payment page
Summary
Chapters 18-21
Chapter 18
Violet visits the Archives and runs into her Scribe friend Jesinia, who is working behind the desk. Violet requests books for her studies and a folklore collection called Fables of the Barrens, the same book she was forced to leave behind before the Parapet trial. It was a childhood favorite of hers, one she used to read with her father, and it contains frightening legends of venin and wyvern. Venin are magic users who became evil through channeling magic without a dragon or a gryphon, and wyvern are their grim, human-eating two-legged steeds. The cadets had briefly discussed them in an effort to appear calm and collected during the Presentation day visit to the dragons. They had all dismissed them as childhood bugbears, stories their parents told them to keep them from misbehaving. Violet wants a copy of the book to remember her father by, as he made her excited about the magic and mystery of these creatures and of the Barrens, the desolate land east of Navarre’s neighboring country and wartime enemy Poromiel.
Jesinia expresses her worries about increased attacks along Navarre’s borders and about Violet’s safety. Violet’s old teacher Professor Markham and some new Scribe cadets join them, and he bemoans Violet having left the Scribes to be a rider. When she returns to the Riders Quadrant at midday, Violet learns that Sawyer, one of the first-year cadets, has manifested a signet power: he can manipulate metal. Later, Tairn continues trying to teach Violet to stay on his back. She’s improving but is far from safe yet. That evening, Dain criticizes Violet for not telling him about her struggles in flight lessons. She loses her temper and yells at him, declaring they’ll only ever be friends because he prioritizes rules over trust and doesn’t believe in her. In the shocking scene that follows, a cadet discovers that his signet is mind-reading, a forbidden power called being an “inntinnsic.” He’s publicly executed by Professor Carr in front of the other cadets. That night, seven cadets who failed to bond with dragons attack and try to kill Violet. Andarna freezes time to save her, allowing Violet to survive.
Chapter 19
While Andarna struggles to maintain her time-freezing power, Xaden bursts into Violet’s room. The bond he and Sgaeyl share with Violet and Tairn has alerted him to the danger, and he’s furious and ready to protect her. He uses shadows to restrain her assailants, murdering Oren on the spot by cutting his throat. Garrick and Bohdi, trailing Xaden as usual, remove the bodies. Examining Violet’s injuries, Xaden takes her to a secure location outside Basgiath to speak with their dragons. Xaden asks Tairn why he can telepathically speak with him but not Andarna. Andarna explains through Violet that because she’s so young, she unintentionally shared her time-freezing ability with Violet. They also explain that all dragons start their lives as feathertails. They agree to keep this fact and Andarna’s ability a secret, because Andarna and Tairn explain that her life might be endangered if this secret about dragons got out.
Chapter 20
The following day, Captain Fitzgibbon reads the death roll aloud. After the dramatic events in Violet’s room, Xaden decides he isn’t taking any more chances with Violet’s safety. He asks a cadet named Liam Mairi to act as Violet’s bodyguard, despite her protests that it isn’t necessary. Xaden then addresses the school, revealing the attack on Violet and implicating Wingleader Amber Mavis, who fled before he arrived. Violet begs Tairn to use his telepathic abilities to share her memory of the ringleader Amber and the others running from her room after the attack. Tairn is reluctant, as memories are usually only shared within a mating bond, but he eventually agrees. Tairn then shares Violet’s memory of Amber’s escape with the Wingleaders, who are persuaded and unanimously sentence Amber to death by burning. Amber begs for her life and pitifully calls out for her dragon, Claidh. Violet, realizing Amber is about to be publicly burned to death, begs Tairn to be merciful but he tells her that justice must be done. Tairn carries out the execution, incinerating Amber.
Chapter 21
Liam continues to shadow Violet closely despite her constant complaints. She learns that he is the son of the dead rebel Colonel Mairi. He and Xaden, both children of executed Rebellion leaders, were forced into conscription and raised together at the same estate. He explains to Violet how the Crown took all of their possessions and houses and gave them to families loyal to Navarre, leaving him and Xaden with nothing. He also refers to his and Xaden’s marks as “Rebellion relics.” Later, in the Archives, Jesinia provides Violet with the volumes she asks for, and casually includes a scroll for Professor Markham. When it jolts off the cart as they walk, Violet sees that it details a recent, serious attack by gryphons on a mountain town called Sumerton. As she walks to class with Rhiannon, Violet thinks about the worrying fact that neither she nor many other first-year riders have channeled their dragon’s powers yet, and wonders whether people know about the Sumerton attack. During class, Professors Markham and Devera announce some exciting news. Instead of normal classes, the winners of the upcoming Squad Battle will shadow an active wing on the front lines. The class then turns to examining a battle that happened six hundred years ago. Violet wonders if she might have failed to notice that the scroll Jesina gave her to bring Markham was classified, as the professors seem to be pretending that no conflicts have happened recently.
Analysis
Repeatedly falling from Tairn’s back, as Violet does in this section and many to follow, is a microcosm of how she behaves in almost every situation. She’s not yet strong enough to hold onto Tairn as he maneuvers through the air, but she’s willing to risk her life to try. Although the dragon offers to hold her on with magic, she mostly refuses, knowing it will make it difficult for him to concentrate and to channel his power. Violet is determined to prove she can do anything the other cadets can; she hasn’t pushed herself this far to start taking shortcuts now. She also knows that she will shame Tairn if she continues to tumble from his back.
Despite all of the glamor and excitement of Violet’s new life as the only rider to ever bond with two dragons, Violet still has moments of intense nostalgia and longing for her old life as a trainee Scribe. This is mingled with her excitement and happiness about her bond with Tairn and Andarna. When she and Liam go to the Archives, the enormous library and repository of knowledge where the Scribes of Basgiath live and work, she immediately feels more at home than she has in a long while. When her Scribe friend Jesinia asks her how life as a rider is, Violet has to think hard before she tells Jesinia she’s happy. She still feels like she’s somehow betrayed herself by becoming a rider, though she also loves her new life and is beginning to grow into the role.
Violet's relationship with Dain continues to grow strained in these chapters. In a heated argument, Dain snaps at Violet for not confiding in him, revealing the depths of his doubts regarding her capabilities as a rider. This confrontation brings to light Dain’s inability to see Violet for who she truly is—someone who’s capable of taking care of herself., overcome obstacles, and take risks to succeed. This is a hard moment for Violet to process, but ultimately, it’s also an important event in her narrative of growth. After this fight, Violet tells Dain that they will only ever be friends. She recognizes that Dain, despite his good intentions, limits her growth rather than empowering her.
This is by no means the only dispute that Violet gets into in this part of the novel. When a group of cadets break into Violet’s room and attack her, it’s only Andarna’s time-freezing powers and Xaden’s quick intervention that save her from dying. With the knowledge that Xaden’s life now depends on her own survival—not to mention Tairn’s, Andarna’s, and Sgaeyl’s—Violet had started to feel a little less constantly terrified. The brutal confrontation reminds her of the constant threat that exists within the Riders Quadrant, where rivalries and jealousy can quickly turn deadly. When Xaden calls for the death of Amber, the ringleader of the group, Violet begs for her to be forgiven. Tairn reminds her that justice and mercy aren’t always linked, and promptly incinerates Amber. Both Violet’s friends and her enemies are tainted with death in this part of the novel. Amber’s death is also the second public execution Violet is forced to watch, after the inntinnsic cadet Jeremiah gets his neck snapped by Professor Carr in Chapter 18.
At this point in the novel, the intensity of Violet and Xaden’s relationship is undeniable. Because their dragons are mated, the two humans are linked forever, but the liquid heat of attraction Violet feels for Xaden is becoming impossible to ignore. It’s made even more intense by the fact that she is also beginning to admire him, as she says when he stands on the stage to defend her and accuse Amber of attempting to kill her. Violet knows she’s in trouble by Chapter 20, when she realizes she hasn’t slept with anyone else at Basgiath because she only wants him.
