Green Where You Water It

A Girl Who Was Never Expected to Survive

Violet Sorrengail is basically the last person you’d expect to survive a dragon rider academy. She’s physically fragile, she trained her whole life to be a scribe, and then her mother—who happens to be a ruthless general—forces her into the Riders Quadrant, which is essentially a giant death trap where cadets die constantly. The first thing she has to do is cross the parapet, a narrow stone bridge over a massive ravine while a storm is raging and people are literally falling to their deaths. She barely makes it across, but miraculously does.

At the end of the bridge, she meets Xaden Riorson—the powerful son of the rebel leader her mother had executed. He has every reason to kill her.

Instead, he lets her live. His reasoning was simple: the school will probably kill her anyway.

Surviving Basgiath War College

Life inside the Riders Quadrant is brutal. Dragons burn cadets alive for showing weakness, sparring matches are violent enough to break bones, and everyone is constantly looking for opportunities to eliminate rivals. Violet gets injured early on but realizes she’s never going to survive through strength. Instead she starts playing smarter. She studies people, gathers poisons and herbs, and quietly weakens opponents before fights. It’s not honorable—but it keeps her alive. 

She also starts realizing Xaden isn’t the monster she assumed. He’s dangerous, yes, but he’s also secretly protecting the group of cadets whose parents were executed after the rebellion. The more they clash, the more complicated their relationship becomes—part hostility, part reluctant respect, and something else neither of them can admit.

The Day Everything Changes: Threshing

Eventually the riders reach Threshing, where dragons choose their riders. Violet doesn’t get chosen right away. Instead she finds three cadets trying to kill a small golden dragon they think is too weak to survive. Violet steps in to defend it even though she’s completely outmatched. That moment changes everything. 

One of the most powerful dragons alive, Tairn, sees what she did and chooses her. Then the little golden dragon—Andarna—chooses her too. 

No rider has ever bonded two dragons before, and suddenly Violet goes from being the weakest cadet to one of the most powerful riders in Basgiath. But that power comes with a target on her back. Someone even tries to assassinate her in her own room. She only survives because Andarna reveals a secret ability: she can stop time.

Cracks in the System

As Violet settles into life as a rider, the cracks in the system start showing. She learns that the children of executed rebels were forced into the Riders Quadrant and branded with relics as punishment. She also starts noticing something strange in class: certain recent battles and border attacks are never discussed. Information is clearly being controlled. 

Meanwhile her bond with Xaden keeps intensifying, especially once she finally begins channeling magic through Tairn. The surge of power overwhelms her and she runs into Xaden while trying to get control of it. He teaches her how to shield her mind from the flood of dragon emotion, and the tension between them finally explodes into a kiss—one they both immediately regret because of how complicated everything between them already is.

Attack of the Deadly Oranges

Trouble escalates when Jack Barlowe challenges Violet to a fight and tries to kill her by secretly using his signet. She survives by outthinking him again—triggering his deadly orange allergy in the middle of the match. (Yes, Barlowe was taken down with an orange.)

After that, Xaden takes over her training and pushes her harder than anyone else ever has. Under that pressure she becomes much stronger, and when her squad is given a mission to steal the most valuable thing inside Basgiath, she leads them in a daring heist into her own mother’s office to steal a strategic war map. It proves something important: Violet might not be the strongest rider, but she’s one of the smartest.

The Lightning Wielder

During a later mission to a border outpost, she starts seeing even more signs that the war isn’t what she was told. Her sister casually mentions gryphon attacks that were never reported in Battle Brief. That realization sits uneasily in Violet’s mind until War Games begins. During the exercise, Jack attacks Liam in midair and throws him off his dragon. Violet and Tairn dive after him, but they’re too far away to save him. In sheer desperation she calls on Andarna’s power and freezes time just long enough for Tairn to catch Liam before he hits the ground. Then something inside Violet finally breaks open. Lightning crashes down from the sky and obliterates the tower Jack is hiding on. That’s when she realizes what her signet is.

She’s a lightning wielder.

And while everyone else celebrates the victory, Violet can’t stop thinking about one thing: the first thing she ever did with her power was kill someone.

Love and Secrets

Violet struggles with what her power means. Liam survived, but the reality that her first use of power killed someone shakes her badly. Dain tries to reassure her that she never has to use that kind of power again, but Xaden sees it differently. He tells her war demands hard choices, and her lightning might save lives someday.

Later, when he comes to check on her, all the tension between them finally breaks. Months of anger, attraction, and trust collide, and they end up spending the night together. Afterward, Xaden reveals the truth about the scars across his back. Each one represents a child of the executed rebellion leaders whose lives he bargained to spare. If any of them betray Navarre—he dies for it. Violet realizes just how heavy the burden he carries really is.

After that night, Violet starts focusing on learning to control her lightning. Professor Carr begins training her in the mountains, explaining that her fragile body is the balance for the massive power she channels. Her lightning is tied strongly to emotion, which makes control difficult. Around the same time, she and Xaden discover a hidden letter from her father tucked inside a book of old fables. The letter warns that folklore often hides truths erased from history. Stories about venin and wyvern suddenly feel less like myths.

The Truth Beyond the Wards

As Reunification Day approaches, the academy celebrates the defeat of the rebellion led by Xaden’s father. For the marked riders, it’s a painful reminder of the day their parents were executed. 

Violet finds Xaden alone on the parapet that night and finally admits what she’s been denying. She loves him. He admits he’s wanted her from the beginning. That moment doesn’t last long. War Games escalate to the final stage, and Xaden is ordered to lead a group to Athebyne, an outpost beyond Navarre’s protective wards. Dain tries to stop Violet from going, but Violet chooses to go with Xaden anyway. 

Once they cross the wards, Violet immediately notices something strange: magic feels different outside Navarre’s protection. 

Soon they encounter gryphon riders—and instead of fighting them, Xaden greets them like allies. That’s when the truth shatters Violet’s world. The Venin–dark wielders who drain magic directly from the earth–are real.

Xaden and the marked riders have been secretly working with gryphon fliers to fight the Venin, a threat Navarre refuses to acknowledge. They’ve been attacking lands outside the kingdom for years while Navarre hid safely behind its wards and let everyone else suffer. The history Violet grew up studying wasn’t just incomplete. It was manipulated.

The Battle of Resson

Before Violet can even process the betrayal, things get worse. When the group reaches Athebyne, the outpost is abandoned. They were never sent on a training mission. Leadership sent Xaden and the marked riders there to die. Instead of retreating, they choose to defend a nearby trading post. The battle that follows is pure chaos.

Venin ride wyvern, creatures everyone thought were myths. Dragons, gryphons, and wyvern fill the sky while Venin drain life from the land.

Riders begin dying. Soleil and her dragon are killed instantly. 

Liam has a moment of heroism, leaping onto a wyvern midair and killing its rider—but his dragon Deigh is mortally wounded. Because their lives are bound, Liam begins dying too.

Violet lands beside him. Before he dies, he asks her to take care of his sister and to give Xaden a chance to explain everything.

The Final Stand

There’s no time to mourn. More wyvern are coming. 

During the battle a venin lands on Tairn’s back and stabs him. Violet is forced into brutal close combat on her dragon’s spine and is stabbed with a poisoned blade. But when she kills the venin, something incredible happens. All the wyvern it created fall dead from the sky.

Violet realizes the key to win the battle.

Kill the venin; kill the swarm. 

She and Xaden execute a desperate plan. He holds the horde back with a massive wall of shadow while Violet hunts the remaining venin. Using Tairn’s power and Andarna’s time magic, she calls down a lightning strike and kills one venin.

Half the wyvern collapse.

Xaden kills the last venin. The battle ends. 

And Violet falls from the sky.

A Choice That Changes Everything

Andarna freezes time to help, but she’s too small to save Violet alone. Xaden catches her in midair and realizes the poison is far worse than anything ordinary healers can handle. Violet’s blood has turned black, and she’s losing connection to her dragons and magic. They all know she’ll die before they can reach Basgiath. So Xaden makes a dangerous choice. Instead of flying back to the kingdom, he takes her somewhere else—somewhere that will expose everything he’s been protecting.

Violet drifts in and out of consciousness during the journey, convinced Liam’s death is partly her fault. Meanwhile Xaden refuses to leave her side.

The Hidden City

When Violet finally wakes, she isn’t in Basgiath. She’s in Aretia. The supposedly destroyed capital of Tyrrendor–that isn’t destroyed at all.

Xaden and the marked riders have secretly rebuilt the city, hidden from Navarre because General Melgren (one of the powerful military leaders of Navarre) cannot see the outcome of battles when enough marked riders gather together (an unintended magical side effect).

They are preparing for the real war. A war against the venin. 

Violet believes the truth now. But belief doesn’t mean forgiveness. She tells Xaden that even though she still loves him, she cannot trust him anymore. If there’s going to be anything left between them, he’ll have to earn that trust back. And then the final shock arrives.

The healer who saved her walks into the room. Brennan Sorrengail—Violet’s brother, who she believed died years ago—is alive. And the first thing he tells her is simple.

She has just joined the revolution.

Fav Scene

“Eavesdropping, were we?” He arches a black brow and sheathes his dagger like I couldn’t possibly pose a threat to him, which only serves to piss me off even more. “Now I might actually have to kill you.” There’s an undertone of truth in those mocking eyes.

This is just…bullshit.

“Then go ahead and get it over with.” I unsheathe another dagger, this one from beneath my cloak where it was strapped in at my ribs, and back up a couple of feet to give me distance to throw them—if he doesn’t rush me.

He pointedly looks at one dagger, then the other, and sighs, folding his arms across his chest. “That stance is really the best defense you can muster? No wonder Imogen nearly ripped your arm off.”

“I’m more dangerous than you think,” I flat-out bluster.

“So I see. I’m quaking in my boots.” The corner of his mouth rises into a mocking smirk.

I flip the daggers in my hand, pinching them at the tips, then flick my wrists and fire them past his head, one on each side. They land solidly in the trunk of the tree behind him.

“You missed.” He doesn’t even flinch.

“Did I?” I reach for my last two blades. “Why don’t you back up a couple of steps and test that theory?”

Curiosity flares in his eyes, but it’s gone in the next second, masked by cold, mocking indifference.

Every one of my senses is on high alert, but the shadows around me don’t slide in as he moves backward, his eyes locked with mine. His back hits the tree, and the hilts of my daggers brush his ears.

“Tell me again that I missed,” I threaten, taking the dagger in my right hand by the tip.

“Fascinating. You look all frail and breakable, but you’re really a violent little thing, aren’t you?” An appreciative smile curves his perfect lips as shadows dance up the trunk of the oak, taking the form of fingers. They pluck the daggers from the tree and bring them to Xaden’s waiting hands.

Thoughts

I can see why Fourth Wing exploded in popularity. Dragons, weakling-to-warrior-‘princess’ story arc, hot guys, military setting, but…I guess I went in expecting awesome dragon stuff and the story failed to deliver on that front. At least for me.

I also didn’t feel the emotional impact of people losing their lives and the characters carrying on as if it was nothing. Yes, it’s a military environment where people are expected to keep going after losses. But the narrative rarely slows down long enough to show the psychological impact of watching people die in such brutal ways. Violet barely blinked. A couple of sentences isn’t really enough to show the magnitude of watching people get BBQ’d by a bunch of towering, sky-scrapper high fire-breathing beasts that you’re supposed to get friendly with down the line.

I think it was mainly because Yarros was trying to accomplish too much in one novel. Things just kept moving from point A to point B without any real emotional repercussions.

The other thing I struggled with was the dragon–human bond. The story hints that riders and dragons are deeply connected, but most of what we see revolves around Violet herself. Whatever Violet wanted, whatever she was feeling, the dragons were just there to serve her needs. The only time she felt anything emotional related to them was also a self-serving plot trick to get Xaden and Violet to kiss.

And so the dragons often felt less like fully realized characters and more like extensions of her journey. I kept wishing we could experience more of what the dragons feel. If riders are mentally linked to them, shouldn’t we occasionally glimpse their fear, their instincts, or their ancient perspective?

I have to compare it to Eragon. Even though, yes that was a less well written book than Fourth Wing (but it was written by a child, so taking that into consideration, it was really well written), it was thorough in its focus on dragons. Mind you, the main point of the Inheritance series was to explore the dragon-human connection, so it was easier to succeed in a way.

But I guess I wanted it all. The romance and the human/dragon bond explored. But we can’t really have it all, can we? At least not right now. Maybe someone else might think up something better in the future.

Until then…while the series is massively popular, I’ll probably break my usual rule and stop here rather than continue with the rest of the books.