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Summary
Chapters 34-36
Chapter 34
Violet and Xaden’s team fly all day to the remote outpost of Aethebyne, crossing beyond the protective wards into wilder unwarded lands where magic disrupts communication. At the outpost, they find a cryptic note from Professor Carr explaining that this is part of their War Game trials, and to “survive if they can.” Because there are no wards, it’s harder to control magic, which makes communication with dragons more complicated. After they land, Violet and Xaden walk away from the group to seek some privacy. They kiss, and Xaden tells Violet that she’s his, and he is hers. She’s just about to respond when Xaden tells her to be quiet, and then panics when gryphon riders approach. Liam restrains Violet as Xaden speaks with the gryphon riders, telling Violet to trust him. She’s horrified when she realizes that Xaden and the gryphon riders seem to be allies.
Chapter 35
Violet learns a lot of shocking things all at once. Xaden and the other marked cadets have been supplying weapons to gryphon riders to combat the venin. Venin are creatures who wield deadly magic without bonding to a dragon; they are cruel and vicious and very hard to kill. Violet feels doubly betrayed because Tairn and Andarna were aware of Xaden’s secret alliance due to Tairn’s bond with Sgaeyl. Xaden explains that Basgiath’s leaders have known about the venin the entire time, but have been ignoring the threat they pose and blaming the gryphon fliers in order to maintain control. Seeing this, he took matters into his own hands. He chose to betray Navarre’s laws and the military he works for in order to help gryphon fliers protect their land and homes from the venin, at great personal risk to himself and the other marked children.
Xaden’s sacrifice here is twofold: he risks his own safety by breaking Navarre’s laws and sacrifices his Violet's trust by hiding these actions from her. Though hurt by the secrecy and shocked to learn that venin—the stuff of her childhood myths—are real, Violet agrees to continue to Athebyne with Xaden. However, when they get back to the empty outpost, they realize that this isn’t a War Game after all. Dain has read Violet’s memories without her consent, and has betrayed them. They have been sent to Aethebyne to die.
Chapter 36
Given the terrible choice to either abandon the outpost or defend it against venin attacks, Violet and the team decide to fight alongside the gryphon riders. They know the risks but can’t see a better way forward. knowing the risks. During the battle, they encounter a large group of venin flying on terrifying beasts called wyverns, mythical creatures designed to rival dragons. Violet strikes down several wyverns with lightning, but the venin prove difficult to kill and are unhurt by dragonfire. The venin begin to kill cadets: Liam bravely takes down a venin rider but loses his dragon, Deigh, in the process. This is a death sentence, as riders die when their dragons do. Liam dies in Violet’s arms, asking her to look after his sister. Overwhelmed by the advancing wyverns, Violet unleashes her lightning, killing one more wyvern before another crashes into Tairn.
Analysis
As the end of the novel grows closer, the theme of sacrifice reasserts itself as the plot's central axis. In contrast to the heated sexual energy of the chapters that came before, this section is tinged with shock and violence. Chapters 34-36 are heavily weighted with the physical, emotional, and ethical costs that Violet, Xaden, and their allies must bear when the secret political machinations of the Navarre-Poromiel-rebel conflict begin to reveal themselves.
The issues with communication that riders and dragons experience when beyond the Navarrian wards are a symbolic reflection of the communication difficulties Xaden and Violet face here. In Navarre, Violet and Xaden are almost too connected, able to speak to each other psychically and to their dragons with almost no effort. Beyond the magical wards, when they cross into wilder lands where the magic becomes less predictable and communication falters, they move further away from the relative openness and truthfulness of life at Basgiath. This transition into the unknown requires a sacrifice of safety. Violet believes she’s safe with Xaden, but is horrified when they are interrupted in their first moment of alone time by a group of Poromian gryphon fliers whom she’s been raised to view as enemies. It's made worse by the fact that Xaden has been keeping his work with the fliers from her, as at first glance it confirms all of her worst suspicions that Riorson men are traitors to Navarre.
While Violet knows her mother is a cold, calculating woman, she also believes in the cause of protecting Navarre. She lost her beloved brother Brennan to the cause, and in this moment feels that Xaden has betrayed everything she trusted him with by working with the enemy. She’s immediately cast into doubt and fear, questioning everything she’d previously been certain about.
When Violet discovers that Xaden has been secretly supplying weapons to the gryphon riders to fight the venin attacking the borders of Poromiel, she’s shocked and disbelieving for many reasons. Although it explains the secrecy with which her professors treated the communications about attacks on border outposts, she still struggles to believe that Navarre is deliberately hiding venin attacks from its citizens. She’s been taught to believe the gryphon fliers attack Navarrian outposts as acts of aggression against Navarre, when Xaden reveals that they’re actually trying to steal the magical metals that Navarre uses to maintain their border wards. This material makes the only blades that can kill venin, and Poromiel is being overrun by these monsters from the Barrens to the east. This revelation forces Violet to confront the ethical sacrifices Xaden has made, and to consider whether what he did was actually a betrayal in the way she first believes.
Violet also feels betrayed because, due to their psychic link, Tairn and Andarna knew about Xaden’s betrayal and decided not to say anything. The dragons support Xaden's cause because it aligns with the broader need to counter the venin threat. Violet feels left out and hurt, as if she doesn’t understand the boundaries of her relationships with any of her most important companions. She’s also completely confused and disillusioned about the ethical and moral choices her mother and the other Navarrian leaders have been making. This is made much worse when she and Xaden realize that they have been betrayed; Dain has compromised her memories, stealing them when he touched her face. He told the leaders of Basgiath about what Xaden and Violet were doing, revealing their mission, and now those same leaders have sent them here to die. This realization compounds Violet’s feelings that she’s totally lost all privacy and autonomy: even her own mind has been used against her.
