The Empyrean
by Rebecca Yarros
Rebecca Yarros has written several books, but Fourth Wing was her first foray into fantasy and boy, did she take it by storm. I read the first book in three days, while I was traveling with two children under the age of five. It was that fun to read.
The universe in the Empyrean novels deals a lot with dragons. Dragons are categorized by their color and the type of weapon their tail functions as. For example: an orange daggertail or a blue swordtail. Each dragon has it's own personality and it tends to correspond with the color of the dragons. Blacks are the smartest, greens are a little more flexible, but do not mess with the reds, they really have a temper.
Proceed with extreme caution! We meet Violet Sorrengail on Conscription Day. She’s about to enter the Riders Quadrant in Basgiath War College and get the chance to become a dragon rider like her mom, General Lilith Sorrengail, and two older siblings before her. There are several quadrants to choose from at Basgiath: healers, scribes, infantry, and riders; Violet has trained to be a scribe her whole life, like her dad had been before he died, until six months ago when her mother informed her that she’d be joining the riders. The problem is, Violet is not a hale and healthy twenty-year-old. Her joints consistently pop out of place or dislocate, her muscles are weak, and her ligaments don’t work too well either. Her mother got sick when she was pregnant with Violet and nearly died of fever and she believes that is what has made Violet so weak. Regardless, today Violet has packed everything she can and is going to face the first obstacle of the Riders Quadrant: the Parapet, a high, narrow stone bridge separating the candidates from the cadets. She won't make it past the Parapet with everything she has stuffed in her rucksack, she can barely even carry it. Luckily, her sister Mira visits Violet before she leaves her room and forces her to repack so she’s carrying much less weight. Mira also gives her a new leather outfit, including shoes that are really grippy and a vest like a corset made of leather and dragon scales. Mira gives Violet some advice: the physical aspect is obviously not going to be Violet’s strong suit, so she needs to outsmart the rest of the cadets, know the codex, and to sleep in her dragon scale vest. Find Dain Aetos, a childhood friend that joined the riders last year. And most important: stay away from Xaden Riorson, a third-year cadet whose father, Fen Riorson, led the rebellion that General Sorrengail helped to put down. The continent has two kingdoms, and they’ve been at war for four hundred years. Poromiel is the southern kingdom, Violet lives in Navarre. The country of Navarre is made up of six provinces, and they all send new military applicants to Basgiath every year. Some applicants volunteer, some are sentenced to Basgiath as punishment, but most are conscripted. All the children of the rebellion were conscripted as punishment for their parents’ crimes and are easily recognizable since they are now marked with a relic, given to them by General Melgren’s dragon when their parents were executed. Violet’s mother is the one who captured Xaden’s father and had him executed but only after Xaden’s father killed Violet’s brother, Brennan, so their families have history. They probably aren’t going to hit it off. Violet joins the line for the Riders Quadrant. They climb two hundred and fifty steps up a stone tower with no railing up to get to the Parapet. On the way, Violet meets Rhiannon and Dylan. She sees that Rhiannon is wearing smooth-soled boots and she convinces Rhiannon to trade left boots with her, so that Rhiannon has a better chance of surviving the crossing. They’re not the right size, Violet’s is a size smaller than Rhiannon’s, but Violet figures it’s better than nothing and could save Rhiannon from falling. Since Violet was raised in Basgiath and many of her family members are riders, she has a better idea of the risks of the Parapet than the average candidate. The Parapet is a narrow stone walkway without any railings or walls. As it is very high up, it gets windy and about fifteen percent of candidates die trying to cross it. Dylan starts the crossing first and as he crosses, it starts to rain hard. Dylan slips and can’t pull himself back up, he falls to his death. Rhiannon starts her crossing next (she eventually makes it across) with Violet behind her. Behind Violet is Jack Barlowe, who she’s not met before. Jack stops at about the quarter mark and just stands there. When the next candidate gets close to him, Jack throws him off the parapet, then he turns and runs for Violet. She tries to finish crossing before he reaches her, but it is windy and rainy and thundering and her foot slips off the parapet when she gets hit by a gust of wind. She stumbles and hits her knee on the stone, her left leg dangling, but she manages to hold on. She scrambles back up, but Jack is still coming for her. Just as Jack comes in grabbing range of her, Violet reaches the other side of the Parapet. Now that she’s finished the crossing, Violet is officially a rider cadet and Jack shouldn’t be able to hurt her, most of the time. But he really has it out for her, for no apparent reason other than being unhinged, and he makes like four more threats before stomping off in the opposite direction. Rhiannon thanks Violet profusely, convinced she would have fallen if not for Violet’s shoe. And thus, best friends are made. As they trade boots back, Violet runs into Dain, physically, and man, he has really filled out since the last time she saw him. He has Rhiannon run off with a message for leadership to put both herself and Violet in Dain’s squad and away from Xaden: second squad, flame section, second wing. There are three squads in each section, and three sections (flame, claw, tail) in each wing. There are four wings in total. Each wing has a wingleader and each squad has a squad leader. After Rhiannon walks away, Dain takes Violet up to his room to let her wrap her knee without being seen. Any signs of weakness will be noticed by the other cadets. He tries to convince her to leave and smuggle herself into the Scribe Quadrant, he thinks she’s too weak to make it. There’s a common saying that in the Riders Quadrant you either graduate or you die. This year just trying to cross the parapet killed sixty-seven people, nearly twenty percent, and only a quarter of the remaining cadets will make it to graduation at the end of three years. Violet refuses to leave. The cadets get sorted into their squads and Violet is placed in Dain’s squad, as he requested. As they are announcing the placements, Xaden asks to have Dain’s squad placed in his wing, fourth wing. He is now Violet’s wingleader, so much for avoiding him. Violet’s squad comprises Violet, Rhiannon, Pryor, Trina, Luca, Tynan, Aurelie, Ridoc, and Sawyer, a repeat first year who did not get bonded by a dragon his first time around. Their new schedule starts the next day. Violet sees Dain at breakfast; Dain is pretending not to know Violet, but he also wants to check in with her, so he tries to meet her in secret before she goes to class and pulls her into a little alcove. Dain is especially worried about Xaden since Xaden switched the squads around, specifically to have Violet in his wing. Dain says that Xaden is ruthless, just take his dragon as proof. A Blue daggertail named Sgaeyl who is vicious. Dain’s dragon, a red swordtail name Cath, can be nasty when he gets emotional, sure, but most of the dragons try to steer clear of Sgaeyl. Violet asks Dain about his signet. Every rider who bonds a dragon can do general magic, but they also get a unique ability that comes from their bond with their dragon. Some signets are common, some are extraordinary. For example: Violet’s mother can draw up and control storms, General Melgren can see battle outcomes, Brennan was a mender (like a healer but better and very rare), Mira can shield (create a small ward around herself and her squad). Most cadets wear a patch on their upper right arm indicating what their signet is but not Dain. He has a classified signet since he will likely be used in intelligence gathering, but he tells Violet anyway; he can read a person’s recent memories when he touches their face. Uncommon, valuable, and very cool. When Dain and Violet leave their alcove, Xaden sees them. He’s been watching them. Violet starts attending classes. Most of their classes are taught by dragon riders, but Battle Brief, where they evaluate and dissect actual battles that have taken place, is taught by a rider, Professor Devera, and a scribe, Professor Markham. It is supposed to help them prepare for when they go to battle themselves, allowing them to make decisions in a controlled environment where they can be told with no repercussions why that decision was bad. It is one of the only classes that has all three years of students in attendance at the same time. They discuss a battle that happened just the night before when the Navarrian wards went down, allowing for the Poromiel forces with their gryphons to come through. Gryphons also have riders and can channel magic to their rider but only dragons can power wards. Navarre uses the power of their dragons to power the wards that protect their borders. Without those wards, the Poromiel raiding parties would raze the villages and take all the resources they wanted. Poromiel is never content with the trade agreements that the two countries have in place. The students learn that this is not the first time the wards have fallen. Dragon riders got to the place of the attack in record time, they knew that the wards were going to fall and were already on the way before the wards failed, one of the dragons in the wing could feel the wards faltering. As the class discusses the skirmish, Xaden figures out that the Poromiel forces were looking for something in the village, but it’s unclear what they were looking for? The cadets also go to combat training with Professor Emetterio. It’s assessment day where the cadets are paired up to fight hand-to-hand to see how well they fight and what improvements need to be made; no weapons are allowed, but that doesn’t mean people aren’t getting hurt. Violet is killing it in the academic classes but she’s worried about her performance during anything physical. She makes a deal with Rhiannon and Sawyer: she will help them with history, and they will help her with hand-to-hand combat. Talk about squad comradery! While waiting for their turns on the mat, they watch Jack Barlowe break a cadet’s neck. He has some real issues. Violet gets paired with a second year with a rebellion relic named Imogen. Imogen pulls a dagger out (no weapons!), but Violet is saved by her dragon scale vest. Imogen manages to pull Violet’s shoulder out of its socket, but Violet refuses to yield, she can’t show any weakness, so then her arm breaks. Dain freaks out and scoops Violet up to carry her to the Healers Quadrant, so much for hiding that he cares about her. Violet is already well acquainted with the healers since she grew up at Basgiath and was often hurt. She is able to see Nolan, who has been mending her for years. Menders, like Violet’s brother Brennan, are incredibly rare and they can restore anything to its original state: buildings, fabric, bones. Dain once again tries to get Violet to escape to the Scribes Quadrant, but she, again, refuses. First-year cadets are not allowed to see or to correspond with their families for the entire year, but Mira manages to get a message to Violet anyway. She smuggles it to Violet along with a little journal that Brennan wrote for Mira when she was a first-year cadet; tips on how everything works in the quadrant and little tricks that he picked up during his years training. For example, where to find the list of hand-to-hand matches ahead of time so you can better prepare to fight that person. Bingo! Violet comes up with a plan, the only way she can see surviving combat training. She sneaks out to the river where she can find unripe berries growing, berries that she can dry and use to poison her competitor. She climbs high up in a tree to get to the berries and is coming back down when she sees two people in black cloaks walk under the tree. One is Imogen, the other is Xaden. Not good. Violet stays hidden, afraid they’ll kill her if they find her, and they’re joined by another twenty or so people, all of them marked with the rebellion relic. All of them children of the rebellion with a vendetta against the Sorrengails. Meeting like this could get them all killed, anyone marked with the rebellion symbol cannot gather in groups of more than three, so they must be scheming if they’re willing to take such a risk. Violet climbs down to where she can hear what they’re saying, but all the marked kids are doing is helping each other. Discussing who needs additional hand-to-hand help or help in other areas. No plans for overthrowing the government at all! At the very end someone asks when they get to kill Violet, but Xaden says they don’t. He will take care of Violet himself. Then Xaden dismisses the others and eventually leaves himself. Except it’s a trick! When Violet drops to the ground, Xaden grabs her with his shadows; he can control shadows as his signet. She shows how good she is at throwing daggers (very good) without actually doing any damage to him, he tells her to save that for Jack Barlowe and then asks if she’s going to tell anyone about the meeting she just overheard. She doesn’t see why she should, sure they were assembling but they weren’t doing anything worse than helping each other out. Xaden lets her go. The next morning Dain escorts her to breakfast (as he does every morning), tells her to avoid Jack, and worries about her next combat match-up. Violet along already knows she’s up against Oren Seifert, she’s got her berries dried and powdered so that she can sprinkle it on his scrambled eggs in the food line, so she’s not super worried. She goes to her dragon studies class with Professor Kaori, which was my favorite class to read about, where they learn about the temperaments and preferences of the different types of dragons including how to approach them. They learn that there are a hundred dragons willing to bond this year, but that’s almost forty fewer than the year before. Every year, fewer dragons are willing to bond to a rider and no one knows why. Later, when they get to combat training, Jack Barlowe is there bullying and threatening Violet, so she takes Xaden’s advice and throws a couple daggers at him. Jack is not pleased but he backs off for now. When Violet is called onto the mat to fight Oren, he’s not looking well. He makes it clear to Violet that he’s going to try to get rid of her permanently (Jack Barlowe Jr?) for the “good of the wing”, but he’s slow due to the poison, so she manages to land a couple hits and puts a dagger to his throat when he falls. Then he throws up all over the mat. So embarrassing. Whenever you beat a competitor in combat training, you take one of their daggers. This is Violet’s first dagger win, and she’s feeling good. She continues poisoning her opponents for the next several weeks until she overdoes it and makes her scheduled opponent go to the healer too early. Instead, Xaden decides to face her. Not great news for someone who has focused more on poisoning people than learning to fight, as if that’s going to help her in an actual battle. Not to mention that Xaden is one of the best fighters in the quadrant. He completely disarms himself but lets her keep her daggers. They fight. Well, she fights. He mostly just avoids getting hit while systematically taking daggers from her one by one. He also – quietly - lets Violet know that he’s aware she’s been poisoning people, and that he believes Dain is holding her back, then he leaves her on the mat. Later that night, Dain tells her that he’s talked to Professor Markham about having her moved to the Scribe Quadrant, even though she’s refused twice, and she realizes that Xaden might be right about Dain holding her back. The first-year cadets start to train for the Gauntlet, the first big challenge since the Parapet. It’s basically an obstacle course built into a cliff that is actively trying to kill you. Aurelie, a legacy cadet whose dad would set up courses for her and her brother to practice as kids, is actually excited, but the rest of the squad aren’t that dumb. They’ll train by running the Gauntlet repeatedly, there are ropes every six feet that they can grab onto if they fall. Grabbing a rope adds thirty seconds to their recorded times but it’s better than dying. You don’t make it to the top of the Gauntlet on the day of Presentation, you don’t get to bond with a dragon. Simple as that. The rest of the squad watches Sawyer make a run first, since he managed to survive it the year before, and he does it nearly flawlessly. While watching him, Violet sees several issues. She’s tiny, and there are several obstacles that she’s going to have a really hard time with, but there’s no way that she will make it past the last obstacle: a ramp that reaches the top of the cliff at an almost ninety-degree angle. Violet starts her run with Aurelie right behind her, helping to coach Violet through the obstacles. Suddenly, Violet hears Aurelie scream and sees her fall halfway down the cliff and die. She’s first of their squad to be killed. Later, Violet takes Aurelie’s things to be burned; whenever someone dies, all their belongings are burned as an offering to Malek and to reunite the possessions with their dead owner. On her way back to the dorms Violet sees Xaden with his best friend Garrick and his cousin Bodhi. They’ve just returned from…somewhere. She hides but Xaden can tell she’s there and calls her out once he’s alone. She reveals to him that she can’t make it up the Gauntlet. He tells her to figure it out, the right way isn’t the ONLY way. By the day before the Presentation (where the cadets run the Gauntlet for real and then get to parade in front of the dragons, so the dragons get a good look at the offerings) Violet still has no solutions. Dain once again tries to get Violet to leave because the dude just cannot take no for an answer and Violet refuses once again. Presentation day comes and Violet starts her run. She gets all the way to the chimney feature, which she has not been able to get past in training. She grabs one of the rescue ropes and uses it to scale the chimney. Once she’s past the chimney, there’s only one obstacle to go, one that she’s never even tried before, the vertical ramp. She grabs her largest dagger, runs as fast as she can towards the wall, going up until gravity is about to start pulling her down, then she shoves the dagger into the side of the ramp and uses it to propel herself to the top. She makes it, just barely. Rhiannon and Ridoc are there and insanely proud of her. Someone calls her out for cheating, she’s not supposed to use foreign materials while running the Gauntlet. Violet is prepared for this, and she retorts that she expects a thirty second penalty for using the rope on the chimney and quotes the Codex that anything that crosses the Parapet with a rider is considered part of their person, arguing that she didn’t break any rules on the ramp. Violet brought this dagger from home. She wins the challenge and is not disqualified. One hundred sixty-nine cadets make it past the Gauntlet to the Presentation. They literally walk in a single file line in front of all the dragons who are willing to bond that year, so the dragons can get a sense of who they might like to bond with. Violet’s squat gets some last-minute tips before their walk. 1. Stay at least seven feet apart in case a dragon doesn’t like the look of one of you and decides to kill that person, the rest should be safe from the blaze. 2. Do not approach the dragons. 3. Do not make eye contact. 4. Talk to each other, it helps the dragons get a sense of who you are. Word has gotten around from the squads that did the Presentation already that a feathertail has joined the dragons. Feathertails are the breed that riders know the least about, they abhor violence and are not suitable to bond and as such, are rarely even seen. Green dragons are smart and the most rational. Orange dragons are the most unpredictable. Reds are the most temperamental. Black dragons are the smartest and the rarest of them all. The squad starts their walk and at the end they see a small golden dragon, a color they’ve not heard of. It’s the feathertail. Tynan gets in a huff, he’s increasingly becoming more annoying, and calls Violet weak in front of their squad mates and all the dragons. Sawyer reproaches him but Luca agrees with Tynan. Tynan and Luca just can’t stop and continue to insult the little golden dragon, Violet, and at one point, all the dragons. Rhiannon and Violet start talking about wyvern instead; kind of like dragons but bigger and with only two feet. They’re often spoken about in folk stories with their riders called venin. Before the squad can make it to the end of the line, a red dragon comes out and kills Pryor, mostly because he can’t make a decision to save his life (literally in this case). Then Violet feels hot air against the back of her neck. Two green dragons are right in front of her as she turns around. She drops her eyes to not make eye contact with them and they start to snuffle at her vest. She realizes they can smell Teine, her sister’s green dragon, who gave up his scales to make the vest for Violet. After she explains this to them, the two dragons go back to the line. The squad finishes their Presentation but before they can all make it to the end, one of the dragons kills Luca. I don’t blame the dragon because Luca was unbearable. The next big event, arguably the most important event, for the first-year cadets is the Threshing. This is where they unleash all the first years into the woods, and the first years must find a dragon that’s willing to bond with them. If they don’t bond but they survive threshing, they can finish the year and try again the next year like Sawyer had to do. It is one of the deadliest days for the first years because the dragons don’t play around. A dragon may call to you if they’ve already chosen to bond you, liking your presentation that much. Otherwise, you can approach a dragon that you like; they’ll either bond you, ignore you, or kill you. No one knows what will happen except the dragon. Violet climbs a tree to get a lay of the land and maybe feel a dragon calling to her; but all she sees is a flash of the golden feathertail and Jack Barlowe, Oren Seifert, and her squad mate Tynan trying to track the golden to kill it. She can’t let them kill it, so Violet tries to find the little dragon before they do. She’s in such a hurry that she trips over a branch and sprains her ankle badly. She still makes it to the golden first, encouraging the feathertail to leave but all it does is look at her like a puppy when you make a high-pitched noise, cute but not at all helpful. Then they’re out of time, as the three would be dragon killers step into the area. Violet tries to get the feathertail to scorch them, but still nothing. The three decide to kill Violet and the feathertail in a “two birds one stone” kind of situation. Violet prepares to fight all three of them when suddenly Xaden and his dragon Sgaeyl appear; and Sgaeyl is not happy. The wingleaders and squad leaders are not allowed to help any of the cadets, but Xaden points out it’s really Sgaeyl they should be afraid of right now, not him. No one tells a dragon what to do and Sgaeyl does not condone dragon killing, who knows what she will do? Violet throws a dagger at Jack and hits him in the shoulder, putting him out of commission for the moment, but Oren and Tynan get to her at almost the same time. They all get a few swipes in with blades, luckily Violet has her dragon scale vest or else she would be toast. Oren almost beheads her with a sword, but the feathertail snaps at him, scaring him enough that he stumbles and misses, and Violet is able to knock him out. Two down, but Violet is badly injured and won’t be able to fight Tynan off. Just before he kills her, a huge black morningstartail shows up and tucks the little golden dragon under its wing. One of the deadliest dragons in Navarre and the only unbonded black dragon, who hasn’t been seen since his last rider died five years ago. He speaks to Violet, mind to mind, and scorches Tynan. The black dragon tells Violet to climb aboard, he’s choosing to bond with her. When it’s clear she won’t be able to mount alone, the dragon does the unthinkable and stretches his leg forward to create a ramp for her to climb up. He introduces himself as Tairn, and as he starts to fly, Violet falls off his back. Luckily for Violet, Tairn really seems to like her and catches her with his claws, while yelling that she’s making them look bad. He tosses her back up to his back. Believing that he should have full disclosure, Violet tells Tairn that she is not as strong as other riders. He responds that he knows exactly who and what she is and that he chose her because she saved the golden dragon. She is the smartest and the most cunning person in her year, choosing to defend those that need it the most. As she dismounts and goes to the roll keeper to record their bonded pair, Violet tells the little golden dragon that she’s glad it’s safe. The golden responds to her in her mind, but Violet tells the little dragon that she’s not supposed to speak to anyone but her bonded rider. A strict dragon rule. Violet gets to the roll keeper, and as he records in the Book of Riders that she has bonded with Tairneanach, the golden adds her name to the list as well: Andarnaurram, or Andarna for short. Violet is the first rider in history to bond with two dragons. The humans seem pretty upset, but Tairn keeps repeating that there is nothing they can do about it, both dragons chose Violet, and humans don’t control the dragons. It is up to the Empyrean, the leaders of the dragons, to decide. Meanwhile, Rhiannon bonds with a green daggertail named Feirge, Ridoc with a brown swordtail named Aotrom, and Sawyer with a red swordtail named Sliseag. The last of their squad, Trina, fell from the back of an orange clubtail and died. And Jack Barlowe somehow manages to bag an orange scorpiontail named Baide. Dain comes to Violet, convinced that they are going to make her choose between her two dragons and he tries to tell her to pick Andarna because she’s the safest choice. He points out that if she chooses Tairn then Xaden will get her killed. Tairn and Sgaeyl are not only mated but the strongest bonded pair in centuries. They can’t be separated for long or it affects their health, so mated pairs are always stationed together. Dain accuses Xaden of somehow manipulating the Threshing, and two dragons, to have Tairn bond Violet. What Xaden says is that he watched Violet fight off three bigger opponents while outnumbered and wounded, but so did Sgaeyl, who called to Tairn to protect Andarna. Tairn chose Violet all on his own. Xaden forces some hard answers out of Dain because Violet puts too much faith in Dain and knowing who to trust is everything, especially since his and Sgaeyl’s safety are also at risk now. Xaden explains that he and Violet are now a pair. Tairn is incredibly powerful, and as such his bonds are incredibly powerful. Losing his last rider almost killed Tairn; if a dragon dies their rider dies as well, but if a rider dies the dragon will usually be able to bond with another later. When Tairn almost died, so did Sgaeyl. That is how strong their bond is. If something happens to either Xaden or Violet, it is likely that their dragon, the dragon’s mate, and that dragon’s rider will either be gravely injured or die as well. So, the two of them better get on the same page about staying alive. It's decided by leadership that Violet will be able to bond both Tairn and Andarna, so the dragons mark their riders with a relic. Violet’s tattoo is a black dragon stretching from shoulder to shoulder in flight with the silhouette of a shimmering golden dragon in the center. After admiring her tattoo, Dain finally kisses Violet, but she feels nothing from it. Turns out, maybe she doesn’t want Dain after all. The next day, Violet, Rhiannon, Ridoc, and Sawyer are joined by Quinn, Imogen, Heaton, and Emery for breakfast; older cadets in their squad who have stayed away from them until it was clear they wouldn’t die before they bonded a dragon. Imogen is marked by the rebellion relic and hates Violet, but Tairn assures Violet she can be trusted. Imogen starts working with Violet on weight training. Violet also starts flight training, which does not go well. Violet cannot stay on Tairn’s back; she falls again and again, forcing Tairn to catch her so she doesn’t plummet to her death. We learn that at this point in the year they merge squads, since so many cadets have been killed by now. And so, we get a new squad member to hate, since Luca was killed during Presentation and Tynan during Threshing. Her name is Nadine, she hates the rebellion children, and she doesn’t make any effort to hide it. Now that there are unbonded cadets, the less desirable chores (i.e. working in the kitchen) go to them so the bonded cadets can work on flying and bonding their dragons. Violet manages to nab a job that gets her into the Archives. She feels at home there since she spent so much time there training to become a scribe, it’s her happy place. She gets to see Jesinia, a deaf first-year scribe that she is friends with, and Violet asks Jesinia to find a book. It’s a personal request, and one that Jesinia can’t fulfill. Even though the Archives have almost every book in Navarre, either an original or a copy, they do not have the book of folktales that Violet is looking for. The first-year cadets start to get their signet powers. You receive it when you have a strong bond with your dragon, and they can trust you with the power they’ll give you. However, if you don’t manifest a signet, you will be consumed by the magic and die. Sawyer is the first one to develop their signet, he’s a metallurgist with the ability to manipulate metals. It won’t be too long before Rhiannon can summon items to her and Ridoc can wield ice. Dain finds out that Violet can’t stay on Tairn while they’re flying, and he once again loses his mind. I understand being scared for someone, but he really needs to get a grip and let Violet make her own choices; he is constantly thinking she’s too weak to do anything and warning her against Xaden. That night, a group of unbonded students attack Violet while she’s sleeping. The bond between the new riders and their dragons is still tenuous because it is so new, so an unbonded student may still have a chance to bond if a current rider dies before they can establish a strong bond. Tairn is the strongest dragon, all the unbonded want him and they’re willing to do what it takes to have a chance with him. Tairn manages to wake Violet before the attackers hurt her, but there is seven of them and only one of her. As one of the unbonded, Oren (who Violet fought during the Threshing) tries to choke her to death. He's succeeding so Andarna manages to freeze time. She can’t hold it for long, giving Violet only enough time to free herself and go toward the door. When Andarna releases time, Xaden is in the doorway, he kills all the attackers. Xaden wants to figure out how the cadets got into Violet’s room in the first place; there are wards in place, but there was a rider there at the beginning, they must have unlocked Violet's room and ran away when the attack started. None of the unbonded have any magic, so this must be an older student already bonded to a dragon and Violet recognized her. It’s Dain’s old flame Amber Mavis, the same rider who tried to get Violet disqualified for using a dagger during the Gauntlet. Xaden and Violet go to visit their dragons and learn some very sensitive information. Dragons are all born with a special magic, like Andarna and how she stopped time, but feathertails can accidently gift ALL their magic to a human, which would kill them both. It’s the reason they don’t bond. They don’t have the control to cut off a human from their magic…because feathertails are still too young! Andarna is not a full-grown dragon. She won’t be fully grown for a few years yet. Once they are adults, they change colors, and their tail changes from a feather to a weapon. Feathertails are kept protected within the Vale, which is why they are so rarely seen. The next morning, Xaden trades one of the new members of Dain’s squad for Liam Mairi. Liam is here to help protect Violet, the strongest first-year and sporting a rebellion relic. As a first-year, Liam can be in all the same places as Violet; he even has library duty with her. They also deal with the betrayal of Amber Mavis during morning assembly. Attacking a cadet while they’re sleeping is a capital offense. Dain refuses to believe that Amber would do this, and he demands Violet put a stop to what’s happening; he will not believe that Violet saw her. Instead of taking her at her word, he tries to read Violet’s memories, but she won’t let him touch her. Instead, she has Tairn project her memory to the other dragons, who in turn share it with their riders. Amber is sentenced to death by dragon fire and is killed, leaving her dragon Claidh to mourn. Violet learns a lot about Liam, and about the plight of the children of the rebellion, as he shadows her. He and Xaden were fostered at the same place after their parents were killed, they’re more like brothers. Liam’s mother was a general in the rebellion, and his father was killed afterwards too, despite not being a part of the rebellion himself. After their parents were killed, they separated Liam and his sister, Sloane. She will be entering the Riders Quadrant next year because all the rebellion children are forced to enter the Riders Quadrant. This is news to Violet; it was part of the deal that allowed them to live and supposedly lets them prove their loyalty. The marked children are all conscripted; there are other conscripted members of the military, but the others conscripted are not forced to become riders and may choose the quadrant they join. The riders quadrant has always been on a voluntary basis. Xaden is the oldest of the marked, the youngest is nearly six; one hundred and seven of them in total. Liam is, well, nice and Violet finds it hard not to like him, he's also a consummate flirt. He whittles wood figurines whenever he’s not training with weapons; and he bonded a red daggertail named Deigh. While they’re doing library duty, Jesinia gives them the books they requested and a scroll to pass on to Professor Markham. The scroll accidentally falls and unrolls, allowing Violet to read that another southern village was attacked the night before. However, when they get to Battle Brief that day, Markham says the front lines have been quiet and the battle map doesn’t show any activity near the village. Instead, they talk about the Battle of Gianfar, one of the last battles where gryphons and dragons worked together. That night, Violet starts channeling. She feels Tairn’s magic, but she also feels that he and Sgaeyl are, um, otherwise occupied, and she can’t block out his emotions as she hasn’t been taught to shield yet. She goes outside for the cool air and runs into Xaden, the two of them are alone since it’s late and Liam thought Violet would be staying in her room. Xaden gives her a quick tutorial on shielding from Tairn. She picks it up so quickly that he’s impressed. Then he kisses her. Now that she can channel, Violet gets to add a class on channeling and controlling her power with Professor Carr. Liam gets his signet, he can see something clearly from miles away, but Violet still has not manifested her signet and the clock is ticking. In other news, due to all her training, Violet has won a few of her battle training challenges by fighting alone. She checks the roster, and her next fight is Jack Barlowe, her anxiety skyrockets as you can imagine. Even Professor Emetterio is concerned. During their bout, Jack is clearly trying to kill Violet and is warned to lighten up, but Jack has never been one to do as he’s told. He gets the upper hand and starts to strangle her, but Violet forces a vial of liquid into his mouth, which causes him to go into anaphylactic shock. He’s allergic to oranges and that vial was full of orange juice. Violet doesn’t die, but neither does Jack, and this is probably not going to make him more reasonable. Xaden comes to see her in the infirmary, furious that she didn’t tell him that Jack would be challenging her and decides that he is going to personally oversee her combat training from this point on. At their first session, he gives her a beautiful dagger engraved with Tyrrish knots that he had made specifically for her. How romantic. The squads prepare for Squad Battle, which is exactly what it sounds like. This year, the winning squad gets bragging rights and a trip to the war front. The Squad Battle has several portions encompassing all the learning they’ve done this year and includes a final unknown task that is only revealed when it’s upon them. This year, none of the leadership cadets are included. Which means the squad leaders, wingleaders, and executive officers are not allowed to take part in the final challenge. The four wings must find and obtain the one thing that would be most advantageous to their enemies in the war. What they have chosen will be judged by the leadership to see which wing wins. They only have three hours to decide what the item is and to get it. Violet’s wing elects Imogen as their de facto leader. They’re allowed to wield their powers, so between them they have Ridoc’s ice, Rhiannon’s summoning, Nadine can unweave wards, Liam’s sharp seeing, Sawyer’s metallurgy, Heaton can breathe underwater (cool but not super helpful right now), Imogen’s ability to wipe recent memories, Emery’s wind control, and Quinn can astral- project! They decide to break into Violet’s mom’s office and find the best thing in there to steal. They settle on the battle map. While they’re inside, Violet finds letters to her mom from officers on the front indicating that the war is going much worse than the cadets believe. When they return to the judges, one wing has stolen a handwritten manual on the habits and flaws of the dragons that are currently active – which would be a huge boon for their enemies, second wing hand over a fully intact uniform from an Infantry professor, third wing stole an actual living, breathing scribe, and fourth wing has their battle map. When they disclose that they stole it from the General’s office, the place goes crazy. Fourth wing wins, propelling Violet’s squad to the lead and winning the Squad Battle. They get to go to the Montserrat outpost, where Mira is stationed. When they get there, Rhiannon reveals that her family lives less than an hour away, if they walk. Mira helps them sneak out and they fly to Rhiannon’s family’s house; she gets to see her twin sister Reagan and her brand-spanking new nephew. While they’re there, Mira tells Violet that of course the cadets are not getting all the information. They’re cadets: it’s above their pay grade and Navarre is getting attacked too often to cover it all in Battle Brief anyway. She also tells Violet that she saved one of Violet’s books of folktales when they were purging Violet’s knapsack and brought it with her to Montserrat. She didn’t want it to go missing. Violet also learns that Tairn and Sgaeyl can only be separated for about three days before it becomes painful for them because Xaden suddenly arrives at the outpost. The two of them have a new ability, Violet and Xaden can now speak telepathically to each other like they do with their dragons. Mira gives the cadets a crash course on battle strategy, having them walk through a pretend battle, which devolves into Mira telling Violet and Dain to get their shit together as they squabble. The outpost they’re at gets attacked by a drift of gryphons and the cadets are rushed out while the other riders prepare to fight. The cadets climb to the roof, where their dragons can retrieve them, but there’s no way Violet can mount from there. Instead, she holds her arms out to the sides and Tairn picks her up with his claws. A few tense days later, they hear that no riders were killed in the attack, Mira is fine. They prepare for the last big event of the year: War Games. In War Games, the wings are all given a certain task and they have to work together to accomplish it, just like they would if they were at actual war. This year fourth wing will have to work to steal an egg that first wing is defending, while also keeping their own flag from everyone else. They do not have an outpost, so they will have to carry the flag the whole time. Violet’s squad is given the flag to defend while the others in their wing focus on retrieving the egg. When the games start and Tairn arrives, he is wearing a special saddle that he and Xaden designed together, to help keep Violet in her seat and allow Tairn full use of his magic, instead of splitting his focus to keep her on his back. Andarna comes to the War Games with Violet, but she needs to roll in mud first, so no one can spot her golden scales. The battle starts and Violet sees Liam’s dragon battling Jack Barlowe’s dragon. As Violet and her dragons fly towards Liam, they see Jack jump onto Liam’s dragon and stab Liam in the side. Liam falls off his dragon as Jack leaps to safety on the outpost turret (the same outpost the egg is at). Violet and Tairn try to catch Liam as he falls but he’s too far away, Violet asks to use Andarna’s time freezing. Once they stop time, they grab Liam only feet away from hitting the ground. They give Liam to Rhiannon, Violet and Tairn take off again to find Jack. Her power is sizzling along her body, making her worry that she’s about to backlash and die since she hasn’t manifested a signet yet. Violet projects all her power toward Jack and she calls lightning. It hits the tower and causes an avalanche that Jack happens to be underneath. Their wing has defended their flag and stolen the egg, and now Violet can wield lightning! Best of all, Liam is going to live. What a win! Xaden comes to her room later that night to make sure she’s okay after killing Jack. One thing leads to another, and I won’t get into it, but Violet sees Xaden’s back without a shirt on and asks him about the lines and lines and lines of scars on it. He says there are one hundred and seven scars on his back. He took personal responsibility for the loyalty of all the children of the rebellion members. Instead of being put to death, the marked are allowed to join the Riders Quadrant. Xaden was whipped once for each child and if any of them betray Navarre, his life is also forfeit. The King comes to Basgiath to celebrate Reunification Day, the day that the rebels were defeated. Basgiath throws a party, all the cadets are required to attend, as well as students in the other quadrants. Most of the rebellion children don’t show up anyway, since Reunification Day is the day that their parents were killed. I don’t blame them. Violet leaves the party to find Xaden, who is sitting in the middle of the Parapet. She walks out to meet him. They decide to try out being in a relationship (about time in my opinion). They go back to his room where she tells him that she loves him. Not long after, Garrick runs to Xaden’s room and says they’re calling all the cadets to formation. Navarre is under attack, and everyone is being called in. Once in formation, the cadets are told that they aren’t really under attack, this is a continuation of War Games and will be a five-day exercise. In this scenario, the wards are falling and there is a multilevel attack along their borders. They send the wings in every direction, fourth wing to the southeast. Each squad chooses an outpost to defend, except for the wingleaders who will be assigned their outpost. Xaden gets assigned to Athebyne; Dain chooses to defend Eltuval. Violet will be going with Dain as he is her squad leader. The cadets have time to go back to their rooms to change and pack what they need. Tairn and Andarna meet Violet on the field, Andarna wearing a chest halter that clips onto Tairn’s saddle; for when they fly long distances, Andarna can’t keep up with the adult dragons. Xaden approaches and removes Liam and Violet from Dain’s group, taking them with him to Athebyne instead. Dain tries to fight it, Athebyne is past the wards, and he’s convinced Xaden will get Violet killed, but he is unsuccessful. Dain figures out that the Xaden and Violet of them are now an item and he keeps his tantrum to a minimum, telling Violet that he will miss her just before he turns and leaves. Xaden and Violet fly to Athebyne. When they’re about half an hour away, they stop for a break since they aren’t sure what they’ll be flying into or if they’ll have a chance to rest when they arrive. Xaden and Violet wander off to the side by themselves where a pair of gryphon fliers approaches them. The fliers clearly know Xaden. As Violet prepares to unleash her lightning, even though her aim is terrible, it’s doubtful she’d be able to hit one of them, Xaden stops her. He asks Violet to trust him, walks towards the fliers, and tells them that they’re early. It appears that he’s been meeting with them, supplying them with something, most likely weapons. Violet only then realizes that all the other cadets with them are marked with the rebellion relic, she is the only one who is not; and they all knew Xaden was aiding the enemy. And so did her dragons. One of the fliers says that they lost a village nearby to a horde of venin. That can’t be real, venin are only folktales. Apparently, Violet is very wrong about that. That very horde of venin is heading north, right to the outpost of Athebyne and the Poromiel trading post near it. Xaden explains everything to Violet in between lightning strikes and her yelling at him. Venin are real, they can tap into magic without a bond to a dragon or a gryphon, which corrupts their power. Violet remembers a note that her dad left for her in a book. It said that folklore is passed through the generations to teach about the past; if they lose the stories, they lose their history. “It only takes one desperate generation to change history – even erase it.” There are no records of venin in the Archives, including any books of folklore. The leaders of the country, at some point, scrubbed venin out of the written text and are hiding their existence. Xaden describes how the venin have drained all the magic out of the Barrens and have continued to spread out. The venin don’t attack Navarre because of the wards, but gryphons cannot create wards and are susceptible to their attacks. Poromiel fliers have been raiding the borders to try to find the material that Navarre uses to power their wards, it’s also the only material that can kill the venin. Xaden has been supplying the fliers with special weapons forged of that material. He gives Violet a dagger made for killing the venin. He reiterates that he has never lied to her but admits that he twisted and hid the truth. And he is risking everything by telling her now; Dain could easily take this memory from her. She believes him, but she doesn’t trust him anymore. As the group of riders fly to Athebyne, Tairn explains that he and Andarna made the choice not to tell Violet to protect her, a mistake he won’t make again, and agrees that Violet has every right to be angry at ALL of them. When they get to Athebyne there it is completely deserted. Xaden asks Violet to stay near him; everything feels off and he doesn’t think this is a war game. Athebyne is a very strategically placed garrison, it should not be empty for any reason. Xaden’s mind goes to what Dain said before they left. Did Violet tell Dain that Xaden had been traveling to Athebyne? Did Dain touch her face after she was told? She realizes that yes, he touched her face. Dain stole the memories from her. Garrick finds a letter addressed to Xaden and Violet recognizes the handwriting as belonging to Colonel Aetos - Dain’s dad. Their mission is: survive if you can. Dain must’ve known what was going to happen. Colonel Aetos is testing their loyalty; they can either abandon the Poromiel village to be destroyed by venin and go to their new War Games location of Eltuvial (where Dain is) or Xaden can abandon his command, and they all become traitors. Liam uses his far sight and can see the venin. There are four of them in purple robes with red veins sprouting out from their red eyes, one of them carrying a big staff. There are about three hundred people in the Poromiel trading post village that will be massacred. It would be four venin versus the ten riders, who are joined by seven gryphon fliers, sounds easy enough. Wrong. In fact, the flier leader says she won’t ask the dragon riders to fight with the fliers, four venin is pretty much a death sentence. Dragon fire doesn’t hurt them, they must use their special daggers to kill them; and there’s a limited supply so getting close enough to kill them while keeping your dagger is incredibly important. Xaden decides to fight with gryphon fliers but leaves it to each of the riders to choose for themselves. They all decide to fight, including Violet and Tairn, but Violet asks Andarna to stay where she won’t be in danger. Everyone hears a screech and sees a wyvern (similar to a dragon but with two legs and spouting blue fire) heading for the village. The riders enter the battle. They find an old mining tunnel they can use to evacuate the civilians. The fliers start to lead the townsfolk to the entrance of the tunnel, Violet and Tairn creating a diversion to keep the venin distracted. Liam and Soleil (who we haven’t met till now) guard the entrance of the tunnel. Violet tries to hit one of the venin with lightning, the venin then causes an avalanche at the tunnel entrance, but Soleil (who must be able to control rocks or earth) stops the slide. Violet watches as the ground around the venin turns brown and all the plants wilt. This is how they get their power; they pull it from life itself. The circle of brown grows bigger, radiating outward from the venin and killing a townsperson when it reaches the ground under his feet. Soleil and her dragon also get caught in the death circle and their bodies shrivel up, dead in seconds. Do not be on the ground when the venin pull energy. There are more wyvern than dragons fighting at this point. Tairn and Violet try to kill one of the wyvern by exploding a building next to it, but both the wyvern and its rider make it out alive. Some of the wyvern are circling a sort of clock tower, there must be something in there that they want. The good guys kill a few of the wyvern but more come to replace the ones they’re able to kill. They’re fighting for their lives, and they are not winning. Finally, Liam is able to leap from his dragon to a wyvern that’s carrying one of the venin and he kills the venin rider. One venin down, three to go. But when a wyvern unexpectedly comes at Tairn from below, Liam and his dragon Deigh attack it. Liam jumps and gets free from the wyvern, but his dragon Deigh and the wyvern continue to battle. Violet can’t wield her lightning because the two of them are moving too quickly for her to have a good shot and she can’t aim anyway. If she hits Deigh, she would kill him. Tairn and Violet try to intervene but fail, but the wyvern kills Deigh. When a dragon dies, so does the rider; they only have minutes with Liam before he dies as well. In that time, Liam asks Violet to take care of his sister, who will be joining the Quadrant with the next group of cadets, and to give Xaden another chance. Xaden arrives with just enough time to say goodbye and take Liam to where Deigh’s body lays. Liam dies (I’m sobbing) and now it’s personal. Violet takes to the skies, unleashing lightning like never before. A wyvern comes from the side and the venin it carries jumps onto Tairn’s back. The audacity. The venin has stabs Tairn with a sword. Violet engages the venin, but she is unnaturally fast and counters Violet’s attacks as if she knows what is going to happen ahead of time. She stabs Violet with a dagger, it was laced with poison and burns when Violet pulls it out. Violet is able to create a snap of lightning, disorienting the venin, which allows Violet to stab her with the special venin killing dagger. When the venin dies, three more riderless wyvern fall from the sky dead. Violet realizes that the wyvern can’t live without the venin that’s created them. At this point, there are two venin left, including the one with the staff. Xaden is close to burnout; he’s used his shadow power so much that it will kill him soon if he continues. Violet tells Xaden to drop his shadows. When he does, Violet and Tairn spot one of the venin, they also spot that Andarna has come out from her hiding spot at the outpost and is now hiding within the village. They decide to take out one of the venin riders and tell Xaden it’s up to him to kill the last one. Andarna wants to help Violet and Tairn. They pause time for Violet to bring a branch of lightning down little by little, placing it exactly where she wants it: right on the venin. They release time and Violet kills the venin with her lightning alone, which is incredible. More than half of the wyvern fall when Violet kills the venin. Xaden uses his shadows to pull the last of the venin down from the wyvern he is riding, right onto the dagger that he’s holding. They’ve won, but their victory is short lived. Violet falls from Tairn’s back, succumbing to the poison in her body. It's a twelve-hour flight back to Basgiath where the mender Nolan could look at her, she won’t make it that long. Xaden says there is somewhere closer they can take her, Violet overhears him while she’s in a foggy state between life and death. Xaden sits at her bedside for three days before Violet wakes up. They’re in Aretia, Xaden’s ancestral home and the headquarters of the rebellion. It is quietly being rebuilt after it was destroyed by dragon fire after the rebellion was quashed. Xaden gives Violet a tiny carving of Andarna that Liam had just finished before he died. Xaden saved it for her instead of burning it with the rest of Liam’s things. He asks Violet to make a choice: she can be a part of his rebellion, or she can go back to who she was before, he will trust her to keep this secret. She obviously chooses to join them, how could you not after fighting venin? But just because she’s choosing to join their rebellion does not mean she’s choosing to be with Xaden. She can’t trust him anymore. But he’s persistent and he won’t stop until he convinces her that he’s in this for the long haul, that he does not want to live without her in any capacity. Just then, the door to the bedroom opens to reveal the person who brought her back from the brink of death. It’s her brother Brennan, who supposedly died six years ago but apparently had just joined the rebellion and has been living here ever since.
All the spoilers ahead. Click below, if you're ready. We pick up directly after the end of Fourth Wing. Violet is now twenty-one years old, having spent her birthday unconscious in Aretia. She’s just learned that her brother, Brennan, is alive and a member of the resistance. They call him Lieutenant Colonel Aisereigh, since Sorrengail is a dirty word around here. Brennan gets called away from his reunion with Violet to a meeting of the assembly and Violet joins Imogen and Bodhi as they eavesdrop from the hallway. The assembly is the resistance’s leadership, consisting of Brennan, Trissa, Suri, Felix, 2 more people, and Xaden. The assembly is discussing Viscount Tecarus, a name that Violet doesn’t recognize. The viscount is offering a trade to the resistance: the luminary for…something. Most of the assembly wants to agree to the trade but Xaden is steadfastly against it. He does not want to give Tecarus what he wants in trade. They also discuss whether the cadets that Xaden brought with him should be sent back to Basgiath. In particular, they’re worried about Violet returning, since she’s General Sorrengail’s daughter and she’s already had her mind read once, will their secret be secure? Later, Brennan explains to Violet what really happened in the battle when he supposedly died in. She knows that Tairn’s previous rider, Naolin, was a siphon who was able to use the sigils of others; the story was always that Naolin tried to use Brennan’s own sigil to mend Brennan but failed to save Brennan and killed himself in the process, nearly killing Tairn as well. In reality, Naolin was able to save Brennan but did not survive himself. Brennan’s dragon, Marbh, had been wounded in the battle, but there had been other dragons who managed to get both Marbh and Brennan to safety. Brennan also reveals that none of the cadets at Basgiath knew about the wyvern until they saw them in battle, including Xaden. The rest of the resistance leadership have known about the wyvern for a few months. There are two kinds: wyvern with blue fire and wyvern with green but they aren’t sure of any other differences between them. The only way to beat the venin is with the special daggers that Xaden has been smuggling out of Basgiath. Unless the resistance can secure the luminary, which will allow Aretia’s forge to get hot enough to make the daggers themselves, they must have access to Basgiath’s forge. Aretia is in a very precarious position the only thing protecting Navarre from the venin are the wards (which have been failing lately) and those do not extend to Aretia; Aretia does have a ward stone, but it is inactive, and no one knows how to make it work, so the weapons are their only defense. Brennan believes that the venin will come for Navarre in six months or less. Violet visits Andarna, who has been asleep since the battle with the wyvern. Andarna has changed in a couple of big ways: she’s twice the size that she was before, and her color has gone from golden to an iridescent black. Only the eldest members of the dens can sense what color a dragon will be, not even the dragons themselves know until their color changes, so it’s pretty incredible that Violet paired with two black dragons. Only the baby dragons are golden and Andarna is not a baby any longer, she’s an adolescent and she needs to get back to the Vale in order to enter the dreamless sleep to finish growing. Her tail is still a feathertail, apparently a dragon’s tail type is a matter of need and preference and Andarna’s has not yet changed, and she can no longer stop time, a talent she had only while she was a baby. One other big change, she’s very argumentative in an angsty teenage way. Frustrating for Tairn, delightful for the rest of us. The cadets, including Violet, go back to Basgiath. They don’t have much other choice unless they want to give up access to Basgiath’s forge and the venin killing daggers. Violet and Tairn want to hide Andarna, and her changes, for as long as possible, to try to withhold information about the goldens being babies. Who knows what the leadership would try to do with that information. So Tairn and Andarna quickly drop Violet off before leaving for the Vale. Violet and Xaden immediately head to Liam’s room to get his letters to Sloane before revealing his death and his things are burned. Things between Violet and Xaden are weird, Violet is angry at Xaden for not giving her the truth about everything - even though they’ve only been dating for a matter of months, and he is in charge of the lives of everyone involved in the resistance and all the children of the previous rebellion’s leaders - she isn’t talking to him unless necessary and they certainly aren’t “together” right now. He explains that giving the wrong person information could get all of the rebel children killed, including him. He agrees to tell Violet anything that she wants to know about him but asks her to trust him if he says there is something he cannot tell her. He can’t tell her everything he knows, they’re not really his secrets. This isn’t good enough for Violet, she wants total, complete honesty and she gives him an ultimatum: give her everything or don’t have her. He scoffs, he knows they can’t stay away from each other. For the record, I’m on Xaden’s side here. After getting Liam’s letters, Violet and Xaden head to formation. It’s graduation day and the members of leadership are reading the death rolls, just reading out Xaden and Garrick’s names, when the group of them walk out together, still very much alive. Xaden tells everyone, including General Sorrengail, that Colonel Aetos sent their group beyond the wards where they were attacked by gryphons. Colonel Aetos calls them liars and deserters. General Sorrengail is furious that Aetos emptied Athebyne, an important outpost, for a game. Dain tries to approach Violet but is warned away by both Violet and Xaden. They make it clear that they know what he did, taking information from Violet without consent and she wants nothing more to do with him. The third-years graduate and get their station orders. Xaden is placed with the Southern Wing in Samara. Before Xaden leaves, they run into Colonel Aetos, who says that they will both get two days leave every two weeks to fly to and from the other’s location, to allow for their dragons’ mating bond. They will alternate weeks. Two days is barely enough time to fly to Samara and back, Tairn and Sgaeyl will have next to no time together, and Samara is far enough away that even the dragons won’t be able to communicate over the distance. They will only be able to sense strong emotions. Violet and Xaden realize they’re being punished but they aren’t the only ones, Aetos has been reassigned to a coastal post. While giving them the news, Colonel Aetos insinuates that he will kill them. He even, not so vaguely, threatens Violet’s sister, Mira. Violet and Xaden also learn that Basgiath has a new Vice Commandant: Major Varrish. Violet is officially a second-year cadet. Dain is promoted to wingleader. Rhiannon becomes her squad leader, choosing Sawyer as her executive officer. Their year is the smallest group of riders since the original six, who were the very first dragon riders and are responsible for erecting the wards. The dragons aren’t bonding like they used to. The Empyrean, the group of dragons in charge, are divided on whether to get involved in the fight against the venin. Violet chooses to hide everything that happened with the wyvern from her friends, not wanting them to become targets for Aetos too. She begins to spend less time with them, not able to trust herself around them, but with no explanation for the change. The second-year students get a new class, the rider survival course, with Professor Grady. None of the second-year cadets were aware of the existence of this class, it’s classified so no one knows about until you’re “lucky” enough to take it. It will teach them how to survive if they are separated from their dragon and includes things like reading maps, wilderness survival, and interrogation training. Not great news for Violet, who now has a lot of secrets to keep. They must pass two evaluations in order to continue training at Basgiath, evaluations that will be sprung on them at any time, in any place, so it’s impossible to prepare for them beforehand. Violet decides to do some research on the wards, trying to help the resistance in any way possible. She visits her friend from the Scribe Quadrant, Jesinia, and asks for any books that discuss why the first six chose to put the wards where they did. She tells Jesinia she needs it for a debate defense that she’s drafting (hopefully that won’t alert any suspicions) and Jesinia gives her two books to start with. It's Conscription Day, when the new cadet applicants will attempt to cross the Parapet. It’s not raining today, so at least the new candidates have that going for them. Rhiannon, Violet, Dain, and Nadine are waiting to write down the names of the cadets and give them instructions before they walk across. Rhiannon asks Dain what he knows about the new Vice Commandant: not much except that Varrish is friends with Colonel Aetos and a complete hard ass who thinks the rider cadets have it too easy these days. Sure, bud. The new candidates arrive, and it goes basically as you would think. Some of them make it across, some of them fall, some of them have aggression problems and throw others off the Parapet. There’s one candidate that Violet recognizes. He gives her name “Aaric Graycastle”, but Violet knows him as Cam, and he must be here without his father’s permission. His father who happens to be the king. Violet tells him to request their squad when he makes it across, since Dain also knows him. They then meet Liam’s younger sister, Sloane. Violet breaks the rules and gives her some advice, telling her to braid her hair back so the wind doesn’t whip it into her face and a few more tips before Sloane realizes who Violet is. Sloane hates Violet and blames her for Liam’s death, but she still follows Violet’s tips. Both she and Aaric make it across, but seventy-one candidates die on the Parapet, more than the year before. Sloane and Aaric are both eventually put into fourth wing. They line up for the first formation with the new cadets and they do the whole scary dragon scene like last year, the wingleaders’ dragons landing and scaring the daylights out of the new cadets in order to weed out those too scared to see a dragon up close. One of the dragons that shows up Violet doesn’t recognize, an Orange Daggertail with one eye named Solas who is bonded with Varrish. Tairn warns Violet to keep her eyes on him. When one of the cadets runs for it, Solas burns him, firing overtop of the fourth wing section. Violet was able to yell out a warning so some of them dropped to the ground, but Solas manages to kill the cadets who ran as well as one of fourth wing’s first year cadets who didn’t run and half of the third wing. Violet’s back is badly burned, her armor saving her life. All the wingleaders are shocked and upset at what Solas has done. Another cadet runs and Solas gears up to do it again, even with a warning snap from Dain’s dragon Cath, but Tairn arrives before Solas can unleash more fire. He roars at Solas and threatens him with a snap of his teeth, revealing to Violet that he is the one that took Solas’ missing eye. Solas retreats and the whole ordeal is over. One of the cadets from third wing who was killed was Ciaran, who fought the wyvern with them at Resson. Violet and Imogen would have been killed too, if it weren’t for Tairn’s warning to watch Solas. Violet starts running in the mornings. She can’t sleep and she needs to be able to run from the venin if she is trapped on the ground, not wanting to be drained in their circles of death. Imogen decides to run with her, and Rhiannon is becoming suspicious; she knows that Violet is hiding something. They go to Battle Brief, the class all the cadets in all the years take together. One of the professors is a scribe, Professor Markham. He is much less friendly to Violet this year than he was last year, and Violet realizes that he must know about the venin attacks. Markham announces that there were two gryphon attacks in the past week, including one on Athebyne, the outpost that Violet was supposed to be at for war games. They’re blaming the destruction of Resson, the Poromiel outpost, on “Poromish unrest” instead of a venin attack. How much of what the cadets are told can be trusted? Markham knows the truth, does the other professor, Professor Devera? After class, Rhiannon tells Violet that she thinks the school is hiding something – something is going on in the Healer Quadrant. Nolan is exhausted and he looks terrible, and the infirmary is now guarded. Ridoc wonders if Nolan is being kept busy healing the people that Varrish is torturing. Word is, that’s what Varrish is known for, and he was seen in the Healer Quadrant with Nolan. Violet’s squad go to combat training for assessment day, they get to see how well the new cadets can fight. Sloane gets paired with Aaric, but she announces that she wants to fight Violet instead. Professor Emetterio says no, she’s not fighting Sorrengail, using Violet’s last name. A first-year student from a different wing overhears him say Sorrengail and comes over asking about Violet. Nadine playfully pretends that she is Violet and the first year kills her, snapping her neck without any warning. Violet fights him then, holding her own but the first year won’t back down and eventually gets her by the neck, almost managing to choke her to death while whispering to her about secrets. Aetos sent him to kill her. Violet manages to stab him in the kidney, repeatedly, until he finally releases her throat and dies. Afterward, Violet refuses to go to the infirmary, choosing to stay and watch the rest of the cadets. She learns that Sloane is terrible at fighting. That night, Xaden arrives from Samara. He’s two days late. They talk about what has happened since he left, the attack today and all the people who died crossing the Parapet. He tells her that “the first year is when some of us lose our lives, the second year is when the rest of us lose our humanity.” Basgiath is turning them into weapons, it’s the reason they’re here. Xaden can only spend a little time with Violet before having to do work for the resistance, he tells Violet to stay in her room and rest. He asks her to pay attention to what happens when she’s supposed to leave for Samara and gives her a letter that he wrote, which tells her about himself. He’s trying to open up to her. Violet and Imogen go for their morning run, and they see Jesinia, looking like she’s trying to hide in one of the alcoves. She’s looking for Violet so she can give Violet a book, the earliest accounts of the first six riders that Jesinia could find and remove from the Archives. She also asks Violet for help. She is translating a book for an assignment, from Old Lucerish, and is having trouble with a few sentences. Violet trained to be a scribe for most of her life and can read Old Lucerish, she takes the book from Jesinia and translates the passage that was giving Jesinia trouble. Jesinia tells Violet that the scribes are working on taking any books from the public section that are in a dead language and translating it for easier reading. She invites Violet to come see how much they’ve done so far, telling her the Archives are empty on Sundays so no one would know she was there. Only scribes are allowed in the Archives, but she’d make an exception for Violet. Just then, they see a screaming second-year student being removed from the academic building, Professor Markham following along. Jesinia says that very second-year requested a book from her the day before and she had recorded the request as she is required to do. She won’t tell Violet which book was requested, but she thinks whatever is happening is partly her fault. Jesinia looks scared, making Violet realize how dangerous it is to ask for these books, for both herself and Jesinia. Violet gets a letter from Mira, who says she’s been reassigned to Athebyne. As Violet reads the letter, it’s clear that someone else has read it as it has been heavily redacted. Ridoc mentions to Rhiannon and Violet that there are rumors of a new black dragon being spotted, luckily no one realizes yet that it’s Andarna. The squad go to flight training with Professor Kaori, where Violet is approached by Varrish. Tairn does not like him, and he seems like a great judge of character. Varrish wants to know where Andarna is. When Violet explains that she can’t bear a rider, therefore does not come to flight training unless it’s a day she can practice maneuvers and flying in a group, Varrish says to make sure Andarna attends the following week. Although dragons do not take orders from humans, Violet does… and she will be punished if Andarna does not show. In class, they practice running landings, which convinces Violet that Kaori doesn’t know about the venin. Otherwise, he would want to keep them off the ground at any cost. Violet prepares to fly to Samara to see Xaden and Sgaeyl. Bodhi walks her to the landing field, verbally giving her messages for Xaden. He accidentally lets it slip that someone has tried to kill him twice since they’ve been back. Turns out, there have been attempts on the lives of everyone who fought the venin with them at Resson, not to mention one of them is already dead. Before Violet can take off to Samara, Varrish arrives to the field and searches her bags, but he finds nothing. He didn’t search Tairn and, unbeknownst to Violet, Bodhi expected trouble and hid the daggers near the saddle Tairn wears. When Violet and Tairn arrive at Samara, Violet finds Xaden fighting another rider. The other rider has the only leave pass for this weekend, and Xaden has challenged him for it. Xaden wins, but only takes the twenty-four hours that Violet will be there. He gives the other twenty-four hours back to the other rider. He and Violet talk about the alloy that kills the venin and powers the wards. The alloy is capable of holding power. The wards that protect Navarre originate in the Vale, but the alloy can extend the wards. When the alloy uses up all its power, the wards fall but can be imbued with power again. Basgiath has a bunch of these special daggers with the alloy in the hilt, just sitting in the basement. The resistance smuggles those daggers out a few at a time, to give to the gryphon fliers. Taking them from Basgiath is the only way for them to get daggers. The resistance cannot make their own. Even dragon fire is not hot enough to smelt the alloy without a luminary’s help. Tairn and Violet return to Basgiath and are summoned to the practice grounds. It’s time for her to face her punishment for shielding Andarna from Varrish. He has brought Professor Carr, who teaches the cadets shielding and helps them gain control of and strengthen their signets. Varrish forces her to call lightning repeatedly. Carr warns Varrish that she is going to burn out, Varrish disregards him until Carr reminds Varrish that he faces the wrath of General Sorrengail and General Melgren if he gets Violet killed. She is too valuable of an asset in their war, not to mention that her death could cause the death of Tairn, and Sgaeyl and Xaden. Even with Carr’s warning, Varrish demands one more strike and almost makes her burn out but luckily, she is able to cut off the power with Tairn’s instructions. Tairn flies her to the river to cool her off, where she is met by Imogen, Bodhi, and Eya, all of whom fought with them at Resson. They escort Violet back to the dorms. Sloane is not getting any better at sparring. She will have her first challenge in a few days (which she can’t win) and is refusing any help, from Violet or from anyone else. Everyone is worried about her. Rhiannon, Violet, and Ridoc walk together to physics, but on the way, someone throws bags over their heads and renders them unconscious. Time for some rider survival skills, conveniently the day before Sgaeyl and Xaden are due to arrive at Basgiath. Someone is trying to keep Xaden and Violet apart. The four second-year cadets in Violet’s squad (Violet, Rhiannon, Ridoc, and Sawyer) are paired with four second-years from second wing as well as eight infantry cadets, two healers, and a scribe. They are given two maps; they will need to work together to find the location that’s been marked on the map and secure it, only then will they be extracted. The riders’ communication with their dragons has been severed with a new tonic that leadership has created, it dulls their signet as well. In addition, there is a second group in the forest, on the far side, whose dragons are hunting Violet’s group, while the dragons from Violet’s group are hunting the second group. A few unbonded dragons have also decided to join in on the fun. The infantry and rider cadets do not mix well. First, they argue about which forest they’re in. Then they start arguing about rank. Finally, one member of the group realizes they were given two different maps. Just then, an orange dragon crests the hill and sees them. A dragon who has a vendetta against Violet, Jack Barlowe’s dragon, Baide. Violet whispers instructions to everyone: eyes down, do not run, try not to show fear, do NOT run. Rhiannon instructs the riders to the front of the group. Violet notices Baide arching her neck as she prepares to release fire, and realizes that she’s going to pass the first line and hit behind them. Rhiannon tells the second wing cadets to stay back instead, fourth wing is already in front. One of the infantry cadets can’t handle Baide’s menacing glare and bolts. Tomas, second wing squad leader, catches the runner and throws her down to the ground as all the rest of them drop. Baide fires on them and then flies away. Tomas is dead, he didn’t have time to drop to the ground after saving the infantry cadet, but everyone else survives. After two days and nights, the group still hasn’t found the extraction point and are rescued by the professors. The riders are given another tonic that restores their bonds and signets, and they all realize that they have a lot to learn from the other quadrants. And although Tairn was able to see Sgaeyl for a few hours, Violet missed Xaden’s visit altogether, but he has left her another letter. Ridoc takes another cadet to the infirmary and sees Nolon again. Nolon is in even worse shape now, and Ridoc saw him with an air wielder who looked just as bad. What is going on in that secret room in the back of the infirmary that Nolon is holed up in with Varrish? Violet uses some of her challenge tricks (see Fourth Wing summary) to help Sloane win her match during combat training, otherwise Sloane would have lost for sure. After the matches are done, Violet and Imogen approach Sloane. Violet tells Sloane what she did during the challenge, and why she did it, and apologizes for what happened to Liam. Sloane can hate Violet all she wants, but she is going to train and accept the help that is being offered to her anyway. It doesn’t have to be with Violet, but Sloane will train. In exchange, Violet will give Sloane the letters that Liam wrote to her. One at the end of every week that Sloane trains. The cadet that Jesinia and Violet saw carried off after Jesinia recorded his book request was found, beaten to death in his rooms. Violet asks Jesinia what book he requested: a recording of a border attack. When Jesinia looked for the book and told him that the account did not exist, he repeated the request three times, saying that he had family that had been killed in the event, so he knew for a fact that it had happened. Jesinia had sent the request to her superiors, she thinks that is what got him noticed and then killed. Violet asks if Jesinia has been recording her requests, but she hasn’t been. At first it was because Jesinia was embarrassed that she couldn’t find what Violet needed, but then it was because she realized that they should have a copy of all the books, or most of them, in the Archives and it was clear that they did not. Not what Violet was looking for, and nothing on wyvern at all. Not even folktales. Jesinia believes that the Archives may be incomplete on purpose; something is being hidden from the people. Jesinia wants to help Violet with whatever she’s doing, even if it may be dangerous for her. So, Violet asks Jesinia to find the most thorough books on how the wards were built by the original six riders. The older the text, the better. And most important, no one can know she’s looking for it. Jesinia says she will get a book and bring it to Violet this week, then they will exchange books on Saturdays. Only on Saturdays. Jesinia chooses a three-hundred-year-old classified book as the first she gives to Violet, but it has no new information other than the relationships of the First Six. Next, a book that goes into why the wards were placed where they are, and that has some interesting facts about the dragons, but nothing that helps Violet. When Violet gets ready to fly to Samara, Varrish appears outside of her room with some lackeys and Bodhi. They check her bags again and escort her to Tairn. When Violet and Tairn arrive in Samara, Xaden is on twenty-four-hour duty, which Violet cannot join. Once again, they won’t be seeing each other. When she returns to Basgiath, Violet and Imogen talk briefly about Violet’s relationship with Xaden and Imogen calls Violet out on her double standards. Riders get classified information all the time, Violet wouldn’t get complete honesty with any rider she was with. In addition, she chose Xaden. If she wanted something normal, she would have chosen Dain. Imogen also tells Violet that she doesn’t have to freeze her friends out completely to keep the secrets that she has. She needs her friends, and her friends need her. Honestly, shout out to Imogen. In Battle Brief, Rhiannon brings attention to a notice that had been sent to her parents, warning the citizens against helping strangers. Markham says there are unprecedented numbers of border violations, dangerous because their enemies could try to infiltrate the outposts. The people crossing the border are bringing “propaganda,” claiming there have been violent attacks made by dragons. Violet knows that Markham is lying. It is not propaganda at all, although the dragons that are attacking are really wyvern. The next Saturday, Xaden gets to Basgiath early for their visit, and Violet actually gets to see him this time. Violet has not had a chance to return her book to Jesinia yet and Xaden sees what book Violet has: a secondhand account of the First Six and realizes that she’s hiding something from him. The irony that Violet doesn’t think that’s a problem, am I right? He tells Violet that no one alive knows how to create the wards, he believes that information was lost on purpose. Violet disagrees. There must be a record somewhere in case the wards were ever to fail. They just have to find it. The two of them go to meet Jesinia in the Archives and run into Nolon on the way. It’s the first time Violet has seen him all year and he looks awful. He says he’s been mending a soul for months, exhausting work. Xaden and Violet see Jesinia, who gives Violet her book of fairytales back and some new books for their research. On the way back, Violet and Xaden argue about trust so much that Xaden decides to exit the situation and find Bodhi. Bodhi has been finding any reason to keep Violet’s squad from doing flight maneuvers, so that Andarna doesn’t have to show up and Violet won’t be punished again. Unfortunately, Bodhi has run out of excuses and Violet appears to flight training, less one golden dragon. Her squad mates notice how weird Varrish is with Violet, he seems happy Andarna isn’t there so that he gets to punish Violet again. Varrish charges Violet with dereliction of duty, telling her to abandon flight maneuvers and report to her signet training grounds for punishment. This sets Tairn off, he attacks Solas, threatening to kill him until Varrish gets on his knees and rescinds Violet’s punishment and apologizes for trying to summon Andarna. As you can imagine, this will not make Varrish like Violet more. Violet is about to fly to Samara for her leave and Rhiannon walks her to Tairn. Violet opens up to Rhiannon about what Varrish has been doing, she didn’t tell Rhiannon before since she didn’t want Rhiannon to be targeted too. Violet misses Rhiannon and is tempted to tell her more. She finally breaks and talks about watching Liam die, holding him knowing she could not save him. Tairn stops Violet from saying anything more just as Varrish shows up. He and his minions were waiting, listening, in pitch black. Luckily, Violet didn’t say anything that they shouldn’t have heard. She’s searched again, but they won’t find what they’re looking for since they can’t search Tairn. When she arrives at Samara with the contraband daggers, Xaden meets her in the courtyard and kisses her – unexpected since they’ve done nothing but fight recently. Mira is now stationed at Samara and was going to make Violet bunk with her instead of with Xaden, so they had to put on a show. Violet gets to spend the day with Mira but can’t tell her that Brennan is alive and it’s eating Violet up. Back at Basgiath, Violet is practicing, and failing at, different moving dismounts. She dislocates her shoulder, but Nolon is too busy to see her before it heals on its own. There’s an attack on the Eastern Wing that calls away much of Basgiath’s leadership. When the cadets finally learn about it, there has already been one death: Masen Sanborn. Another of the cadets that fought at Resson. Now only six of the ten riders at Basgiath who fought at Resson are still alive, and those six are being attacked regularly. In class they talk about the differences between the Navarre’s provinces and the Poromish provinces. When a province joins Poromiel, they keep their own language and culture, whereas Navarre has a common language and a blended culture that is supposed to mix all the cultures of their provinces together. This is why Navarre has several dead languages; those provinces now use the common language. Those provinces also lost large parts of their cultures when they unified: festivals, folklore, songs, traditions. In theory, they gave all that up, and more, to live within the wards. It seems this may be the first time that some of the cadets thought about what the provinces may have lost when they joined Navarre. Dain challenges Violet at combat training even though she’s got one arm in a sling, because she refuses to speak to him otherwise. It’s imperative that her shields stay up and she block him out. She can hold her own on the mat as they fight, but he eventually gets the upper hand. As he has her pinned, he tells her that when he saw her memory, he only saw Xaden saying he and Bodhi had gone to Athebyne. He knew that Bodhi shouldn’t have been able to fly there, so he tattled. He didn’t know anything else about what was going to happen. He only told Violet that he would miss her because it was clear she was choosing Xaden, not because he thought she’d be hurt. Dain also reveals that the scars Xaden has on his back were given to him by Violet’s mother. After the match, Rhiannon confronts Violet. What did Dain steal from her? Who else that went to Athebyne is dead? What exactly killed Deigh (Liam’s dragon)? Violet begs her to stop asking before she learns too much. Later, Aaric breaks his wrist during his match and Violet takes him to the infirmary. He asks Violet about Rhiannon’s questions and it's clear that he knows the truth about the venin and what’s going on. It happens to be why he joined the Riders Quadrant. Xaden comes to Basgiath. He wants to show Violet the forge where they get the daggers. On their way, they’re stopped by Major Varrish and Professor Grady. It’s time for Violet’s practical interrogation training. They take all the second-year cadets from Violet’s squad and each cadet is given a secret phrase to protect, plus they are told they must share an actual secret with each other. The interrogators will try to get the phrase and the secrets from them. The only objective: don’t give the secrets away, special points if they manage to escape. Rhiannon tells the squad that she and Violet snuck out at Montserrat the year before, Sawyer never told his parents he had to repeat his first year, and Ridoc is afraid of snakes. Violet’s secret is that the infantry is killing the Poromish people trying to cross the border. The others are shocked. The four of them are given biscuits and water to drink, but Violet notices before they drink that the water smells like the tonic that cuts off their contact with their dragons. They don’t drink it but pretend that they did. The interrogators strap Violet to a chair while her squad mates are manacled to the wall. The interrogation starts; performed by two riders they don’t know and overseen by Varrish. Varrish decides it’s not going as quickly as he’d like and brings in Dain to look through Violet’s memories. Dain refuses to join the interrogation of an injured cadet, which is against the rules, and walks out. Instead, Varrish punches Violet’s injured shoulder and she passes out, he then calls in Nolon to mend her. Varrish instructs Nolon to stay in the area so he can continue to mend Violet as needed, and then Varrish extends their interrogation another day. Nolon whispers to Violet that if she’s not willing to give up what she knows, then she needs to find a way to escape; he gives her an advantage by not closing the observation window all the way and drawing Varrish away from the room. Her friends agree they must escape but ask Violet to tell them what she knows. Not right now, but after. Right now, they’ve got to get out before Varrish kills Violet. They manage to escape using Sawyer’s metallurgy signet and Violet’s daggers. Now, Ridoc and Sawyer realize that the threat to Violet is real, and she’s rarely left alone from then on, for her protection. At Battle Brief, each desk has an article that reports of an attack on the Poromiel city of Zolya. It was attacked and fell to “blue fire dragons”. Markham plays this off as if he created the leaflets to continue a lesson on propaganda. He then tries, and succeeds, in distracting the class by revealing what Nolon has been working on. Jack Barlowe is back, and very much not dead. They continue with the class. Samara was recently attacked by three drifts. No one was killed, but one rider was badly injured. Professor Devera seems to signal to Violet that the wounded rider is Xaden. Violet freaks out and runs out of class, she and Tairn fly to Samara immediately. By the time she gets there, he is fine; he nearly lost his arm but has been mended. Xaden has a meeting with some gryphon fliers that night and Violet decides to accompany him, the fliers tell them the venin will be at Navarre’s borders in a year, max. Violet meets Catriona, a gryphon flier and Xaden’s ex-girlfriend. When Violet and Xaden return to Samara, Violet wants to talk about Viscount Tecarus, last mentioned back in the first paragraph of this summary. What does he want in trade for the luminary? Weaponry and a private army, both of which Xaden is happy to provide, but Tecarus also wants to see Violet wield lightning. Xaden is unwilling to use Violet as a bargaining chip, he’s not convinced that Tecarus will be content to just watch Violet. Tecarus is known for being a collector. Violet fills Xaden in on everything happening at Basgiath and he gives her an alloy dagger to always keep on her, although it needs to remain hidden. Violet and Tairn return to Basgiath to find Varrish waiting for Violet in the dorms. He searches her bags and takes the flight jacket she is wearing, containing the contraband dagger. Luckily, Rhiannon is spying, and she chooses that moment to level up her signet and summons the dagger to her through wall. Varrish finds nothing in the jacket. We also get to see Professors Emetterio and Kaori in a way that warms my heart, trying to protect their student. Kaori makes sure that Violet won’t be punished for going to Samara without leave, which infuriates Varrish. Once Varrish and Kaori leave, Violet goes to Rhiannon’s room and tells her squad about the battle with the venin, about Andarna, the assassination attempts, the deal she has with Jesinia, and about supplying daggers to the gryphon drifts. She does not tell them where, or by whom, she was healed. None of her squad mates are mad at her – except for Ridoc, but just a little – for keeping these secrets and she finally starts to realize that she’s been unreasonably demanding of Xaden. They all decide to help the resistance however they can, researching how to create more wards. Ridoc reveals that during war games when they broke into General Sorrengail’s office, he saw a classified ledger detailing the existence of journals by at least two of the First Six, stored in a sublevel vault. Violet lets Imogen know that she told her squad, so Imogen then tells her best friend Quinn. The first-year cadets go through Threshing. Aaric is chosen by a Blue Clubtail and Sloane gets a Red Daggertail. Violet gets a message from Jesinia, requesting an impromptu meeting, but Violet can’t meet her. She has to take over watch and doesn’t want to trade and give Varrish yet another reason to punish her and prevent her from seeing Xaden, which has happened the last several weekends. Ridoc goes to the meeting with Jesinia. Violet goes to the dormitory tower for her watch and relieves Eya, who had the shift just before. The two of them are attacked by four assassins dressed as infantry. Violet kills one with her daggers, Eya kills another, but then one of the soldiers manages to kill Eya. Violet kills that soldier, leaving one last assassin. He manages to push Violet backwards toward the edge of the tower. She falls but is able to hold on to a tiny lip instead of plummeting to the ground. Before the assassin soldier can get to her and force her to release her grasp, someone kills him from behind and pulls Violet back up. It’s Jack Barlowe, who has been weirdly nice to everyone since he’s returned from the dead. He was also on watch and heard screams, he didn’t even realize it was Violet until after he saved her. Jack says that now they’ve both been given a second chance. Ridoc finally gets there and sits with Violet until her watch is over. He tells Violet that Jesinia found the vault where the journals are kept, she even knows how to get through the wards. One catch: they need a member of the royal family to get them in since the journals are in the royal vault. Good thing they’ve got Aaric. Xaden arrives for his leave and Violet tells him their plan to break into the royal vault. They haven’t asked Aaric yet, but Violet is sure he will agree, until she finds out that Xaden killed one of Aaric’s brothers during Threshing. Luckily, Aaric hates his dad as much (or even more) than Xaden and he agrees to help them, if Xaden keeps his distance. They get started right away, a whole group of them heading down to the Archives. There is a scribe there on watch, but he’s sleeping like he always is. Bodhi and Ridoc slip behind the sleeping scribe to actually keep watch. The others meet with Jesinia and choose who will accompany her through the Archives. Xaden, Violet, Aaric, and Imogen. Quinn, Sawyer, and Rhiannon can’t go inside, or it will be too suspicious, so they stay outside, but close enough to help if they’re needed. Jesinia’s group will have to be fast, the Archives close in an hour and if the door closes with them inside, they WILL die. These scribes aren’t joking around about security. Jesinia takes them all, disguised as scribes, to a room with a hidden wall. She can’t accompany them down the staircase, so the others go down without her. Xaden knocks the two guards outside of the vault unconscious. Violet and Aaric go into the vault while Imogen and Xaden stay with the unconscious guards. It takes a long time, there are so many books to look through, but they finally find a journal when Violet thinks to look under the glass tabletop hidden by a tablecloth. There’s another set of wards protecting the books, but Aaric can pass through the wards and grab the journal at the small cost of giant blisters on his hands. Now, they must get out, the wards seem to know that Aaric isn’t his dad (re: blisters). They have all of two minutes to get out of the vault, wipe the guards’ memories (thanks Imogen), get up the stairs, and out of the Archives. They make it out just as the door slams shut, Warrick and Lyra’s journals in hand. As they walk back to their dorms, Quinn mentions that, using the astral plain, she was able to walk around as both Rhiannon and Violet, so it looks like they were around during the time of the theft. Quinn’s dragon, Cruth, was bonded to her great-aunt when she was a rider, so Quinn’s signet is stronger because of that. Quinn happens to mention that the dragons who bond members of direct lineage lines have a chance of their rider going mad. Her signet is stronger because Cruth was her great-aunt’s dragon. If Cruth had bonded with her grandmother or great-grandmother, Quinn may have lost it instead. Immediately after stealing the journals, Xaden leaves to return to Samara, taking Warrick’s journal with him. As Violet watches him fly away, Nolon approaches and gives her a mug of lemonade. She has known Nolon for such a long time and Nolon wants to check on her, he’s been too busy to mend her even though she’s on his list. Suddenly, Violet realizes that she’s been cut off from Tairn and she’s feeling dizzy. Nolon has betrayed her! Et tu, Nolon?! She wakes up in an interrogation chamber, strapped to a chair. Nolon is there, so is Varrish and a rider who can use their signet to tell if someone is lying. It appears that when Violet and Aaric tripped the wards, General Markham was alerted, so they didn’t get away completely unnoticed. They found Lyra’s journal in the bag Violet was carrying. Based on the questions they’re asking her, they don’t know how, why, or with whom Violet stole this journal. It also seems that they do not know that Warrick’s journal is also missing, so that’s very good. Since they cannot get into the vault themselves, not being royalty, and they certainly don’t want to tell the king about the tripped alarms. In fact, the coverlet that hid the journals was in place when Markham looked from outside the wards, so they can’t even tell (for sure) if Lyra’s journal is the actual journal or a reproduction. Violet manages to answer all Varrish’s questions truthfully while not give anything away by being clever with her answers. Then Varrish decides to use physical attacks to get the answers that he wants. It gets so bad that Violet starts hallucinating that Liam is with her, Liam helps keep her strong enough to withstand Varrish. She overhears that it’s Monday, and her professors have been asking where she is, and Violet finally learns what Varrish’s signet is - he can see people’s weaknesses. Violet’s weakness is the people that she loves. Her squad, her sister, her dragons, Xaden. Varrish is questioning Violet, yes, but he’s also setting up an elaborate trap for Xaden. Varrish expects him to come running to Violet’s defense. Varrish calls in Nolon to mend Violet, then they torture her again. And again. Then they call in Dain. They explain to Dain that they think Violet is trying to destroy the wards, that Xaden deserted days ago (they don’t know where he is), and that they’re currently gathering all the marked ones. Violet decides that when Dain goes looking in her head, she’s going to show him exactly what happened the day that Liam died. The gryphons and everything, let him have the whole truth. Upstairs, leadership is being called to assemble by General Sorrengail so almost everyone has gone from the room, but Varrish refuses to leave until he breaks Violet. Dain tells Varrish that they’re smuggling weapons out. Varrish gives Dain the dagger that he took from Violet, so that Dain can compare it to what he saw in her memories. In a real twist, Dain uses the dagger to stab Varrish and then cuts Violet free. The two of them are going to have to fight their way out of here, and Violet is in rough shape. Nora, the lie sensing lieutenant, is still in the antechamber waiting for Varrish before going upstairs. Dain is holding Violet up and puts his sword at Nora’s throat, demanding to be allowed through, when someone comes from behind Nora and kills her. It’s Xaden, Garrick right behind him. Before the four of them can leave, Varrish drags himself out of the interrogation chamber, talking about how disappointing Dain is. Violet kills Varrish with Xaden’s help. She learns that up top, things are a mess. Xaden and Garrick launched some sort of distraction for leadership so they could get to Violet, and her squad have been put in the interrogation classroom under guard and cut off from their dragons since they launched a rescue mission for her after she’d been missing for four days. the four of them leave the basement floors, they’re met by Violet’s mom, who does nothing but ask who they killed (everybody) and gives them the serum antidote that will allow Violet to hear Tairn again. She asks to talk to Violet quickly, and she explains to Violet why she was forced into the Rider’s Quadrant. Her mom wanted to keep Violet away from Professor Markham. She knew that Violet would eventually learn the truth about the venin and wanted Violet to be able to protect herself when that day came. She admits that she is the one that gave Xaden the scars on his back and that she asked Xaden to keep Violet alive last year. Then she lets all of them go. When they get back upstairs, Dain calls everyone into formation and informs all the cadets about what has really been happening. That leadership is currently trying to hide all the bodies of the wyvern that Xaden had dropped at the outposts - his distraction. Dain encourages the cadets to ask their dragons if they have any doubts. Tairn shares Violet’s memory of Resson with all the cadets. They give all the cadets the option to join the resistance or to stay at Basgiath. The remaining professors arrive, Bodhi had been distracting them, and Devera states that they won’t stop the cadets if they choose to go. In fact, she plans on joining them. Violet and Xaden fly from Basgiath with two hundred dragons, just over one hundred riders, all the marked members that graduated (Xaden had already collected them), three scribes including Jesinia, Dain, Devera, Emetterio, and Violet’s whole squad. More will follow to Aretia with the dragon hatchlings. They collect Andarna on the way, she is still sleeping and will be carried by Tairn. They go to Riorson House where they meet Brennan, who is not exactly pleased to be met with forces that he has no idea how he will feed and house, and a sister who can barely support herself. The next day, Andarna finally wakes up. She has a scorpiontail and her scales are black, but so shiny they seem to reflect the grass around her, giving her an iridescent gleam. It must be an adolescent thing, like how the babies are golden. But when Andarna extends her wings, one does not unfurl completely. They will need to help her strengthen the muscles in the wing, but that’s not all. When fighting the venin in Resson, Andarna used up a ton of energy, which forced her into rapid growth. Then they flew to Aretia for Violet to be healed, and then to Basgiath, before Andarna could enter the Dreamless Sleep. She slept in that time of travel, but fitfully, and that time is critical for a dragon’s growth. There is a second set of muscles in dragon’s wings that did not form for Andarna, possibly because of the delay of the Dreamless Sleep. She will probably still be able to fly but because she will have to compensate for the missing muscles, it’s unlikely that Andarna will ever be able to bear a rider. Classes for the cadets start at Aretia. They’ve been kept in the wings that they had before defecting and will now elect their new leaders. In addition, the cadets have written letters to their own families with offers of sanctuary, although it doesn’t appear that their families have been targeted by Navarre so far. The cadets are in the middle of Battle Brief, now taught by Devera and Brennan, when a riot of forty dragons shows up. Everyone assumes that they’re from Navarre, possibly led General Melgren and his giant black dragon, Codagh, but it’s actually led by Mira’s dragon Teine. Violet runs to meet them, desperate to stop anyone from being hurt, but luckily, the riders are here to join Aretia’s forces! They didn’t know the truth until the wyvern were dropped at their doorsteps and now, they’re here to help. As Mira talks to Violet, she sees Brennan, all the Sorrengail children are together again! Mira doesn’t take the news of Brennan still being alive as well as they hoped, she punches Brennan in the face. Violet has been translating Warrick’s journal and she thinks she knows how to raise the wards. She will need the blood of the six most powerful riders in residence. She gets to see a wardstone for the first time, a black pillar that is at least 12 feet tall and 6 feet across. No one knows what it’s made of, but they think it’s polished iron. Violet reads the passage: they gathered the six most powerful riders and the blood of the six and the one combined. The one presumably being the stone. Xaden, Bodhi, Violet, and Brennan, along with council members Felix and Suri, cut their palms and place their hands on the wardstone… and nothing happens. Violet is so frustrated that she almost loses control of her signet, spurring Felix to do signet training with her starting the next day. Violet must have translated something in Warrick’s journal wrong. Problem is, almost no one else can read Old Lucerish, and of those who can, Violet is the best at it. Violet decides she needs to meet Viscount Tecarus while she tries to figure out where her translation went wrong, meet Tecarus and make a trade for the luminary. Finally, FINALLY, someone decides to work on aim with Violet. Where has Felix been all this time! In case you haven’t been paying attention, Violet can’t aim. If she hits something, it’s by accident because she certainly doesn’t hit anything that she is trying to hit. Not to mention, she has very little control. Felix gives her a little glass orb, called a conduit, and explains to her that she doesn’t wield lightning. She doesn’t have to be in a storm to call lightning, like how Xaden can only use the shadows that already exist. She wields pure power that only takes the shape of lightning because that is what Violet is most comfortable with. She is to use the conduit until she can control her power better. Anytime power threatens to overrun her, or if she chooses to use the conduit, it draws the power from her and into itself, storing the power there. Violet decides to go see Viscount Tecarus, even though Xaden is very against it. So, she enlists the help of her siblings instead. We learn a little bit more about the fliers. They don’t have signets, but they do have gifts of their own and a lot of it involves manipulating the mind. The three Sorrengails tell no one but Rhiannon that they are going, but Xaden still manages to meet them at the gates upon their arrival. After some verbal sparring between Xaden, Violet, and Xaden’s ex-girlfriend Cat, Violet agrees to wield for Tecarus. She’s instructed to go to a field of grass, and he has a target wheeled out for her. Oh no, she didn’t think she would have to hit something! Her target is the Rybestad chest that keeps whatever is inside suspended in midair and one of the most valuable items that Xaden’s father ever owned. Xaden’s father traded it for an alliance with Tecarus which included Xaden marring Cat, an alliance that Xaden pulled out of last year. Mira accompanies Violet to the field, telling Violet that her own shielding ability doesn’t work this far from the wards. Violet says not to worry about it, but that is before the chest bursts open, and a venin falls out. Obviously, everyone loses it. The venin is weak and looks like he has been in the box for weeks, but he is still able to suck the life out of one of the guards who brought the crate out. Mira throws a regular dagger at him, which does him no damage at all and just gives him a weapon to use against them. Violet wields lightning repeatedly, not hitting anything but the ground. She manages to hit him in the side with one of the special daggers. Xaden tosses Violet and Mira two more special daggers, but he’s under special orders from Violet to stay out of the fight, so he does nothing else. The resistance needs the luminary and if Xaden comes down, they won’t get it. The venin throws the crate and a couple of daggers at Violet and Mira, but then Brennan joins the fight and now Violet is worried that BOTH of her siblings will die… and for real this time. Did I mention that rain is pouring down? Their dragons are flying to them but are still a few minutes away when the venin reaches for the ground, preparing to drain the life of everything in his radius. Miraculously, Mira manages to shield herself and her siblings, closing in on burnout as she does. The entire field is dead from the venin’s life suck, but they are somehow still alive, along with the ground they’re standing on that was included in Mira’s ward. The spectators are also safe (the stone of the stands was all retrieved from Braevick and has no life force to give as it’s already been drained by the venin, so it protects the people standing on it. Violet has an idea; she tells Brennan to take Mira (who is barely able to stand) to the steps where they will be safe. Violet starts collecting power to her, storing it in her body until Tairn arrives. When he gets there, Violet throws both of her daggers at the venin, pinning his feet to the ground, and releases all her power in a stream of lightning while Tairn picks her up from the ground with his talons. The lightning strikes behind the venin, but the field is covered with water from the rain and the venin is electrocuted. Tairn takes Violet to the stands as Sgaeyl, Teine, and Marbh stand watch, making sure no one leaves unnoticed. As she arrives, Violet sees that Xaden has Tecarus suspended above the ground with his shadows, which are strangling him. Xaden only releases Tecarus once he sees Violet. It’s obvious that Tecarus has a lot of information about the venin, and the two groups decide to negotiate. Tecarus does try to lure Violet into staying, as Xaden thought he would, but she is only tempted momentarily. He gives them all the information that he’s compiled about the venin dark wielders but does not agree to give them the luminary. He never said he would, he said if Violet wielded for him, he would discuss giving them the luminary. They should really listen to Xaden more often, Tecarus is a snake. For the luminary, Tecarus wants Aretia to supply the fliers with weapons, but he also wants them to take the flier cadets that he sheltered when their academy was destroyed. There’s about one hundred of them plus their gryphons. Teach them to work with the riders and keep them safe. One problem: gryphons do not do well at altitude (Aretia is in a mountain range), but Tecarus argues that they’ve never needed to live at a high altitude, so they’ve never been given the chance to adjust. Second problem: how do they get the gryphons to Aretia? There’s only one route over the Cliffs of Dralor and there’s no guarantee that the gryphons will survive the trip. But Brennan agrees to the terms anyway, providing that each flier cadet brings a crossbolt with them. The next day, the luminary is delivered to the valley where Aretia’s forge is. Three days later the fliers assemble, ready to travel. They will have to travel up the granite cliff on a path of narrow ledges and switchbacks. The rider cadets who have arrived in the past few days will hike the path with the flier cadets and their gryphons while their dragons fly patrol around the cliffs. It will not be a quick hike; it will take twelve hours to climb to the top and that’s without rests. Wingleaders have been given the locations of gryphon traps to disarm them ahead of time. Nobody is excited about the prospect of riders and fliers working together but forcing them to do this climb together is Brennan’s way of forcing them to get a little respect for each other and maybe realize that they aren’t that different after all. They pair each squad with a drift, obviously Violet’s squad is paired with Cat’s drift. The group will be climbing one right after the other, meaning that while the path is perilous already, anything that falls while they’re climbing could injure or kill the groups coming after them. They’re the second group to start the climb. We get to meet the members of Cat’s squad: Maren (Cat’s best friend) and her gryphon Dajalair, Luella (Cibbelair, her gryphon), Trager, Bragen, Neve, Kai, and Cat (Kiralair). We also learn more about how the gryphons are organized and how they bond their fliers. Their drifts are named for where they fly: Summitwing fly in the Esben mountain range, Seawing near the coast, et cetera. Honestly, being a flier sounds much less scary and like it has a much higher survival rate. Plus, their fliers are less prone to commit random murders. The higher they get up the mountain, the worse the gryphons cope. Their breathing grows faster and shallower and they’re moving more sluggishly, due to the lack of oxygen. When Violet’s group is close to the top, the group above them has just gone over the peak, it gets so foggy that the dragons can’t see well. Dain is stationed at a pressure trap that shoots out arrows, but they aren’t sure where the arrows come from so they can’t disarm it. Instead, the cadets must jump across the trigger, a distance of about six feet. Luella is the smallest in their group, and she is already struggling from the climb and the altitude. Ridoc takes Dain’s short sword and climbs the cliff face, jabbing the sword into a crack in the rock to give them a handhold to swing from during their jump, giving them more distance. Violet goes first, showing Luella how to make the jump, but Luella comes up short. She panics, scrambling off the pressure plate and running into Violet, who pushes Visia - a repeat first-year rider. The two other girls go off the edge, Violet heading over as well. Someone grabs Violet from behind, both other girls grabbing one of Violet’s wrists. Cibbelair is closest to Visia, he picks her up with his beak and puts her safely on the ground, then goes back to get Luella. When Violet turns around to see if anyone can help her pull Luella to safety, she sees that Ridoc has been hit by the arrows from the trap in the side. Cibbelair and the others aren’t fast enough, Luella slips from Violet’s grasp and falls into the fog. Gryphons die with their fliers, so the rest of the fliers comfort Cibbelair as he dies. Brennan is coming on the back of his dragon to heal Ridoc, but just after he shows up, they realize that the wingbeats they’ve been hearing are not those of a dragon, but wyvern. They hurry the fliers and gryphons up the cliff, but they can’t move Ridoc yet, and the dragons can’t see in the fog to fight. Tairn shows up for Violet, she’s their best bet against the wyvern. They find a wind wielder who can push the clouds away from the cliff path and the fog clears enough to make out two wyvern and no riders. Tairn baits the wyvern into the remaining cloud cover and Violet calls the lightning within the cloud. While the lightning lights up the cloud, they see that there were actually four wyverns, and Violet has managed to kill them all. Tairn lands at the top of the cliff where they are loading some of the weaker gryphons into wagons to move them to Aretia, and that Ridoc is alive and standing - albeit with assistance. While they were making the climb, Tairn delivered some news to Violet: a baby dragon just hatched at Aretia, officially making that valley a hatching ground. Since wyverns were in the area when the dragon hatched, and the venin share a collective mind, the venin all know and will be coming for the magic at the new hatching ground. Once everyone is installed in Aretia and classes have started, Violet’s squad gets a new class with council member Trissa and Cat’s drift. Trissa teaches all of them about runes: how they’re made using shapes, symbols, and power, and then placed into objects for specific uses, called tempering. The Tyrrish had perfected this skill, but making runes was banned after Navarre unified, simply because they didn’t want runes to fall into “the wrong hands”. Specifically, the hands of fliers since it levels the playing field a bit. Trissa gives the cadets the task of creating their first rune. Violet realizes that the dagger she used to get out of the interrogation room had an unlocking rune on it, that’s how they were able to unlock the door and escape. Meanwhile, Andarna is getting bigger and is still very shimmery, Sawyer wants to learn sign language -he has a bit of a crush on Jesinia, and Rhiannon’s family arrives after evacuating their village. Ridoc’s dad will also be arriving soon. The cadets are not mingling well, so the council decides they will no longer be separated for classes. But before that, they’ve set up a day for challenges since there’s so much hostility between the group. No killing allowed! Whatever issues you have, leave them on the mat because tomorrow each squad will absorb a drift. Of course, Cat challenges Violet and taunts her about Xaden. Violet is the clear winner, but Cat refuses to tap out and uses her mind work on Violet (she can amplify emotion) until Xaden steps in and separates the two of them. The next day, Cat’s drift officially becomes a part of Violet’s squad, and somehow everyone except Violet (and me) is surprised by this. Violet goes back to Warrick’s journal. She asks Dain to help her translate. While they’re working on the translation, she asks him what he knows about imbuing items, thinking that the Aretia wardstone feels like it needs to be imbued. He tells her that the wardstone is so large it would take weeks to imbue it fully. They talk about some of their issues, not resolving them fully but getting to an okay place and they agree to continue working on Warrick’s journal together. Violet continues to work on control and aim with Felix, and she’s getting much better. The venin takes a town that’s ten times the size of Resson, where Violet fought them. They are steadily getting closer to Aretia, and the Aretian forces there are very outnumbered. Time is of the essence; they need to get this wardstone working. Violet and Dain have found a few things she translated wrong the first time around and are still going through the journal, when Violet suddenly has an epiphany. When she thought the journal said they used the six strongest riders to bring the stone to life, they actually used the six strongest dragons. But now that Violet knows how to raise the wards, she’s not sure that they should raise them. Doing so would mean that the fliers would not be able to wield within the wards. But perhaps they can find a solution so that the fliers are not powerless while inside the wards. They come up with Maorsite arrowhead, which explode on impact. Trissa sets them up with a scavenging mission to find runes. There are thirty summoning runes hidden in the mountains and they have to find more than the other teams to win. They get divided up into groups of four, Violet is with Cat, Sloane, and Visia, neither Sloane nor Visia have signets. Both Tairn and Andarna accompany Violet. They go into a cave network, Andarna and Kiralair are in the tunnels with them since they are small enough, but the other dragons are not. They get trapped by snow falling and covering the exit, so they walk through the tunnels to find another way out. They’re all bonding, even Cat and Violet are almost getting along, and Visia asks if Violet will get a second signet from her second dragon. Sloane says only riders who bond with a dragon who already bonded someone within their direct familial line get a second signet, but that rider could also go mad instead. Like Xaden, whose grandfather was also bonded to Sgaeyl and who is not mad… Violet doesn’t have time to think about what that means right now, because Andarna scents another dragon in the caves with them. That dragon is revealed to be Solas, and he’s here for Violet. He takes a swipe at Visia, who hits the side of the cave hard and is killed. Andarna commands the others to take a breath and hold it while she shields them with her body and wings. She’s fireproof, so the flames that Solas releases won’t hurt her, and she will protect the rest of them, but if they breathe in, their lungs will burn from the heat. When the fire stops, Andarna goes for Solas’ throat, but he swats her away. Violet throws daggers and manages to hit him in his remaining eye, his stumbling around gives them an opening and Kiralair shuttles Cat and Sloane to safety. Cat starts shooting Solas with arrows from behind. Violet’s conduit breaks and she slides underneath Solas, putting the broken conduit between the scales of Solas’ shoulder while Andarna bites him. Then Violet aims for the conduit with her power. It works until Solas hits Violet with his tail, throwing her into the wall. She sees Andarna holding on to Solas’ neck with her teeth as he slams her into the walls of the cave. Cat and Sloane come back into the cave as the dragons fight, Cat releasing arrows at Solas and Sloane pulling Violet out, but Sloane starts to drain Violet of her power as she pulls her. She’s manifested her signet - she can siphon the power of others, like Tairn’s last rider Naolin. A dragon screams and then falls silent, Andarna has killed Solas. When they return from the caves, Xaden is furious that Violet prioritized Cat over herself. In their fight, they finally talk about Violet’s mom asking Xaden to keep Violet safe during her first year in the Riders Quadrant. Violet keeps going on about how she can’t trust him, he keeps saying she won’t ask the questions she wants answers to because she really doesn’t trust herself. So, she asks him what his second signet is. Before he can answer, they’re told a horde of wyvern has been spotted flying towards them. They have to raise the wards… now. They’ve been steadily imbuing the wardstone since Violet had spoken to Dain, so it should be primed and ready. They take Tairn, Sgaeyl, Marbh, Cath, Feirge, and Suri’s Brown Clubtail as the strongest dragons on the premises, one from each den. Once they power a wardstone, these dragons cannot raise another. They all breath their fire on the stone and…everything looks the same. Did it work? They fly to see if the wyvern will be stopped. Xaden and Violet fly to a high plain where they will be able to see and be alone to yell at each other. Where no one can overhear what he says to her. He has been scared to tell Violet about his second signet. It is something that he has not told a single other person, not even Garrick or Bodhi. He is an inntinnsic, of a sort, able to read the intentions of a person. He cannot read another person’s thoughts, only the intention behind it. Even Tairn is surprised by this information. Xaden is convinced that Violet doesn’t love him anymore, but he can’t say more than that before the wyvern get there. There are hundreds of them, and seventeen venin riders. The wyvern pause where the wards now start, the first few try to cross but immediately fall to the ground dead. The wards work! When Xaden and Violet return to Aretia, they’re told the General Melgren has asked for a meeting. No more than two marked are allowed at the meeting, and he requests the presence of both Violet and Mira. Violet also learns that even with the wards up, the fliers can still wield. That means that the wards aren’t acting exactly like they’re supposed to, there is something wrong with them. Xaden and Violet go with other council members to meet with Melgren. General Sorrengail is there, that’s the reason both Violet and Mira were requested to be present. After some posturing and barb throwing, Melgren tells them that the venin will overrun Navarre at Samara. Melgren’s signet allows him to see battle outcomes, the venin will come on the solstice and will be victorious. Samara is an outpost, if any outpost falls then the extension of the wards also fail, leaving much of the country unprotected. Melgren asks the resistance to fight with Navarre. Ulices, a council member, refuses, they no longer fly for Navarre. Navarre has allowed those outside of their borders to fight the venin alone for centuries. But General Sorrengail brings up the danger to the Empyrean and their hatching grounds. Melgren tells them that if they fight, King Tauri agrees to respect the independence of their riot and of Aretia. There will be no border war between Navarre and Aretia. If they don’t agree, then Aretia will be considered enemies of Navarre. Ulices still refuses, and Melgren asks point blank if Ulices can speak for them all or if they should ask Xaden instead. Ulices does not answer him. Instead, Brennan pushes forward, confronting Generals Melgren and Sorrengail in the same breath, saying that they “do not defend kingdoms who sacrifice neighboring civilians…let alone their own children so they can hide safely behind their wards.” Ouch. While they disperse, Mom Sorrengail, still in shock from seeing her son alive, tells her daughters to cut open the wyvern that died at their wards. Their father believed that Warrick wanted to protect the information about the wards, to horde it, but that Lyra thought it should be shared. She hands Lyra’s journal to Violet and tells her to protect her siblings. Lyra’s journal is in Morrainian, which Violet cannot read. This will be a task for Jesinia. Violet and Mira dissect the bodies of two wyvern. They find a chunk of rock with complex runes on the inside. These particular rocks are still humming, not dead like the rocks from the wyvern that Xaden killed and sent to the outposts when trying to free Violet from her interrogation. They have to figure out what went wrong when they raised the wards. Violet tries to convince the council to help Navarre, as does Xaden, but the council votes not to fly to their aid. Violet and Xaden finally have it out. There are no more secrets, no more ask me and I’ll tell you if I can. She demands full disclosure, and he agrees, having nothing left to hide anymore. His requirement is that Violet always come back to him. She has a habit of running and he wants to know she won’t run from him; they will always try to work their issues out together. That she knows she doesn’t NEED to run, because he would never purposefully hurt her. Violet agrees to this. Violet asks Xaden about his mother and is told that she left when Xaden was child. His parents’ marriage contract required an heir to live to be ten years old, once that happened, she left, and Xaden hasn’t heard from her since. He also tells Violet that his second signet manifested shortly after his shadows, but since his shadows seemed abnormally strong, he was able to convince everyone that he only had one, strong signet. They see in Battle Brief that the venin are preparing to fight Navarre: five hundred wyvern and dark wielders, all moving towards Samara. The class discusses what they would do in Melgren’s position and decide they would pull most of the daggers from the coastal outposts to bolster the wards at the border outposts so that the wards are less likely to fail. If they cross the wards, the wyvern die and the dark wielders can’t channel, so the riders and fliers would be able to kill them in hand-to-hand combat. They also believe that the hatching grounds would still be within the protected area of the wardstone, safe even if the outposts fall and the wards no longer stretch. Violet looks at the battle map and is told the venin have been gathering, waiting, for three days. Violet makes a connection and runs to find Xaden, the rest of her squad following her out of the class. She believes that Samara is just a distraction. The venin are waiting for ALL the wards to fall. Melgren is focusing on the battle he can see, when he should be focusing on the one he can’t - at Basgiath and the Vale. She argues that if Aretia doesn’t fly to Navarre, then the revolution is no better than those they’re revolting against. Xaden doesn’t take much convincing. He and Violet prepare to fly to Basgiath. They’re leaving the first-years and the fliers in Aretia, as they would have no magic past Navarre’s wards. Maren gives Violet a small crossbow with Maorsite arrows as a secondary weapon, the arrows explode on impact, so Violet is warned NOT to drop the quiver. The council will not waver on flying to Navarre, including Brennan, insisting that they are right about the hatching grounds not being in any danger. So, Xaden and Violet take whoever else is willing to go with them to Basgiath. Violet Asks Andarna to go to the Vale where she will be safest, but Andarna insists that she will be where she needs to be; not particularly reassuring but I trust her. General Sorrengail meets them when they land and insists that the wards are fine, but she agrees to take them to check wardstone anyway. Garrick’s dragon, Chradh, who is sensitive to runes, senses the same energy here that he sensed in Resson and is getting worried. The wardstone is kept guarded, but when they arrive, the guards are laying on the ground dead. The wardstone is huge, and on fire, so that’s a big difference between this stone and the one in Aretia. The other difference: there’s an Orange Scorpiontail in the room with this wardstone. Baide, with her rider Jack Barlowe. The group separates to surround Jack but when they can see Baide again, Jack is no longer sitting on top of her. Instead, he’s holding on to Baide’s neck and he stabs her in the neck with his sword. Baide’s blood sprays the wardstone, causing the flames go out and the stone cracks. Jack Barlowe has successfully lowered the wards, killing his own dragon to do so. Nolon comes in, pleading with Jack to stop. Nolon has been trying to mend Jack since May. Not of the injuries from when they thought he’d died, but trying to return him from turning venin, which is why Nolon has been so exhausted. Jack was somehow able to become venin inside of Navarre’s wards. Violet realizes that he’d already turned before he challenged her in their first year, at that time Jack had forced power into her, but she didn’t recognize the power at the time. Jack implies there is more venin than just him inside the wards, because the wards do not block all power, and venin can still channel from the ground enough to survive. Jack starts to pull energy from the stones around him (he’s just able to touch the wall) when Dain comes forward and grabs Jack, taking what he can from Jack’s memories. When Jack turns to Dain and starts to drain him instead, Xaden knocks Jack unconscious. Nolon gives Jack a serum that he’s used to “control” Jack all year. Dain tells them all that they have maybe ten hours before the venin are there, and not nearly enough people left in Basgiath, since most of them have been sent to Samara. They call a meeting of everyone still at Basgiath. Dain tells everyone assembled that Jack has planted lures all over Basgiath and on the path to the Vale, showing the venin exactly where to go. Dain knows where most of the lures are from Jack’s memories, but not all of them. They will need to find all the lures and destroy them. Devera gives instructions for the upcoming battle: they will be working with the squads they’ve trained with. The venin are able to mimic their fighting so switch it up when fighting hand-to-hand. First-years that have not manifested will be evacuated, healers are already preparing the infirmary, infantry are preparing themselves, and scribes are evacuating as many important texts as possible. Violet asks Andarna to make a run for Aretia, but Andarna refuses, repeating that she will be where she needs to be. Mira asks to be paired with their mother, since she can now shield without the wards and together, they could make an effective last stand if necessary. Xaden is placed with Violet’s squad. Leadership divides the area they are defending into sectors. Each squad is responsible for the airspace of their sector while the infantry covers the ground. DO NOT go into another sector. Kill venin if it is in your sector only, crossing into another sector would lead to confusion and mayhem. Violet insists they should not abandon the wardstone, but she is shot down. Everyone tries to get whatever sleep they can. Given the circumstances, I have to think they don’t get much. Not long before their time is up, Brennan shows up with all their second- and third-year fliers, as well as a large number of Aretia’s first-years. I guess he had a crisis of conscience. The fliers head out to hunt for the lures, since they’re faster on the ground and better with runes than riders. Violet asks Brennan to look at the wardstone to see if he can mend it. Jesinia has also arrived with Brennan, she wants to compare Warrick’s journal to Lyra’s to see if they can find any discrepancies and fix the wards. Violet’s squad requests to guard the airspace above the wardstone and it is granted. Now, they wait. Tairn can feel the venin coming. Andarna hides. Brennan is trying to mend the stone, his dragon guarding him as he works. The fliers are still hunting down the lures, but they abandon the rest and return to their squads when the venin arrive. The riders in Violet’s quadrant answer to Rhiannon, the fliers answer to Bragen. Rhiannon will retrieve and redistribute any daggers that fall with her signet. Do not focus on the wyvern, focus on the dark wielders. Just before the venin arrive, General Sorrengail calls the rain. A little gift to make life easier on Violet, to make her more effective. Before the fighting starts, Violet manages to take out several wyvern with her lightning. Her aim has gotten substantially better (thanks Felix) and she even manages to kill a dark wielder. Then, the real fight is upon them. They knew that they would be outnumbered, but they’ve severely underestimated the number of venin and this is only the first wave, there’s a second one coming. Violet’s squad fights well together, staying in pairs and using the strengths of their squad mates to their best advantage. The rain is coming down harder now, which makes it difficult for the gryphons to fly, so they stay closer to the ground and guard the courtyard, ferrying the wounded to the healers. The forces at Basgiath have held their own for long enough that Melgren and his dragon are only about ten minutes out, which means other reinforcements will be coming shortly afterward. But they still have the second wave of venin, not to mention this wave is nowhere near defeated. Sawyer loses a leg to a wyvern; it’s bitten off below the knee. Violet manages to get to Sawyer and Tairn drops them both off on the ground, where Sawyer can get to a healer quickly since he’s losing a lot of blood. Sgaeyl needs help and Tairn flies off to help her while Violet is with Sawyer. The fliers take Sawyer to the infirmary, which leaves Violet is left alone on the ground, when she is alerted to a dark wielder behind her. Cat isn’t that far away and notices what’s happening, she runs back to Violet to fight with her. Shout out for that character growth! The wielder says she is under orders not to kill Violet, the sage (whoever that is) wants her alive. Violet lets the wielder talk; Cat is heightening her emotions so she’s very chatty. Then a second wielder shows up, throwing Cat away from Violet with his power and silencing the first wielder. Since she’s not going to get any more information out of the first wielder, Violet strikes her with lightning, killing her. But the new wielder is stronger than the first and suspends Violet in the air with his power, suffocating her. He makes it sound like the dark wielders have been trying to find Violet, to bring her to the Sage before the second wave is unleashed. But then, behind him, the cliff comes alive and breathes fire on him before biting his head off. It’s Andarna! She can really hide, and now she can breathe fire! When Tairn, Sgaeyl, and Xaden arrive, Violet is told that she and Xaden have been ordered by Melgren to defend the Vale. Instead, they go to speak to Melgren and to Violet’s mother. Brennan has managed to mend the wardstone, and even though he doesn’t seem hopeful it can be restored, Violet is. Going to the Vale would leave the wardstone susceptible again. On their way to find Melgren, Jesinia stops Violet. She found the difference between the journals. Lyra doesn’t say six, she says seven. The breath of life of the SEVEN combined. There are seven circles on the wardstones. Seven runes. But there are only six dens of dragons: orange, red, blue, green, brown, and black. What is the seventh? Xaden and Melgren are fighting about where to go and what to do next. Melgren is willing to send Xaden and Violet to the Vale with the dragons currently defending it and sacrifice Basgiath, the wardstone, and everyone who would still be fighting there. Xaden is not okay with this plan. And now, Violet believes she can raise the wards again with the wardstone mended. Tairn lets Violet know that the venin leader has arrived. Xaden refuses to send his troops to follow Melgren. Xaden says the venin won’t attack with the second wave yet anyway. They are waiting for him. Violet has been having nightmares, the Sage (she assumes) using her dreams to talk to her, to taunt her. It looks like she’s not the only one the Sage has been haunting, he also wants Xaden. Violet asks Xaden, do they choose to raise the wards here or the ones at Aretia. She can only do one. Xaden says to ward Basgiath, they won’t be able to ward Aretia if they all die anyway. Violet turns to Codagh, Melgren’s dragon. She tells him that she’s figured it out, something that he knew but he kept from Melgren. She asks Codagh to help power the wardstone. She needs a black dragon, and she has already used Tairn. Codagh agrees. Xaden leaves Violet to raise the wardstone, going with Sgaeyl to continue fighting. Violet asks Tairn to join Xaden and Sgaeyl, to help keep Xaden alive. While Violet works on the wardstone, General Sorrengail stops the storms so that the fliers can fight, too. Violet won’t be on the field to utilize the storm anyway. Violet runs to the wardstone. The first-years from Aretia are all standing guard. Brennan is barely standing, he almost burned out mending the stone. There’s one big problem to solve before they can raise the wards, IF they can raise the wards. It took weeks for them to imbue the wardstone at Aretia, and that stone was smaller than this one. They put a call out for every rider that can get there quickly to come and help them imbue the stone. Violet talks to Andarna. She tells Andarna that she should have known but she thought maybe the shimmer was just an adolescent thing. After all, Tairn didn’t seem to know about her. Andarna is different. It’s why she doesn’t feel like the other adolescents, why she was allowed to bond so young, why she keeps saying she will be the head of her own den. She’s not a black dragon at all. She’s just trying to be like Tairn, who she idolizes. He’s strong, and loyal, and fierce. But she’s not a black dragon, and only she and the elders know that. She waited over six hundred years to hatch, waited until a rider came through that was as unique as she is. With the mind of a scribe but the heart of a rider. Andarna is a seventh breed of dragon, and her egg was left behind in case the wards ever fell. General Sorrengail enters the chamber and sees Aaric (the prince) and offhandedly mentions that his father has been looking for him. Tairn shows Violet that Xaden is still fighting, he’s fighting the Sage. But the Sage is gaining ground. Violet sees that there are more breeds of wyvern than they thought, now one breed is breathing red fire. Violet is trying to imbue the stone and is close to burning out, but she’s willing to sacrifice herself to do it. She asks her dragons to choose to live without her, believing that she is about to die. Her mom and Brennan realize what she is doing and try to stop her, but Violet is too hot, and they can’t physically touch her to break her contact with the stone. Her dragons beg Violet to let go, Tairn saying that he will die with her. He chose her to be his last rider. Violet is kicked away from the stone, breaking her contact. Violet’s mom commands Sloane to siphon her power into the stone. Sloane refuses to do it at first, it is not until Violet realizes that Xaden will die soon that Sloane finally agrees. It’s heartbreaking, but Violet’s mother gives her life to imbue the wardstone, dying just before Mira makes it into the chamber. Everyone in the chamber is evacuated as the seven different dragons fire the wardstone and the wards are successfully raised. The wyvern fall from the sky as soon as the wards are raised and the venin run, are now being tracked down and killed by leadership. Xaden is still alive. Everyone in Violet’s squad is alive, miraculously, although Sawyer is down a leg. Violet runs out to where Tairn and Xaden are, telling Andarna to catch up with Tairn and tell him everything. She walks towards Xaden but is blocked by Sgaeyl, who tells Violet to be careful. Xaden tells Violet that he killed the Sage. The Sage’s body fell into the ravine and Xaden can’t stop watching it, almost like he’s waiting for the Sage to rise back up. The Aretia leadership decides to bring their forces back into Navarre, Melgren has asked them to return since Aretia’s wards are already weakening and Navarre’s will stay strong. Xaden says it’s safer for Violet at Basgiath anyway, that she won’t be as scared. When he looks at her, she sees that his eyes are ringed with red. Xaden has been made venin. The Sage wore him down, Xaden was near burnout when he felt that Violet was going to sacrifice herself. He pulled as much of Sgaeyl’s power as he could, holding the Sage with shadows around his neck, but he had nothing left until he pulled power from the ground itself. Ironic really, becoming venin to destroy the venin leader. Xaden and Violet don’t tell anyone what has happened with Xaden, but Sgaeyl has been quiet in Xaden’s head ever since the end of the battle. She knows the truth, even if no one else does. A few days later, Xaden goes to see Jack Barlowe in his holding cell, being dosed with the serum to keep him in check. Xaden wants to know what the cure is, how do you reverse becoming a venin. Jack says there is no cure, you only start to hunger for more power.
