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Summary
Chapters 30-33
Chapter 30
Violet and Xaden finally give in to their feelings. Although he’s initially hesitant, Violet is sure that sex with him is what she wants, and she pushes him to the brink of temptation before he gives in. The sensations are absolutely all-consuming. When Xaden gives Violet her first orgasm of the evening, it triggers her lightning powers, causing a storm outside Basgiath. They can’t have sex on the desk because Xaden is too tall, so he picks Violet up and props her against the armoire, and then the window. As she orgasms again her lightning powers set the curtains on fire. They finish on the floor, where Xaden loses control of his shadow powers. Afterward, when Violet can’t contain her curiosity about them, Xaden explains the scars on his back. There is one for each child affected by the Rebellion’s aftermath. He chose to take 107 cuts so that they would have the chance to redeem themselves as riders after the Rebellion. Violet begs him to stay the night, and he agrees after some more persuasion. The next morning, Violet goes out to train with Professor Carr and learn how to control her signet. She can’t aim correctly, but she can use memories of her night with Xaden to make the power well up inside her.
Chapter 31
As they clean up the mess in her room together, Violet and Xaden discover a cryptic note from her father in the book about folklore that Mira brought to Aethebyne for her. In the note, which is dated only a few months before his death, her father reminds her that folklore is meant to teach people about the past, and that it would only take one desperate generation to change the facts of history—or even erase them entirely. He writes that he knows she'll make the right choice when the time comes—but his meaning is completely unclear to Violet.
Violet presses Xaden to admit his feelings for her, although she knows he thinks it’s a bad idea. He refuses, though he obviously does have feelings for her, which results in Violet explicitly refusing further intimacy until he’s honest. Xaden agrees, but the two immediately begin taunting each other with explicit telepathic messages. On Reunification Day, the six-year death anniversary of her brother Brennan, Violet gives in and asks Xaden to take her to bed. He refuses to admit his feelings for her, and Violet begins to worry that he’s in love with Imogen. During the formal celebration in the evening, King Tauri of Navarre visits Basgiath. Lilith Sorrengail introduces him to her daughter, and he compliments Violet’s dual bond. Violet, frustrated by his attitude, leaves the party and goes to the Parapet to find Xaden.
Chapter 32
Violet realizes she’s in love with Xaden. She wobbles her way onto the parapet to find Xaden sitting there in the dark. Violet admits she’s ready to risk her heart for him, and that she knows he wants to be with her even if he refuses to admit it. She admits that she feels jealous of Imogen and Xaden reassures her there’s no one else but her. He tells her he has wanted her since he first saw her. Xaden takes her to his room and she admits that she is in love with him. They have another session of highly intense lightning-spiked sex, blowing out Xaden’s window. As they begin round five, Garrick interrupts, announcing an attack on Basgiath.
Chapter 33
Violet and Xaden scramble into their clothes and rush out, assuming Navarre’s wards are failing, but it’s only a simulated War Games drill. Commandant Panchek briefs them on a hypothetical multilevel gryphon attack, assigning Xaden to set up Fourth Wing’s base at Athebyne. Dain argues against Xaden taking Violet along, suspecting that he has ulterior motives. Violet asserts her trust in Xaden and demonstrates it by riding with him to Athebyne.
Analysis
Chapters 30-33 of Fourth Wing finally crack the sexual tension burning between Violet and Xaden, only to immediately pull back and have both of them reassert boundaries that stem from distrust and insecurity. While this is happening Violet is also repeatedly confronted with needing to rethink her preconceived notions about Navarre’s wartime opponent Poromiel, and the morality of what Navarre’s done to protect its borders.
In Chapter 30, Violet and Xaden finally surrender to their feelings for each other. There’s a very extended series of sex scenes, in which their psychic connection and their physical attraction make for a highly sensorially overwhelming combination. Because they are psychically linked, Violet and Xaden have an almost supernatural sense of what will feel good for the other person. Xaden’s initially reluctant to consummate their relationship, not because he doesn’t want to but rather because he’s worried that Violet is going to be hurt if they do, and because he knows that they are tied together for life as their dragons are mated. There’s also the remaining concern on Xaden’s part that some of their pull toward one another is due to their dragons’ mutual attraction, as it was when they first kissed. Violet is extremely single-minded about getting what she wants, and she crashes through Xaden’s reluctance until he admits to himself he can’t resist her.
Violet and Xaden aren’t people who do things by halves, and so it’s somewhat unsurprising that when they give up control sexually, their magic also breaks its restraints. As the heat builds, Violet's lightning and Xaden's shadows fill the room. Instead of the thick fog of tension that’s been between them up to this point, the space is suddenly full of chaotic, uncontrollable power. It's ironic that the first moment in the novel where Violet actually relinquishes all control is around the person whom she’d been told to always watch like a hawk. Everything about Xaden which Violet had been warned to distrust and fear has become more nuanced and less frightening in the time they have spent together. Even the relics of his marking—which visually designate him as an enemy of the Sorrengail family and everything they stand for—have become something that Violet finds beautiful and alluring. When she asks him about all the small white scars on his back, he explains that they were part of the bargain that allowed children of the Rebels to be allowed to live. Instead of being revolted by the scars’ appearance or what they represent, Violet is moved by his bravery.
The fact that the marks still show through the huge blue dragon relic on Xaden’s back metaphorically represents the tension between his identity as a Navarrian rider and his family’s role in the revolution. He’s devoted to Sgaeyl and to Violet, and to protecting the Fourth Wing as their leader. However, this part of his identity is literally interrupted by over a hundred scars, which serve as a visual reminder of all the violence and pressure that brought him to the state he’s currently in. When Violet and Xaden are naked together their bodies are raw data about the Navarrian seditionist uprising and how it was quelled. The aggression with which they have sex also reflects the violence of the conflicts between rebels and loyalists; both times they sleep together, their rooms are destroyed, windows smashed ,and possessions shattered. It’s a grim precursor of the collateral damage their relationship might cause.
When Xaden draws away from Violet, refusing to take their relationship beyond the walls of her room or to commit to her, she reacts by withdrawing the possibility of further sexual satisfaction. Their magical connection, however, can’t be severed. Violet is able to emotionally and physically torture Xaden, whom she knows is resisting what he really wants, by sending him distracting psychic images of what she’d like to do to him sexually. Deciding to pull away from Violet emotionally is another moment where a character in Fourth Wing deliberately tries to rebel against fate. Xaden feels that fate is trying to push him into acknowledging that he’s in love with Violet, but he resists it, knowing that it can only make their lives more difficult in future. Like a true Rebel, Xaden even opposes the forces of destiny and the physical needs of his own body when it comes to resisting the Sorrengail threat. Just as in the Rebellion, however, his resistance is eventually overcome by the relentless Sorrengail will.
When Violet tells him that she has fallen in love with him, she does so on the parapet which she had to cross to start her life as a rider. The setting could not be more dramatic: it’s a wind-and-rain lashed night, and Violet goes to find him in this incredibly dangerous place with no regard for her personal safety. Fittingly, their ‘reunion’ happens on Reunification Day, which is also the anniversary of her brother Brennan’s death. Instead of retreating from her feelings or trying to repress her vulnerabilities, Violet takes the daring step of crossing the parapet and revealing the depth of her true feelings before having sex with him again. This act shows her commitment to face risks head-on, both in love and in her role as a rider. This willingness to take emotional gambles contrasts sharply with to the caution she exercised earlier in the novel, as does her decision to ride with Xaden back to Aethbyne.
