Onyx Storm (Chapter 5 to Chapter 7)

STATS

Title: Onyx Storm

Series: The Empyrean (Book 3)

Author(s): Rebecca Yarros

Genre: Fantasy (Epic)

First Printing: January 2025

Publisher: Red Tower Books

Rating: 1.5 / 10

SPOILER WARNING

Heavy spoilers will be provided for the entirety of The Empyrean up through the end of the content covered in this part. Mild spoilers for elements later in Onyx Storm may be provided, but I will keep the first paragraph of each section as spoiler-free as possible. Heavy spoilers from later in Onyx Storm will be confined to clearly labelled sections.

STORY

Violet and her accessories intervene in a near-bloodbath between the Navarrian riders and the fliers / Aretia riders. Dain tries to use his authority as wingleader to resolve the situation. When this fails, Violet threatens violence against the Navarrian riders and delivers a limp speech about cooperation that somehow resolves everything. After this speech is delivered, Devera and other professors appear, announcing the resumption of classes. Violet is then informed by Lewellen that, out of Andarna’s list of demands, the demand that the fliers be allowed to remain at Basgiath has been denied. Violet also learns that Xaden has been restored to the seat of the Duke of Tyrrendor as part of the peace process.

In the dead of night, Violet and her accessories collect Sawyer from the infirmary and bring him back to the wardstone. It is here that we finally learn of Violet’s plan to modify the wardstone to allow the fliers to remain at Basgiath. Mira and Brennan intercept her at the wardstone and offer a token protest before agreeing to help. Sawyer then uses his Signet to modify the runes on the wardstone, granting fliers access to their magic. After, as the group pondering their impending treason charges, Violet assures them that she has a plan to erase those consequences.

The next day, Violet attends Battle Brief. Word of the fliers having their magic restored spreads. Colonel Aetos then bursts into the room to arrest Violet for treason.

PLOT

The Silver-Haired Maiden

A detail mentioned in passing in Chapter 2 is that Theophanie has silver hair. Early in Chapter 5, Violet ponders that fact.

Not knowing if more venin could be running around campus is terrifying, but at least if there are, Xaden will sense them. The thought is oddly comforting.

“That venin by Jack’s cell had silver hair,” I mutter, setting my dagger to an apple and peeling it in one long ribbon. “That’s weird, right?”

“Everyone’s hair eventually turns gray. That’s the least weird thing about yesterday’s attack. How long are we supposed to wait to see if they charge us with treason?” Ridoc drums his fingers on the thick oak table.

This is aftshadowing. It comes out of nowhere, and it is immediately forgotten by the scene around it. It’s more comprehensive aftshadowing that Yarros usually does, and it sets up something that she might have actually planned out (more on that in … let me check how many posts we have ahead of us … November), but this specific example is just tacked on randomly.

That being said, in terms of writing a mystery, this is a marked improvement over what we have seen previously.

Violet - the self-insert Mary Sue around whom reality warps to justify any ludicrous conclusion she jumps to - is not the one who decides that the silver hair is not important . Ridoc - the character we have been conditioned to not take seriously, to the point that Yarros goes out of her way to try to make him a more serious character in this book - is the one who writes the mystery off. The question is therefore not answered by what Ridoc says. It lingers for Violet, and thus the audience understands that it is still in play.

The Voice of Sue

Most of what I have to say about the laughable scene where Violet brings peace (which fills Chapter 5 and most of Chapter 6, thanks to another false cliffhanger) is wrapped up in either discussion of power fantasy in Chapter 8 or the discussion of demonization of characters in Chapter 19. What I want to focus on here instead is how contrived this scene is.

It should have happened in Iron Flame

This scene - or, at least, the concept of tensions between riders and fliers nearly erupting into a bloodbath - is exactly the sort of thing that should have been included in Iron Flame to demonstrate the tensions between the two factions within Aretia. It would have successfully illustrated just how deep the conflict runs. It would also have provided context to why Devera thought that one last fight challenge to clear the air would fix things. She would have seen how ready everyone was for violence and then given them a final opportunity to vent those frustrations.

So why didn’t we get this scene back then? And, if we didn’t get the scene then, why are we getting it now?

The Navarrian and Aretian riders are from the same environment. They were raised in the same culture. They share the same values. They were trained in the same academy under the same military philosophy. The only difference between them is that one faction was told by their dragons to defect while the other was denied the opportunity to defect by their dragons. (Remember, in Chapter 36 of Iron Flame, Xaden made it clear that the dragons were the ones who made the decision for the riders.)

Why, then, are the Navarrian riders being portrayed as a Khornate mob, whereas we were only shown mild grumbling from the Aretian riders in the last book (we were told of fights, but nothing on this scale) and now see the Aretian riders ready to fight to the death for the fliers? If anything, the fact that the Navarrian riders were introduced to the fliers by the fliers helping them to defend their home should make them more accepting of the fliers out of the gate than the Aretians were.

Maybe I could buy into this if the Navarrian riders were aware that the wardstone was only destroyed because the rebel children blocked Melgren’s visions. In that circumstance, there would be a through line to pinning the peril Basgiath faced on the arrival of the fliers, thereby fueling ongoing hostility. However, since that fact is never acknowledged by anyone in the series, it’s clear that the Navarrians aren’t aware of it. They simply don’t have a reason to hold a grudge against the fliers when the Aretian riders won’t.

On what authority are they doing this?

The Navarrians frame their effort to goad the fliers / Aretian riders into a bloodbath as a duel under the Codex … whilst simultaneously arguing that Dain has no authority to shut down the challenge, because the fliers and the Aretian riders are outside of the chain of command that the Codex governs.

“This goes against the Codex!” Dain elbows a Navarrian cadet from Third Wing in the head and pushes through the line. “Challenges are only issued in the presence of a combat master.”

“On what authority do you object, Aetos?” Aura snarls.

The crowd quiets, but the silence feels more dangerous than the chanting had been as everyone turns to watch the interaction.

“Stay here,” I order Cat, then shove my way between Imogen and Quinn.

“Article Four, Section Four.” Dain approaches Aura with his hands up, exposing his palms. “‘A wingleader has the authority and duty to maintain—’”

“Article Two, Section One,” Aura shouts, raking the edge of her dagger along the flier’s throat. “‘Riders outside quadrant chain of command can’t interfere with cadet matters.’ You are no longer in the chain of command.”

If the fliers and Aretia riders are not in the chain of command, why would the Navarrian riders issue a challenge? Would this not simply be unsanctioned murder? Do riders routinely challenge infantry members, scribes, healers, and civilians to duels, too?

Come to think of it, why did Chapter 1 open with Aretian riders and fliers flying patrols? That chapter framed things as if some sort of understanding had been reached. If there is some sort of agreement in place that allows them to cooperate, and thus allows challenges to be issued, why wouldn’t that same agreement allow Dain to shut down the hostilities?

The Answer

The reason that this scene has been contrived is quite simple: Yarros wanted Violet to have a power fantasy moment.

Violet's weak speech, composed of basic arguments that the Navarrian fliers had surely already considered and dismissed, doesn’t just calm down the violence. It is followed by multiple characters showering her with validation. She is praised as if she is some amazing diplomat.

Yarros contrived this scene and squandered nearly two chapters of the readers’ time on it because she fantasizes about being a level 20 Eloquence Bard with maxed Charisma and the ability to cast Power Word Kill on an NPC when the DM says, “Lol, no, I am not letting you cheese the entire campaign with one dice roll.” That’s fine when it happens in a D&D game. It’s self-indulgent nonsense when folded into a narrative intended to entertain an audience who isn’t gaming alongside you.

Which … by extension … means that she retconned the mending of relations between Navarre and Aretia, contrived this whole peace treaty process, so that she could indulge in power fantasy, rather than just stating the plot she promised in her premise and the Prologue.

And that’s before we even get to the wardstone.

Andarna’s List of Demands

As mentioned in the last part, the reveal of Andarna’s list of demands in Chapter 6 makes me think that she had no idea what those demands were in Chapter 3. Reading the demands also made me question whether Violet even cares about the peace process.

The five demands on the list are:

1. The gryphon fliers are to remain integrated with the Aretian fliers, and thus will also remain stationed at Basgiath. This is what triggers Violet’s attempt to alter the wardstone. It’s honestly an extremely petty demand, given that all parties involved are military personnel engaged in a war for survival. They need to go where officers with more experience and knowledge order them to go in order to fend off the existential threat bearing down upon them. Preserving their friend group should not take priority over that.

2. Violet gets to handpick everyone for the task force to find the rainbow dragons. This is, again, very petty. Violet is acting like only she knows who is best for this task, despite the fact that there are many people with more experience and knowledge than both herself and anyone she would choose for the task force. (More on this in Chapters 19 and 20.)

3. The Aretia fliers will receive a “full pardon for their treason and sedition”. This is the one provision on the list that makes complete sense and makes Violet seem heroic. She is using the influence at her disposal to save many lives (in particular, lives needed to fight in the existential conflict) and to help the peace process run more smoothly.

4. “Andarna will not submit for any examination.” This is an extension of the problem we covered in the Prologue. Violet has no reason to think she needs to keep secrets, but now she is actively suppressing information that may be vital to saving everyone. Yes, this is Andarna’s request, but Andarna is a surly teenager. Violet should be the mature adult who urges Andarna to do the right thing.

5. Andarna “will be granted access to hunt in the king’s forest whenever she pleases.” This is extremely petty, given the stakes at play. I think Yarros threw this one in for levity, but if that is the case, it really doesn’t mesh well with the tone of the scene, especially since she immediately pivots to Violet worrying about the fliers.

Duke Riorson

Xaden becoming Duke again is … pointless. Yarros must have really wanted to leave into the sexual fantasy of the love interest being a prince, plus it lets her indulge in power fantasy down the line. It’s not like it pays anything off - in fact, based on things Xaden said in Iron Flame, he didn’t even want his title back.

The Wardstone Debacle

I didn’t think I’d have to use the Elon Musk quote again so soon, but the events of Chapter 7 absolutely warrant it.

"What I care about is the reality of goodness, not the perception of it. And what I see all over the place is people who care about looking good, while doing evil.”

The Terms of Peace

Before we discuss the abhorrent actions Violet takes, let’s go over her justification for it.

The peace talks are, at their core, a negotiation of a military alliance between Navarre, Aretia, and Poromiel. While Yarros doesn’t lay out exactly what every faction wants out of this alliance, she provides enough information for us to grasp the basics.

• Navarre wants to stop Poromiel’s raids for alloy, to reintegrate the Aretian riders into the chain of command, and to ensure that Tyrrendor doesn’t rally around Aretia to attempt another rebellion. This is especially important because Tyrrendor is where the mines of the trademarked, biocompatible dental alloy are (something we will learn later in this book) and also supplies more conscripts to Navarre’s military than any other province (which was established all the way back in Fourth Wing).

• Aretia wants Navarre to provide military aid to Poromiel and to accept Poromish refugees. Though not stated, I think we can safely assume that they were also pushing for the full pardon that Andarna demanded, since it would be very dumb of them not to do that. Lewellen further demanded the return of Xaden’s father’s sword, an item that I can’t remember being mentioned in the previous books and that has no narrative relevance in this one (despite Yarros making a big deal out of it at town points farther down the line).

• Poromiel wants to be supplied with venin-killing alloy weapons, to be able to send their refugees into Navarre, and for fliers to be able to take refuge inside the wards. It’s not clear whether this last point is merely a continuation of Aretia’s prior agreement to shelter and educate flier cadets or is an expansion to, say, allowing gryphons to nest within Navarre.

The treaty spawned from this negotiation is a nightmare that we will discuss next time. Much like the Codex before it, Yarros blatantly configured it to sustain the power fantasy, allowing her darlings to break the rules and look heroic while stripping Navarre of any power to stop them. For now, let’s zero in on the issue of sheltering fliers.

Navarre and Poromiel are actually in agreement on the issue of fliers. Neither of them want the fliers to be sheltered at Basigath. They want the fliers to either be sheltered at Aretia or to be sent back to Poromiel. The reason for this is quite simple: riders and the fliers do not get along, and fliers are massively disadvantaged without full access to their magic. The wards at Aretia are flawed and failing, but at the very least, those flaws grant fliers the magic needed to protect themselves. I imagine Aretia would be on board with continuing to host the fliers, given that they’d been doing so for a couple months at this point.

So … no problems, right?

Apparently not, because Violet insists that this is not good enough.

Violet’s Demand

Violet wants fliers to be kept at Basgiath. The reason she had Mira look into suppressing runes is because she wants to tamper with the Basgiath wardstone, She wants to tamper with the wards the protect millions of people from annihilation so that other people than dragon riders can use magic inside the wards. Despite having no evidence that this can be done without collapsing the wards or making the wards useless (well, more useless than they’ve been since the start of this book), merely some tests in altering runes on very simple objects, she had Mira share this idea with the Senarium.

Obviously, they said no to this. Imagine is someone came to the UN and claimed that the world energy crisis could be solved overnight if every nuclear reactor in the world disabled all safeties and cranked output up by an order of magnitude. That person would be laughed out of the room, at best.

Violet’s response?

Develop a martyr complex and commit treason, endangering the lives of millions of people to shelter a few hundred.

The Aretia Retcon

Yarros knows that, by the rules so the world she has established, Violet is about to commit an evil more foul than even her refusal to active the Aretia wardstone in the last book. She has to scramble to retcon the lore to make Violet’s martyr complex seem justified.

Remember how, in Iron Flame, the fact that fliers could still use magic was a sign that the Aretia wardstone was flawed?

Not anymore. Yarros wants you to forget about that. As the Chapter 7 epigraph now informs us, that was a feature, not a bug. Violet’s not just a monster who’s damning millions of people for the sake of her own self-righteousness. She is a monster who’s damning millions of people for the sake of her own self-righteousness, yet she’s also following in the footsteps of someone else with a martyr complex, because apparently, the Aretia wardstone that was never activated was always intended to allow gryphons and fliers to use their magic inside its area of effect.

If I’m court-martialed for helping Braxtyn defend his people, then I shall welcome the trial. All who channel from dragon and gryphon alike should flourish under the wards, and now Aretia will be that haven should one of the others ever return.

- Journal of Lyra of Morraine

(Lyra, you may recall, was the member of the First Six who told the “truth” in her journals by saying that there were seven dragon breeds, versus the rider who “lied” by saying the exact same thing while enshrining the rainbow dragons as something special.)

I want to say that this retcon is not cannibalistic. Aretia did not have Lyra’s journal in the last book. Therefore, it’s possible that Violet and the others genuinely believed that the Aretia wardstone was faulty, despite the inclusion of fliers being intentional, and only realized the truth after the events of Iron Flame, when Jesinia had time to read Lyra’s journal.

However, I can’t ignore that this is another lie from Yarros. When she wrote Iron Flame, she needed the spike in tension from the wards being flawed, so she asserted the absolute reality that fliers using magic while the wardstone was active meant that something was wrong. Now, she needs Violet to look righteous. Now, fliers using magic at Aretia was always intended, and they just need a rainbow dragon to reinforce the wardstone. So either Yarros lied back when she wrote Iron Flame, when she fully intended to reverse her position in the next book without Violet ever having a moment of acknowledging that the previous reaction was wrong, or she is lying now, by continuing to pretend that she planned all of this out from the beginning.

Mortal Sin

We know that Violet fully consents to an act that risks the annihilation of millions of people to save the few. But hey, at least Yarros doesn’t go out of her way to establish that Violet is fully aware of the monstrous risk she is taking, right?

…

So Yarros goes out of her way to establish that Violet also has full knowledge of what she is doing.

She swings her attention back to me. “You shouldn’t do this.”

I lift my chin. “Are you going to stop me?”

Her eyes narrow slightly. “Can you be stopped?”

“No.” I shake my head. “You were there when we gave our word that the fliers would be educated with the riders. If Navarre wants us, then they take all of us.”

“And you’re willing to risk the wards our mother gave her life to power to keep your word?” She lifts her eyebrow.

“You’re the one who told me this can be done.” I skirt the question as the othersmove to stand beside me.

“Which is something I’ll have to live with.” She looks at each rider. “You’re all aware that if we fail, the wards could fall? And if we succeed, there’s every chance we’ll be charged with treason and executed by dragon?”

“That’s not happening,” Tairn assures me with a low growl.

“I’m sorry, what?” Maren looks down the line from the right.

“Relax.” Imogen knocks her with an elbow. “Your only job is to wield. You’ll be clear of the rest.”

“We know the risks,” I tell Mira. “If the wards fall, then it looks like there’s a mass migration to Aretia, and I’m truly on a ticking clock to find Andarna’s kind. But they won’t, because you found the solution, and you’re never wrong. So I’m asking you again: Are you going to stop me?”

Violet’s attitude towards exposing millions of people to annihilation is, “Well, then I guess we’ll go from having one refugee crisis on our hands to having two.”

Navarrre has been branded as evil for simply not welcoming refugees. They didn’t start the refugee crisis. They just don’t want to risk the collapse of their own society by overstretching their resources.

By this book’s standards, Violet is now more evil than the leadership of Navarre because she is willing to cause a refuge crisis.

Oh, and Violet is not just aware of these consequences. She is aware that what she’s doing is not “right.” In Chapter 8, as she is brought before the Senarium to face the consequences of her actions, we get this telepathic line between her and Xaden.

“You really fucked with the wards?”

“Someone once told me the right way isn’t the only way.” I use his own wards from my first year against him, and his mouth tightens."

Maybe Yarros intended to mean “right” as the “best” way, but since the alternatives available to Violet were all the more moral options, it amounts to the same thing.

The Right Way

Violet could, and should, have leveraged Andarna to force the following:

• The task force to find the rainbow dragons needs to set up their headquarters in Aretia.

• The cadets who defected to Aretia are to return to Aretia with the fliers to continue their education.

Yes. It would have really been that easy for her to keep her promise.

What Yarros Deserves

This is where that article from ELLE.com really comes into focus.

“Romance is this beautiful place where women get to say on the page what we want, what we deserve, what healthy relationships should look like. [It’s about] destigmatizing what a woman feels she’s worth.”

No one forced Yarros to bind herself to the morality of her work. She was the one who chose to virtue signal about the beauty of someone vomiting up her worst impulses within a fictional narrative, all because the party responsible is a woman. She then chose to have her self-insert Mary Sue pull this stunt.

This means that, by Yarros’s own admission, she is on board with millions of people being either turned into refugees or consumed by an insatiable force of destruction, so long as the person inflicting this mass suffering does so in the name of keeping a promise.

Why This Matters

A protagonist doing something that is abhorrent by the standards of the protagonist’s own story is not inherently a flaw … so long as the story acknowledges what was done.

Back in the review of Malleus, I criticized the rushed execution of the theme. Eisenhorn starts as a faithful servant of the God-Emperor who is deeply entrenched in Puritanism, has a compressed arc in the last third of the book in which he is accused of going Radical and then decides to dabble is Radicalism, and then abruptly pivots and goes full radical by creating a dæmonhost just so he can shackle a particular dæmon in his basement. There is severe whiplash here. However, even in that case, at least Eisenhorn’s decision to betray his own values is treated with proper weight. He started the book being hounded by baseless accusations of heresy, spent a good chunk of the book on the run after being framed of heresy, and then, after he has been cleared of the charge of heresy, he ends the book by actually committing heresy. This is meant to be seen as a dark turn for the character.

Here … Violet's never going to be held accountable for this. It’s a power fantasy with zero self-awarness. We are supposed to cheer at her virtue for keeping her promise as she knowingly and willingly risks the lives of millions of the same type of people she condemns others for not defending. The reaction we are told to have in fundamentally at odds with the reality of the setting.

And I wish I could say this is the last time it happens, but we still have a ways to go before Violet showcases her intelligence by threatening to burn two innocent children alive.

And speaking of how we are told to reaction versus reality …

The Treason Lie

For the past handful do chapters, whenever Violet thought about her plan, she acknowledged that this was treason. She went into this violation of the wardstone dwelling on her impending martyrdom. To save the fliers, she was exposing herself and her friends to harsh punishment. We are meant to feel the danger and the weight of her sacrifice.

…

Yeah, Yarros was lying about that.

Right after Violet and her accessories finish mutilating the wardstone and celebrating their victory, we get this.

“What now?” Maren catches the rock.

“Now we stand trial for treason,” Sawyer manages between gulping breaths. But whenour eyes meet, he’s smiling just like I am.

“No. We won’t.” My smile widens. “Maren, I need you to listen to me very carefully.”

Not only are we being directly told not to worry about those consequences the Yarros spent multiple chapters telling us to care about, but we are also being primed for Violet to power fantasy her way out of consequences with another show of her supposed intelligence. This is not a moment of weight and consequence. This is a time to forget about consequence.

Violet is the POV character. Are we really meant to think that she did not have this plan to evade consequences from the start? Would it have been so hard for Yarros to say up front that Violet has a plan to avoid treason charges, so our only concern should be whether the wardstone mutilation will work?

This book has barely begun, and already, I am sick of how Yarros treats her audience.

A Fleck of Gold in the Dross

For horrific as Chapter 7 is, this much can at least be said: Yarros properly set it up.

The fact that Violet was preparing a plan to help the fliers stay at Basgiath has been mentioned since Chapter 1. Before Mira returned, it was heavily alluded that she was working on something linked to the fliers. Once Mira returned and spelled out how the wards could be dropped, focus then shifted to Violet pondering her pending treason.

It’s not perfect. We’re already covered how the emphasis put on treason is a lie to provoke an emotional response. There’s also the matter that, given how we are in Violet’s POV, Yarros was only able to hide the wardstone mutilation plan until Chapter 7 by withholding information from the audience.

Still, in terms of properly setting up plot developments, this is a massive improvement over what Yarros gave us previously.

CHARACTERS

Violet

What can I say about this monster that I haven’t already?

Dain

Dain’s involvement in Chapters 5 and 6 leads to some rather frustrating lines. In the interest of not repeating myself, I will save my discussion of how he is treated here until we discussion demonization in Chapter 19.

Aaric

These chapters establish that Aaric still point-blank refuses to reveal his true identity.

… why?

Iron Flame established that he only needed to remain hidden until he bonded with his dragon, at which point, the king would have no power to remove him from the Riders Quadrant. Then the mass defection to Aretia happened, and he still insisted on hiding his identity, despite the obvious advantages his royal status would offer the rebels.

Now, he is back at Basgiath. The secret of the venin, his stated reason for joining the riders, is now public. What's more, he is being directly told that his brother, Prince Halden, will be sent out the rainbow dragon task force with Violet, because someone from Navarre’s royal family needs to go to along for diplomatic purposes while searching foreign lands.

“Halden,” Aaric guesses, his emerald-green eyes narrowing slightly in speculation toward my brother. “Halden’s going with her, isn’t he?”

My jaw unhinges, then snaps shut at the apology filling Brennan’s eyes. “No fucking way.” I shake my head. “You cannot be serious.” I refuse to even think about it.

“They’re serious,” Aaric says without looking in my direction. “Poromiel would accept a Sorrengail without question, so if you need a royal capable of speaking for Navarre, they must think you’re headed to the isle kingdoms or northward.” He tilts his head, studying the older riders. “That about cover it?”

Despite seeing Violet’s reaction to Halden’s assignment, despite knowing the type of person his brother is, this is his reaction when it’s suggested that he reveal himself and take his brother's place on the task force.

“Is that why you wanted me here? To see if I’d announce myself, since Halden wants to go gallivanting off on dangerous missions? Make everyone feel good and cozy that there’s still a spare?”

“Perhaps.” [Lewellen] smiles at Aaric.

“Admirable attempt, but I’m only here for my squad. I’ll dismantle the family business before I rejoin it,” Aaric quips.

Aaroc is so dedicated to giving his family the middle finger that he is actively making life worse for a member of his squad, not to mention enabling any damage Halden does to the diplomatic effort down the line.

“Egotistical Assholes”

Remember how, in Chapter 14, Violet and her accessories mistreated the infantry during the RSC land nav exercise and were later absolved of any moral responsibility because being “egotistical assholes” is just in the riders’ natures? Remember how this line, in particular, was framed as something we should celebrate as the riders one-upping “Cadet Asshole”?

“So, you only respect rider squad leaders,” Calvin prods.

Aoife furiously writes in her notebook.

“Shut it, Calvin,” a cadet from behind me says with more than a little exasperation.

“You want my respect? Earn it.” Ridoc shrugs. “Cross the parapet, climb the Gauntlet, survive Threshing, and then we’ll be on equal footing.”

Oh, boy. Yarros sure hopes you don’t remember that, because that same line is now used to frame the Navarrians are monsters.

“Injuring a flier will jeopardize this alliance,” Dain argues, and I nod like he needs the encouragement.

“Who said we want it?” Aura drags the edge of her blade under the flier’s chin, and he winces but doesn’t move. “They haven’t cross the parapet. They haven’t climbed the Gauntlet. They won’t even accept a challenge. We do not tolerate cowards!”

WORLDBUILDING

Runes & Wardstones

In principle, I’m not against the idea that the wardstone can be altered. It’s a metal object with runes on it. By the rules set up in Chapter 4, someone with a Signet to manipulate metal should be able to alter the runes that cover the wardstone.

My issues here are more logistical in nature.

Should have figured it out in Iron Flame

How did no one figure out that the Aretia wardstone would permit gryphon magic until Jesinia translated Lyra’s journal?

The wardstone was not guarded. It also was not active, thus it was not on fire, making it a lot easier to study the runes on it. Did no one in Tyrrendor, the province that has preserved runes for centuries, every study it and realize what it was meant to do? We don’t see Violet do a close examination of the Basgiath stone while studying Lyra’s journal, which implies that the runes in question are obvious enough to see from ground level while the black flame is dancing around them. How did no one else notice this?

Power Supply

Runes are not the only magic involved in the wardstone. All seven breeds of dragon need to contribute, and any dragon who contributes to one wardstone can’t activate another. Dragons are clearly an important magical element here, otherwise, the wardstone could have been activated by just imbuing it with magic.

So why would altering the shape of the runes be enough to grant gryphons an exemption? Shouldn’t a gryphon need to continue magic to this stone in some way?

Balance of the Signets

When the professors finally step in to break up the impending bloodbath after Violet’s speech, Professor Emetterio makes an offhand remark that makes it sound like no one needs to worry about working together at all.

“Personally” - he scratches his beard - “I like our odds. The last time a shadow and lightning wielder fought side by side, they managed to drive the venin back into the Barrens for a few hundred years. We’ll figure out how to do it again.”

I fumble the conduit and nearly drop it. Xaden and I are the first of our signets to live simultaneously since the Great War?

Were I one of the Navarrian riders, with the attitude Yarros chose to establish here, I would at this point call out, “Then there’s no need to accept the fliers or Aretian riders. Violet and Xaden just need to fly out and handle the problem, right? Seems like that’s the best way to help Poromiel, not welcoming their refugees and forcing their fliers to integrate into our military.”

Setting aside Yarros not thinking through the implications of what she wrote … why is this being presented as some fateful event? Emetterio’s remark is phrased in such a way that makes it unclear whether he implies their victory is predestined or just holding up an isolated data point as established fact. Violet, however, is acting like the weight of destiny has just been dropped on her head. Did it really never occur to her that two rare, god-tier Signets might be statistically unlikely to manifest at the same time, meaning that a long period between these events is to be expected? Why is she so shocked by this? Why is this being dwelt upon?

PROSE

False Cliffhanger

The break between Chapters 5 and 6 is another false cliffhanger.

In fairness, it is not as bad as others we’ve seen this far. The scene within Chapter 5 represents the altercation between the Navarrian riders and the fliers / Aretian riders prior to Violet speaking up. The continuation of the same scene in Chapter 6 is everything Violet contributes. There is technically a change.

The reason this doesn’t justify a cliffhanger is that Violet has been there the whole time. She didn’t change the scenario by arriving late to the scene. She didn’t advance her character arc by making the decision to speak up. She just let Dain struggle until she decided, “Yeah, time to solve this with the Power of Sue.”. Her involvement therefore doesn't change the identity of the scene.

I’m going to start a counter for all the false cliffhangers in this book. Let’s see if Yarros can keep it in the single digits.

False Cliffhangers: 3

Knowing What Words Mean

Yarros still does not understand the difference between a “rebellion” and a “revolution”.

After an Navarrian rider threats Daik with violence, Violet chooses to announce her presence by throwing a knife at said rider, activating her Signet to look intimidating, and saying this.

“‘Rebel’ is so…outdated. We prefer the term ‘revolutionary.’”

Hey. Violet.

Do you think maybe, maybe, telling the Navarrian riders that you intend to overthrow their entire government is a dumb way to open a speech about everyone getting along?

POWER OVER STORY

Next time, we will break down Chapter 8.

The chapter, in and of itself, doesn’t offer us a great deal to discuss. It’s just another power fantasy flex by Yarros to put a river on her previous two power fantasy moments.

What it does offer, though, is a good moment to discuss how Yarros’s obsession pursuit of power fantasy fundamentally damages this story. The events of Chapters 5 through 8 are a warning of how the rest of this plot meanders from one power fantasy moment to the next with little or no impact on the broader narrative. Now’s a good time to both reflect on the damage done thus far and look ahead to the damage yet to come.

It’s coming your way on May 9th. I hope to see you all then. Please remember to subscribe to the newsletter if you’d like to receive a weekly e-mail with the latest posts. Have a great week, everyone.