Onyx Storm (Chapter 13 to Chapter 18)
STATS
Title: Onyx Storm
Series: The Empyrean (Book 3)
Author(s): Rebecca Yarros
Genre: Fantasy (Epic)
First Printing: January 2025
Publisher: Red Tower Books
Rating: 1.5 / 10
SPOILER WARNING
Heavy spoilers will be provided for the entirety of The Empyrean up through the end of the content covered in this part. Mild spoilers for elements later in Onyx Storm may be provided, but I will keep the first paragraph of each section as spoiler-free as possible. Heavy spoilers from later in Onyx Storm will be confined to clearly labelled sections.
STORY
Violet and her accessories banter about relationship drama as they head to the Archives. There they meet Jesinia, who simultaneously has been assigned to help Grady research the rainbow dragons and is denied Archives access as punishment for deserting to Aretia in the last book. She tells Violet that only Violet's father (hereafter referred to by his first name, Asher) had the research they need. Violet realizes that she needs to ask Dain to steal some hidden notebooks out of his father's (former her mother’s) quarters.
Violet attends a Battle Brief. Among the items covered at this meeting is Devera announcing an end to Basgiath’s death school elements and the starting of a class to train people to use their Signets in combat. The Battle Brief ends with the reveal that Xaden will be teaching this class and Violet realizing that the Codex now prohibits their relationship.
Violet attends a planning meeting for Grady's task force, which Xaden barges into and tries to flex his authority over. Nothing is accomplished. It's just an excuse for the self-insert Mary Sue to fume about how experience military personnel are incompetent for not doing this her way and for said self-insert Mary Sue to be sexually aroused by her man abusing his power to interfere in a meeting on her behalf.
The first Signet Sparring class arrives. When someone asks a valid question about Xaden’s capabilities as a teacher, Xaden humiltiates said student by thrashing him in front of the class, proving nothing about his competence as a teacher but allowing Yarros to show off how powerful her Bad Boy Love Interest is. He then repeats the process for everything but Violet, with whom he has a sexy fight.
During a weekend, Violet and her friends go out drinking at a local village. They banter about Signets and the gods. Dain then approaches Violet with the promise that he’ll steal her father’s research before the weekend is over.
Right on schedule, Dain delivers the research via Sloane. Violet is frustrated to discover that her father locked the research behind a trapped lock. We get another Signet Sparring class, with a filler fight to show off how awesome Violet and her squad are, followed by the introduction of Halden, Aaric’s brother and Violet’s first boyfriend. Halden provides Violet with the answer to unlocking the research as well as a fetch quest that will finally get the promised story of the book started. Xaden them strikes Halden out of jealousy.
Later, Violet unlocks the journal, praising herself for her own ingenuity before unlocking it. She discovers a message within from her father, giving cryptic instructions to go to the southern isles. Xaden comes by, demanding to know whether she ever loved Halden. Violet assures him that she only loves him. They aggressively make out in a scene rife with sexual tension before Violet tells him about her father’s message. Xaden resolves that they will go to the southern isles with or without the task force.
PLOT
Asher’s Research
This whole plot thread is immensely frustrating, and not just because of what it does to the pacing. Let’s go through the issues one at a time.
Why keep it secret?
The instant Violet and her accessories learn that the answers they need are hidden in General Aetos’s quarters, they immediately default to the idea that they need to steal it.
“Exactly,” [Jesinia] signs. “I can only think of one scribe who might have that answer.” She lifts her brows at me.
Oh. I blink, quickly processing the information, then swearing as I reach the inevitable, damning conclusion.
“Is it you?” Rhi asks me, simultaneously signing. “Oh no. Is it Markham?”
I shake my head. “My father. And all his research, the work he had yet to publish, is now really hard to access.” My shoulders dip. I’d been so focused on getting out of Mom’s quarters with her journals after she died that I’d completely forgotten what my father had left hidden.
“Hard to access like we need Aaric and a midnight mission?” Sawyer asks, and Ridoc translates.
“Hard to access like we need Dain to betray his father.” Which is highly unlikely.
But … why?
Why is this information hard to access? Why does anyone need to betray anyone else?
At this point, they are all on the same team, at least so far as the venin threat is concerned. It is an existential danger that is coming to annihilate them all. Everyone agrees that they need to find the rainbow dragons. General Aetos has no reason not to turn over this research to Grady. So why don’t they just tell Grady about it and let him get it? Why not ask Dain to ask General Aetos nicely, perhaps on the pretense that Grady wants it?
This, for the record, is how Violet explains herself when she asks Dain to steal the research for her.
“I’m more concerned that he might not give it to me,” I say slowly. “He mentioned last year that he wanted it, and I’m scared he’ll keep it for himself, or that he or Markham will redact the information.”
WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT? Neither Aetos nor Markham have been characterized as people who hoard information for the sake of hoarding information. Their efforts to redact and cover-up information was in the interest of serving a specific objective. Ever since the venin became public knowledge, thereby invalidating that objective, we’ve seen nothing but cooperation from them (such as how the scribes, who are under Markham’s control, distributed information on how to combat venin). What's more, their only established objective for this information would be finding the rainbow dragons, and they can’t cut Violet out of that because of Andarna. What reason, then, does Violet need to keep this information away from them?
Dain’s Contribution
As soon as the arbitrary decision to steal the research is made, Yarros pretends that getting Dain to help will be difficult.
“Hard to access like we need Dain to betray his father.” Which is highly unlikely.
“After disowning him in front of the quadrant, that shouldn’t be hard,” Rhiannon says, lifting her brows as she signs.
“And it’s not like Dain hasn’t already betrayed him,” Sawyer adds.
I shake my head. “He left Navarre, not his father, and believe me when I tell you there’s a difference.”
This could have made for an interesting conflict … if Yarros had explored the dynamic between Dain and his father at all. This is just coming out of nowhere. It's not a retcon per say, but it is new information that has not been demonstrated.
But, hey - this could still work if Yarros took time to explore this struggle. She could play catch-up in the scene where Violet asks Dain to steal the journals for them. We could see his angst, his anger, the feeling of betrayal as he realizes that Violet is leveraging their friendship (a friendship she has all but discarded) to force him to further damage his relationship with his father. We could see -
…
What do you mean, the only delay to him agreeing is Violet burying the lead and people interrupting them?
Well, maybe there’s reason to doubt his loyalty or his competence. Violet sure thinks so. When Dain tells her that he’ll have the research to her before the weekend is out, and insists that he do it alone, her reaction is:
Shit. All he’d have to do is hand that research over to his father and Dain would be back in his good graces. My only assurance that wouldn’t happen had been going with him. The history between us, both good and bad, thickens the air.
Maybe this will lead somewhere. Maybe he really well betray Violet. Maybe he’ll get caught. Maybe -
…
What? He just steals the research with no difficulty?
…
Well, now this whole thing feels even more pointless.
The Locked Journal
When I get the package back to my room, any hope I’d felt since finding Dad’s research slips into pure frustration as I unwrap it from its parchment to find the locking mechanism that holds the thick, leather-bound book closed. It’s a six-letter lock, and if I get the answer wrong, there are six vials of ink spaced equidistantly around the edges of the paper, ready to destroy whatever my father left inside. Even worse, there’s a rune in the center that looks suspiciously like the one that makes things end badly if magic tampers with a lock.
Let’s brush past the question of how Asher, a man unable to channel magic and living in a land that buried all knowledge of runes, managed to get a rune added to this lock … and the hypocrisy that, in a series were the stated theme is those in power controlling narratives, Asher would rather destroy information on the world beyond Navarre than let it be freely shared.
As this story goes on, we will explicitly be told that Asher locked his research so that only Violet could access it. To do this, he made the key to the lock an answer that only Violet would know.
First love is irreplaceable.
The answer is Aimsir, General Lilith Sorrengail’s dragon, a reflection of how, no matter how much Violet’s mother may have loved Asher, their lives revolved around her dragon.
Yarros decides this is an excuse to beat us over the head with how clever her self-insert Mary Sue is. (Bold reflects emphasis in the text.)
Lilith is the obvious answer, and therefore it’s the wrong one. Anyone else would have entered it without a second thought and ruined the book. No, he left this for me.
This is absurd.
No, Ms. Yarros. “Aimsir” is the obvious answer. It is the obvious answer because you told us that it is! And you did it via a character who is neither a rider nor knew Asher particularly well!
Halden scoffs. “Anyone who’s ever dated a rider knows their first priority—their first love—is their dragon. Once you accept that, another man hardly feels like a challenge.”
My lips part. He’s right. Our first priorities are our dragons. They’re irreplaceable.
By the rules that Yarros has presented, anyone with the slightest awareness of riders would be able to solve this riddle.
The only reason that everyone is Violet’s orbit does not immediately hand her the answer is that Yarros wants to indulge in power fantasy. She wants to make Violet seem intelligent. However, since it takes hard work and careful thought for an author to write a character smarter than herself, all she could think of was a password recovery question, so she had to make everyone else seem like idiots.
What’s more, the only reason the audience couldn’t solve this is that Yarros withheld the information about riders loving their dragons first. She’s actually demonstrated that it is not the case. No matter how much Violet loves her dragons, Xaden is very obviously her first love. In other words, Yarros is trying to make Violet seem smart by denying readers the power to solve the riddle ourselves, then turning around and saying, “Hah! See, you couldn’t solve it, but my self-insert Mary Sue could! I’m very smart, aren’t I?”
End of the Death School
This is how casually Devera announces this fundamental shift in how Basgiath operates.
“But death is no longer an acceptable outcome when you face your classmates. The days of settling your scores on the mat are over. We need each and every one of you to survive to graduation.”
Shouldn’t this be something the Empyrean has to sign off on? After all, this has ALWAYS applied. Navarre has always needed riders to man the borders and keep gryphons and fliers at bay. The reason that this was a death school in the first place was to satisfy the dragons’ demand for strong riders. That a human professor could just casually override their wishes now just throws the operations of the school over the 18 months this series has covered (plus the centuries of in-world history before that) into question. What was the point of the death school, outside of forcing tension with a threat that rarely manifested?
Then there is the narrative impact of this, of which there is none. The war immediately replaces the death school as that rarely-manifesting threat to force tension. This is even acknowledged at the opening of Chapter 17.
Hearing the names of every member in active service who has died the previous day takes longer than the typical quadrant death roll, but I appreciate the change. It feels right to honor those losing their lives. It also serves to remind me that though Major Devera has called a moratorium on killing one another within our walls, there’s an enemy just waiting to do so the second we leave.
Signet Sparring
Hand of the Author
The introduction of this class is to justify a handful of other scenes. I’m not against that in principle. It’s just a bizarre choice. Why weren’t riders already training for Signet-on-Signet combat? Why was magical combat not already the norm? After all, even if fliers don’t have the same array of special magical powers, “lesser magic” apparently includes some very potent telekinesis, enhanced physical attributes, and throwing blue fire at people (not to mention all the mindwork fliers can do). Plus, Signet-on-Signet combat was fair game in the War Games.
What I’m getting at is that the sudden decision to introduce this feels arbitrary. The hand of the author is far too visible.
Speaking of which …
Article Eight, Section One
Yarros made Xaden a professor, despite his responsiblites as Duke of Tyrrendor and the rider of one of the strongest dragons in Navarre, so that she could justify having him in the story until the actual search for the rainbow dragons begins. Since this then removes physical distance as an obstacle for Violet and Xaden, she also invokes the Codex to throw an obstacle in their oath and pretend there’s a threat to their relationship, despite Xaden already insisting her needs to keep his distance so he won't drain Violet.
Now, to be fair, Article Eight, Section One has been at least implied since Fourth Wing. This is good continuity. I doubt that Yarros had planned this specific scenario in advance when she introduced the concept, but much like Snape being able to read minds in Harry Potter, that really doesn’t matter when everything fits together properly and makes it seem like she planned it.
My issue with it is that Violet is treating it like a massive catastrophe, ignoring that Xaden being a venin is a much bigger issue. And all this amounts to …
… nothing but an excuse to milk sexual tension and pretend that Violet and Xaden are one-upping their superiors whenever they find loopholes.
And none of it matters anyway once the hunt for the rainbow dragons begins, since they go to places where Basgiath can’t enforce the Codex over them.
It’s almost as if all of this could have been skipped if Yarros just told the story promised to us in the premise and Prologue instead of stalling.
Actually, on the matter of Xaden teaching Signet Sparring …
Why isn’t Professor Carr teaching this class?
Signets are Carr’s expertise, and he is still alive and posted at Basgiath. Xaden acknowledges it in Chapter 15.
“You’ll find that mindwork can be just as deadly,” Xaden agrees. “And if you haven’t learned how to shield, I suggest you spend some time with Professor Carr before facing off against a flier or anyone wearing a classified patch.”
Later in the book, Carr will also take over this class whenever Xaden isn't available. So what reason exists within the narrative itself for Xaden to teach this class?
Planning Meeting
During the planning meeting, Grady introduces this element.
“The Senarium has ordered that we report back between searching potential sites to keep them informed -”
“What a fucking waste of time,” Xaden says.
“- which means selecting our first search areas within easy flight,” Grady continues.
For no apparent reason, the Senarium is imposing this requirement on the task force. This is used now to make Grady seem incompetent for doing his job and following orders. It will also be used later to lie to the audience by pretending Violet and her allies will get in trouble for going to the third and fourth islands without reporting back.
Just to get this out of the way now: all that the task force needs to do to comply with this order is bring along a few additional riders (or perhaps just a few unbonded dragons) whose job it will be to fly back to Basgiath with progress reports. This is only an obstacle because Yarros needs an arbitrary obstacle for Violet to blast through.
Signet Manifestation Retcon Lie
“What happens if they don’t manifest on your timeline?” Trager asks.
“The magic builds up and we kind of…explode.” Ridoc makes the correlating motion withhis hands. “But it’s the end of January. We have months before it gets dangerous. Vi didn’t manifest until what? May?” Ridoc asks me.
I blink, remembering the first time Xaden kissed me against the foundation walls. “It was actually December. I just didn’t realize it.”
Either:
Yarros failed to catch this during proofreading, then someone called her out on it, and now she is pretending like it was all planned out. This is another lie to avoid looking bad.
Yarros did plan this out, and this is an admission that all the tension she tried to milk from the threat of Violet exploding between the kiss and the War Games was the lie.
No matter which is the case, someone as intelligent and observant as Violet is supposed to be should have made this connection the moment her Signet manifested, so Yarros is lying to us by repeatedly asserting that Violet is intelligent.
Pacing
The missive delivered by Halden, as mentioned above, contains a fetch quest. Violet and the task force need to retrieve a gem from a fallen Poromish city so that they can gain permission to meeting the king of one of the southern isles, Deverelli. This missive is handed over at the end of Chapter 17. The cryptic message from Violet’s father also points her toward this Deverelli. She finds it in Chapter 18.
Finally, the plot can begin.
Or … you know … Yarros could have started the book with these as the plot hooks.
This is Iron Flame all over again. Yarros has wasted chapter after chapter spinning the book’s wheels on various indulgences, only for something arbitrary to pop from the æther and kick the plot into motion. Back then, it was Xaden giving Violet a venin-killing dagger, despite that act amounting to character assassination because of how dumb it was for him to do so. Here, Yarros made us sit through chapter after chapter of power fantasy, sexual tension, and other fluff while Violet waited for people to hand her information.
Much like with Chapters 5 through 8 and Chapters 9 through 11, it’s not that what we get in Chapters 13 through 18 doesn’t have potential. There’s a time and a place to tell slow-paced school stories. If Yarros truly wanted to be a “Dain apologist” (as she stated in an interview - more on that next week), she could also have shown us him stealing the research via his POV, exploring how he feels about Violet after everything she’s put him through as well as how he makes the decision between helping Violet and honoring his father.
However, also like those previous examples, these chapters are not the plot we were promised.
Yarros effectively uses Asher’s research as an excuse to stall. She is depriving Violet of agency to move the plot forward until other characters provide her with information. The problem with this is that Violet is a self-insert Mary Sue who is always right and instantly resolves any conflict she chooses to get involved with (as Chapters 5 through 8 demonstrated). This is not a character whom we expect to sit on her ass while other people get things done (as demonstrated by her researching the wardstone and going behind Xaden’s back to get the luminary in Iron Flame). She would not wait for other people to allow her to start the story, nor should she need their help.
Given that Violet is a self-insert Mary Sue who actively engages with problems and instantly solves them, it would have made far more sense to start the book at the point where she actually shows some agency. For a simple example, Yarros could have taken the existing Chapters 1 through 4, changing the timeline so that they happen after the peace treaty is finalized. Rather than dwelling on the act of treason she’s planning, Violet could be dwelling on research she’s been doing to aid the search for the rainbow dragons, referencing unpublished notes by her father that points towards Deverelli. When Mira shows up at the end of Chapter 4, she could come bearing the missive with the fetch quest. We could then roll into Chapter 19 without anything of significance being lost, save for some exposition or character introductions that could very easily be pivoted to other scenes (such as Theophanie’s monologue from Chapters 10 and 11 being repurposed for her first appearance in Chapter 2 and Halden’s next scene becoming his first scene). As for those three stories (Chapters 5 through 8, Chapters 9 through 11, and Chapters 13 through 18), those could have been released between Iron Flame and Onyx Storm, buying Yarros more time to work on Onyx Storm while also maintaining fan interest.
CHARACTERS
Violet
The Apostate
During the relationship drama banter, Rhi jokes about Melgren dragging Violet and Xaden to a temple so their bloodline can continue, and we get another odd moment about Violet’s worldview.
“Doubt Loial would let me in,” I mutter. “Can’t remember the last time I stepped foot in her temple.” I’d stopped praying to her years ago, along with Hedeon out of pure spite. Love and wisdom hadn’t exactly shown up when I’d needed them to.
When haven’t love and wisdom shown up when Violet needed them to? This never gets explained, and while we can make some inferences based on what we learn later about Violet’s relationship history, that would only really justify a temporary abandonment of Loial, one that Violet should have then repented once she locked down Xaden.
Maybe this is just an effort by Yarros to play catch-up for the religious worldbuilding. I do respect the effort to make it flow naturally from dialogue. It’s just not good that we now have yet another example of the self-proclaimed “rational woman” not making any rational sense.
Blame-Shifting
During Battle Brief, Devera announces the findings about venin having Signets. This is Violet’s reaction. (Emphasized text from the original narrative is in bold.)
Silence falls thicker than the snow outside, every cadet besides those of us who already knew freezing completely. It took them ten days to confirm?
This is damning … of Violet … on two levels.
Violet told Xaden in Chapter 12 that she withheld this information from her report about the Theophanie encounter to avoid “misinformation”. Did it not occur to her that the rider leadership might want to also want to take time to fully assess all available information before making an announcement that could damage morale?
Violet withheld this information from her report. She denied the rider leadership information they needed to verify this. This means that, in some small part, she contributed to it taking longer than she apparently feels it should have.
Luke 6:32-36
While out drinking with her friends, Violet ponders this with regards to Xaden draining magic (as mentioned in his letter in Chapter 12).
Maybe he slipped on the border, but he isn’t gone. One mistake does not equal losing your entire soul.
This is all well and good … but consider all the stuff Violet refuses to forgive in people she’s not having sex with. For example, she demonizes the Navarrian riders for obeying their dragons. What does it say about her moral compass - and, by extension, the axis of morality for this entire book - that she condemns them but makes excuses for Xaden embracing a very literal, supernatural evil?
Jesinia
She’s a Khornate now
For all my criticism of Jesinia’s handling in past books, I didn’t dislike her character. There wasn’t much to her outside of the virtue signal, yet what Yarros did give us wasn’t unlikeable. She seemed nice.
Now she’s a bitch who gets mad at people for unintentionally interfering in her ability to lie to her friends.
“As I was saying.” Sawyer shoots a glare at Ridoc as he translates. “They kicked herout of the adept program. Made up some bullshit tests they knew she’d fail.”
My stomach sinks. I knew Markham would find a way to punish her for choosing Aretia, but never imagined he’d expel his brightest scribe from the path where she’s so desperately needed.
Jesinia’s attention snaps from Ridoc to Sawyer, and I wouldn’t wish the look she gives him on my worst enemy. “That was not your information to share,” she signs.
Ridoc repeats.
“That one, I understood,” Sawyer mutters. “They needed to know, based on your new orders.”
“I disagree,” she signs back, then blatantly looks away, her gaze finding mine.
The phrasing here makes it clear that Jesinia didn’t tell Sawyer this in confidence. If she had, she’d have snapped at him with something to the effect of, “I trusted you not to share that,” or, “You promised me you wouldn’t tell anyone else.” For all she knew, he was going to discuss the matter with Violet (since Violet is Jesinia’s friend, and as far as Sawyer would know, Jesinia would have told Violet). So where is she coming from here? Would she prefer to lie to her friend Violet?
Plus, Sawyer is right. Jesinia’s friends, who rely on her to aid their efforts to do their own research behind Grady's back, deserve to know that she no longer has the privileges she used to. Lying to them about her situation just generates the risk that they will count on her to deliver something she can’t.
I guess we now know that Jesinia, too, values not looking bad over being honest.
Oh, and shortly after this, Ridoc asks an honest question about Jesinia’s progress.
“Did you find mention of the irids?” Ridoc asks.
To which Jesinia answers with scathing sarcasm and and rants at him for more than half a page, before finishing with:
“I am not some oracle high off whatever they’re serving in the temple that day. I am an extremely educated scribe. Treat me as such, and I won’t get angry,” she replies, then turns toward me.
This is supposed to be normal behavior for Jesinia. We know it’s normal becaue, just as Jesinia begins to vomit her spite upon him, Violet recognizes that Jesinia gives him “a look I’ve seen enough times to wince on [Ridoc’s] behalf.” This is how Jesinia treats anyone who make a well-meaning inquiry about her progress.
Ah, well. I supposed Violet needs to start building her Khornate warband somewhere.
Limp Punishment
The reason I didn’t mention Jesinia being booted from the scribes in the Plot is simple: it is narratively irrelevant.
She’s not ejected from the Archives entirely. She’s been assigned to Grady's task force. She is doing research to help save Navarre from annihilation. The scribes have no reason to interfere with that. As a result, this punishment seems to only exist so Jesinia can lash out at people and Violet can get mad about how evil the scribes are.
Although, on the note of Jesinia being booted form the scribes: why can’t General Aetos get around the pardons by making up a test to wash out all the Aretia riders?
Grady
During the task force meeting, Xaden invites himself in and acts snarky, to which we get this description of Grady’s reactions described by Violet.
Captain Grady’s jaw flexes, but I have to respect that it’s his only outward display of annoyance. Anyone with a set of bars on their shoulders should have predicted this, but I’m curious to see how he’ll handle it considering how illogically our squad has been formed.
How has the squad been illogically formed? Yarros never explains this, outside of Violet not getting to hand-pick everyone. If anything, when Xaden tries to directly criticize Grady's choices by pointing out that someone with a “shield signet” is needed, Grady tells Xaden that he has already requested just such a person for the team and is just awaiting permission for the reassignment.
Furthermore, throughout the meeting, Violet and Xaden are privately scorning Grady’s planned approach to the search … based on information they refuse to share. Violet vaguely remembers that Asher’s research mentioned feathertail dragons in conjunction with the southern isles. Rather than share this with the meeting, she and Xaden telepathically gripe about how incompetent Grady is, then Violet makes up an argument that Grady quite reasonably swats aside (because, without that pivotal information, Violet does indeed sound like a dumbass for suggesting that the dragons are living on islands renowned for hating dragons).
There’s also the matter of how Halden hands off the missive to Violet.
He reaches into his uniform pocket and retrieves a missive bearing the broken wax seal of Viscount Tecarus. “Here. Grady is taking too long and has yet to present a clear path that satisfies my father. I like this option.”
Again, without ever actually demonstrating that Grady is at all incompetent, Yarros just rules that he is and validates her self-insert Mary Sue’s way of thinking. She could have left Grady out of this and simply had Halden assert that this was a good opportunity (especially given the motivations that will be revealed once he actually sets foot on Deverelli). She went out of her way to punch Grady an extra time.
Halden
The first son of the king (and, thus heir to the throne), Halden is immediately characterized as a womanizer. Violet left him after walking in on him having sex with his professor. Now she has to work with him on the rainbow dragon task force, since they need to take along a royal representative for diplomatic engagements with other kingdoms.
There’s not anything else to really discuss here. Halden is only going to appear for a few chapters of this book, and Yarros is going to go out of her way to demonstrate how vile and incompetent he is while also humiliating him regularly. I guess this is another strawman representation of someone who wronged her.
Aaric
Going back to that earlier point in the narrative where Aaric refused to reveal his true identity and take his brother’s place on the task force: Aaric knows exactly what type of person Halden is. This means that every time Yarros reveals something negative about Halden, Aaric’s decision becomes even more selfish. In this case, Aaric knows that Halden is a womanizer. He probably knows what Halden did to Violet specifically, even if Violet didn’t tell him. He is choosing to put Violet in this distressing situation.
Brennan
For the sake of thoroughness and of having it on the record in case Book 4 or 5 confirms it: I suspect Yarros is keeping Brennan in reserve as a sort of Schrödinger's Token Queer character.
This is something I’ve pondered since Fourth Wing. We know next to nothing about Tairn’s previous rider aside from the fact he was prepared to die to save Brennan’s life. This shouldn't mean anything, in light of the fraternal bonds formed on the battlefield, but given other arguments I’ve seen to explain why other male relationships in literature were secretly homosexual, this is enough for Yarros to turn around retroactively and claim the pair were a couple. (For a comparable example, consider how J.K. Rowling kneaded Dumbledore’s relationship with Grindelwald between publication of The Deathly Hallows and the release of Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, taking a relationship meant to showcase Dumbeldore’s flaws and transforming it into a romance first and foremost.)
This came back to mind because, while Violet is discussing possible answers to unlock the research, we get this exchange.
“Fine, then who was Brennan’s first love?” Ridoc asks as we near the bottom of the steps.
“There’s nine years between us. It’s not like he was filling me in on his romantic exploits—” I pause as Ridoc shuffles into his seat beside Maren. “Though I do remember Mira saying he’d been in a relationship with a rider a year or two older than him.”
Not “a woman”. “A rider”. Yarros is deliberately keeping this vague.
Also, in this book, Tairn also refuses to share anything about his former rider when Violet asks, thereby keeping him vague.
What I’m getting at here is that I think Yarros is deliberately keeping Brennan’s sexually a mystery, and I don’t think it’s because she hasn’t decided what she wants to do with him. I think she’s keeping him in storage. If the audience gets mad at her for not including enough queer Representation, she can pull a Rowling and announce that Brennan was queer the whole time, then cannonize it by revealing a romantic relationship between him and another man (probably Tairn’s rider) in Book 4 or Book 5. If that pressure doesn't manifest before Book 5, or if identity politics lose enough popularity for the industry to change direction, she can either bury this and/or introduce a woman to be Brennan’s love interest instead.
I could be wrong. Given how disgusting Yarros is about her virtue signaling, I want to be wrong. We’ll just have to see what happens as the series rolls on.
WORLDBUILDING
Uniforms
Remember how, in Chapter 14 of Iron Flame, Yarros made sure to punch down the infantry for wearing standardized uniforms?
Either Yarros hopes you forgot, or she wants us to think the faction she lambasts for being devoid of identity has literal blades sticking out of its officers’ shoulders.
“Yes, we should absolutely venture into undiscovered territory,” Captain Anna Winshire mutters sarcastically in the seat to my right. She’s a talkative infantry captain with strawberry-blond hair, quick brown eyes, and serrated blades strapped to both her shoulders, but other than the myriad of ribboned awards for valor sewn onto her uniform, I can’t figure out why she’s been chosen for the squad.
Wards
The outdoor amphitheater where Signet Sparring is held has a localized anti-venin ward. At least, that is what Yarros strongly implies, because I have no idea what else this could be hinting at.
Given the way the magic pulled at me like a sticky piece of toffee while walking through, I’m sure weather isn’t the only thing we’re keeping out.
If any rider can rig wards to do this, why was the wardstone not protected with these, especially once the rider leadership had their hands on Jack and knew venin could survive inside the regular wards?
The Gods
In previous books, the religious worldbuilding was not important to the narrative. Malek was associated with death, so funerary rites dedicated to him did have a minor impact on how things were framed, but we didn’t need to know about theology, rituals to other gods, or who the other gods even were. Problems only ever arose when Yarros put a spotlight on the worldbuilding for passing statements.
Onyx Storm … sort of changes things. Not really. Each of the islands visited during the rainbow dragon search will have a specific religious identity, so you could say that the gods provide a shortcut for Planet of Hats-style worldbuilding. There’s also the stuff leading into the climax of the book, though that feels less like an earned plot development and more like Yarros doing a better job at hiding her aftshadowing.
Regardless, Yarros uses Chapters 13 and 16 to crowbar in exposition about the gods of this pantheon. She wants us to know who everyone is and what they represent. We might as well just list everyone off now so that we’re all on the same page. Rather than break down all the passages and risk forgetting someone who was mentioned in passing in a previous books, I went to the wiki for The Empyrean and checked who was listed there.
Amari: Queen of the Gods. (It’s not specified what she represents or why she specifically is the queen.)
Malek: God of Death
Dunne: Goddess of Strength and War
Zihnal: God of Luck
Loial: Goddess of Love
Hedeon: God of Wisdom
Of the four islands visits during the search for the rainbow dragons, the second through fourth islands are associated with Dunne, Hedeon, and Zihnal (in that order). We’ll get to the first island later. There is a reference to a fifth island that they were going to visit, which would probably have been devoted to Loial or Malek. This last island wouldn’t have been Amari, as we will later learn that Amari is only worshipped on the Continent (with the original name of the Continent apparently having been “Amaralys”).
Prose
False Cliffhangers: 6
Chapter 15 transitions to Chapter 6 thusly:
“You’re going to get over [Xaden] at some point, right?” Trager mutters as Cat falls back in line. “Seems like a waste of time to chase someone who doesn’t want you when there are plenty of people who do.”
Cat’s gaze snaps in his direction, and I lift my brows.
Go Trager.
And then Xaden lifts his brow at me. “No exceptions, Sorrengail.”
“Now this is what I’ve been waiting to see.” Caroline bounces on her toes like a child.
“Do me a favor,” I say to Xaden, unfastening the conduit’s leather strap at my hip and hooking it over my wrist so the orb fits comfortably in my palm. Then I take three steps forward onto the mat and open the door to Tairn’s power with a hell of a smirk. “Don’t let me hurt you.”
“Arrogant, are we?” His flash of an undeniable smile is there and gone before I can fully succumb to its knee-wobbling effect. “Let’s see how you do in the dark.”
Shadows fill the mat and devour every ounce of sunlight, leaving me in complete and total darkness in every direction I look. Challenge accepted.
“This is playing dirty.” I lift the conduit to just above my shoulder and release a steady flow of power from my left hand. The orb crackles, catching the tendrils of lightning as it imbues the alloy at its center and illuminating the area directly surrounding me.
“You already have the upper hand,” he replies, and a strand of shadow caresses my cheek but doesn’t take form any closer to the conduit. “I’m just leveling the playing field.”
You know the drill.
THEME
Power over Knowledge
We’re still waiting for Chapter 20 to go into this. Just remember that Violet is now going out of her way to hoard information for herself and keep it away from her enemies.
Representation
During Violet and Xaden’s telepathic conversation during the planning meeting, we get this curious complaint from Violet.
“And there are no fliers or Aretian riders.” I fiddle with my pen. “Doesn’t exactly speak to the spirit of the alliance.”
Hey - did you all know that Yarros really, really cares about Representation?
Are any of you surprised to learn that she’s going to turn around and prove the anti-theme?
A little later on, the power fantasy will place Violet in charge of the task force. She will use this to build a task force comprised of nothing but fliers and Aretian riders - in other words, she will exclude the Navarran riders. She is all for excluding people when it means shutting out people she doesn’t like.
Then there’s the … awkward fact … that gryphons are slower and have less endurance than dragons. When the task force starts hopping through the islands, the gryphons slow them down. What’s more, on at least one occasion, the risk of a gryphon dropping out of the sky from exhaustion is presented as a very real threat. Yarros doesn’t demonstrate the value of Representation here. She demonstrates that those physically unable to do a physically demanding task are liabilities who have no place in the group. (Believe me, we will be coming back to that once we discuss Chapters 21 through 28.)
MARK OF DISDAIN
On July 4th, we’ll finally see the plot kick into gear in Chapter 19, with Violet and the task force going on the fetch quest. The time has also come to shine a spotlight on how and why Yarros demonizes certain characters.
This is a problem that has existed throughout the series. We saw it in Iron Flame with both the Good Teacher / Bad Teacher dichotomy and Violet’s treatment of Dain. It’s popped up throughout this book, too. I’ve only been highlighting Grady because he’s the most clear example of this, but multiple other characters (including Dain) are also affected. What makes Chapter 19 special is that Yarros pays off Grady’s arc for the book, thereby setting up what’s coming in Chapter 20. In doing so, she exposes both the mechanical purpose of this demonization as well as her own perspective as a writer.
ODDS AND ENDS
Before then, on June 27th, we’ll be diving into The Queen of Vorn. This is a book that also demands a multi-part analysis, albeit a far shorter one. Parts 1 through 3 will be an overview of the book as a whole, while Parts 4 through 6 will go chapter by chapter to explore the messy imbalance of Showing versus Telling within the narrative.
We’re also just over a week away from July 1st and the premiere of “The Unbottled Idol”.
Mohsen Yavari's task within the Imperial Inquisition was simple: monitor the gods' activities in the mortal world. When a diplomat is killed by a goddess, a maverick inquisitor recruits him for her investigation. Their search for answers will lay bare sinister truths, with a child’s soul hanging in the balance.
I sincerely hope you’ll all give it a look, as I do want to provide you all with more than just biting criticism of other authors’ work.
Whatever you’re here for, thanks for sticking with me until the end. Remember to subscribe if you’d like to receive the weekly newsletter with the latest links. I hope you all have a wonderful week.
