Fourth Wing & Iron Flame Recap

Hello, and welcome to my first ever blog post! We’re starting off a new year, and Onyx Storm’s release is right around the corner. Since it’s only 15 days away and I’ve had this sitting untouched for weeks, I figured I better get it out there asap. Without further ado, here is your super casual, to-the-point, opinionated Fourth Wing and Iron Flame recap:

Fourth Wing:

Violet Sorrengail, a frail, silver-haired girl, trained her whole life to be a scribe (someone who deals with books and knows all the world’s history and whatnot). Her mother, the general, forces her into the rider's quadrant to train in combat and bond a dragon. Violet’s not too happy about it, but she gets a lot of help from her older sister, Mira, who warns her about one thing; stay away from Xaden Riorson.

Pft. As if.

Violet crosses the parapet on Conscription Day and makes friends with Rhiannon Matthias along the way by swapping shoes and literally saving her life. They both make it across (yay!) and on the other side is Dain Aetos, Violet’s childhood best friend and major crush. However, he’s angry because the rider’s quadrant is dangerous (as if she had a choice) and he spends the entire book telling her she’s not good enough (boo) and trying to keep her safe.

Also, an awful first-year named Jack Barlowe tries to kill her on the parapet but, obviously, he doesn’t succeed.

Now, let’s get into Xaden Riorson <3.

Xaden is the son of the last rebellion’s leader (The Great Betrayer). His dad “killed” Violet’s brother, Brennan, therefore Violet’s mom had Xaden’s dad killed. Talk about family drama.

(While we’re at it, the Marked Ones are all the rebel’s kids, who had to watch their parents be executed. Xaden took 107 cuts on his back from Violet’s mom to take responsibility for all of these Marked Ones. He made a deal that they get to go to the riders quadrant instead of also being executed. If any of them betray Navarre, he’ll die, and for that wonderful compromise, he owes the general a future favor. I’ll give you a hint; General Sorrengail made him vow to keep Violet alive in the rider’s quadrant, but we don’t know that until later.)

So, Xaden should want to kill her, but suspiciously doesn’t. He’s also super hot and dangerous so Violet is obviously attracted to him, and he likes her because she’s… cool or whatever. He literally used his shadow magic to unalive 6 other students who were trying to kill her in the middle of the night. (Go Xaden!)

Then comes Threshing: when all first-years try to bond a dragon. Our neighborhood nuisance Jack Barlowe tries to kill Violet again, but she attacks him and Barlowe runs away crying like a baby. Eventually, she winds up burying Barlowe under a mountain, but I can’t remember when exactly that happened, so I’m throwing it in now.

During Threshing, Violet bonds not one, but two dragons. The first is a super strong black dragon named Tairn, whose previous rider died sacrificing himself in attempt to save Violet’s brother, Brennan. The second is a little baby golden feather tail (which should not be allowed, but they let it happen anyway) named Andarna. Tairn is mated to Sgaeyl, Xaden’s dragon, so they’ll be seeing a lot of each other, naturally.

Now into the real grit of the story:

There are these monsters called venin, who take power from the earth and other things (like people). They’re evil and insatiable and create these other dragons called wyvern that breathe green, red and blue fire. Venin and wyvern are talked about in old folklore, but any mention of them was removed from the Archives, Basgiath’s giant library, as if they never existed.

Suspicious? Yes, absolutely.

General Sorrengail and all her bad-guy friends removed any mention of venin/wyvern from the Archives because they’re not just myth, they’re real, and they don’t want anyone to know.

In the meantime, Xaden and Violet get physical and he’s all like, “Don’t fall in love with me,” but… she totally did. And he’s all like “I’m not in love with you,” but… he totally is. However, he’s really secretive about a lot of things and that’s just not what Violet Sorrengail is looking for in a relationship (understandable).

We do find out one of these secrets: Xaden is working with other Marked Ones to supply the Poromiel gryphon drifts—their known enemy—with the weapons needed to kill the totally-real venin, because the alloy that kills them is made at Basgiath (their school, in case you forgot). The alloy also helps power the ward extensions at outposts, but that’s not super useful information in the grand scheme of things. At least not yet.

When Violet finds out about Xaden helping their enemies, she’s like, “Omg you’re a traitor and all you’ve done is lie to me.” This train of thought lasts a long time, so get used to it. Anyway, he’s still doing it for the right reasons (saving lives and all) and at this point in time, Violet still lacks necessary knowledge and backbone, so don’t hold it against her.

Now, Dain Aetos can read recent memories when he touches people’s faces (this is his signet, which all riders have one—Violet’s is lightning, Xaden’s is shadows). Dain touches Violet’s face and finds out Xaden and his friends have been leaving school and going to an outpost on the Poromish border called Athebyne to do the illegal trading I just mentioned. Dain tells his Dad, the colonel, about their escapades (snitch), so now he knows they’re traitors working with the gryphon drifts. This, in turn, means Colonel Aetos (who keeps the venin secret) knows Xaden and the Marked Ones also know about the venin. As a punishment, he sends Xaden and friends (including Violet) to Athebyne to die during this deadly end-of-year exam called War Games.

Can’t they just take a written exam? Sigh.

Colonel Aetos knows there are wyvern and venin nearby, so he clears out the entire outpost and Xaden, Liam (Violet’s beloved bodyguard and friend) and Violet go to Athebyne and realize… they’re screwed.

While they’re there, Violet meets the gryphon drift they’ve been supplying for the first time and they learn a nearby Poromish town called Resson is being overrun by venin. So, since they’re the good guys, they go to Resson to fight and save the lives of the civilians. During the fight, Andarna stops time, which is a cool party trick, but also a major no-no because she’s just a little baby. And inevitably, a girl named Soleil and our best buddy Liam die during the attack. I know I didn’t do it justice in this recap, but Liam’s death is really sad because he was awesome and we all loved him.Violet held him as he died, which broke the heart of every reader.

Anyway (sorry Liam), Violet also gets stabbed with a poisoned weapon and she’s dying, so Xaden takes her to this place called Aretia, which used to be where he lived pre-revolution. It all got burned down when his father’s rebellion ended, but they’ve been secretly rebuilding it over the last few years. He brings Violet there to see a mender (healer of sorts) who can fix her, and the mender is none other than her “dead” brother, Brennan.

Talk about a relationship built on lies.

Violet’s rightfully upset that Xaden kept her brother a secret, and we find out Xaden is falling for her. Spoiler, he’s been in love with her for longer than that, but it’s still cute.

And that’s the end of Fourth Wing.

Onto the next.

IRON FLAME:

This is where things get crazy. Prepare yourself.

We start off in Aretia. Brennan is a lieutenant or some other high-up rank, Xaden practically runs the place because it’s his house (he’s honestly some kind of royalty that isn’t recognized by Navarre), and a bunch of other people are there trying to hold everything together. Aretia needs this thing called a luminary to make the alloy weapons for killing venin, but they can’t get it because the person who has it won’t give it to them (lame). Also, there’s a wardstone here—the thing that creates a ward which protects them from venin/wyvern— but it doesn’t work. The only other one is near/in Basgiath, which puts up the wards for Navarre. So, they’re completely exposed out there.

Violet is healed and has to go back to Basgiath with this giant secret (nobody knows about Aretia, if that wasn’t obvious), and apparently she’s a terrible liar, so she has to stay away from yucky Dain and all her friends so she doesn’t accidentally slip up. We realize that Violet’s mom did not know about Colonel Aetos sending them to die at Athebyne, so that’s a nice surprise, since she’s a cold-hearted, emotionless woman. Also, Dain didn’t know either, and that’s important for his character development. However, Colonel Aetos threatens to kill them, or Violet’s sister Mira, if they tell anyone about what happened, or that the venin exist.

The generals (Sorrengail and Melgren, ew) keep the venin a secret because they don’t want the Navarrian people to know there are civilians dying across the border and they’re doing nothing to help them in hopes of self-preservation. But, we know there’s something that kills venin, because it did 600 years ago. That’ll be important for Onyx Storm, I assume.

I’m three paragraphs in and already feel like we need to take a deep breath.

Violet also holds onto the secret that Andarna is growing up, because using her time-stopping power kind of forced her to. She has sort-of black scales now (wink wink) and needs to go into an epic sleep to grow. The fact that Andarna won’t show up for flight lessons while she’s snoozing gets Violet into a lot of trouble with a professor named Varrish, who genuinely just stinks. I imagine him as Voldemort in my mind.

School is back in session now, so let’s get into it:

It’s Conscription Day again, and Violet’s squad is greeting the newcomers at the parapet. Cam, King Tauri’s son, comes to the rider’s quadrant under the alias Aaric Greycastle. Violet knows who he really is, but no one else does. The king would never let his son be a rider, but Aaric went anyway because he knows about the venin and wants to do something about it. Also, Xaden apparently killed his brother Alic. The next brother in line for the throne, Halden, wants to keep the venin a secret, too (gross). It’s not relevant here, but probably will be in the future, so I’m adding it in. A lot of people think Halden is Violet’s ex and I’m personally on board with that.

Also, Sloane (Liam’s sister), is there. Violet swore to Liam on his deathbed that she’d keep Sloane alive, but Sloane hates her and blames her for Liam’s death, so she wants nothing to do with her. Boo.

Moving on.

There is so much going on at once, so I’m going to start giving you some information in little tidbits to make things easier to understand.

1: Violet is becoming friends with the Marked Ones that used to hate her because of who her mother is. But now they’re friendly because of their shared experience at Athebyne. Kind of a tough way to make friends.

2: Xaden graduated and is off at an outpost called Samara doing his due diligence as a lieutenant, but because of their mated dragons, he and Violet get to visit each other once a week.

3: Nolon, the school’s mender, is looking super sick and tired because he’s been working with Varrish on something secret. Hint; he’s keeping alive Violet’s enemy and first not-actual kill, Jack Barlowe. Jack didn’t really die when Violet buried him under that mountain because he’s secretly been venin this whole time and can only die by alloy daggers. Nolon is trying to fix him and cure his venin-ness, and eventually Jack comes back to Basgiath and saves Violet’s life because death made him a better man. Bullshit. (Just to be clear, when Jack comes back to Basgiath, nobody knows he’s venin besides Varrish and Nolon. We learn that much later, but I’m putting it here for organization purposes.)

4: A lot of people are trying to kill Violet because she knows about the venin. The assassins are mostly people sent by Dain’s dad, Colonel Aetos. How sweet, sending people to kill the woman your son has a crush on. I never mentioned it because it doesn’t really matter, but Dain kissed Violet in the first book once and reading that from Xaden’s POV was amazing.

5: Violet is badass now and has, both fortunately and unfortunately, become ruthless and accustomed to death. She’s still a little whiny but at least she has a backbone now (I warned you this recap was opinionated).

Back to our regularly scheduled program.

Violet and Xaden are in this weird stage in their relationship where they never see each other, but when they do, they just fight. Violet thinks Xaden is hiding everything from her (he pretty much is) and wants him to be more open about whatever he’s doing in his spare time. However, Xaden tells her he will always have secrets because that’s what it’s like being part of a revolution and being a lieutenant. He tells her he’ll answer any questions she asks, but how is she supposed to know what questions to ask? All valid points. Violet does eventually admit that she doesn’t ask questions because she doesn’t want to know the answers, so that’s her own fault. Lots of bad communication going on, but my next post will be a deep dive into their relationship because I find it interesting. This also lasts pretty much the whole book, so… that’s fun.

But at some point, Violet chooses to accept Xaden and be with him. Don’t worry, it’s not the end of their bickering.

Anyway, all second-year riders have to go through interrogation training, except for Violet it’s not really training because Voldemort—I mean, Varrish—wants her to break and talk about the venin, wyvern and Athebyne/Resson. She doesn’t break (queen), and her squad winds up escaping with the help of the mender, Nolon.

Remember that wardstone in Aretia? Violet thinks she can get it up and running again, so she works with our favorite scribe Jesinia to find texts on it, but… they don’t exist. Or so we thought. Bestie Ridoc knows about a couple journals from the First Six riders who made the first wards. They go down into the Archives with a group of people (including Aaric Greycastle) and steal two journals written by two of the First Six, Lyra and Warrick. Xaden brings one to Brennan in Aretia, and Violet keeps the other.

Violet then gets caught with the journal by Varrish, who brings her to a real interrogation chamber. She keeps quiet, but he breaks her body over and over again and, unfortunately, Nolon mends her so she can continuously be broken. I thought he was a good guy, but apparently not. While Violet is literally dying, she sees and speaks to an “apparition” of Liam. Some might consider this her mind’s last effort of supporting herself through the pain, but I whole-heartedly believe there’s more to it than that. She saw him, and he was there.

During the interrogation, Varrish brings down Dain (he and Violet are not on good terms) to read her memories and expose how she got the journal. Varrish tells Dain that Violet is trying to take down the wards, and is working with the Marked Ones for a second rebellion. Since Dain doesn’t know about the venin, he totally believes it and reads her memories (ugh). It doesn’t go according to plan, though—Violet shoves the memories of Resson and Athebyne into his mind, and when Dain sees the truth, he stabs Varrish. Xaden and friends come to her rescue and they escape after killing Varrish once and for all. Also, Dain chooses to take their side and go with them. He’s not all bad, guys. I feel like this is Chaol 2.0.

Xaden also says he loves Violet for the first time, so that’s cool, but there are so many more important things to worry about.

While Violet was being interrogated, she was given a kind of poison that stopped her signet and cut her mind-to-mind communication with Tairn and Xaden. When they finally break her out, her mom gives her the antidote to the poison and says she was gone the whole time and didn’t know her daughter was being tortured, which turns out to be true. General Sorrengail also kind of gives them the go-ahead to form a rebellion, which is strange, but nice of her, I guess.

Also, while Violet was down there, Xaden ordered dragons to drop wyvern carcasses at every Navarrian outpost to out the secret. So, now everyone at Basgiath and all the people in the war effort know about the venin. Yay Xaden!

Xaden, Dain, and Violet tell the students of Basgiath what’s really happening, and give them the choice to either stay in Navarre and fight to keep the secret, or come to Aretia and help the helpless by fighting the venin. Half of them go, half stay. The good half goes to Aretia.

End Part One.

Please take a deep breath, maybe grab a snack or something, because we are not done. It only gets worse (better) from here.

Into Part Two:

Andarna is awake from her long ass nap. She can’t fly (but eventually learns to), can’t breathe fire (but eventually learns to), and her scales are actually not black, but kind of holographic/rainbow. Anyway, her new power is perfect camouflage, so that’s helpful.

(Also, random thought, but… does anyone ever find it suspicious that they always say “If Violet/Tairn/Xaden/Sgaeyl die, they all die,” but never include Andarna? Maybe it’s because of the fact that Tairn and Sgaeyl have had other riders before, so their life battery is low, but… I find it strange.)

Aretia is up and running with professors, Dain is cleared from being a bad guy, Xaden and Violet are thick as thieves, and Mira (Violet’s sister) brings even more riders to help. Hooray for Aretia. Except…

Let’s go back to that luminary I mentioned. A Poromish viscount named Tecarus has it, and the 3 Sorrengail siblings (Violet, Mira and Brennan) go to get it without Xaden knowing. Xaden thinks Tecarus will want Violet in exchange for the luminary, so he clearly didn’t want her to go. Violet’s reckless self thinks, “If I’m the cost, so be it”. Girl, I love your go-get-em attitude, but you seriously have zero self-preservation instincts.

Anyway, as if you could ever evade a shadow daddy, Xaden is already there when they arrive. So is Catriona, Xaden’s ex (yikes). They were going to marry for alliance reasons during the revolution, but obviously that never happened. Cat’s a real mean girl with the power to heighten feelings to the point of insanity, which she will obviously use on Violet. Xaden’s really mad that they went without him knowing, but now it’s in motion, so what can he do? Then there’s a quick little venin fight and they all live, and in exchange for the luminary, they have to bring 100 fliers to Aretia (including Catriona).

Now for more tidbits:

1: Mira is talking to this flier Serena, and they mention Serena’s cousin Drake, and how he and Mira wouldn’t “be suitable for each other.” Come on, this is a major hint and I’m calling it now—they’re going to wind up together. Drake isn’t mentioned again, but there’s no way Yarros would just drop that in there for funsies.

2: Xaden didn’t tell Violet about Cat so she’s pissed. Again, valid. They never stop fighting. I cannot keep track (except I kept notes, so I did keep track).

3: Sloane doesn’t hate Violet anymore and most of the fliers aren’t that bad, but Cat still stinks.

4: Dain still holds affection for Violet, and will soon be not-so-hated anymore. He still remembers everything about her, still knows her and notices the little things. I don’t know exactly what this means, but it means something, okay? There are too many subtle hints for me to ignore. That’s not to say her and Xaden aren’t endgame—I genuinely have no idea what’s going to happen.

5: They have to climb up this dumb cliff and Ridoc is shot with arrows but it’s fine, he’s good.

6: Our friend Sawyer has a fat crush on Jesinia the scribe and he’s learning sign language to flirt with her. So cute.

Back to important stuff.

Because of the way the wyvern are imbued with power when they’re created by the venin, Violet’s lightning is attracted to them, making them easier targets, which is helpful for someone who can’t aim. They do come and attack everyone while they’re climbing up prior-mentioned dumb cliff, and because they share a collective consciousness with their riders, the venin now know about Aretia.

There are things called runes that are woven from power and hold said power to do stuff like unlock doors, track things, light stuff on fire, whatever it may be. All Marked Ones got runes that protect them from dragon fire; one time use only. Xaden’s was used up, but, for the future, maybe other marked ones have theirs (just a theory). Violet also finds out there are runes embedded in these wyvern, which has something to do with their creation (which might be important later on).

So, that journal Xaden took back to Brennan? Violet’s been trying to translate it this whole time so she can get the wards back up. She needs Dain’s help with translating, so he’s (obviously) been helping her. She’s still hurt by his betrayal, but he knows he messed up and wants her forgiveness. She doesn’t want to be mad at him, but she can’t help that she is and needs more time. Dain also agrees to trust Xaden and stop being his enemy, so that’s nice.

I’m throwing in that they were sitting thigh-to-thigh reading this book because I think it’s necessary. As a writer, we don’t add characters touching for nothing. Just saying.

Dain can imbue power into the wardstone as well, so he, Violet and Xaden work on that every now and then because it’s necessary for the wardstone to work.

Violet realizes she’s been translating the book wrong this whole time (it’s iron flame, not iron rain!). She figures out she needs the six most powerful dragons to raise the wards, but if they do, the fliers won’t be able to wield their lesser magic anymore. As a sort of peace offering, she gives the fliers the option to either leave and wield, or stay and not wield. Evidently, they stay.

On another stupidly dangerous school lesson, they have to find hidden boxes with their tracking runes, and Cat, Violet and Sloane (and someone else, Visia?) go into a cave to find one. Let me break this down for you in tidbits:

1: Xaden has a second signet and never told Violet. There he goes again, taking another L. Also, Violet should get a second signet someday because of her two dragons.

2: A bad dragon (Solas) finds them and tries to kill them. Violet saves Cat, Cat saves Violet, it’s cute or whatever.

3; Sloane is a siphon. She can take other’s power. (Naolin, Tairn’s previous rider, was also a siphon, just fyi)

4: Not-so-baby Andarna killed the bad dragon with the help of Violet and Cat, which is crazy for dragons to do, I guess?

So they make it out alive, just for Violet and Xaden to fight again about the ask-me-what-I’m-hiding argument they’ve been having since forever. She asks about his second signet, and he goes totally silent, but of course they get interrupted mid-fight because wyvern are coming. They rush to put up the wards which only half work, because THE BOOK SAID SIX DRAGONS AND THE ONE COMBINED, BUT THEY SEEM TO IGNORE THE ONE COMBINED PART, SO OBVIOUSLY THEY DON’T WORK ALL THE WAY but anyway, it’s good enough to kill some wyvern and send the venin on their way.

Sorry, that bit bothers me.

Back to the fight. Xaden thinks Violet will fall out of love with him because of his second signet, but he tells her anyway (thankfully). He can read people’s intentions, which is scarily close to reading minds. Tairn also didn’t know about this and feels betrayed by Sgaeyl, but that’s irrelevant for now. Xaden would’ve been killed if anyone found out. Violet forgives him so fast, but is still mad at Dain? Xaden probably read her a billion times more than Dain. Whatever, they’re madly in love and would kill and die for each other, so there’s that.

Generals Melgren and Sorrengail want to meet, specifically with Violet and Mira. The venin are coming for Navarre’s Samara outpost, which is a battle Melgren knows they’ll lose because he has a battle-ending-prediction signet. They ask for Aretia’s help in return for allyship and peace, but Brennan (who shows his face to his mom for the first time) says absolutely no. Some of the other leaders agree that Navarre did this to themselves, and they should die for it. Violet and Xaden are the good guys and believe they can’t just let everyone die, but nobody seems to care what they have to say.

General Sorrengail gives them back the journal that Varrish took from Violet, which has more information on the wards and might help them figure out how to fix whatever is wrong with them.

Quick mini tidbit: Xaden’s mom is still out there somewhere. She wasn’t part of the last rebellion, so she wasn’t executed.

Onto the big ending: Violet and Xaden realize that the venin are only using Samara as a distraction to actually attack Basgiath. I personally don’t understand how they knew that, but I’m pretty sure the venin wanted to attack Basgiath for the dragon vale. Either way, Xaden and Violet take a whole bunch of people and go fight at Basgiath because they’re better than Navarre, who wouldn’t help innocents.

When they get there, they go to check on the wardstone because someone is going to take the wards down, and they find out it’s none other than venin Jack Barlowe. Jack kills his own dragon, uses the dragon’s blood to put out the iron flame of the wardstone, and the wards fall. Jack Barlowe is killed again (the right way this time) and Brennan works to mend the wardstone so they can put the wards back up. In the meantime, Jesinia is studying Lyra and Warrick’s journals to find out what they missed and maybe do it right this time.

The wyvern and venin come, and there’s a huge battle where Sawyer loses a leg to a wyvern, venin try to capture Violet for her power, and Xaden faces down the venin general. (Now keep this in mind for Onyx Storm—there are a few things they need to know about the venin. 1: Where they hatch the wyvern. 2: Where they teach. 3: Why they aren’t just raiding and destroying Poromiel completely when they know that they totally could.)

Violet realizes that Andarna is the only member of the seventh dragon den, and she’s THE ONE COMBINED (my rage subsides), aka the last dragon needed to properly put up the wards. Brennan mends the wardstone, and Violet nearly kills herself trying to imbue it with power. Her mom kicks her away from the stone to stop her and decides to use Sloane to siphon her (General Sorrengail) and her dragon’s power into the wardstone. I don’t understand why she needed Sloane, but that’s probably my own fault. It works, but Violet’s mom dies. I have mixed feelings about this but I’m trying to keep it semi-opinionated.

All seven dragons that are needed breathe fire onto the wardstone and the wards go up. Yay! Everything is good in the world! Wyvern die, the venin flee, and Basgiath is safe again.

Well, not everything is good. It’s only book two!

Xaden is venin. Let’s ignore the fact that I don’t really understand how this happened. He faced down the venin general, drew power from the earth to save Violet, and became venin (from my understanding). There’s no known cure, but that has to be the entire premise of Onyx Storm, right? I am totally excited for venin Xaden content (have you seen the fan art?).

And there! We’re done. You’re ready for Onyx Storm. I know I missed a lot, but I tried to make this as short as possible while keeping in what’s necessary. Funny, since it’s not short at all. These books are complicated—it’s not my fault. I tried my best.

I hope this gave you everything you needed to be ready for Onyx Storm! It releases Jan 21st, so prepare yourself for some major tears. I’d bet money that I cry before the first half is over.

Happy reading!

<3 Emily