The Empyrean - Book 4 Marketing (Part 1)
Hello, all. Happy New Years Eve. Welcome to this off-the-cuff analysis of the latest news about Book 4 of The Empyrean.
As we’ll get into Friday, when we do the Onyx Storm retrospective … there is next to no news. In fact, it sounds like Yarros has barely started drafting, and the book itself is likely not due out until 2027. I’ll get more into my assessment of what this means for the series in the retrospective. For now, though, I did want to take time to respond to an article that, to the best of my knowledge, represents the closest thing we have to news about Book 4.
THE BUSINESS INSIDER ARTICLE
On Monday, December 29th, Business Insider published an article by Samantha Grindell Pettyjohn that bore the following title:
'Onyx Storm' left readers with lots of unanswered questions. Here's everything Rebecca Yarros has said about the 4th 'Empyrean' book so far.
You can read the article for yourself here. I originally came across it because it was republished to AOL.com.
In terms of what Yarros has shared about the future of the book … it’s worthless fluff. Mystery boxes, flung at the audience with as little care that Yarros puts into her aftshadowing. It would not shock me if Book 4 fails to properly set up the things Yarros is telling us about, and we’re actually supposed to treat these interviews as required reading to understand the “twists” in Book 4.
To take just one example, regarding who the “brother” who became a venin at the end of Onyx Storm is, Yarros apparently said this in Denver back in February 2025:
"I would pay attention to who's missing at the end," she said. "I would pay attention to someone who feels like whatever they have given is not enough, which is always the case when you turn venin."
To which the article helpfully pointed out:
Fans think Xaden's cousin Bodhi Durran, Garrick, or even Violet's brother Brennan could fit that description at the end of "Onyx Storm."
Yarros does so little character work, and then retcons the little work she does so carelessly, that literally any character in the series could be the “brother”. Remember what happened to Devera, Grady, Markham, Jack - even Mira? Retconning such a vague trait into a character so Yarros can claim that she earned a twist is small potatoes at this point. So, yes, any of these characters could be a venin, as could Ridoc, Dain, Sloane, Lynx, Caroline, Cat, Nolon, Jesinia, Sawyer, Rhiannon, Imogen, Tara, Aaric, and any number of the forgettable tertiary characters who isn’t worth the effort to look up.
But I’m not writing this analysis over theory-crafting bait and mystery boxes. That would just retread previously covered ground about Yarros’s competence and dedication as a writer and her behavior towards her audience. No, the real meat of this article are lore questions that Yarros has answered at these events.
THE LORE RETCONS
The following four points retread mistakes we’ve seen Yarros make in the past. Some of these sound like off-the-cuff answers, blurted out to avoid looking foolish in public. Others sound suspiciously like gaslighting the audience. Regardless of the specific reason for these answers, they are an attempt to steer the audience’s interpretation of the lore. It’s only fair to acknowledge them as responses to criticisms I have made in the past (and will likely make in Book 4) and address them.
I’m not going to break down absolutely everything in the article. Instead, we are going to go through the article, quote the relevant paragraphs for the lore retcons, and dissect the implications and impact of Yarros’s statements.
Paragraph 20 - Maps
At an event in St. Louis on January 31, 2025, Yarros shared that readers have more to discover about the isles Violet explores in "Onyx Storm." When host Lexi Ryan asked her why there was no map of the isles included in "Onyx Storm," Yarros said it "was deemed to be too spoilery" by her editorial team, suggesting Violet doesn't know all she will about the isles by the end of book three.
Umm … this to pretty dumb answer.
Spoilers do not justify including or excluding a map.
Why does Violet need to know “all she will about the isles” for there to be a map?
Did a map not exist until Violet drew it? Yarros could have had the map in Book 3 be an incomplete one that Violet used to navigate the islands, while Book 4 reflects updates Violet made.
Even if Violet had to draw both maps, why couldn’t the rationalization be that she drew one map based on her understanding from Book 3 and another based on her understanding from Book 4?
Why can’t Yarros just show a map without the spoilers and then retcon over it in the next book? She’s already given herself permission to retcon the list of Signets at the front of Onyx Storm based on Violet’s understanding of things. That same logic applies to a map.
Not to mention … a map is not necessary. It’s a nice inclusion, but a competent writer should be able to tell a story in such a manner that the audience doesn’t need to stare at a map to make sense of things. In the case of the islands, which are separated by vast distances, this is even more true. Relative descriptions of positions and distances are more than enough. Yarros didn’t need to provide us a map at all, so I don’t understand why she’s making execuses.
So is Yarros lying? Does she honestly believe this answer about spoilers (despite also being able to retcon things at the drop of a hat)? Did her editorial team really jump to this conclusion? No matter who’s truly responsible for this excuse, it’s a terrible one. Yarros should probably have just said, “Sorry we didn’t provide a map this time. We’ll see about adding one in the future.”
Paragraph 24 - Liars
Yarros also discussed a plot device she uses that may have consequences for the series. After riders bond a dragon at threshing at Basgiath, the rider announces the dragon's name to the Scribes so it can be recorded. However, Yarros pointed out to fans that the dragons never speak their name to the Scribes directly. It's possible some riders don't share their real names or that dragons lie to their riders, which could help the children of rebels bond dragons their relatives previously bonded, giving them second signet powers. The potential for faux dragon identities could also have other ramifications for the series.
Ah, I see Yarros is returning to the practice of lying to the audience and then projecting the blame for her deception onto her characters.
I’m willing to let the fact that this would trick the scribes go. Sure - the people who trained Violet to be intellectual and observant never made any records about the physical appearances of dragons. Let’s ignore the fact that Professor Kaori could make illusions of Tairn and other specific dragons back in Fourth Wing to show a classroom. We will pretend, for the sake of argument, that all dragons of a given color are physically identical, that everyone is the same size, and that no one every makes a record of colors and tail tail weapons (despite talking about them all the time as an identifier for dragons) or scars (despite Solas being distinct precisely because of his missing eye). Humans are stupid and blindly take dragons at their word when a name is given.
Even if we accept that … this is still nonsense. Why would dragons lie about their names? What is their motivation?
As we covered when first dissecting Yarros’s compulsive lying back in Iron Flame, an author can absolutely provide an audience with false information by having a character lie. The problem is that the lie needs to make sense for the character making it. Yarros’s dragons are, by and large, not characters. (For the matter, most of her human “characters” are not characters.) She can’t justify providing false information to the audience in this manner because she has not provided traits or motivations to back up such a lie. So it’s not the dragon that lied if Yarros revealed this - it’s Yarros, either by pretending a retcon was pre-planned or by pretending to have earned a twist she failed to set up.
Now, in Book 4, if Yarros reveals that a dragon character has been lying about his or her name this whole time, for whatever reason, she might be able to salvage it by suddenly characterizing the dragons. I think it’s safe to say, though, that’s she’s squandered her right to the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she’s surprise me. As it stands, I would not be the least be surprised if she has to once again explain to us how her ass-pull twist totally makes sense.
Then there is the issue of the lie sticking. Sure, maybe the stupid humans believe this lie, but the dragons would know this is a lie. Why keep the secret?
Don’t give me the whole “dragonkind protects dragonkind” nonsense. If dragons weren’t willing to let humans keep accurate records about who rides what dragon, they would simply order to humans not to keep those records. At the very least, they wouldn’t allow human riders to announce the names of the dragons aloud to an audience at a big ceremony. So if a dragon lies, why wouldn’t the dragon bonded to a member of the rider leadership not tell his or her rider, “Lol, no, this is the dragon’s actual name,” and cut that deception out at the root?
And all of that is before considering the fact that this drags the issue of the Empyrean overlooking the activities of the rebel children out of the muck. Did Codagh, Aimsir, Colonel Aetos’s red dragon, Commandant Panchek’s green clubtail dragon, Breugan, Solas, every other dragon associated with a Bad Teacher, and every other dragon associated with the rider leadership who happened to ever attend a Threshing ceremony all collectively miss the fact that the dragons bonding with rebel children were lying about their names? No red flags were raised? I feel like this deception would kick the legs right out from under the idea that dragons were supposed to vouch for the trustworthiness of the rebel children.
Just for the sake of completion, I’m going to point out that riders lying about their dragon’s name is either stupid or irrelevant. With how dragons are characterized, no dragon would let a rider get away with this, so the rider would only survive the deception if the dragon was on board with the lie (at which point it’s really the dragon’s lie).
Obviously, a lot of this criticizing speculation by the author of the article, rather than Yarros’s directly, but the point stands. Dragons lying makes no sense. This is Yarros giving herself permission to lie to the audience by projecting the blame onto characters whom don’t have adequate justification to lie.
Paragraphs 25 - 27 - He’s OVER 9000!!!
Speaking more on signet powers in Denver, Yarros said readers had only seen "like 10%" of Violet's dream-walking abilities, in part because others who developed the power would have been killed, making it difficult for Violet to learn how to use the signet.
"There's probably one person alive that can train her," Yarros said, though she gave no information about who that person is.
She also said Xaden's inntinnsic signet has only reached "like 50%" of its potential, so his abilities will likely grow in book four.
This is drivel. Power scaling in The Empyrean has never run on percentages, and Yarros has repeatedly shown that she can’t be trusted with hard numbers. When Violet or Xaden are inevitably handed more “power for power’s sake”, it’s far more likely to happen on some sort of logarithmic scale.
I do love that Yarros is giving herself permission to give her self-insert Mary Sue and the Bad Boy Live Interest even more “power for power’s sake”. We can always trust her to be consistent about that.
Paragraph 39 - Yeah, She’s Just Making Shit Up On the Fly
Finally, Yarros told readers to pay attention to the black dragons in the "Empyrean" series, encouraging them to ask themselves why there are so few black dragons in the world, adding that it's "very relevant" that two new baby black dragons hatched in "Iron Flame."
No, Ms. Yarros. It’s not relevant. At the very least, it hasn’t been relevant, and you lying about setting up the fact it was a big deal only tears more holes in your world.
First, we know this is a lie because of Andarna. Remember, in Iron Flame, she masqueraded as a black dragon. I’ve already dissected how it makes no sense that Tairn was fooled by this, but if we set that aside for a moment, why was a big deal not made about in Iron Flame? Surely, if black dragons are so rare, then the reveal of her being black should have been almost as big a deal as her being an irid.
Second, Yarros has called attention to a plot hole that I missed. If black dragons can be identified at hatching, how did Andarna being an irid fall through the cracks? If these hatchlings were literally born black, that mades Andarna being a golden dragon an aberration that dragons would recognize. If this is an instinctive identification thing, then again, why was Andarna not marked out as something special? And the answer can’t be because Andarna wanted to be like Tairn (the reason given for the ruse in Iron Flame), because these black dragons were identified at hatching. Andarna wouldn’t have met Tairn or had time to develop an admiration for him prior to hatching, and we are told she was (somehow) in Codagh’s den, which at least implies that she wasn’t fostered by Tairn and Sgaeyl until after she hatched.
Thirdly, this is once against Yarros making a big deal out of something that didn’t need to be explained, because as convoluted and contradictory as her worldbuilding is, there was still enough to understand the situation.
We’ve covered in the past that Tairn and Sgaeyl’s mating is not treated as abnormal. Breeding between colors is clearly common. This opens multiple scenarios for black dragons simply breeding themselves out of existence:
Black dragons reflect a recessive set of genes.
Color is dictated by something magical, and the hatchlings default to the color of the less magical parent.
Color is dictated by the mother, and due to statistical misfortune, there haven’t been enough black females to make more black babies.
We’re gotten indications that each dragon color originally had their own nesting ground. Maybe the black dragons were originally in the Badlands and had their numbers gutted by the venin early on, which would put them at a severe disadvantage for passing on their genes / magical power among all the other colors.
Maybe Yarros is going to retcon this by getting the gods involved, but that’s not really a fix. It just kicks the can down the road. The gods aren’t characters, so their decisions can’t be justified within the framework of narrative.
What I’m getting at here is that Yarros is lying about adequate setup and/or lying about all of this being planned out in advance.
HAPPY NEW YEAR
There is a LOT more I could tear into for this article, but it all comes back to the mystery box and theory-crafting problem. Yarros is just saying things to stir up the audience and pretending like she’s earned developments that she hasn’t. I just don’t have any optimism anymore that she’ll somehow earn this in Book 4, or worse, that she’ll honestly expect that her saying these things are conventions or in interviews will be an adequate substitute for putting setup in the book.
Not going to sugarcoat it - my gut tells me that Book 4 is going to be an absolute shitshow. Even if Yarros manages to drag this series to a start of narrative coherency, the retcons and twists are probably going to be utter lunacy. I’m sure the breakdown of Book 4 will need entire posts dedicated just to dissecting individual retcons (especially because, going into 2026 and beyond, I’m trying to do keep down the length of individual posts).
Whatever happens, it sounds like 2026 will be a relatively quite year for The Empyrean. You can expect references to it and breakdowns of any promising articles that come along. Other than that, though, we’ll be doing much more diverse content in the year ahead.
Thank you all for being with me in 2025. I hope I can continue to entertain you into 2026. Please remember to subscribe and share if you like what you read here. Take care, everyone, and have a Happy New Year.
