Iron Flame (Chapter 65 & 66)
STATS
Title: Iron Flame
Series: The Empyrean (Book 2)
Author(s): Rebecca Yarros
Genre: Fantasy (Epic)
First Printing: November 2023
Publisher: Red Tower Books
Rating: 1/10
SPOILER WARNING
Heavy spoilers will be provided for the entire story up through the end of the book.
STORY
As wyvern bodies literally rain from the sky, Violet deals with the shock of General Sorrengail’s sacrifice. She emerges from the wardstone chamber to learn that everyone is celebrating. All of the characters Violet cares about are still alive. Melgren begins negotiations to reintegrate the Aretia riders back into Basgiath, since keeping the secret of the venin and the wyverns from Navarre is no longer viable.
Violet is desperate to see Xaden after his duel with the Sage. We discover that he successfully killed the Sage. He and Violet exchange a few empty words about General Sorrengail’s sacrifice, and Violet agrees to explain how the wards were restored. Xaden agrees that returning to Basgiath is best.
Xaden then reveals the ass-pull twist: he is a venin now.
Half of Chapter 66 is a flashback to Xaden’s duel with the Sage, presented as a dream Xaden has after the battle. Unable to overpower the Sage with his Signet alone, Xaden drains magic directly from the earth, thereby making him a venin. Here is where Xaden wakes up. He goes to see Jack (walking right past the guards on Jakck’s cell - naturally, they are members of the infantry). He asks Jack is there is a cure to being a venin, to which Jack says no, heckles him, and ends the book by saying, “Guess we’re brothers now.”
PLOT
Resolution
The way this book ties a bow on events is … fine. It’s really the best one could hope for after the cascading disasters of the previous 64 chaorers.
We knew that the wardstone’s restoration would wipe out the wyverns and depower the surviving venin, so those elements are a payoff. The fact that all of the characters Violet cares about are alive is to be expected from Yarros. The framing of the reintegration of the Aretia rebels is annoying, but only because it puts further weight on preexisting problems:
“In the front,” Tairn tells me, and I head in that diretion, passing the negotiations between Melgren and Devera and pusing when I hear him laying out terms for our return. An attack, a horde that big? Bodies dropping all over the kingdom? There’s no chance leaership can hide this. It’s only a matter of hours before every Navarrian citizen knows they’ve been lied to. No wonder they want us to return.
Quick recap:
Yarros is putting the rider leadership in the position of weakness here. This would be fine if the rider leadership had been an insurmountable threat for the whole book. It could have been a nice payoff. Because the have been repeatedly demonstrated to be weak and incompetent throughout this book, it instead just feels like more pointless debasement.
Yarros confirms that people can see large groups of flying creatures, so Melgren should absolutely have been able to follow the defectors to Aretia, and she shouldn’t have tried to gaslight us into thinking that he couldn’t (or that the Aretia rebels believed for even a second that he couldn’t).
Allowing the defectors to leave already meant that they could tell all of Navarre, so secrecy was already out the window.
This confirms that the defectors made zero effort to tell Navarre the truth outside of secret messages to the families they smuggled to Aretia.
It’s a shame that this moment is precariously balanced on so many problems. I do feel like this would have been a very rewarding conclusion if the story it followed were competently written.
The Venin Ass-Pull
Xaden becoming a venin is not the worst twist in this book. As far as cliffhangers to end the story go, I think it could have been good. The problem is that it is by far the laziest of all the twists. It could not be more clear that Yarros made this up on the spot and then did the bare minimum of buildup: a flashier version of Jack’s orange allergy.
He Challenged Him to a D-D-Duel!
This is how Chapter 63 ended:
Xaden sticks out his hand. “You want to walk with me, Violet?”
Something in his tone - maybe it’s resignation - makes me twine my fingers with his, following him as he walks out of the archway, past Melgren, and toward the dragons.
“Where are you going? They’re about to attack -” Melgren starts.
“I’m buying her the time she needs,” Xaden answers, and my stomach sinks. “And they won’t attack. Not yet. They’re still waiting.”
“What the fuck for?” Melgren snaps.
Xaden’s hand tightens around mine. “Me.”
Xaden then explains to Violet (because Melgren apparently had no follow-up questions to that and just let them walk away) that the Sage is here for them. After reminding the audience that this is the same Sage from the climax of Fourth Wing, Xaden explains,
“He thought we’d be at Samara. Figured we’d do the honorable thing and answer Melgren’s call.”
“How do you know that?” My brow furrows.
“Do us a favor and don’t ask.”
No, Ms. Yarros. No. You can’t expect to keep getting away with this nonsense. If you do not have an answer this question, then the solution is not to tell us not to ask. The solution is to not write the problem that demands that answer in the first place.
So: how did Xaden know all of this?
If the Sage contacted him magically, why wouldn’t Violet also have gotten instructions for a duel?
If the Sage contacted him through venin agents, then Xaden should already have known that venin could exist within the wards, so Jack being a venin should not have been presented as such a huge shift in the dynamics of the story. There’s also the problem of Xaden not telling anyone else about the venin agent and not attempting to bring that agent to the rebels for interrogation.
If Xaden learned all of this about the Sage because his inntinnsic powers have the range of line of sight, then he would have just said that he’d used his inntinnsic powers on the Sage.
If Xaden is getting the same prophecy dreams as Violet, that implies that he is drawing power from Andarna (since that’s the only available explanation for how Violet could be seeing the future). Setting aside for a moment that Yarros would then be stealing from Lightlark as well (which, given that Xaden is a Bad Boy Love Interest with god-tier shadow powers and an unreleated secondary power, would not be the first thing she stole from that book), why isn’t Violet drawing any powers from him on return?
No matter how one slices it, this breaks plot, character, or both.
Why Is It a Duel?
Even if we accept that Xaden and the Sage were able to arrange this, the manner in which they fight the duel is very strange.
At first, it sounded like Xaden and Sgaeyl were going to fly up and engage the Sage in the air, in the midst of the wyvern horde. Fair enough - that’s how the battle as a whole has been fought, and it’s what’s in the best interest of both sides. Xaden does not want the Sage on the ground because, as has been repeatedly hammered in by Yarros, a venin on the ground can kill everyone around them with a death wave attack. They are less dangerous in the air. As for the Sage, his wyverns are his greatest weapon. He’s not going to want to put himself in a situation where he can easily be shanked.
So how and why do Xaden and the Sage end up fighting a one-on-one duel on the ground, next to some unidentified “ravine”, while the dragons and wyverns fight overhead?
We get no explanation for this. We don't even get setup. We just get told that’s what they end up doing. As Violet decides to sacrifice herself to imbue the wardstone, she tries to connect her mind to Xaden’s, and we get this.
“I have no choice.” Taking a few staggered steps, I reach for Xaden lightly, not to distract but just to feel— His shields are up, blocking me completely out.
“He fights,” Tairn says, and my vision darkens momentarily before clearing again…with a view ofthe battlefield. I’m seeing through his eyes just like I had Andarna’s last year. A swath of gray blocks out the world a second before the sky appears again, red flowing against the clouds in a stream, and then Tairn glances beneath him, watching the wyvern fall with a burst of satisfaction before he scans the ground, spotting Xaden near the edge of the ravine.
My heart beats erratically as I watch the Sage easily block each of Xaden’s shadows with blasts of blue daggers of fire, then stops completely when the dappled sunlight catches on two blades imbedded in the ground behind the staff-wielding venin.
Xaden must have thrown his daggers and missed. I know he carries a third, but will he get to use it? Because the Sage isn’t losing territory. He’s gaining on Xaden, coming closer step by step, backing Xaden against the edge of the ravine.
No explanation. No sense of progression. There’s not even a sense of a gentleman’s agreement meant to end the battle with the death of one man or the other. Xaden and the Sage and simply fighting in a scenario that makes no sense for either one of them, and we are just supposed to accept that it makes sense for them to do this.
Maybe, if Yarros had actually shown us the entire fight from Xaden’s POV (she shows us the moment he becomes a venin from his POV, so the lack of anything else about the fight really stands out), this could have made sense. As it is, it’s just random spectacle. The same could be said about the one other glimpse of the fight we get from Violet’s POV.
“Don’t do it!” I cry. “Sloane, that’s my mother.” This isn’t happening. Maybe Sloane won’t listen to me, but she’ll listen to Xaden. I throw down my shields—
Pain. Agonizing, blistering pain roars down the pathway. Hopelessness and…helplessness? It hits me from every angle, stealing my breath, overwhelming my senses and my strength. My body sags—my full weight in Aaric’s arms—as my mind fights to separate Xaden’s emotions from mine.
He’s… I can’t think around the pain, can’t breathe for the tightness in my chest, can’t feel the ground beneath my feet.
“Xaden’s dying,” I whisper.
This was very clearly done just to milk an emotional reaction from the audience. Bad Boy Love Interest is dying - whatever will Violet do? The problem is that we have no context for how he progressed to this point. It’s just random noise.
The Flashback
The flashback explains nothing about the duel itself. It drops us in at the very end, after Xaden has lost, while the Sage heckles him and tries to get him to turn to the Dark Side.
All the heckling really tells us is that the venin want Xaden to join them just as badly as they want Violet to … but if that’s the case, why bother with the duel? Why not send an emissary to demand that Violet and Xaden be handed over in exchange for Navarre being spared?
Regardless, the Sage telekinetically pins Xaden to the ground, probably to tempt him to drain power from the earth. Xaden resists, but then he feels Violet’s suffering in the wardstone chamber. That convinces him to drain power from the ground.
And then he just … does it. He reaches for the power and becomes a venin.
It is that easy.
Oh, boy, we will get to that in Worldbuilding.
In any case, the flashback ends there. We don’t see how the fight goes. Yarros couldn’t be bothered, because she didn’t really care about the fight. Forcing the cliffhanger was all that matters. (Plus, this enables Yarros to lie to the audience. We don’t see Xaden kill the Sage, so Yarros can very easily turn around in Onyx Storm and say, “Nah, Xaden didn’t kill him after all.”)
Back to Jack
Xaden talking to Jack doesn’t go anywhere. The only thing of substance is that, while taunting Xaden, Jack confirms that the draining ability of venin is addictive, which I assume will come into play in Onyx Storm (unless, you know, Yarros decides it would be inconvenient to whatever whims she has in the moment). Given how easily the addiction could have been illustrated by showing us that Xaden is now experiencing cravings, I think that this scene exists because Yarros thought it would be a cool moment to end on. Substance was an incidental afterthought.
Laziness
Xaden becoming a venin could have been a great note to end the story on … if Yarros had cared.
The way that his duel with the Sage was slapped in, the way it has no logic to it and only appeared as isolated flashes meant to wring out maximum emotion with minimal effort, and damage its execution does to the worldbuilding (as we will get to shortly), leaves no illusions that this was pre-planned. Yarros came up with the twist at the last minute. She then set up in the redraft with as little effort or impact upon her narrative as possible. If she genuinely cared about this, she would have shown us the duel from start to finish, the same way she shows us all of Violet’s fights.
Ironically enough, I think this twist have worked better if Yarros had done less. If Xaden had simply told Violet that he would keep the Sage busy while she tried to reactivate the wardstone, and then afterwards he revealed that he slew the Sage butnbecame a venin in the process, that would have worked. We didn’t need to see any spectacle or a scene of the Sage heckling him. The reveal that Xaden became a venin would already imply that he had to break a taboo to defeat an overwhelming foe. A throwaway line about Sgaeyl and the Sage’s wyvern crashing into the ground would explain how he drained the necessary power to become a venin. At worst, the unknowns would serve as a mystery that could have been explained in Onyx Storm.
But that’s the thing about Yarros’s writing: she is too lazy to make genuine effort to tell a compelling narrative, but she is also thinks her audience lacks the intelligence for her to use subtlety or to imply things. So, while she can’t be bothered to do extensive rewrites for a twist to make sense, she also feels compelled to cling to our hands, breaking our fingers in an effort to convince us of her cleverness.
CHARACTER
Xaden
The ass-pull of Xaden becoming a venin almost works on a character basis. He drains power in desperation to help Violet. (Not sure how he thought he was going to stop Violet from sacrificing herself by becoming a venin. Maybe he thought that, if he killed the Sage quickly, he could stop Violet by assuring her that he was no longer in danger.) Using every means necessary to help Violet is consistent with his character.
The reason this falls short is that, for this twist to really work, we also needed the venin themselves to be personally relevant to him. All we have right now is that he opposes them because That’s Good. He smuggled weapons to fight them because he felt Navarre’s policy of isolationism is What’s Bad. This isn’t a terrible start, but it’s not quite enough to support the weight of a cliffhanger that will drive us into the next book.
For this twist to function on the merit of character alone, the idea of becoming a venin that Xaden needed to engage with as a character. Either he should had toyed with the idea of turning riders into venin to fight fire with fire, or else he should have taken a stand against others who toyed with that idea. That way, when he chooses to become a venin to save Violet, we fully understand what that decision means to him. In the former instance, Violet would be the motivation that drives him over the edge; in the latter, Violet would be the higher priority who forces him to throw aside his other principles.
Dain and Rhiannon
In Chapter 65, we get another one of those strange moments where, for the briefest of moments, it seems like Yarros may indeed have done multiple redrafts, only to make a serious editing mistake that exposes the existence of another version of the story.
When Violet and her siblings emerge from the wardstone chamber after the wards are raised, we get this:
We emerge from the southwest tower to the sounds of victory. Cheers and cries of thanks to the gods. Infantry, healers, riders, and fliers alike clog the hallway with their hugs, but we make it through.
Mira, Brennan, and I stand in the doorway of the courtyard, watching the celebration break into full force. None of us seem able to move.
A face appears in front of mine. Brown eyes. Brown hair. Dain.
“Violet?” He lifts a blood-soaked arm to reach for me, then thinks twice. “Are you—”
“Move!” Rhiannon pushes him out of the way, her grin tired and so very beautiful. “You got the wards up!” She cups my face with both hands.
“Yes.” I manage a nod, my gaze skimming over her face. There are a few tears in the thighs of her leathers that might be stab wounds, but I can’t tell. “Are you hurt?”
This then transitions into Rhiannon explaining the ending of the battle and then comforting Violet over General Sorrengail’s death.
This last moment of humiliation for Dain is par for the course. After everything he has done for Violet, sacrificed for her, put up with from her, he is casually bashed aside in a moment that could have represented reconciliation between them. Him comforting Violet could have been genuinely meaningful. He knew Violet since childhood, and he knew General Sorrengail. Any effort he made at consoling Violet would be far more meaningful than effort by an accessory whose only purpose is Violet’s validation. Still, Yarros really wants us to know how much she hates whomever Dain represents, so we’ve got to let her get that out of her system.
What I find far more interesting here is the description of Rhiannon.
Rhiannon’s smile is “very beautiful”. This is a rather curious word choice that stuck out to me when I read it, but it wasn’t until I combed back through both Fourth Wing and Iron Flame that I understood why.
Violet doesn’t usually use “beautiful” to describe people, either in dialogue or the narrative voice. Objects, places, and dragons, yes, but not people. Nearly every instance of her using it to describe people has been to describe Xaden. Two instances were used to describe Cat, obviously to play up Violet’s jealousy. The one other time “beautiful” was used to describe a person was . . .
. . . Dain, in Chapter 3 of Fourth Wing, referencing . . . his smile.
The beautiful, easygoing smile that’s starred in way too many of my fantasies is far from the scowl that purses his mouth, and everything about him seems a little … harder, but it works for him.
Add this this the rather intimate gesture of Rhiannon cupping Violet’s face in her hands. I can’t recall a single time that Rhiannon has done this … but Dain has done so multiple times. That has even been a plot point, thanks to how his Signet works.
I think that Yarros originally envisioned this moment for Dain. Maybe there was a point where she meant to maintain a meaningful love triangle between Violet, Dain, and Xaden. Maybe she simply had plans for a moment of reconciliation between Violet and Dain, with Violet trusting him to touch her again at this moment and worrying about his well-being. Whatever this moment was originally meant to be, her commitment to destroying Dain overrode all else. Rather than rewriting this interaction, she quite literally pushed Dain out of it and slotted Rhiannon into his place.
WORLDBUILDING
Venin - Powers
Previous encounters with the venin showed their general ability to drain life from other beings, the death wave power they can unleash while touching the ground, their ability to deny physics while in flight (though, in hindsight, that may have just been Yarros herself denying physics), and their immortality. They can use their power to create runes, which are then used to animate wyverns. Violet’s prophecy dreams indicate that they have incredible powerful telekinetic abilities. Venin riders can mind control their dragons. Yarros also claims that they have a pain projection power, though we also covered back in Chapter 60, that opens up plot holes.
One curious detail - not a problem, just a curious detail - is that despite this list of powers, we have yet to actually see a venin use any magical powers outside of the life draining and pain projection (which, again, was probably just a Signet before Yarros needed to lie about the Jack twist). Yes, the wyverns are fueled by runes, but we haven't seen the wyverns being created. The telekinesis only appeared in Violet’s dreams. As a result, it has felt as though the venin are only draining magic for the sake of draining magic. They were supposedly drawn down this dark path to … you know … use magic. So why haven’t they been using that magic?
Yarros corrects this during the flashback. We see telekinesis used, with the Sage using it to immobilize Xaden and toss him around. We also see the Sage conjure up “blasts of blue daggers of fire”. It’s a small touch that doesn’t impact the overall quality of the narrative, but a practical demonstration of venin magic is something I personally appreciate.
Also, in Chapter 66, we get this when Xaden sneaks to Jack’s cell:
The guard cracks a yawn, and I slip by unnoticed thanks to the increase in my signet … or whatever this is.
Venin riders have stronger Signets than normal riders. I think that giving this power boost to the already-incomprehensible powerful Xaden is a little pointless, but it is something that could be interesting to explore down the line (assuming Yarros can be bothered).
Venin - Costs
Back in Chapter 60, Jack delivered this line as part of the twist reveal.
“We can still feed from the ground, still channel enough to survive.”
It’s unclear just how literal “survive” is supposed to be. Will venin literally die if they don’t drain magic from their surroundings? How long does that take? If a venin only drains magic, but never uses it, will the venin be able to go longer between feedings? Does this replace the need for food, water, and air, thereby explaining how Jack didn’t starve, dehydrate, or suffocate while buried in rubble?
However, maybe Jack is just being figurative, as in Chapter 66, Jack delivers this taunt.
“There’s no cure. You can never give back what’s taken - you’ll only hunger for more.”
The power of the venin is addictive. I don’t have much to say about this. It doesn’t fill any plot holes, but it doesn’t open them, either - not yet, at least. There’s a lot of narrative potential with Xaden now having powers he’s addicted to using. I just doubt that Yarros will take advantage of that.
Also, now that Jack said, “There’s no cure,” I would not be the least bit surprised if a later plot point in this series involved Yarros’s self-insert Mary Sue finding a cure.
Venin - Transformation
We have at last come to the reason why Xaden becoming a venin is so cataclysmic to the worldbuilding: the actual moment of him becoming a venin.
[The Sage is] too strong, and I have nothing left. But I’ll be damned if Violet suffers the consequences. He won’t get his hands on her. Not today. Not ever. The slush beneath my palm melts, and I feel … There’s something beneath me.
A steady flow of unmistakable … power.
“You cannot!” Sgaeyl shrieks. “I chose you!”
But Violet chose me, too.
I reach.
It’s … just that easy.
There’s no process to the transformation. There’s no ritual that needs to be performed. No bargains need to be struck, nor contracts signed. No training or meditation is needed. One just needs to open oneself up to the power that is literally at one’s fingertips. As Jack himself helpfully pointed out back in Chapter 60, the wards do not prevent anyone from doing this, either.
How is Navarre not overrun with venin?
At this point, the venin wouldn’t even need to be an organized movement that is actively recruiting members. This is something that random people would be doing all the time, without any understanding of what they are getting into. People deep in prayer or meditation, people on alcohol or mind-altering drugs (or, for that matter, who are just incredibly sleep-deprived), and people with any number of mental illnesses might sense something out of the ordinary, reach for it out of curiosity or poor impulse control or because they mistake this power for a spiritual experience, and turn themselves into a venin. Children could stumble onto this while playing make-believe! Come to think of it, we have no reason to believe that the average Joe can't sense and access this power at any time. No one would have to be seeking magical power or immortality. They would do it once, get addicted, and then be trapped in a cycle of feeding.
And then there are the riders. If it really is this easy to extract magic from the ground, cadets should be corrupted into venin all the time. Those without dragons would be seeking power to assassinate the recently bonded; those with dragons would be seeking an edge. Both sides would, of course, be eager for a little immortality. The dragons wouldn’t stop it. Sageyl and Tairn aren’t roasting Xaden on the spot, so it stands to reason that many other dragons would also want to protect their riders, even without the mind control.
Navarre shouldn’t be blissfully unaware of the war outside their borders. The whole kingdom should be primed to explode like a hive city on the brink of a massive Chaos uprising. There should be mass paranoia and inquisitions to deal with venin that keep crawling out of the woodwork.
Part of me wants to give Yarros credit. Maybe this is the reason that Navarre suppressed the truth about the venin and tried to expunge knowledge of runes: venin were popping up inside the wards, and by denying the people knowledge, they hopped to reduce the frequency at which venin spawned and deny power to those who formed accidentally. Unfortunately, additional worldbuilding would be needed to smooth this over. I no longer have any faith in Yarros’s ability to fill plot holes like this.
(Also, acknowledging this would mean that Violet was in some way wrong to oppose the methods of the scribes and the rider leadership, which Yarros would never allow. She would need to have both a strong incentive to acknowledge reality and a means to avoid ever directly acknowledging that Violet was wrong, much like how she did with the translation errors.)
FREEDOM
It’s taken us 6 months (not counting the weeks taken off for other reviews), but at long last, we have reached the end of this terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad book.
I’d like to thank you all for sticking with me. I know that there was a lot to go over. I sincerely hope that you found it educational.
Next week will be the final retrospective of Part Two, as well of the book as a whole. There will be a brief discussion of how Part Two could have been reworked into a more functional narrative, both as a standalone and as part of the same book as Part One. We will also cover some odds and ends regarding Yarros herself and cover what information we currently have regarding Onyx Storm, the third book in The Empyrean, which is due out in January.
That’s coming your way on September 13th. Then, on September 20th, we will finally be getting to a series that I alluded to back at the end of the Fourth Wing review: an analysis of the plot of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire within comparisons to Fourth Wing.
Thank you again for sticking with me. I hope to see you all next week. Have a good day.
