Wyvern Quotes

I bet his mother was a wyvern. -Scamp

Manon told herself it was for an alliance. Told herself it was for show. But all she could see was the unconditional love in that dying wyvern's eyes as she unbuckled her harness, stood from the saddle, and leapt off Abraxos.

Such lonely, lost things you find on your way. It would be easier, if you were the only one lost. But lost children always find each other, in the dark, in the cold. It is as though they are magnetized and can only attract their like. How I would like to lead you to brave, stalwart friends who would protect you and play games with dice and teach you delightful songs that have no sad endings. If you would only leave cages locked and turn away from unloved Wyverns, you could stay Heartless.

Of course not. No one is chosen. Not ever. Not in the real world. You chose to climb out of your window and ride on a leopard. You chose to get a witch’s Spoon back, and to make friends with a wyvern. You chose to trade your shadow for a child’s life. You chose not to let the Marquess hurt your friend--you chose to smash her cages! You chose to face your own Death, not to balk at a great sea to cross and no ship to cross it in. And twice now you have chosen not to go home when you might have, if only you abandoned your friends. You are not the chosen one, September. Fairyland did not choose you--you chose yourself. You could have had a lovely holiday in Fairyland and never met the Marquess, never worried yourself with local politics, had a romp with a few brownies and gone home with enough memories for a lifetime’s worth of novels. But you didn’t. You chose. You chose it all. Just like you chose your path on the beach: to lose your heart is not a path for the faint and fainting.

Fly, Abraxos," she breathed. Abraxos sucked in a great breath, tucked his wings in tight, and fell off the side of the post. He liked to do that - just tumble off as though he'd been struck dead. Her wyvern, it seemed, had a wicked sense of humor.

Your fussy nursemaid of a wyvern is fine, by the way. I don't know how you wound up with a sweet thing like that for a mount, but he's content to sprawl in the sun on the foredeck. Can't say it makes the sailors particularly happy - especially cleaning up after him." Find somewhere safe, she'd told Abraxos. Had he somehow found the queen? Somehow known this was the only place she might stand a chance of surviving?

The curse was broken. Manon just stared at them, her breathing turning jagged. Then she roused Abraxos, and was in the saddle within heartbeats. She did not offer them any explanation, any farewell, as they leaped into the thinning night. As she guided her wyvern to the bit of blasted earth on the battlefield. Right to its heart. And smiling through her tears, laughing in joy and sorrow, Manon laid that precious flower from the Wastes upon the ground. In thanks and in love. So they would know, so Asterin would know, in the realm where she and her hunter and child walked hand in hand, that they had made it. That they were going home.

But all she could see was the unconditional love in that dying wyvern’s eyes as she unbuckled her harness, stood from the saddle, and leapt off Abraxos.

You could just marry each other,” Yrene said, and Dorian whipped his head to her, incredulous. “It’d make it easier for you both, so you don’t need to pretend.” Chaol gaped at his wife. Yrene shrugged. “And be a strong alliance for our two kingdoms.” Dorian knew his face was red when he turned to Manon, apologies and denials on his lips. But Manon smirked at Yrene, her silver-white hair lifting in the breeze, as if reaching for the united people who would soon soar westward. That smirk softened as she mounted Abraxos and gathered up the reins. “We’ll see,” was all Manon Blackbeak, High Queen of the Crochans and Ironteeth, said before she and her wyvern leaped into the skies. Chaol and Yrene began bickering, laughing as they did, but Dorian strode to the edge of the aerie. Watched that white-haired rider and the wyvern with silver wings become distant as they sailed toward the horizon. Dorian smiled. And found himself, for the first time in a while, looking forward to tomorrow.

For Keelie.

You want to …?” His other eye popped open as I started to slide down his body, intent on exploring that part of him which had given me so much pleasure. He grabbed me before I was able to move four inches. I looked up, worried that I had done something wrong. A familiar strained, tense look was on his face, his eyes screwed up tight. I looked down at his penis. It was no longer in a resting state. “I thought you were sated?” I was. Until you went and mentioned doing that to me. No! Don’t touch me there, woman! For the love of – grk!” A half hour later, Gabriel, his arm wrapped around me because my legs were unusually weak, hustled me toward the house with a grim look on his face. I will beat this,” he muttered. “I am a wyvern, I am strong. I will control my needs long enough to give you pleasure, and you will enjoy it, dammit!” I said nothing, but I smiled. A lot. [May and Gabriel, pg. 307]

My Keelie, Petrah had said. Had smiled as she said it. Manon told herself it was for an alliance. Told herself it was for show. But all she could see was the unconditional love in that dying wyvern's eyes as she unbuckled her harness, stood from the saddle, and leapt off Abraxos.

I have a master’s degree in medieval literature. Wyverns—or firedrakes, if you prefer—were once common in European mythology and legends.” “But you . . . you’re my accountant,” Sarah sputtered. “Do you have any idea how many English majors are accountants?” Vivian asked with raised eyebrows.

The straw-coated floor crunched beneath her boots, a cool breeze sweeping in from where the roof had been ripped half off thanks to Sorrel's bull. To keep the wyverns from feeling less caged—and so Abraxos could watch the stars, as he liked to do.

It seemed off that anyone could live behind such a high hedge of thorns, and he began to think it would be no great surprize to discover that Mr. Wyvern had been asleep for a hundred years or so. 'Well, I shall not mind that so much,' he thought, 'so long as I am not expected to kiss him.

We feel sorry for you. Manon rubbed at her eyes and braced her elbows on her knees, peering into the drop below. She would have dismissed her, wouldn't have thought twice about it, if it hadn't been for that look in Keelie's eyes as she fell, fighting with every last scrap of strength to save her Petrah. Or for Abraxos's wing, sheltering Manon against icy rain. The wyverns were meant to kill and maim and strike terror into the hearts of their enemies. And yet . . . And yet. Manon looked toward the star-flecked horizon, leaning her face into a warm spring breeze, grateful for the steady, solid companion lounging behind her. A strange feeling, that gratitude for his existence.

It always rains on the unloved-wet dreams-a fishing expedition-she kisses wyverns (the disneyland analogy)-dinner etiquette and chocolate lovers-desire swears by the first circle-"things are changing"-what can possibly go wrong?

By the hairy ass of lord hell." Many characters in the Deverry Cycle Novels

manticore, wyvern, fogler, aeschna, ilyocoris, chimera, leshy, vampire, ghoul, graveir, werewolf, giant scorpion, striga, black annis, kikimora, vypper…so many I’ve killed.

One doesn’t beat about the bush when one is standing on a tower at moonrise watching for a wyvern.

There was a second scream then, from the mountains. From the Blueblood Matron, screaming for her daughter as she plummeted down to the rocks below. The other Bluebloods whirled, but they were too far away, their wyverns too slow to stop that fatal plunge. But Abraxos was not. And Manon didn't know if she gave the command or thought it, but that scream, that mother's scream she'd never heard before, made her lean in. Abraxos dove, a shooting star with his glistening wings. They dove and dove, for the broken wyvern and the still-living witch upon it.

At last, Manon found Asterin's gaze, tears now rolling down her Second's face. Not from fear or pain, but in farewell. A hundred years--and yet Manon wish she'd had more time. For a heartbeat, she thought of that sky-blue mare in the aerie, the wyvern that would wait and wait for a rider who would never return. Thought of a green rocky land spreading to the western sea. Hand trembling, Asterin pressed her fingers to her brow and extended them. "Bring our people home, Manon," she breathed.

The heavy eyelids snapped open. Jack froze. A huge gold-and-amber eye, as big as a dinner plater, stared at him. The dark pupil shrank, focusing. Jack stood very still. The colossal head turned, the scaled lip only three feet from Jack. The golden eyes gazed at him, wirling with fiery color. Jack breathed in tiny, shallow breaths. Dont blink. Don't blink... Two gusts of wind erutped from the wyvern's nostrils Jack jumped straight up, bounced off the ground into another jump, and scrambled up the nearest tree. In the clearing, Gaston bent over, guffawing like an idiot. 'It's not funny!

Manon found herself walking toward the wyvern, and stopped with not five feet between them. “He’s mine,” Manon said, taking in the scars, the limp, the burning life in those eyes. The witch and the wyvern looked at each other for a moment that lasted for a heartbeat, that lasted for eternity. “You’re mine,” Manon said to him. The wyvern blinked at her, Titus’s blood still dripping from his cracked and broken teeth, and Manon had the feeling that he had come to the same decision. Perhaps he had known long before tonight, and his fight with Titus hadn’t been so much about survival as it had been a challenge to claim her. As his rider. As his mistress. As his.

Titus's jaw dropped. 'Those caravanists, they were mages?' 'They most certainly were.' 'But one fainted and two reached for their rifles when they saw the sand wyvern.' 'It's a good policy for at least one member of the group to pretend to fall unconscious at a mage sighting. And I always think the rifles are a touch of genius - any time you see someone holding a firearm, your instinct is to dismiss that person as a nonmage.

wyvern.

You're going to tell the Wyvern to follow fire safety rules?' 'We live in a forest. Fire safety benefits all of us.

You're beginning to think - " Tairn starts. "Like Brennan?" I suggest as the wyvern enter our airspace. "Like Tairn," Sagely answers.

fighting off many creatures that you’ve probably read about in your stories: giant boars, bears, wyverns, phoenixes, cows. In the wilderness, everything will try to kill you if they think you’re weak—

Manticor in Arabia (The manticors of the montaines Mighte feed them on thy braines.--Skelton.) Thick and scented daisies spread Where with surface dull like lead Arabian pools of slime invite Manticors down from neighbouring height To dip heads, to cool fiery blood In oozy depths of sucking mud. Sing then of ringstraked manticor, Man-visaged tiger who of yore Held whole Arabian waste in fee With raging pride from sea to sea, That every lesser tribe would fly Those armed feet, that hooded eye; Till preying on himself at last Manticor dwindled, sank, was passed By gryphon flocks he did disdain. Ay, wyverns and rude dragons reign In ancient keep of manticor Agreed old foe can rise no more. Only here from lakes of slime Drinks manticor and bides due time: Six times Fowl Phoenix in yon tree Must mount his pyre and burn and be Renewed again, till in such hour As seventh Phoenix flames to power And lifts young feathers, overnice From scented pool of steamy spice Shall manticor his sway restore And rule Arabian plains once more.

I shall do what needs doing myself, thank you,” September said finally. “And I’ll ask you kindly to stop telling me what I need and what will be wonderful just as soon as I agree with you! And most importantly to stop turning me into things I didn’t ask to be and kissing me when I didn’t ask to be kissed! You stole my First Kiss from me, Saturday. I haven’t forgiven you just because I haven’t had a shout about it yet. I’ve been busy! But I think I’m the only one who gets a say about when I get kissed or turned into a beast! Not that it wasn’t nice to be a Wyvern or a Fairy. I’m not saying it wasn’t nice.” September could not help adding the apology. But she would absolutely not go meekly along relying on everyone else to fight and speak and wish for her. She would not have things done to her when she could do them on her own! She’d done plenty—and shouldn’t Ell know that? Perhaps only her own dear red Ell would understand that she could not just let everyone else do her work for her. Her mother did not just hope some other man would come along and take up the work that needed doing in her factory. She did it herself, and so would September.

No one is chosen. Not ever. Not in the real world. You chose to climb out of your window and ride on a Leopard. You chose to get a witch's Spoon back and to make friends with a Wyvern. You chose to trade your shadow for a child's life. You chose not to let the Marquess hurt your friend - you chose to smash her cages! You chose to face your own death, not to balk at a great sea to cross and no ship to cross it in. And twice now, you have chosen not to go home when you might have, if only you abandoned your friends. You are not the chosen one, September. Fairyland did not choose you - you chose yourself. . . You chose. You chose it all. Just like you chose your path on the beach: to lose your heart is not a path for the faint and fainting.

Take Sloane.” I look over at her as she draws back, clearly offended. “I had to hold Liam while he died, his dragon already eviscerated by the jaws of a wyvern, and I will not watch his sister suffer the same fate. Get up the fucking cliff!

The queen’s shoulders were shaking. Fireheart, the Fae warrior murmured. Manon would have watched—would have, had she not coughed blood onto the bright grass and blacked out. When she awoke, they were gone. Only minutes had passed—because then there were booming wings, and Abraxos’s roar. And there were Asterin and Sorrel, rushing for her before their wyverns had fully landed. The Queen of Terrasen had saved her life. Manon didn’t know what to make of it. For she now owed her enemy a life debt. And she had just learned how thoroughly her grandmother and the King of Adarlan intended to destroy them.

The Sibyl Slant stared out of her slit eyes, the disc of her face showing no feeling at all. “Do you suppose you will look the same when you are an old woman as you do now? Most folk have three faces—the face they get when they’re children, the face they own when they’re grown, and the face they’ve earned when they’re old.

What do you have there?” Arthur asked David. “It’s a translation book,” David said. “To help me learn wyvern.” He flipped through the pages, eyes darting side to side as he read. “Where’s the section on curse words?” Linus crossed his arms. “I doubt they would have put such a thing in--” “In the back,” Phee said. “Last three pages.

Would Riorson let you rush off into a battle against gods know how many wyvern—or worse, the venin who created them—when you’re wounded?” His eyebrows rise. “Yes.” I step out onto the midpoint of Tairn’s tail, my stomach settling at the familiar territory beneath my boots as I look back over my shoulder at Dain. “That’s why I love him.

I visited towns and fortresses. I looked for proclamations nailed to posts at the crossroads. I looked for the words ‘Witcher urgently needed.’ And then there’d be a sacred site, a dungeon, necropolis or ruins, forest ravine or grotto hidden in the mountains, full of bones and stinking carcasses. Some creature which lived to kill, out of hunger, for pleasure, or invoked by some sick will. A manticore, wyvern, fogler, aeschna, ilyocoris, chimera, leshy, vampire, ghoul, graveir, werewolf, giant scorpion, striga, black annis, kikimora, vypper… so many I’ve killed. There’d be a dance in the dark and a slash of the sword, and fear and distaste in the eyes of my employer afterward.

Were there any Pyr in DC other than the two of them? No! It couldn't be! Raffery spun again, but Thorolf was keeping a wary distance. "It's not your firestorm, is it?" Bitterness welled within Rafferty at the prospect. If Thorolf, who did not care at all for romance or love or long-term relationships, should have a firestorm before Rafferty, then the Great Wyvern truly had no place in Her heart for him, even after all these centuries. "Me?" Thornolf looked as horrified by the prospect as Rafferty. "Wouldn't I be, like, the first to know?" "Can't you feel it?" Rafferty couldn't keep the anger from his tone. If Thorolf was having a firestorm, it wouldn't be unreasonable that he, of all the Pyr, wouldn't have a clue. Rafferty had never met a Pyr so disinclined to use his abilities. "Someone is our vicinity is having one." He switched to old-speak. "Feel it!" Thorolf stared at Rafferty, then started to chuckle. "Dude, I can't feel anything except the pounding in my head. That's no firestorm--that's plain old beer. Lots of it. With vodka shooters.

So let me get this straight---May's a virgin, lesbian, doppleganger, wyvern's mate?

Nikolas has been as surly as that wyvern of yours since you left, and it doesn’t take much to set him off.

Castle Wyvern was a structure of his imagination, but in times like these, it seemed more solid and convincing in its details than the so-called real world.

So let sleeping wyverns lie.

A manticore, wyvern, fogler, aeschna, ilyocoris, chimera, leshy, vampire, ghoul, graveir, werewolf, giant scorpion, striga, black annis, kikimora, vypper… so many I’ve killed.

My car has wyvern giblets on the inside and fairy douche on the outside, I deserve the big shower!

A wyvern was a particularly ferocious two-legged dragon with a wicked barbed tail.

Dragons? You said a dragon was unlikely.” “Possibly a wyvern,” I said. “What’s the difference?” asked Blinschell, and I was tempted to say about two hundred hit points but decided against it.

For there, in the land beyond the shadows, were monsters that dwelled in the night and dined on the souls of children who wandered too close to the woods. —“The Wyvern’s Cry,” The Fables of the Barren

Oh, September. Such lonely, lost things you find on your way. It would be easier, if you were the only one lost. But lost children always find each other, in the dark, in the cold. It is as though they are magnetized, and can only attract their like. [...] If you would only leave cages locked and turn away from unloved Wyverns, you could stay Heartless. But you are stubborn, and do not listen to your elders.

September smiled at her wonderful friends in all their colors and bright eyes and gentle ways. “You know, in Fairyland-Above they said that the underworld was full of devils and dragons. But it isn’t so at all! Folk are just folk, wherever you go, and it’s only a nasty sort of person who thinks a body’s a devil just because they come from another country and have different notions.

You are an anachronistic witcher, and I'm a modern witcher, moving with the spirit of the times. Which is why you'll soon be out of work and I'll be doing well. Soon there won't be any strigas, wyverns, endriagas or werewolves left in the world. But there'll always be whoresons.

The war in the heavens did not relent. Jets sent rockets into wyverns. Wyverns responded with bolts of electricity that ripped metal into flaming debris. Valkyries did battle with choppers and gryphons. And the catastrophic magics of the maddest of mages did not relent across the sky.

Abraxos hurtled in, wings spread as he made one pass and then a second, the canyon appearing too fast below. By the time he finished the second glide, almost close enough to touch that bloodstained leathery hide, Manon understood. He couldn’t stop Keelie—she was too heavy and he too small. Yet they could save Petrah. He’d seen Asterin make that jump, too. She had to get the unconscious witch out of the saddle. Abraxos roared at Keelie, and Manon could have sworn that he was speaking some alien language, bellowing some command, as Keelie made one final stand for her rider and leveled out flat. A landing platform. My Keelie, Petrah had said. Had smiled as she said it. Manon told herself it was for an alliance. Told herself it was for show. But all she could see was the unconditional love in that dying wyvern’s eyes as she unbuckled her harness, stood from the saddle, and leapt off Abraxos.

To put it with the rest of his hoard,” Talia said. “Something you’ll never find, so don’t even think about it. A wyvern is very protective over his hoard and will maim anyone who tries to take it from him.” She paused, considering. “It’s underneath the sofa in the living room. You should go check it out.

When I was a young girl, I studied Greek in school. It's a beautiful language and ever so many good things were written in it. When you speak Greek, it feels like a little bird flapping its wings on your tongue as fast as it can. This is why I sometimes put Greek words into my stories, even though not so many people speak Ancient Greek anymore. Anything beautiful deserves to be shared round, and anything I love goes into my stories for safekeeping. The word I love is Arete. It has a simple meaning and a complicated meaning. The simple one is: excellence. But if that were all, we'd just use Excellence and I wouldn't bring it up until we got to E. Arete means your own excellence. Your very own. A personal excellence that belongs to no one else, one that comes out of all the things that make you special and different. Arete means whatever you are best at, no matter what that is. You might think the Greeks only meant things like fighting with bronze swords or debating philosophy, but they didn't. They meant whatever you're best at. What makes you feel like you're doing the rightest thing in the world. And that might be fighting with bronze swords and it might mean debating philosophy—but it also might mean building machines, or drawing pictures, or playing the guitar, or acting in Shakespeare plays, or writing books, or making a home for people who need one, or listening so hard and so well that people tell you the things they really need to say even if they didn't mean to, or running faster than anyone else, or teaching people patiently and boldly, or even making pillow forts or marching in parades or baking bread. It could be lending out just the right library book to just the right person at just the right moment. It could be standing up to the powerful even if you don't feel very powerful yourself, even if you're lost and as far away from home as you can get. It could be loving someone with the same care and thoroughness that a Wyvern takes with alphabetizing. It could be anything in the world. And it isn't easy to figure out what that is. It's even harder to get that good at it, because nothing, not even being yourself, comes without practice. But your arete goes with you everywhere, just waiting for you to pay attention to it. You can't lose it. You can only find it. And that's my favorite thing that starts with A.

Right, right. You know, you really look quite unwell. You probably should see a healer or something. You humans are so fond of those.” The karvensi took to the air, flying high above the writhing wyvern. “You really are quite a disappointment, wyvern. I expected better from one of the serpent’s children. But alas, few can match my own splendor.

Dunne isn’t going to appear and take up arms,” I argue, even though I know it’s pointless, then turn to stand at her side. Tairn has prowled to the left, giving me a clear view of the three approaching wyvern, while Feirge stands ready to fly to the right of the steps. “Of course not.” The priestess scoffs, and the wind picks up. “She sent you.

First Law of Heroics.” The Monaciello grinned up at a confused September. “Someone has to tell you it’s impossible, or the Quest can’t go on.

The flames seared my arm a split second before I was snatched away from the cage and out of the wyvern’s range. Nikolas brought us to a stop and put out the fire on my sleeve, but already I could feel the agonizing pain from my wrist to my elbow. Tears welled in my eyes, and I cried out when my charred sleeve touched the skin that was already blistering. “Sara,

A question like “How big is Faerie?” does not admit of a simple answer. Faerie, after all, is not one land, one principality or dominion. Maps of Faerie are unreliable, and may not be depended upon. We talk of the kings and queens of Faerie as we would speak of the kings and queens of England. But Faerie is bigger than England, as it is bigger than the world (for, since the dawn of time, each land that has been forced off the map by explorers and the brave going out and proving it wasn’t there has taken refuge in Faerie; so it is now, by the time that we come to write of it, a most huge place indeed, containing every manner of landscape and terrain). Here, truly, there be Dragons. Also gryphons, wyverns, hippogriffs, basilisks, and hydras.

I glance past Berwyn, past Sgaeyl and the venin, to my new brother and the unconscious dragon lying in the valley beyond the canyon, guarded by seven wyvern. How could he do this? Choose this after watching me stumble and fall over the last five months. How could he willingly walk the path I’ve fought like hell to leave? He’s the last person I ever would have expected to turn, and yet here we are.

You know who I am,” Manon said, gazing into those endless black eyes, not giving one inch to fear or doubt. “I am Manon Blackbeak, heir to the Blackbeak Clan, and you are mine. Do you understand?” One of the men snorted, and Manon might have whirled to tear out his tongue right there, but Abraxos … Abraxos lowered his head ever so slightly. As if he understood. “You are Abraxos,” Manon said to him, a chill slithering down her neck. “I gave you that name because he is the Great Beast, the serpent who wrapped the world in his coils, and who will devour it at the very end when the Three-Faced Goddess bids him to. You are Abraxos,” she repeated, “and you are mine.” A blink, then another. Abraxos took a step toward her. Leather groaned as someone tightened their grip on a coiled whip. But Manon held fast, lifting one hand toward her wyvern. “Abraxos.

It’s not just her. My brother, my husband, my friends who have become my family. Wyverns, wild beasts who only understand the barest meaning of the war. Warriors who deserve to see old age with their loved ones, raise children…” “This is why you are a good king,” Larianna said gently. “Come dawn, you shall give a speech, then you will send them into battle. Even as they start to die, you shall still be a good king because you know the worth of their lives…and their deaths.

Maester Cressen, we have visitors.” Pylos spoke softly, as if loath to disturb Cressen’s solemn meditations. Had he known what drivel filled the maester’s head, he would have shouted. “The princess would see the white raven.” Ever correct, Pylos called her princess now, as her lord father was a king. King of a smoking rock in the great salt sea, yet a king nonetheless. “She would see the white raven. Her fool is with her.” The old man turned away from the dawn, keeping a hand on his wyvern to steady himself. “Help me to my chair and show them in.” Taking his arm, Pylos led him inside. In his youth, Cressen had walked briskly, but he was

The surgeon tells me that you're a sorcerer," Pym said. "Is that so?" Jaki looked to the captain with the glare of the masts in his eyes. "Yes." Pym weighed this disclosure. "You speak with the dead?" "Yes." The captain's eyes screwed up intently. "What do they say to you?" "They don't talk back." Pym and Mister Blackheart laughed in unison...The captain said, "Mister Blackheart wants to know what kind of sorcerer you are." Jaki pondered a response and finally said, "I was learning to catch souls before my teacher was killed." "Souls, eh? And what do you do with them after you catch them?" "I put them back in their bodies." "Ah, then you're telling us you're a surgeon.

purple sky. The maester stood on the windswept balcony outside his chambers. It was here the ravens came, after long flight. Their droppings speckled the gargoyles that rose twelve feet tall on either side of him, a hellhound and a wyvern, two of the thousand that brooded over the walls of the ancient fortress. When first he came to Dragonstone, the army of stone grotesques had made him uneasy, but as the years passed he had grown used to them. Now he thought of them as old friends. The three of them watched the sky together with foreboding. The maester did not believe in omens. And yet … old as he was, Cressen had never seen a comet half so bright, nor yet that color, that terrible color, the color of blood and flame and sunsets. He wondered if his gargoyles had ever

The king needs riders,” Mother Blackbeak said, still staring at the horizon. “Riders for his wyverns—to be his aerial cavalry. He’s been breeding them in the Gap all these years.” It had been a while—too damn long—but Manon could feel the threads of fate twisting around them, tightening. “And when we are done, when we have served him, he will let us keep the wyverns. To take our host to reclaim the Wastes from the mortal pigs who now dwell there.” A fierce, wild thrill pierced Manon’s chest, sharp as a knife. Following the Matron’s gaze, Manon looked to the horizon, where the mountains were still blanketed with winter. To fly again, to soar through the mountain passes, to hunt down prey the way they’d been born to … They weren’t enchanted ironwood brooms. But wyverns would do just fine.

Tairn punches his tail forward, underneath us, swinging his body in a way I’ve never experienced, and I fall backward, my stomach lodging in my throat as the ground takes the place of the sky and the strap pulls tight across my thighs, holding me upside down long enough for my heart to pound in my ears twice. Snap. Bone fractures, and Tairn rolls right, dragging the broken-necked corpse of a wyvern with us, then releasing it once we level. I force my stomach back where it belongs and prepare to strike the other as it lunges for us. It snaps its jaws, teeth clashing mere feet from Tairn’s shoulder as it misses, cutting at least two years off my life. I extend my arm— “Do not!” Tairn orders, and a second later, brown scales consume my field of vision as Aotrom clasps the wyvern’s head between his teeth and bites as we pass.

It is only a few days by wyvern from the Wastes to Rifthold.” Her eyes were wary, and yet—yet that was a slight smile. “I think Bronwen and Petrah will be able to lead if I occasionally slip away. To help with rukhin.” He saw the promise in her eyes, in that hint of a smile. Both of them still grieving, still broken in places, but in this new world of theirs… perhaps they might heal. Together. “You could just marry each other,” Yrene said, and Dorian whipped his head to her, incredulous. “It’d make it easier for you both, so you don’t need to pretend.” Chaol gaped at his wife. Yrene shrugged. “And be a strong alliance for our two kingdoms.” Dorian knew his face was red when he turned to Manon, apologies and denials on his lips. But Manon smirked at Yrene, her silver-white hair lifting in the breeze, as if reaching for the united people who would soon soar westward. That smirk softened as she mounted Abraxos and gathered up the reins. “We’ll see,” was all Manon Blackbeak, High Queen of the Crochans and Ironteeth, said before she and wyvern leaped into the skies.

T'here are no gods left to watch, I’m afraid. And there are no gods left to help you now, Aelin Galathynius.' Aelin smiled, and Goldryn burned brighter. 'I am a god.'” “You do not yield.” “Live, Manon. Live.” “And far away, across the snow-covered mountains, on a barren plain before the ruins of a once-great city, a flower began to bloom” “Aelin looked at Chaol and Dorian and sobbed. Opened her arms to them, and wept as they held each other. 'I love you both,' she whispered. 'And no matter what may happen, no matter how far we may be, that will never change.'” “Yet the songs would mention this—that the Lion fell before the western gate of Orynth, defending the city and his son.” “'We came,' Manon said, loud enough that all on the city walls could hear, 'to honor a promise made to Aelin Galathynius. To fight for what she promised us.' Darrow said quietly, 'And what was that?' Manon smiled then. 'A better world.'” “Her mother placed a phantom hand over Aelin’s heart.b'It is the strength of this that matters. No matter where you are, no matter how far, this will lead you home.'” “'Rise,' Darrow said, 'Aelin Ashryver Whitethorn Galathynius, Queen of Terrasen.'” “One blink for yes. Two for no. Three for Are you all right? Four for I am here, I am with you. Five for This is real, you are awake.” And she said to Abraxos, touching his spin, 'I love you.' It was the only thing that mattered in the end. The only thing that mattered now.” “Lord Lorcan Lochan?” Chaol and Yrene began bickering, laughing as they did, but Dorian strode to the edge of the aerie. Watched that white-haired rider and the wyvern with silver wings become distant as they sailed toward the horizon. Dorian smiled. And found himself, for the first time in a while, looking forward to tomorrow.” “'I took his name,' Erawan spat, writhing as the words flowed from his tongue under Damaris's power. 'I wiped it away from existence. Yet he only remembered it once. Only once. The first time He behelded you.' Tears slid down Dorian's face at the unbearable truth.” “Gavriel smiled at him. 'Close the gate, Aedion,' was all his father said. And then Gavriel stepped beyond the gates. That golden shield spreading thin.

Dorian padded onto his balcony, needing to feel the river breeze on his face, to know that this was real and he was free. He opened the balcony doors, the stones cool on his feet, and gazed out across the razed grounds. He’d done that. He loosed a breath, taking in the glass wall as it sparkled in the moonlight. There was a massive shadow perched atop it. Dorian froze. Not a shadow but a giant beast, its claws gripping the wall, its wings tucked into its body, shimmering faintly in the glow of the full moon. Shimmering like the white hair of the rider atop it. Even from the distance, he knew she was staring right at him, her hair streaming to the side like a ribbon of moonlight, caught in the river breeze. Dorian lifted a hand, the other rising to his neck. No collar. The rider on the wyvern leaned down in her saddle, saying something to her beast. It spread its massive, glimmering wings and leaped into the air. Each beat of its wings sent a hollowed-out, booming gust of wind toward him. It flapped higher, her hair streaming behind her like a glittering banner, until they vanished into the night, and he couldn’t hear its wings beating anymore. No one sounded the alarm. As if the world had stopped paying attention for the few moments they’d looked at each other. And through the darkness of his memories, through the pain and despair and terror he’d tried to forget, a name echoed in his head.

You’re holding a challenge in a fencing club?” “Yes. Is there something wrong with that?” He pulled on his black pants and the heavy silk green shirt I loved for him to wear because the material seemed to caress hisskin. No, it’s just kind of an incongruous place to hold something so serious as a challenge, isn’t it?” He finished with his shoes, grabbed another towel, and shook it out for me. I made sure Pal still had his back to me, hurrying out of the pool to clasp the towel around me. “It is no less incongruous than holding a challenge in a bar.” I smiled. “Yes, but my challenge to you wasn’t serious. I hope you’ll notice that I’m not freaking out about this at all. I haven’t even asked you how good you are with asword.” “I noticed.” His mouth burned on mine for a moment, his fire being shared between us as his tongue twined around mine in a fiery—albeit brief—dance. “You are learning to have faith in me as is proper between a mateand her wyvern.” “No, I am learning to ask around. Pal told me earlier today that Dmitri had picked swords and that you were pleased because you were some sort of master swordsman a few centuries ago. You’d better not have forgotten anything.” Pal peeked at me out of the corner of his eye, his grin not too obvious. Drake pinched my bare behind as punishment for my saucy tone. “I never forget. Istvan will drive you when you are ready. The challenge is not for an hour. Do not be late.” “Happy chevauchee-ing,” I called, feeling remarkably happy.

It means I am glad to see you are here to rescue all of us…helpless…common folk,” he said. Angelique stared pointedly at his ornate chestplate. “You are considered one of the common folk?” “Yes, Lady Enchantress…what is your name?” His smile was a little cloying, but Angelique didn’t feel any magic stir in him. “Angelique,” she reluctantly said. “Very good, Lady Enchantress Angelique—oh.” He paused and met her gaze, studying her for several long seconds. “I would have expected someone a bit more charming.” A muscle twitched in Angelique’s cheek. “I beg your pardon?” “Just, he doesn’t seem the type to like sarcasm. Though to survive as long as he has, I suppose he might have a salty streak as well.” “Who are you talking about?” Angelique fed more power into her lightning spell and slowly drew her hand to her side—there was something about his cagey way of speaking that set off her hackles. “You’ll figure it out eventually,” the stranger said. “And if you don’t, then you don’t deserve an answer anyway. Besides, I don’t really care about it except to confirm that you’re going to slay the wyvern.” “Of course I am.” “Wonderful. Hurry up, then, and finish the job.” He started to stride away, his horse following after him, but he paused after just a few steps.

What a terrible sin to overcook a steak.

I was pretty sure we’d be able to escape anything as long as we weren’t being attacked by a dragon or something. I’d run into a wyvern before, but never a dragon. People don’t just randomly run into dragons.

A wyvern. A wyvern with shimmering wings. And behind it, descending upon the Fae fleet with wicked delight, flew twelve others.

You take down one of the venin, and you kill the wyvern they’ve created. No one takes on a dark wielder alone. That’s how you get killed. Work together, rely on each other, complement each other’s signets just like it’s the Squad Battle.

All right,’ he said. ’I solved the problem by taking a bed-sitting room near the British Museum. My father wanted me to study medicine, but it didn’t interest me enough to make a career of it. My mother on the other hand wanted me to go up to Cambridge and read English, which appealed to me slightly more. However, I decided not to take the path of formal education. It would have been too easy, that was my thinking. I should have been given a generous allowance and taken up my rightful place as a prospective member of the governing class. The idea repelled me.’ ‘But why?’ asked Lustgarten. They were still standing by the gate which was only partly open. ‘It’s difficult to explain. Everyone I know takes life for granted. Heidegger has a phrase which captures it entirely: the triviality of everydayness. It is as if they are forgetful of existence.’ Lustgarten was nodding his long head in great seriousness.

It was not the king’s party that stood there in the tall grass and sunlight. Thirteen witches and their wyverns turned to him. And smiled.

Once all that is done,” she said, smiling faintly at her wyvern, “you and I are going to learn how to fly. And then we’ll stain this kingdom red.

As her eyes met with the endless dark of Titus’s, she smiled at the wyvern. She could have sworn he smiled back.

Your fussy nursemaid of a wyvern is fine, by the way. I don’t know how you wound up with a sweet thing like that for a mount, but he’s content to sprawl in the sun on the foredeck. Can’t say it makes the sailors particularly happy—especially cleaning up after him.

Aelin spoke, her voice flat and hard. “Just to make sure I have it right: we are now facing three thousand bloodthirsty Ironteeth witches on wyverns. And a host of deadly soldiers gathering in the south of Adarlan, likely to cut off any alliance between Terrasen and the southern kingdoms.

I love you,” Xaden says as the wyvern closest to me banks away from the wards, falling into a turning dive, only to gain speed and climb again, leveling out behind the lead two before flying straight for us. “Even if you believe nothing else I ever say, please believe that.” “Do not speak to her as if death is a possibility,” Tairn snaps, slamming his own shields around us both, an impenetrable wall of black stone, blocking out Xaden and Sgaeyl.

wyvern

That’s it?” I ask Tairn as he holds position, watching the wyvern become a cloud of gray once again. How…anticlimactic.

There is not a single part of you or your body that I do not find exquisite. Not a single thing that I wouldn’t happily drown in. I have kissed every inch of your body before, and I will do it again. Over and over for the remainder of my existence. Because you are mine. Those scars are nothing but a reminder of how strong you are. How resilient and powerful you have become. Regardless of the outcome of this war, you are my queen. From now until my dying breath.

Now, what kind of man would I be if I didn’t kneel before my queen?

The body he’d turned into solid flame, so hot it had melted through the wyvern’s jaws, its throat, and he had passed through the beast’s mouth as if it were nothing but a cobweb.

Abraxos sucked in a great breath, tucked his wings in tight, and fell off the side of the post. He liked to do that—just tumble off as though he’d been struck dead. Her wyvern, it seemed, had a wicked sense of humor.

Riders for his wyverns—to be his aerial cavalry. He’s been breeding them in the Gap all these years.

We’d turned over a dozen men and women into a slurry of gore. “Well, I never liked smoothies anyway,” I said. Mason lost it at that and turned and fell to his knees, hurling his guts out. “Oh, you suck, Alex!

Manon told herself it was for an alliance. Told herself it was for show. But all she could see was the unconditional love in that dying wyvern’s eyes as she unbuckled her harness, stood from the saddle, and leapt off Abraxos.

That roar sounded again as a mighty shape shot down from the heavy clouds. A wyvern. A wyvern with shimmering wings. And behind it, descending upon the Fae fleet with wicked delight, flew twelve others.

Like I beat you,” Declan growled. “Like I chained you in the dungeon or something. You ran away. On a Mirror agent’s wyvern! What the devil is wrong with the two of you?

Jack looked at the wyvern. It was a large cabin. Large enough to hide in, especially if it was packed with crates and bags. “Let me talk to Gaston. We can’t pull it off without him. If it goes well, we pack tonight,” George said. “We’ll tell Declan and Rose we have an overnight camp for school. By the time they realize we’re gone, we’ll be in California.” “Gaston won’t help,” Jack said. “Let me worry about that.

Snap out of it, you fool. A pretty face and a sweet smile, and you’ve lost all common sense. Kaldar kicked some bushes, forcing them to rustle. “Hurry up, Gaston!” His nephew pushed to his feet, swiped the buckets off the ground, and croaked in a choked-up voice. “Yes, master.” Kaldar rolled his eyes and carried the buckets to the wyvern’s mouth to feed him.

She knew those wyverns, almost as well as she knew the three riders who sent the Crochans into a frenzy of motion. The Matrons of the Ironteeth Witch-Clans had found them. And come to finish what Manon had started that day in Morath.

Your fussy nursemaid of a wyvern is fine, by the way. I don’t know how you wound up with a sweet thing like that for a mount, but he’s content to sprawl in the sun on the foredeck.

Several dozen mounted on wyverns. But not airborne. The wyverns walked on land. Heaving a mammoth, mobile stone tower behind them. No ordinary siege tower. A witch tower.