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Summary
Chapters 13-17
Chapter 13
Threshing Day arrives. Professor Kaori instructs the cadets to spread out in the valley below the War College, where dragons will soon fly to select potential riders. As Violet scouts from a tree, she notices the small golden feathertail dragon and overhears Jack, Tynan, and Oren planning to kill it. They see it as a weak link. A horrified Violet tries to warn the little dragon, but she hurts her leg as jumps down from the tree. When Jack and the others converge on her furiously, Xaden steps in with his dragon, Sgaeyl, backing her up.
Chapter 14
Jack disregards Xaden’s warning and attacks Violet. She fends them off, injuring her opponents and forcing Jack to retreat. With Xaden’s help in the fight, she knocks Oren unconscious, but as Tynan attempts another attack, the colossal black dragon Tairn arrives with the golden feathertail under his wing. Tairn incinerates Tynan. The black dragon startles Violet by suddenly speaking to her telepathically, urging her to kill Oren, though she refuses point blank. The dragon tells her to get on his back, and Violent can’t quite believe her ears. When she can’t get on because of her injuries the dragon offers her his leg to mount, indicating beyond doubt that he has chosen to bond with her. Violet scrambles onto his back and they take off. The black dragon introduces himself as Tairneanach, but tells Violet to call him Tairn. As they fly together, Violet slips and falls, but Tairn catches her midair.
Chapter 15
During their flight Violet almost falls from Tairn’s back several times, but he grumblingly prevents her from tumbling to her death, telling her that she will have to work on strengthening her legs in order to stay mounted. Violet probes him about why he chose to bond with her, and Tairn explains his choice. Saving the golden feathertail Andarna proved to him that Violet was fierce and courageous as well as intelligent, and these are the qualities he admires in humans. He’s far less interested in pure muscle or brutality. As they speak, Violet realizes that Tairn must be reading her thoughts, which gives her mixed feelings of claustrophobia and comfort. When they return to the earth, the golden feathertail shyly approaches and requests to be allowed to bond to Violet as well. This is unheard of, but Violet warily accepts. She tells the roll-keeper the names of the two dragons who have chosen her, and the gathering explodes in uproar.
Chapter 16
Violet’s dual bond stirs controversy among the generals, who shout themselves hoarse disagreeing about what to do. Jack Barlowe, who has bonded with an orange dragon named Baide, confronts Violet but is startled by the news she has Tairn’s protection. The council of dragons that lead the clan, known as the Empyrean, also gathers to discuss Violet’s bonds. Tairn advises her to stay near Xaden while this happens so he can protect her. Violet learns that Rhiannon has bonded with a green daggertail named Feirge. Dain tells Violet she should choose Andarna for safety, but Violet continues to be frustrated with him underestimating her. She learns that Tairn and Sgaeyl are a mated pair, meaning she and Xaden are now psychically linked, and that if he kills her, both their dragons will die. Dain and Xaden argue about how Xaden helped her during Threshing. Violet feels disappointed, realizing that Dain is far more concerned with being seen to obey Basgiath’s rules than with her well-being. The dragons return and the Empyrean breaks, having decided to approve Violet’s dual bond with Tairn and Andarna. The dragons mark the cadets permanently with relics, sealing their bonds. Dain kisses Violet in celebration, but it only makes her realize she’s no longer interested in him.
Chapter 17
Now that Violet is an official rider she no longer has to sleep in a dormitory. In her private room, she reflects on Dain’s kiss, and later tells Rhiannon that it didn’t feel as good as she’d hoped. At breakfast the next day Imogen offers to help Violet train, an offer that Violet realizes was likely ordered by Xaden, due to Tairn being mated to Sgaeyl. Later, Tairn continues to try teaching Violet to fly; Andarna is not big enough to carry her yet. Violet repeatedly falls from Tairn’s back, but he catches her (narrowly) every time. Later that evening she has a conversation with Dain at the sparring arenas where he tells her archly that they can’t date, as he’s her military superior. Violet is, again, disgusted at his attitude and his unwillingness to bend the rules.
Analysis
In this section, Violet’s rapid growth as a person in charge of her own destiny takes center stage. Her choices reveal her growing independence and her determination to shape her own future, even as external pressures come together to try to push her off the metaphorical parapet.
The stakes of Threshing Day rise dramatically as Violet risks her own safety to protect the golden feathertail dragon, Andarna, from Jack, Tynan, and Oren. Unlike many of the other cadets, who are only interested in dragons for power and status, Violet's actions demonstrate a different set of values and motives. Even though she believes that Andarna won’t be the dragon she bonds with, she risks her life to do what she considers right with barely a second thought. Her refusal to kill Oren also reflects her unwillingness to compromise her values for the sake of revenge or satisfaction. These decisions speak to her sense of integrity and reveal her unwillingness to conform to the brutality that Basgiath encourages. Violet refuses to let fear or her physical limitations prevent her from taking action. Even though there’s no telling how this situation would have resolved if Xaden and Tairn hadn’t arrived, one of its effects was to demonstrate to Tairn that Violet is a moral-minded, brave person. Instead of running from her circumstances, she takes decisive steps that force others around her to adapt.
Violet is as astonished as everyone else when Tairn offers to bond with her; he’s so ancient and powerful that she hadn’t even considered he would be interested. This is doubly true because of the baggage Tairn is well-known to carry. When Tairn’s name came up in classes at Basgiath, his former rider Naolin was also almost always mentioned. Tairn and Naolin had shared such a deep bond that people thought Tairn would never bond with a human again. Bonding with any dragon would be a lifelong contract for Violet, as riders always die if their dragon dies. However, it’s implied that bonding with Violet is also a risky choice for the black dragon, as he cannot survive the loss of another rider.
Tairn also proves that he’s willing to bend his own rigid codes of conduct and sense of pride to accommodate Violet. By offering her his leg as a ramp to mount him instead of making her climb his side, Tairn signals that he’s able to make concessions when decency dictates they’re the right thing to do. Violet is surprised by Tairn’s help, and it immediately makes her feel more comfortable with Tairn. In the first moments of what will be a lifelong relationship, this show of kindness is very important. The bond between Tairn and Violet affects Violet’s reputation at Basgiath in both positive and negative ways. Rather than being the runt of the litter, Violet now possesses an advantage that many other cadets do not. Climbing onto Tairn’s back before they take off into the sky is a moment of literal and symbolic elevation for Violet. With Tairn, she rises above the other cadets both in terms of physical position and in terms of her status as a rider.
The surprise of Tairn’s offer to bond with Violet is followed by another shocking development: Andarna the feathertail also asks to bond. Once again, Violet chooses to take a step that pushes her beyond the boundaries of predictable action. In many ways Violet’s refusal to fit the mold is a herald of change for all the uproar that’s coming for Navarre and the riders.
The reactions to Violet’s dual bond also illustrate the tension between tradition and change. Violet’s situation poses a challenge to the rigid structures that govern the riders, whose existence is based on a strict military power-based pecking order. Bonding with Tairn would have been enough to make Violet a target, but the fact that two dragons choose her when some cadets are not chosen at all adds insult to injury. Professor Kaori’s clarification that it’s the dragon’s choice—not the human’s—that determines who bonds with whom reminds Violet’s teachers and leaders of the limits of their authority within this system. Violet’s disappointment with Dain and her willingness to distance herself from her old life advances significantly in this section of the novel. As her teachers debate, Violet worries that she will have to choose between the dragons who have chosen her. Dain’s insistence that she choose Andarna if it comes to it—the dragon he considers the safer option—reflects how little he understands the person Violet is becoming. He continues to underestimate her under the guise of keeping her safe, which ironically pushes her even further from him.
