistent, determined I accept that she had nothing to do with it.

I sigh, the weight of everything I’m carrying bearing down on me. “I don’t want her caught up in this, Sgaeyl.” My eyes rake the clouds beneath us like I can see her through them. I wonder if she’s already climbed onto his back, if they’re already in the air. “How could you let him do this?”

“You think I let him do anything?” She fires back, outraged.

“You know what I mean.” Her angry snort is a big fucking clue that she doesn’t. “I mean, why is he bonding now? He’s not bonded since-“

But she cuts me off. “That’s not my story to share.”

Fuck this. I deserve to know what they have wrapped me up in, what Violet’s now wrapped up in too. I don’t believe for a second that there’s not some other dragon politics at play here. He doesn’t pick a rider for six years, contently following Sgaeyl around wherever she goes, and now suddenly he’s decided it's time to get back in the action? Most dragons that lose their riders in the way that Tairn did, don’t bond again for decades, if ever. And yet, he’s here… choosing her.

Do they seriously not realise what they’ve done? They’ve made everything we’re working towards a million times harder than it was this morning.

“He’s the most powerful dragon here,” I say quietly.

“Yes,” she hisses, pride burning through the bond.

“And he’s just put a huge fucking target on her back. There are going to be at least fifty unbonded cadets at the end of this.” I gesture down to the forested valley beneath us. “Every single one of them will want her dead to get to Tairn.”

“He won’t let that happen.” But her voice is smaller and less certain than before.

“He won’t have a choice!” I roar it at the sky and Sgaeyl flinches beneath me. “A dragon can’t defend her on the challenge mat, or in the dining hall, or in-“