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Summary: Chapters 32–36
Chapter 32
Xaden visits, and Violet tells him she told her friends (and that Imogen told her best friend Quinn) everything about the resistance, except for key details involving Brennan, Aretia, and the search for a luminary. Xaden is displeased at first, but he trusts Violet and reluctantly agrees that they can help. Violet and her friends pitch the plan to Aaric; he agrees because he hates his father, but there is a certain amount of lingering tension between him and Xaden because Xaden killed Aaric’s brother. Jesinia takes Violet, Xaden, Aaric, and Imogen down to the vaults and explains that they have forty-five minutes to find the journals before the doors seal them in.
Chapter 33
Xaden uses his shadows to knock out the guards at the end of the hallway. Aaric takes Violet with him through the wards that surround the royal vault, partially so there can be a second pair of eyes looking for the journals and partially to anger Xaden because Xaden cannot get to Violet. The group is running out of time, when at last Violet finds the two journals. Aaric reaches for them but rears back in pain when his hands are burned by the wards protecting the journals. Violet grabs the journals by wrapping them in fabric, and the group runs out of the vault just as the doors are about to close.
Chapter 34
Ridoc takes Aaric to his room, and Rhiannon rushes to find a healer who can fix his hands before anybody notices. The rest of the group meets up with Quinn, who has been using her signet to project images of Violet and Rhiannon walking around the grounds to ward off suspicion. The group then splits off to solidify their alibis. Violet and Xaden go to the courtyard; Violet skims through a piece of Warwick's journal, translating quickly, and reads that the First Six placed a wardstone where the dragons could feel the deepest currents of magic. Warrick then cryptically writes that the protections then fell into place at the “birth of an iron rain.” Violet tells Xaden to take the journal to Brennan so that he can translate it, and says that she will keep Lyra’s and attempt to do the same. Her plan makes sense—one journal will be safe even if the other is compromised. After Xaden leaves, Violet runs into the healer Nolon who offers her some lemonade, and Violet realizes too late that it is laced with the elixir that deadens her abilities and connection to her dragons. Varrish arrives just as Violet passes out.
Chapter 35
Violet wakes up in the brig and has been fed the serum that cuts her off from her dragons and her signet. Varrish, with the help of Nolon and a woman named Nora who can sense when someone is lying, questions Violet about why she stole Lyra’s journal, which they found in her bag after she lost consciousness. Violet refuses to answer and carefully picks her words so that she never tells a lie. Varrish orders Nora to check the hands of every cadet, presumably to see who has burn marks. Violet still refuses to give in and finds some solace in knowing that Xaden left with Warrick’s journal, so there’s a chance Aretia will be able to raise their wards anyway. Incensed, Varrish continues to torture Violet.
An undetermined amount of time passes. Violet is being repeatedly tortured and mended, but she still refuses to answer any of their questions. Through the pain, Violet hallucinates that she is talking to her friend Liam who died at the end of Fourth Wing. Liam encourages Violet and gives her the strength to keep fighting. Varrish is angered to learn that no cadet has burnt hands (likely because Rhiannon was able to find a healer for Aaric before the search began), and he continues to press Violet for answers, coming dangerously close to the truth when he asks Violet what she is attempting to ward. Varrish then tells Violet that his signet allows him to see people’s weaknesses, and that Violet’s weakness is her loyalty to her loved ones—Xaden in particular. Violet soon realizes that she is actually bait, that Varrish is torturing her until Xaden arrives to save her; since Xaden would have to abandon his post to fly to Basgiath, Varrish would then have cause to interrogate Xaden. Violet, on the other hand, is not convinced that Xaden would put the revolution at risk to save her.
Read more about Liam's death in Fourth Wing.
Finally, Varrish brings in Dain and orders him to search Violet’s memories. In a last-ditch effort, Violet shows Dain everything: the fight at Resson, the existence of venin and wyvern, Liam’s death, the torture that Varrish has been inflicting upon her for the last several days, and the fact that the Navarre government has been lying to its citizens for hundreds of years. Dain requests the dagger so that he can observe what Xaden and the rest have been smuggling, to see if it matches what he saw in Violet’s memories. He moves like he is going to use it to kill Violet, and Violet realizes that she should have told Xaden she loves him. Instead, however, Dain turns and stabs Varrish, freeing Violent from her restraints. Nora tries to stop them from leaving, but Xaden appears and slits her throat.
Chapter 36
Xaden moves to kill Dain as well, but Violet tells him to stop; he saved her life, after all. Xaden rushes to Violet and is visibly distraught when he sees her injuries. Dain goes to kill Varrish but Xaden stops him. The honor, he explains, belongs to Violet, and he helps her stab Varrish in the heart as Violet is too weak to deal the killing blow. Xaden tells everyone to give them a few minutes alone and he holds Violet in his arms. Violet promises him that she didn’t break, didn’t reveal any secrets, and Xaden says that he wouldn’t care if she had—all he cares about is that she is alive. He says they need to leave, and Violet apologizes for compromising Aretia and the rebellion. Xaden says that he would rather watch Aretia burn to the ground than lose Violet, and he tells her that he loves her. Violet reciprocates.
Read more about Xaden's declaration of love.
The two make their way upstairs and run right into Violet’s mom, who gives her the antidote to the serum. Violet learns that Xaden and his supporters have been causing havoc by dropping dead wyvern near towns to spread awareness. Xaden reluctantly allows Violet and her mom a chance to talk in private, and Violet learns that her mother has been working with Xaden. She gave the marked ones a chance to survive at Basgiath in exchange for Xaden protecting Violet during her first year. Violet guesses that this explains why Xaden did not kill her after she was caught spying on him and the marked ones while hiding in a tree the previous year. Violet’s mom also admits to giving Xaden the 107 scars on his back, representing the 107 marked ones that he took responsibility for. Violet is angry that her mom kept those secrets, as well as the existence of venin, from her, and she does not tell her mom about Brennan.
Violet is about to leave with Xaden and the rest of the marked ones, but she suggests before they go they tell all the students what is happening, to let them decide if they would like to join them or not. As wingleader, Dain attempts to do so but many of the students don’t believe him. Violet asks Tairn to share memories from Resson with everyone, and afterwards many, now convinced, agree to join. Violet, Xaden, over 200 dragons, and about 100 riders (nearly half of the quadrant) land in Aretia, and Violet jokes that she has brought Brennan some riders before losing consciousness.
