Hello everyone!
I'm not entirely sure how long it's been since the last time I set foot onto the Continent (literary speaking, of course), but I do know it's been a WHILE.
And man oh MAN have things gone from bad, to worse!
Now that THAT's out of the way, let's dive right into the nitty gritty of it all, shall we?
Because these dragons aren't messing around.
Neither, it turns out, are their riders either, which means that we really should be prepared for the fourth book when it eventually releases.
For the time being, buckle up, bring all them alloy daggers that you own, make sure you tell the people you love that you love them, and above everything else: do NOT, I repeat, do NOT piss off the largest dragons on the Continent.
And no, you don't need an umbrella to brave this Onyx Storm.
Violet Sorrengail and her crew of misfits are back, bby, and oh man, yeah, you remember right, some things still ring true:
Aetos, who used to be Violet's mom's most trusted right hand, is the ruling general of Basgiath war college now, and he hates the girl's guts for some reason nobody has yet to fully understand yet, besides being a prick.
Dain is a pretty decent person when he isn't trying to follow rules.
Tairn is still the best.
Let's see what the story's all about, shall we?
Having re-established the wards, lost her mother, and is facing stupid consequences because everyone would love to pretend life is normal while in reality, venin are trying to break through the faltering magic system each passing moment, Violet is now on a different quest.
It has everything to do with saving Xaden and reversing the process he started when he channeled from the earth to save her (and Basgiath) at the end of Iron Flame.
Xaden, for his part, is under no illusion about the if, rather of the when he turns completely, and so the majority of the book is him prepping things and putting stuff in place for just that eventuality, although he DOES fight back at least as much as he's capable.
It doesn't all go according to plan, however, because he has slip-ups, and at that point he needs to take week-long breaks of being seen by absolutely no one so his red eyes go back to normal. Ish.
Meanwhile, Violet puts some things together and realizes she was so busy running off with some of her mother's journals, she forgot to rescue her dad's from the secret spot he stashed them in, and seeing as her mother was the commanding general for basically all of Violet's life, it means trusting Dain to get them for her.
Well, one book, that is. And once she unlocks it and reads through, it turns out that there's a whole lot more happening out there than even she ever knew.
Aka, while leadership is hell-bent on sending expeditions NORTH to find the seventh, lost dragon breed, she's convinced they need to go south. And when they do in fact go north on a disastrous mission that leaves a few dead, Violet brings it up with leadership later on while they're scratching their noses like 'ho hum, what COULD possibly have gone wrong there?'
Violet: gee, lemme think, you gave me people who don't know how to work together, like you don't actually WANT me to succeed.
This becomes more of a complication as one venin specifically seems to be hunting Violet herself, toying with our girl, and Violet is in a desperate race against time.
So, she does what she does best.
She picks her own team the next time, and they decide fuck this, we're not going to waste flying back and forth just so everyone's up to speed, let's just go south in an unbroken trip and circle back once we've exhausted all out options.
What do they discover on this journey, you may ask?
Violet's dad left her a bunch of other books to read, all about an uprising that explains the Continent was looking for allies in the past before, they promised dragons, and couldn't deliver, and oh also there's little to no magic on the islands south so dragons have a hard time existing to begin with.
Violet was dedicated to the goddess of war as a child, but her dedication wasn't fully complete as the oracle there foretold she had multiple paths before her and was thus not a sure choice for the temple.
Halden, the royal emissary who tags along, is basically a brat and luckily they have his younger brother Aaric to switch to when things go south and he nearly gets them all killed (in a scene where our resident shadow wielder Xaden admits he couldn't care less what happens to the crown prince but, alas, we don't get to choose our allies).
They lose a team member to the most ridiculous wheel of fortune game I've ever seen, for no other reason I can think of.
Xaden's mom is alive and living her best life on the isles after having basically abandoned him when he was ten years old, and she thinks she can have a mom-son relationship. He hard passes.
They in fact find Andarna's kind.
The irids are ... less than impressed. Apparently, she was left behind as a sort of criterion on which they'd base whether or not the humans evolved to the point of not wanting to kill one another anymore. Since venin are still out there and the dragons are basically nuclear war machines, they decide eh, the Continent as a whole can rot, what do we care?
Nobody apparently told them that the irids themselves are being hunted, or Andarna is, and once the Continent is desiccated then the venin would come for them ... but I digress.
After having her heart broken, Andarna focuses back on the here and now, which is an increasingly shortening timeline, because while Xaden was restored to his family's old title - he's now the ruling duke of a province which controls the largest single portion of the entire Continental army, natch - he's also slipping.
And that venin is a pain in the butt, constantly trying to get Violet.
So despite the fact that our leading couple emerge as a true powerhouse in this sequel, actually talking things through and functioning like a couple in their own way that would be considered incredibly bad and toxic in the real world, but WORKS in this dragon-inhabited one, they're in trouble once the venin grabs Mira, Violet's sister.
Oh yeah, Mira is PISSED Xaden is a venin and Violet hasn't told her, but that doesn't stop Violet from trying to rescue her, and they manage to do so despite the fact her neck gets sliced, via some power transfer between Dain and Brennan, the mender.
When you think it's all good and dandy, though, the second hammer falls, which is that Navarre isn't accepting civilian refugees from other provinces, Xaden opens up his borders for them, saying fuck this to the king, and a trap is laid for Violet.
She knows it is. So she prepares accordingly.
There's still lots of stuff happening during that attack and defense and mission and whatnot, and the exciting thing is we get to see several different points of view from other characters not just her, so that we can scope out the action as a whole, but the long and short is: magic is always looking for balance.
The venin might also be wielders, retaining use of their signets after turning (and the reason why Xaden is briefly at Basgiath as professor, to teach the cadets some of his own tricks of the trade seeing as he's the most powerful rider on the Continent), but magic usually manifests a good kind of wielder after that happens, and the one after Violet? Violet's mom was a direct answer to her turning.
Also, she used to be head priestess at the same temple where Violet was dedicated, because apparently why would you worship gods when you can just become one?
In a shocking twist of events, Aaric is revealed to Violet, at least, as someone with actual precognition, and Xaden turns completely while rescuing Sgaeyl, his own dragon, from the hands of another venin. We get a single chapter from his point of view when this happens, and interesting as well as important to note here is that SOMEONE ELSE HAS TURNED, TOO. Someone he can't kill, because apparently he's supposed to be dead, and is another sibling the venin could use against Xaden?
Oh also, the colonel running Basgiath is a traitor and was feeding the enemy information all along, natch.
But as the onyx storm Xaden releases that would make Rhysand proud fades, we seem to flash-forward from the battle and Violet's duel (which she wins, by the way) to twelve hours later when she's back at Riorson house, there's apparently missing riders and dragon eggs, her brother's trying to figure out where she's been, and she can't remember a single thing.
Also, she's married, a huge ass emerald ring on her finger from Xaden.
Another also, Imogen, the person who can mess with mind and memory, erased the last twelve hours from her head because Violet herself asked her to do it.
DUN DUN DUN!
Ahahahahahahahah oh wow.
Thankfully I had Vampire Academy and the like to prepare for this, but I also am like 🤯 still.
I have so many questions!
I can't wait for the next book. My boy Xaden better not be too nerfed either, give us the Master Shadow Daddy we deserve. Main male characters don't have to be weak for us to like them, having them OP is also a really nice upswing IMO.
He has a masterplan that they hatched forever ago and it's being implemented. I can't wait to see it all falling into place and Violet remembering. Violet's second signet though? DOPE AS, and I find it ironic how she's in exactly the same spot as her beau since she, too, could be executed if anyone learns about it.
... but also WHO TF TURNED VENIN?!?
Thankfully I had Vampire Academy and the like to prepare for this, but I also am like 🤯 still.
I have so many questions!
I can't wait for the next book. My boy Xaden better not be too nerfed either, give us the Master Shadow Daddy we deserve. Main male characters don't have to be weak for us to like them, having them OP is also a really nice upswing IMO.
He has a masterplan that they hatched forever ago and it's being implemented. I can't wait to see it all falling into place and Violet remembering. Violet's second signet though? DOPE AS, and I find it ironic how she's in exactly the same spot as her beau since she, too, could be executed if anyone learns about it.
... but also WHO TF TURNED VENIN?!?
Stay tuned for whenever book four releases to find out!
xx
*image not mine
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