Onyx Storm (Chapter 29 to Chapter 33)
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
After another ten days at Basgiath, Violet and her squad are read my to fly to Unnbriel. Xaden decides the the moment everyone is assembling on the fourth field to depart is a good time to antagonize Halden, leading to that theme-breaking exchange where a man with a mobility issue is shamed as dead weight. The ableism ends when Aaric shows up, revealing his identity to Halden and declaring that he will take his brother’s place on the task force.
The squad flies to Unnbriel. Rather than present themselves at a city and announcing themselves diplomatically, they land in the wilderness, goading the local military into ambushing them so they can then … request to travel back to the city … for a diplomatic meeting with the Queen of Unnbriel. They return to the city and complete a trial by combat, which Violet and Xaden dominate (while Dain is humiliated). After the trial, the Queen tells them that Unnbriel will only help Navarre in exchange for dragon eggs. The squad then leaves Unnbriel, knowing already from the lack of magic that the rainbow dragons aren’t there.
The squad flies to the third island, Hedotis. Upon landing, they discuss relationship drama and comment on the sights before being met by a member of the leading Triumvirate. This triumvirate member than introduces his wife, leading to the reveal that she is Xaden’s mother.
THE SECOND KROVALAN UPRISING
I feel like we need to dissect this first before we dive into the rest of the analysis.
Part of this is to play catch-up. This is an element that was name-dropped once in each Fourth Wing (in Chapter 24) and Iron Flame (in Chapter 33) and has gotten an increasing amount of attention throughout this book, but hasn’t had clear narrative relevance prior to this point. However, in these chapters, it suddenly becomes very relevant.
More importantly, we need to take a moment to consider what this element tells us about Yarros’s potential as a writer. It demonstrates that she is indeed capable of writing proper setups and payoffs.
To be clear, what we’re about to cover doesn’t in any way convince me that Yarros planned this series (or even this book) from the beginning. What it reflects is that she can introduce new lore that fundamentally changes the direction of her plot without tearing open plot holes in previous books. It also is a case of proper foreshadowing. It’s clunky, with the effect of feeling like large plates of text that Yarros crudely welded onto an existing story, but it’s still marked improvement over her scattering throwaway lines into a story in a manner that minimizes impact to the surrounding narrative. She’s taking time to focus on an explore this idea. She’s making sure that the audience understands that this is important and why it’s important.
This is growth.
So, while I wouldn’t go so far as to call this a spotlight, I do want to take time to appreciate this. We’ll certainly be acknowledging flaws as well, but this will be less about the problems themselves. Instead, we’ll be exploring the next steps she needs to take so that her foreshadowing in Books 4 and 5 will be even more effective and less obstrusive.
What Previous Books Established
As mentioned above, the second Krovlan uprising (hereafter referred to as the SKU) was mentioned once in each of the previous books.
In Chapter 24 of Fourth Wing, we get this line during the scene where Violet and Xaden bump into General Sorrengail and Colonel Aetos on the flight field. Colonel Aetos asks if Andarna will give the rider leadership a chance to study her, so that they might learn more about feathertails, and when Violet refuses, he responds:
“Pity,” Colonel Aetos says. “We’ve had the scribes on it since Threshing, and the only reference they can find in the Archives about the power of feathertails is hundreds of years old, which is funny because I remember your father doing a bit of research about the second Krovlan uprising, and he mentioned something about feathertails, but we can’t seem to find that tome.” He scratches his forehead.
Mom looks at me with expectation, as though to ask me without actually asking.
“I don’t believe he finished his research on that particular historical event before he died, Colonel Aetos. I couldn’t even tell you where his notes are.” The words areas true as I can make them. I know exactly where his notes are—in the one location he spent the majority of his after-hours time. But there’s something about Tairn’s warning that makes me simply unable to tell them.
Then, during the Archives heist in Chapter 33 of Iron Flame, we get this exchange between Violet and Aaric while they are browsing through the royal vault.
“This shelf is all journals of the commanding generals of the riders?” Aaric lowers his hood and glances over his shoulder at me.
“They used to be separate positions.” I move to the last section of the center pedestal. “Healers, infantry, or even scribes could be the General of the Armies until about two hundred years ago with the second Krovlan uprising. After that, the commander of the riders commanded all Navarre’s forces.”
Unlike with Jack’s red eyes being dropped into Fourth Wing, I don’t think these were aftshadowing done at the last minute before publication. The timeline doesn't work, not when I’m pretty sure I saw a statement somewhere that Yarros didn’t start drafting Onyx Storm until after Iron Flame was published. At the same time, I’m not sure Yarros herself knew what the SKU was when she wrote these passages.
In Fourth Wing, she withheld the location where Asher’s notes were hidden from the audience. There’s no narrative benefit to doing this. At least when she played the pronoun game for Amber and Brennan, those were cases of trying to force a twist reveal where it otherwise couldn’t exist, but the location isn’t relevant until Onyx Storm, and once it is, Violet immediately reveals it. The result is that this feels like like a secret being kept and more like an empty mystery box that Yarros hasn’t yet put anything into.
Krovla is a Poromish province, not a Navarran one (it’s the province that borders Tyrrendor). Any “uprising” would therefore be against Poromiel, not Navarre. Why, then, would these events force a change in Navarre’s military leadership? This is something that is easy to miss when first reading Iron Flame. (I got so turned around with all the author’s notes that I thought Krovla was the Poromish province until Onyx Storm clarified the issue.) However, once Onyx Storm makes it very clear whose province Krovla is and that the “uprising” was a rebellion, not a flowery name for an assault on Navarre’s border, the fact Navarre would need to restructure its own military in response no longer makes sense. (Onyx Storm will not provide an explanation for this, either.)
At the same time … these aren’t contradictions. They’re just inconsistencies.
In hindsight, these mentions almost feel like parts of a deliberate plan. The “almost” has less to do with their execution and more to do with Yarros’s track record for dishonesty (particularly regarding things being done intentionally or planned out) and aftshadowing. Coming from another author, I’d conclude that the plan had merely stumbled in execution due to changes made as the series progressed. Maybe there was a time where the location of the notes was always intended as mystery to be solve by the audience, with plenty of time and focus given to that mystery before Violet revealed the answer (admittedly hard to pull off with 1st Person POV, but not impossible), and maybe there was a point where the link between a foreign rebellion and local military restructuring was gong to be explained.
What Onyx Storm Established (Prior to Chapter 29)
The SKU was first introduced into the story as an example of the damage inflicted by centuries of censorship, and it is used to spur Violet to retrieve Asher’s research. During the library scene with Jesinia in Chapter 13,
She cocks her head to the side. “I don’t even know what we’re missing. I was reading General Cadao’s journal yesterday, and a whole section of pages is ripped out after he notes that there may have been an outside isle supporting the second Krovlan uprising.” She drops her arms in exasperation. “I can’t research what we don’t have.”
“The second Krovlan uprising was supported by an isle kingdom?” I say and sign slowly just to be sure I have it right. “But that was in the four hundreds, right? And it was assumed that Cordyn sent soldiers. We severed all communication with most isles after they sided with Poromiel around 206, and they in turn killed every emissary we sent in the centuries that followed, so how would General Cadao know that?”
“Exactly,” she 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.
We learn in Chapter 18 that Asher’s research is solely about the SKU. The epigraph of Chapter 22 quotes this research, indicating that Deverelli brokered the deal to provide mercenaries form the islands for the SKU forces.
This is further explored during Narelle’s security questions. Narelle asks Violet to speculate as to why the rebellion fell apart. Violet speculates that the Krovoans promised feathertail dragons to the island that helped them, only to be betrayed when they failed to deliver.
The Payoff (Chapter 33)
When the Queen of Unnbrielf demands dragons in exchange for Unnbriel’s aid, specifically requesting eggs, Violet realizes that Unnbriel must have been the faction that added Krovla.
Growth
For once, Violet jumped to a conclusion that is fully supported by information the audience understands.
I admittedly skimmed the earlier discussions of the SKU (for reasons I’ll get to shortly). Still, when Violet made this connection, I immediately grasped what she was talking about. Yarros had given this event plenty of focus by this point in the story. It is memorable.
What’s more, because it is so memorable, it provides a sense of direction. In the finale, Yarros is going to set up a mystery box, and because of this established information, there’s a sense of direction for where the series might take that mystery. I will analyze this more when we get to that point. Obviously, it’s just theory crafting at this point, but it’s theory crafting that feels like something Yarros intended for us to engage with, rather than desperate head canon to make sense of a random development.
Room to Improve
Irrelevance
While the SKU has been mentioned multiple times and gotten a lot of focus, it hasn’t been relevant to the narrative.
Yarros associated this event with both the feathertail dragons and the islands. From there, Violet makes the leap that … to be honest, I’m not sure. Either she concluded that this referred to rainbow dragons in the islands, or she just thought it would be a good way to start researching the islands. There’s not a clear line of logic here, and even my best guesses feel like massive stretches.
When Violet gets her hands on the research, nothing she reads in it give her any leads. Instead, Asher’s note is what points her to Narelle. Even when Narelle questions her, the SKU feels like random trivia. The revelation that one of the islands wanted feathertail dragons doesn’t lead to anything, either, nor does the question of which island was involved (information withheld for no discernable reason) read like a mystery.
Basically, all of the discussion of the SKU prior to Chapter 33 felt like more of Yarros pumping us full of author’s notes. It’s just that this time, the author’s notes actually touched the plot at some point.
What’s Next
So … we know that Unnbriel wants dragons and was involved in the SKU.
Now what?
I mean, Asher said his research into the SKU would lead Violet to a weapon to defeat the venin. Where’s the weapon? Come to think of it, what did Asher actually lead her to? Violet didn’t come to Unnbriel because of clues in the research. She came here because she had a mission Asher couldn’t have foreseen, and the Queen of Unnbriel just happened to say something that allowed Violet to connect dots.
Yes, this all ties into theories for the finale … but it does nothing else for the rest of Onyx Storm. We’re barely halfway through the book. The SKU has been treated as something Violet needed to understand to find the rainbow dragons, but this simply isn’t the case.
Shadows and Theories (Heavy Spoilers)
What I strongly suspect here is that the SKU is Yarros’s attempt to do proper foreshadowing for something she made up while working through the first draft. Specifically, this is an effort to double back and foreshadow for the mystery box she set up in the finale.
In Chapter 65, Xaden fully embraces his venin powers, giving him the strength to lash out at Berwyn (yeah, Yarros lied about him dying in Iron Flame) and the venin with Berwyn. He then goes missing. At the same time, six egg vanish from Aretia’s hatching ground.
The climax of this book is an utter nightmare that we’ll get to in December. The vanishing of the eggs, though, makes a modicum of sense. Reading about that development, I thought back to what happened on Unnbriel and thought, “Hey, maybe Xaden fled there with the eggs.”
What I suspect happened here is that Yarros wrote the climax in one draft and, rather than redrafting until she had a climax that made worked, chose to try foreshadowing the randomness by treating the SKU as a mystery. The reason the SKU feels irrelevant, doesn’t line up with Asher’s note, and doesn’t touch the plot between now and the climax is that these things were grafted onto the story in a second draft (and then not redrafted until everything made sense).
Final Thoughts
The SKU is messy foreshadowing … but it is foreshadowing.
Yarros put far more effort into this than she usually does for aftshadowing. It gets a lot of focus. It impacts the scenes that it touches. However sloppily it was done, it still feels like a part of the story. It’s only evident as a last-minute addition when one reaches the end of the story and understands what its ultimate purpose is.
I hope Yarros learns from this and keeps improving. If the connection between the SKU and the rainbow dragon hunt were more clear, if Asher’s note had indeed led to a weapon, and if this wasn’t forgotten for almost half of the book, I feel like this element could have been a very meaningful part of the narrative.
In the end, it all comes down to whether Yarros is willing to take that extra time and effort to redraft things until everything meshes properly.
PLOT
The Flight Field Scene
I originally thought that I wouldn’t have anything to talk about here, given how the breaking of theme and the breaking of Aaric’s character were covered last time. On a reread, though, I realized that this scene establishes a forgetable yet narratively important subplot. It also contains small details that create multiple other problems.
Family Drama
“Where have you been?” I ask, breaking away from the group in hopes of getting any form of privacy. They quickly disappear into the thick fog.
“On leave,” [Mira] answers. “While you’ve been back here making plans to disobey direct orders from the Senarium, which of course is your prerogative as mission commander.” She glances at the oversize pack currently murdering my spine, then the one sitting at her feet. “The missives were clever. Subtle, even. The packs? Not so much.”
“The fact that you were on leave was all Panchek would tell me when I asked how to get a letter to you. You disappeared.” My eyes narrow and I exhale a puff of steam into the freezing air.
The disappearance being discussed here is explained later in the same chapter (and I’ll get to that explanation shortly). It will be revealed to have been Mira’s reaction to Violet being the only one to whom Asher left his books. I think this is fine as information to establish. However, this is a clear case of aftshadowing - in this case, aftshadowing an entire subplot.
As part of the possibly-preplanned worldbuilding that she needs for her climax to work, Yarros needed to retcon Violet’s backstory. The retcon itself is a mixed bag, but it both holds together and meshes with the narrative well enough for its flaws to be (relatively) minor. I’m willing to accept that Yarros either preplanned it or else did a thorough job of editing it.
However, in order to set up the delivery of key exposition related to this retcon, Yarros decided to generate some drama between Violet and Mira. This does not appear to have been preplanned. Every time it surfaces in a scene (including this instance and the one we'll discuss below), it is disconnected from everything around it, introduced via the flimsiest of excuses and then forgotten by the scene soon after.
Backup Plans & Pulling Rank
When Aaric reveals himself, Violet acts within her character and blames Dain, leading to this exchange.
“This isn’t what you want,” I remind him. “Don’t let your brother’s actions force your hand”—I swing a pointing finger at Dain—“and don’t you let him do it!”
Dain puts both hands up, palms outward at his chest. “How in all that’s holy am I to blame for this?”
I fumble for an answer. “He’s a first-year and you’re the wingleader!”
Dain rubs the bridge of his nose and pushes his fingers outward, over the heavy, dark circles under his eyes. “Vi, I think he outranks me in this department.”
This is a case where Violet’s prioritization of Feelings gets ridiculous. They need a royal representative. They don’t want to take Halden. As far as she is aware, Aaric is their only alternative. (He isn’t an alternative, but more on that shortly.) Does she want this quest, which will save not only the Continent as a whole but Xaden specifically, to fail? If not, and if she doesn’t want Aaric to fill in, than why didn’t she step up to defend Halden from Xaden in the interest of maintaining the quest? She’s not defending Aaric’s feelings if she’s contributing to or condoning a scenario that forces his hand.
There’s also the issue of rank. Iron Flame hammered in that dragons don’t answer the the authority of the royal family. Aaric should have been able to reveal himself as soon as he became a rider for the explicit reason that no king could overrule that. Why, then, does Aaric’s royal blood allow him to “outrank” someone who is explicitly higher than him in the military hierarchy?
Fingerprints
As Halden's initial shock at seeing Aaric wear off, we get this exchange between them.
Halden’s glare shifts to Aaric. “It was you who breached the royal vault.”
“Yes.” Aaric nods.
“Father blamed me.” Halden takes a step forward, and a tiny twinge of guilt nips the back of my neck, since our past is most likely the reason he took the heat.
How did Halden not immediately figure out where Aaric was as soon as the vault was breached? Halden is not the type of character to gracefully accept blame, he should have realized that only a royal heir could breach the vault if his father is blaming him, and he obviously knew he didnt do it. The obvious conclusion was that Aaric was involved. It's also been about five months (in-story) since that time - how did this conclusion never cross Halden's mind?
Firings and Treaty Violations
This is a problem that exists from the moment Xaden begins berating Halden as “dead weight”, but the manner in which the group brushes off Halden and accepts Aaric tears it into a gaping plot hole.
“Looks like you won’t be needing that basket after all,” Xaden says as we make it back to where Mira waits with Ridoc, Garrick, and Halden. “We found ourselves another prince.”
…
“He’s going to be [dead] when our father hears—” Halden starts.
“Fuck off and tell him.” Aaric shrugs. “Or don’t. I really don’t care. I crossed the parapet because I was sick of sitting by knowing you and Dad weren’t going to do shit about the dark wielders, and I’m not going to sit by now and watch you run our only hope into the ground. I’ll be going as the royal representative.”
Halden stiffens. “Absolutely not, Cam.”
“He goes by Aaric, and he absolutely will,” I counter, earning myself a menacing glare from my ex that doesn’t even faze me. “You’re banned from Deverelli and have the temper of a two-year-old on a good day, Halden. Aaric is a rider. He’ll keep up with us in the air and on the ground, and having been in his squad for the last eight months, I can promise you that he knows how to keep his shit together when things go badly.”
…
Halden turns as red as Sliseag. “Go back to the quadrant. I’ll be the only royal—”
“Good luck getting a gryphon to carry your basket again,” Aaric says, then walks toward Molvic without another word.
…
“I’m sure you know your way off the flight field,” Xaden says to Halden, but the prince’s gaze is locked on the claws of the blue dragon.
Why is this a plot hole? Well, recall this passage from Chapter 20, when Yarros tried to pretend there were still stakes and tension in the midst of power fantasy farce.
“We’ll give this one shot. Name your squad for the Deverelli mission, Cadet Sorrengail,” Halden says. “But know that if you fail, we’ll assign another commander, and refusing to continue will negate the terms of the Second Aretia Accord.”
If the Second Aretia Accord allows Halden to void the treaty if Violet and her squad refuses to cooperate with terms rubber-stamped by the royal family, then what just happened here is more than enough for Halden to void the treaty. It doesn’t matter that they didn’t break the specific terms Halden set in that moment. There is no way something that specific was codified into the treaty, so for Halden to have the authority to make that threat (and he must, since Violet reacted in a way that means she took the threat seriously), he would need to be operating under some broader mandate that the treaty authorized. On top of this, Yarros has gone out of her way to establish Halden as being ill-tempered and prone to rash behavior while ill-tempered, and she has gone out of her way to have Xaden specifically antagonize him.
By the rules Yarros herself has set, the Second Aretia Accord is now dead. The moment the Duke of Tyrrendor takes off, Halden’s going to report to his father. While Xaden is off the Continent, his Senarium seat will be revoked, and Navarre will strike swiftly to neutralize any leverage Tyrrendor might have on them.
The Aretia riders might have joined Xaden’s defection when it meant fighting the venin, but now that Navarre is on board with that objective, they will not fight to defend an unstable radical who routinely makes things difficult for the war effort with the attitude. I also doubt they’ll appreciate having their pardons reversed because Xaden was being an “egotistical asshole.”
The dragons won’t stop it. They don’t care about human politics. As long as the Aretia hatching ground isn’t assaulted, they’ll have no reason to get involved.
That will only leave the rebel children to oppose this movement, and unless they plan to put loyalty to Xaden over the survival of all the innocents they previously joined him to save, they won’t endanger the war effort by opposing Navarre. Plus, I imagine they won’t be too pleased about their leader reversing their pardons, either.
Poromiel won’t protest so long as Navarre continues to support the overall war effort.
Violet and Xaden will come home to find their POWER has been taken away from them, all because they failed to think things through.
Obviously, this isn’t going to happen, because Yarros won’t let her antagonists display even a hint of competence. This is simply what she’s told us should happen.
Also … slightly awkward thing about firing Halden … Aaric can’t replace him. Having royal blood does not make him a royal representative. He’s been out of touch with his family for at least “eight months”, and judging by his naked antagonism towards his father, he is opposed to Navarre’s policies. Not only does he not have the official sanction to operate in his father’s stead, he’s bound to make agreements that his father will reject. This is particularly important, because we’ll soon learn that the task force is responsible not only for hunting for the rainbow dragons but also for rallying foreign troops to aid the fight against the venin. What do they think will happen when these foreign troops show up, expecting Navarre to honor some agreement that King Tauri did not endorse?
What makes this plot hole all the more frustrating is that Violet is supposed to be both rational and intelligent enough to figure all of this out. Aaric should also be savvy enough to grasp this. The fact these issues aren’t even considered just undermines their characterization.
(Oh, and since I didn’t mention it last time: Violet directly telling Halden that Aaric is a superior option because Aaric has a dragon is her telling a person with a mobility issue that he’s less qualified because of said mobility issue, feeding into the anti-theme.)
Empty Threat
The scene ends like this.
“Violet.” Halden lowers his voice and slowly looks my way. The plea in his eyes hits me straight in the chest.
“I won’t let anything happen to him,” I promise.
Halden nods once. “I’ll hold you to it.” He looks at each of us in turn, and the promise morphs into a threat. “All of you.”
Obviously, nothing’s going to come of this. Aaric isn’t a Red Shirt, so Yarros won’t kill him. The only reason this isn’t another lie to the audience is that Yarros doesn’t lean into it in future scenes. It’s simply an idea that’s set up and never paid off.
Arrival on Unmbriel
Violet and the others choose to land in the wilderness, rather than presenting themselves at any city (such as the port they fly past). This leads to some … interesting moments.
Alliances
As soon as the squad lands, we get this from Violet.
“We’re alone for now, but we won’t be for long,” Mira says as Teine follows Tairn and Aotrom into the sky. “Someone will see them.”
“Good. Once Aaric meets with their queen, we can move on.” I skim my hand over the pale green meadow grass and pick up a sizable rock to line the firepit with. “Chances of an alliance here are slim. Given how painful it is for the riot to be separated from magic, I doubt Andarna’s kind settled here.”
What alliance, Violet?
This was mentioned in passing up above, but we need to break it down now, because everything from this point (midway through Chapter 29) to the moment the riders fly to the third island (midway through Chapter 33) only happens because of this alliance. There is no other reason to interact with the locals, as Violet already knows the rainbow dragons aren’t here. Without the alliance, the dragons and gryphons would have landed in some remote portion of the island that’s far from any settlements, hunted and rested, and moved on.
Forging an alliance wasn’t on the squad's list of objectives prior to this point. They needed a royal representative to negotiate with local rulers, yes, but only to facilitate their search. Xaden spells this out when he tries to negotiate with the King of Deverelli.
“I can’t agree, seeing as I have no idea what Halden requested,” Xaden says. “But we’d like to reopen diplomatic channels and secure permission to use Viscount Tecarus’s manor as a stopping point for a riot of no more than eight dragons and an equal number of gryphons for the purposes of a search party, which would entail securing hunting rights of wild game for said creatures and a promise of safety for all parties.”
Even when Violet extorts the King by threatening to murder his beloved pet, the only additional requests she makes are pardons to ensure the squad can leave the island and then safely return later. She and Xaden both refer to this as an “alliance” in the moment, but really just a pact or arrangement, at best.
What Violet is now referring to as an “alliance” doesn’t get explained until Chapter 31, when the group arrives in Unnbriel’s capital. Tairn chides Violet for wanting to keep Xaden out of the ritual fight by reminding her of something she should already know.
“Do not consider the Dark One,” Tairn chides. “Navarre needs the soldiers from this alliance to defend the borders, freeing theriders to go on the offensive.”
Uhhh … this doesn’t make sense. There’s a scale issue, which we’ll discuss farther down the line, but up front, this is simply illogical.
Navarre has soldiers already. That’s what the infantry are. The reasons the riders need to defend their borders have nothing to do with a lack of other soldiers.
The venin have a massive mobility advantage between their enhanced speed, the wyverns, and access to teleportation Signets (as we will see later). No number of mundane infantry on foot or on horseback can match this. It would take a practically infinite number of soldiers to pack the border, and even then, the venin could infiltrate among the ranks of refugees.
The venin have a magic advantage that only riders and fliers can counter. The advantage is even more extreme on the ground (where anyone not riding a dragon, fliers, or wyvern must be), since venin can just use the death waves to annihilate vast numbers of landbound soldiers.
Alloy is in limited supply, and without alloy (or maorsite - we’ll be coming back to that in the climax), there is no way for anyone except Violet to kill venin. The above two reasons mean that alloy is allocated to riders and fliers to maximum effectiveness.
On top of that … why would Navarre ever trust the security of its borders to foreigners? This would be out of character for both the rider leadership and the Senarium. They had to deal with a full-scale revolt of their own province six (now nearly seven) years ago. Yarros can’t seriously think they'd trust complete strangers to not turn on them.
Yarros clearly didn’t think this through, and she clearly didn’t think of it at all until she was already writing the dragon hunt. At best, she gave up on giving Violet a good reason to interact with locals (despite researching local lore being an obvious way to help the dragon hunt along) and just slapped this in as an excuse. It ultimately doesn’t amount to anything in this book. The soldiers Violet eventually does recruit are mentioned in passing and contribute nothing else to the narrative.
I’m not against the idea of Violet and her squad recruiting foreign armies to aid Navarre, but it needs to be properly set up and to make sense.
Grandma Drama
The next aftshadowed moment within the family drama subplot surfaces when Violet needs to distract Mira from a line of inquiry that might expose Xaden as a venin. I particularly love how blatant Yarros is about announcing that this aftshadowing is a radical pivot from the present situation.
Cue change of subject.
“Where did you go on leave?” I ask her.
Her mouth purses, like she’s deciding. “I went to see Grandmother.”
“You flew to Deaconshire?” I mean, that’s a choice, I guess.
“You think I took personal leave to visit a burial ground?” She side-eyes me.
My eyebrows try their damnedest to reach my hairline. “You went to see Grandma Niara?” I end on a whisper.
Mira rolls her eyes. “You don’t have to whisper. Our parents can’t hear you.”
I’m tempted to check our surroundings just to be sure. “She stopped talking to Mom and Dad…” I shake my head. “It must have been before I was born because I don’t even remember her. Something to do with Dad marrying Mom, right?”
Mira shakes her head. “You were a toddler,” she says. “Right around the age where your hair was coming in thick enough to pull into a little ponytail.” She smiles at the memory, but it slips. “And it wasn’t Grandma Niara who ended communication. Turns out it was the other way around.”
There’s a lot more to the exchange, with Violet fixated on Mira being hurt that their father didn’t leave the books for her as well (and spelling out in the process that the books are just an excuse for Violet to know exposition about the islands, rather than some secret that actually warranted the convoluted protection Asher gave it). What's presented above is the information that actually matters to the subplot.
In Chapter 54, Mira is going to explain exactly why Grandma Niara broke contact with the family. I’ll get into what’s covered there when we reach that chapter, since that’s the exposition that supports the retcon. For now, I just want to note that, despite related information being covered between then and now, this drama is forgotten. Grandma Niara, who is name-dropped only seven times in this entire book, is only ever mentioned here (four times) and in Chapter 54 (three times).
That’s what I mean by this being an aftshadowed subplot. Maybe Yarros did indeed plan out the retcon, yet these scenes that support the exposition are very much tacked on. Yarros probably got notes from her editor about needing better justification for the exposition, made up Grandma Naira to address the problem, and slapped on just enough drama to claim that she technically had built up to the reveal.
Introductions
If the way to gain access to the Queen of Unnbriel was trial by combat, why did the squad fly several miles away from the city and goad the army into ambushing them, only to force them all the ride back?
Yarros does not explain up front that this is what they are doing. She withholds information from the audience for the sake of a twist reveal, to make Violet (and the others, but Violet is in charge, so mostly her) seem cunning. For once, the setup works. If this made sense, Yarros would have pulled off a satisfying twist.
It doesn’t make sense, though, so I’m again reminded that I’m reading a book by an author who needs to write a character who’s supposed to be vastly more intelligent than herself.
This is so unnecessarily convoluted and risky. Why did they not simply fly to one of the cities (like the port they passed), land outside of the range of the anti-dragon weaponry on the outer walls, and announce themselves? Why fly all the way out here and let soldiers infiltrate the camp? The only reason Violet and the others are not immediately at the soldiers’ mercy is that the people whose nation is dedicated to the war gods are idiots who insist on bending over their beds and holding knives to their throats (instead of stabbing them from a safe range with spears, which the Deverelli have, so the adherents of the Goddess of War should absolutely have them as well). And after this nonsense with the ambush, Violet and Xaden just talk their way into being given a trial by combat at the city anyway, putting them right back the position they’d be in if they’d landed outside a city.
The Trial by Combat
Power Fantasy
Chapters 30 through 32 were another power fantasy sequence that was very hard to reread.
Yarros set up something that had genuine potential here: the elite warriors of Navarre against members of a culture with a deep devotion to war. The people of Unnbriel are arguably the only warriors in this setting who can hold a candle to her awesome OC faction. This could have been a meaningful challenge. What’s more, the trial be combat is written in a manner that shows immense passion and effort. Yarros put a lot of thought into how Violet might win a fight against an opponent who has longer reach, is heavier, and has greater upper body strength, and there’s evident passion in how she translates that thought into detailed choreography. It’s one of the better action scenes in this series.
I should be able to praise the power fantasy on Unnbriel just as much as I’m going to praise the power fantasy on the third island. Instead, I found it insufferable. Much like with the locked research in Chapters 17 and 18, Yarros slams into the limits of her own competence. She can only build Violet up by breaking others down. In this case, she breaks down the competence of the people of Unnbriel.
It starts from the moment of the failed ambush. We’ve already established how the soldiers of Unnbriel are idiots. Yarros also goes out of her way to tell us that they are less brave than the riders.
Branches sway as the dragons and gryphons walk out of the trees around us, loosely surrounding the platoon.
“We made it easy, Captain.” I cock my head to the side and flip my dagger to pinch its tip as Tairn growls at my back, low and mean. Just the way I like him. “Rest assured, we can make it difficult, too.”
To their credit, the platoon doesn’t sprint away screaming, but a dark stain spreads down the green leather pants of the blond soldier who stares past me with wide eyes. He definitely would have been a runner after Parapet.
It gets even worse when the trial by combat starts. You see, the Queen if Unnbriel isn’t just present for the trial. She is the challenger who Violet specifically needs to take on.
We are expected to believe that Violet defeated the queen of a nation dedicated to war because this same queen underestimated her.
“You took me down for the simple reason that I underestimated your abilities and allowed you close enough to throw me off-balance.”
No. I call bullshit.
Yarros explicitly tells us that Unnbriel acknowledges knowledge is an aspect of war, with a “book” represented among the symbols of weaponry on their temple’s exterior. Violet is also mistaken for a failed member of the priesthood. The Queen of Unnbriel should be the last person on this planet to underestimate Violet, especially since Violet defeats her using basic leverage, which is the most obvious strategy in the world for someone lighter, weaker, and with less reach than the Queen.
Oh, and it gets better. Violet doesn’t just defeat the queen by using the most obvious strategy imaginable. She defeats the Queen using her thighs.
I wrench her wrists behind her back as the metal of her chest plate scrapes stone, then sit, locking her arms in place with my thighs. Light flashes in the sky above us, and rain comes down in sheets.
“No!” she screams, arching upward to buck me off.
You know Violet’s thighs, right? The ones affected by her EDS? The ones that can’t maintain a grip on her dragon, meaning she would have died hundreds of times over without Tairn’s intervention and her saddle?
Any good feelings I had for this fight evaporated the instant Yarros pulled this. This isn’t just a realism issue - Yarros is directly violating the rules she herself set. Violet is not Xenia Onatopp. Not amount of leverage is going to keep this warrior queen from flexing her arms and ripping Violet in half.
And then, of course, this is followed by the usual shower of valdiation for Violet. We covered the bit about how the Queen acknowledged that Violet outwitted her in combat. The Queen also tells Violet that, “Perhaps it is truly Zihnal who blesses you,” effectively acknowledging Violet as chosen by the gods because she used her lighting Signet during the battle.
Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention. During the battle, Violet inadvertently use her Signet to summon lightning to smite the arena. No explanation is given for this, and Yarros highlights it before winking at us and insisting that it was totally just a coincidence, but it’s obvious what happened. Despite being in a land without magic, Violet is just so special that she uses her magic anyway.
I’m sorry if this analysis is more incoherent than usual. It’s just that this section is pure sludge. There are elements to set up events later in the story, but those are disconnected from the trial itself, and that trial is a massive waste of the audience’s time.
Impeach Her
Violet is thrown into the trial by combat because a priestess of Dunne flags her as the weak link.
I raise my eyebrows at the woman. “I choose him.” Whether she’s talking about Xaden or Tairn, my answer is the same.
“Ah.” She turns the dagger in her gnarled hand as the raindrops continue to fall. “So be it. Our goddess teaches that while battles may be won by the strongest warriors, they may also be lost by our weakest. Both must be tested today.”
Pain erupts in my forearm, and a second later, she lifts the dagger as fresh blood races down its honed edge.
The priestess then ordered the Queen to fight Violet, and the Queen lost due to basic stupidity.
So … the Queen of Unnbrield is going to lose her throne over this, right? She has fundamentally failed in a ritual that seems to be sacred to their culture, against an opponent against whom victory should have been guaranteed. Why would Violet bother to try negotiating her after this point? She’s clearly not going to be in power much longer.
It may sound like I’m overthinking this. I thought I was, too. The thing is, on the third island, Violet is going to invoke this very possibility to extort the leadership of said island. She warns them that any effort to tell people about the horrific things she does will make them look stupid and get them cast down from their positions of power. Yarros is relying on this very possiblity of leaders losing their position to drive her narrative, so why is the possibility ignored here?
The Priesthood
Upon arriving in the city for the trial by combat, Violet observes that the priesthood of Dunne all have silver hair. This is presented as the cliffhanger ending from Chapter 30 to 31. She immediately wonders if they all have EDS, focussing on one attendant girl whose hair is only silver at the tips.
Never in my twenty-one years have I seen anyone with hair like mine. Does hers alwaysend in silver no matter how short she cuts it? Do her joints fail her? Do her bonesbreak? I need to know. I have to know.
After the trial, Violet has a priestess comment on how her “dedication” (a practice introduced in the Chapter 30 epigraph) was clearly not finished, and she ponders whether her parents might have dedicated her.
And … that’s it.
This seems like it would redefine the direction of the narrative, or at least of Violet’s personal arc. It’s also the only payoff that Asher’s research ever leads her to. Despite this, it’s all but forgotten once they leave Unnbriel. It doesn't pop up again until Chapter 54, when it plays into the retcon of Violet’s backstory.
I want to like this element. The idea that the priesthood of the Goddess of War is made up of people with EDS is a very interesting concept. Yarros is also making meaningful effort to foreshadow here. It’s just she’s not going to pay off the amount of emphasis she gives this. The mystery and implications here just fade into the background.
What’s worse is that, in Chapter 52, we’ll learn that the priesthood of Dunne in Navarre also has this same quality to their hair (though it’s referred to as “white” there). How did Violet not have this revelation years ago? Are we to think she NEVER visited a temple of Dunne? Never saw a priest of Dunne? Never saw an illustration of read about them in all of her studies? She’s from a military family - how is it that no members of their priesthood ever came to military functions? (Later, Yarros will try to claim that General Sorrengail didn’t like the priesthood of Dunne, but I doubt General Sorrengail had absolute veto power over the guest list at every military event her family ever attended.)
Also, a lot of emphasis is put on this tattoo the priestess has on her forehead.
She must be at least seventy-five years old. How long would it take for such a tattoo to fade to the point it’s unrecognizable? My stomach lurches to my throat. There’s no way -
This random and disjointed line is textbook aftshadowing. We get no explanation for it until Chapter 52, and it references a detail that was mentioned in passing in Chapters 3 and 10. Yarros clearly added this in at the last minute so that she could claim the information was technically established. I will explain what it means when we get to Chapter 52.
Arrival on Hedotis
I feel that the reveal of Xaden’s mother is both narratively effective and makes logical sense.
The Triumvirate member and his retinue comes out to meet the squad, and Xaden’s mother hangs back “overcome by [their] magnificent dragons”. This allows the Triumvirate member to get in some expositional chatter and invite the squad to his home before Xaden’s mother catches up.
When Xaden’s mother and Xaden recognize one another, it is a mutual surprise. There is no retconning of behavior to imply that Xaden always knew she was here. The shock is palpable for both of them.
Xaden reacts to the moment of recognition by pulling Violet close to him, demonstrating through body language his opinion of his mother through his desire to protect Violet.
The emotion here is both palpable and earned. While I would have liked if Xaden’s mother got more buildup before now (versus the Kuvira-style mention in the previous book), I think this would have worked perfectly well even if it had no setup at all.
CHARACTERS
Aaric
As part of humiliating Dain by invalidating his role on the squad, Yarros has Aaric reveal that he speaks the language of Unnbriel very fluently, eliciting this response from Dain.
“Are you fucking serious?” Dain snaps. “Why didn’t you tell us you’re fluent?”
“You never asked.”
This is absurd. Aaric knew this was a vital skill for this mission meant to save them all from annihilation. “You never asked” is not an adequate excuse for him not telling them that he can contribute. Does Aaric share Yarro’s compulsion to humiliate Dain?
Pairing the Spares
Much like Iron Flame, Yarros is cramming in background relationship drama among the accessories and Red Shirts. Upon the arrival in Hedotis, she uses banter to establish:
Flirting between Cat and a Red Shirt flier
An Enemies to Lovers dynamic between Mira and that flier she kneed in the groin back in Chapter 20
It’s meaningless noise. Much like with the relationship between Rhi and Tara, it’s really hard to get invested when one half of the pairing is barely a character and the other is just a name attached to a cutout.
Further mangling matters is that Yarros uses this opportunity to once against establish Mira as supremely unlikeable. She and Drake argue aerial combat tactics, and we get a vivid demonstration of just how disagreeable Mira is.
“Because that wouldn’t work,” Mira snaps at Drake as they walk over with Garrick and Dain, who sidesteps a dead bird.
Yuck.
“It really would,” Drake says to her with a grin that would probably charm anyone else but just seems to enrage my sister. “You pull a two-pronged Pelson flight formation—”
“And wyvern would pick you off twice as fast for dividing your forces in that environment.” Mira shakes her head.
Xaden and I slip our jackets back on.
“You clearly don’t understand Pelson.” Drake lifts his hand toward his cousin. “Tel her, Cat. In a contained environment, a Pelson maneuver—”
“I’m not telling Mira shit.” Cat shakes her head. “It’s like arguing with Syrena.”
“Oh, come on. Maren? Someone be on my side here,” Drake pleads.
Maren winces. “Have you seen her right hook?”
“I have,” Drake admits.
“I know Pelson,” Mira argues, crossing to my left. “I’ve studied Pelson at length because it was my job to beat your maneuvers for years. And you have no real-world examples to prove your theory. Just stop talking.”
Here we have a “real-world example” of Mira refusing to listen to another person’s perspective, asserting herself as having more authority over how to effectively handle gryphons in the air than an actual flier, dismissing the flier for lacking examples despite not providing examples herself, and having other people afraid to disagree with her because they know she’ll resort to physical violence if she doesn't get her way (something we saw previously with how ready she was to draw a sword at the meeting in Chapter 20). In short, she is unable to disagree without being belligerent and without the looming threat of violence.
Run, Drake. This is an abusive relationship waiting to happen. Save yourself.
WORLDBUILDING
Shields
“My family isn’t on this isle,” Andarna notes, frustration surging down the bond and pouring over me like a thousand pinpricks.
I roll my shoulders, trying to shake it off. The last thing we need is a dead soldier and a blown alliance. “And please be careful with your feelings. I can’t shield here.”
Why can’t Violet shield her mind? Shielding one’s thoughts was not previously established to be dependent on magic. If anything, it’s been the other way around, with shielding being a skill that facilitates the control of magic. Even if that weren't the case, the bond with her dragons has been presented as the same power as her shields. If she can talk to Andarna, she should also be able to shut Andarna out.
Power of the Chosen One
Violet using her lighting when there is no magic present is the world once more warping to hand power to the Mary Sue. Still, given the destiny element Yarros toyed with earlier and the religious worldbuilding to come, I feel like this is a small problem that doesn’t break the world. This is clearly meant to be out of the ordinary.
Unnbriel: The War Hat Island
The worldbuilding of Unnbriel is better than Deverelli, but it is still shallow. It's an island dedicated to Dunne, Goddess of War, and uses trial by combat so extensively that diplomacy can't occur without the foreign diplomats winning a fight. At the same time, as previously covered, all these warriors are stupid and incompetent.
It ends up feeling like Yarros crafted this entire island to facilitate the latest gasp of power fantasy. She wants to be valdiated for triumphing over the greatest warriors in the world, so she made up a faction merely so she could punch them into the dirt. Since she can’t write what she doesn’t know, the only way she could have Violet triumph is to set the bar ridiculously low.
I really wish I had more to say here, but the worldbuilding is too sparse for me to get more specific. There’s no overt statement of worldview to dissect here. It’s just a warrior culture so paint-by-numbers that even the most stereotypical Klingons seem deep by comparison.
Anti-Dragon Defenses
Both the port and capital city of Unnbriel are fortified with “cross-bolts”. (The capital of Deverelli had them, too.) These are implied to be Yarros’s analog to scorpions from A Song of Ice and Fire, and they can explicitly harm dragons. Violet highlights this upon arriving at the capital.
This place is constructed to fight dragons, whether or not they’ve actually been here.
Ms. Yarros … please stop lampshading your plot holes instead of fixing them. It isn’t clever. It just demonstrates how little you care about this genre.
Deverelli being protected by cross-bolts made a modicum of sense. They are right across the ocean from the Continent, and they traded with the Continent until recently. They’d be aware of the potential threat dragons posed and would have cause to make a token effort to defend against them.
Unnbriel, though, has no reason to worry about dragons. They are farther from the Continent than Deverelli is, and they don't have any exposure to the dragons. It’s not like this is a settlement of refugees who recently came from the Poromiel and would have living memory of the dragons - they’ve been here “seven hundred years”, a full century longer than dragons have been bonding with humans. It’s not like they’re fighting the rainbow dragons, since the rainbow dragons aren't here. Why, then, are they sinking resources into building and maintaining these weapons? It’s not a small number, either. They have layered walls lined with these things, with even more emplacements inside the walls.
This feels like another symptom of the power fantasy. Yarros wants us to think the city poses a threat because they have weapons that can shoot down dragons. That way, when the squad is invited to the city for the trial by combat, Tairn and Sgaeyl look cool when they land next to a cross-bolt and intimidate the operator.
Hedotis: The Scholar Hat Island
I’m going to save my analysis of Hedotis until the next part, as I’d like to consolidate all my ideas in one place.
THEME
Power Above All
At the start of the trial, Violet thinks this.
I want my fucking power back now. Without them, Xaden isn’t the deadliest weapon on the plaza. I am.
It’s the fact that Yarros really insists on using the word “power”, rather than “magic” or “Signet” or anything else abstract, that gets to me. She has no subtlety when it comes to what she truly cares about.
Democracy
When the group arrives at Hedotis and it engaging in idle chatter, there is a passage that I initially quite liked, only to instantly be disappointed.
“I can’t believe they elect people for high leadership,” Cat mutters, glaring at the city like it might bite. “Town councils? Sure, but how can you confirm someone has the skills to lead if they’re not trained from birth?”
“Being trained from birth doesn’t make you any more qualified,” Aaric retorts from the right, Trager at his side. “Any of you truly excited at the prospect of being led by Halden?”
Cat crinkles her nose.
“Valid argument,” Trager points out.
Wait, is it just me, or did Cat actually grin at him?
For the briefest moment, I thought Yarros was actually going to have a character express values different from a modern American university campus, thinking in a manner that fits her background and associated worldview. Perhaps she could have explored democracy from a more neutral, outside perspective. Perhaps Violet and her friends, hailing from a land of hereditary power, could learn a lesson about meritocratic power issued by the people.
Except, no. No one seems interested in protecting the way of life they’ve known and benefitted from their entire lives. Either Yarros just wanted to engage in more superficial commentary, or else this is another moment of her trying to reassure her audience that she’s not on board with something that doesn’t align with our modern sensibilities.
What’s particularly dumb is that, once more, she not only bumbles the commentary but proves the anti-theme multiple times over.
Violet is the “rational woman” chosen for her “intelligence” who knows everything and is always right … because she was trained from birth by her father (a scribe) and groomed to follow in his footsteps as a scribe.
Aaric - brother of Halden, lest we forget - was trained from birth to serve in royal duties. The whole reason he is able to humiliate Dain is that this training included languages that Dain was not trained from birth to speak.
What Yarros should have had Cat defend and Aaric criticize was power from birthright. However, I suppose that would undermine the wish-fulfillment of Xaden having all his political power due to his birthright.
PROSE
Cliffhanger Overload
Every single chapter in this part ends on a cliffhanger. I do think all of these cliffhangers are functional:
Chapter 29 ends with the reveal that the Violet and the squad allowed the selves to be ambushed.
Chapter 30 ends on the shock reveal that the priesthood of Dunne all has silver hair.
Chapter 31 ends with the priestess marking Violet for the trial by combat.
Chapter 32 ends on the Queen of Unnbrield announcing that Unnbrield wanted dragon eggs in exchange for an alliance.
Chapter 33 ends in the reveal of Xaden’s mother.
All of these are functional cliffhangers. Each twist or reveal fundamentally shifts the tone or context of the scene in which is appears, thereby justifying a break. The issue here is the placement.
None of these chapters are particualrly long or short, falling within the typical range for this book. However, Chapter 29 feels long because of how much is crammed into it, while Chapters 30 through 32 are effectively one long chapter chopped into smaller chunks. Chapter 33 is lopsided, with a short scene following the Chapter 32 cliffhanger followed by the travel to and arrival at the third island.
What I’m getting at here is that it feels like Yarros is relying on cliffhangers to keep the audience engaged, to the point that it feels forced rather than making the text more interesting. It desensitizes the reader, and it makes the text feel choppy rather than fast-paced.
The chapters should have been reorganized to reduce the saturation of cliffhangers. For example, Yarros could have collapsed Chapters 30 through 32 and the first scene of Chapter 33 down into just two chapters, selecting just one cliffhanger (probably the one where Violet gets added to the trial by combat) to living things up. This would leave Chapter 33 far shorter than the average, but with how shocking the reveal of Xaden’s mother is meant to be, that could make the twist even more of a jolt (and she could always balance things out by moving the dialogue where Mira and Violet discuss Grandma Niara back to Chapter 33).
More Cringe Action Dialogue
There are a few lines here, but the one that stands out to me is the cliffhanger ending to Chapter 29.
“It was a mistake to come,” a man says in the common language, his voice low as he leans over us. “Your magic won’t help you here, fire-bringer.”
I rip back the blankets and Xaden draws my dagger, bringing it to the edge of the man’s throat in a single smooth motion.
The soldier’s brown eyes widen as I palm my next dagger and glance over his leather armor, spotting the weak joints at his elbows and beneath his arms. It’s been dyed the same pale green as the leaves on the trees, and an emblem of two crossed swords over a horseshoe is stamped across his chest plate.
“That’s fine.” Xaden sits up slowly, keeping the dagger’s edge at the base of thesoldier’s throat as he retreats. “We brought blades.”
I mean … he never said you didn't have blades, Xaden. He just scorned your magic. If you wanted to convey that you don’t need magic, just say that. Imagine if you worked at a takeaway food place, told a customer that the credit card scanner was broken, and said customer said, “That’s fine. I brought cash.” That would be a factual statement, not a badass retort.
What Does This Mean?
“I do not like this place.” Andarna scrapes a single talon through the grass, revealing only damp sand. “My kind would not settle here.”
“Cover that. We have to as least ask.”
What does, “Cover that,” mean? Is Violet asking Andarna to push the grass back into place to cover the sand? Or did Yarros make a typo when trying to write, “Copy that”?
ISLAND OF HATS 3: THINK OF THE CHILDREN
On August 29th, the events of Hedotis will unfold across Chapters 34 through 37. It’s here that we’ll get to see one of the best-written of Yarros’s power fantasy moments. (That’s relative, of course, but there are elements here that point to what could have been.) We’ll also get to see just how bad the lack of separation between art and artist really gets. It’s finally time to talk about Violet premediating the murder of two children and how that’s presented as a “beautiful”, “destigmatizing” act.
I hope you’ll all join me for it. Please remember to subscribe to the newsletter if you’d like weekly e-mails with the latest posts, and please share this review with others if you enjoyed it. Have a great week, everyone.
