The Empyrean

Violet Sorrengail entered Basgiath War College's Riders Quadrant at twenty, forced there by her mother, General Lilith Sorrengail, instead of the Scribe Quadrant she'd trained for her whole life. Small and physically fragile compared to her peers, she survived the college's deadly early culls (including the Parapet crossing) and, at Threshing, bonded with Tairn, an ancient and famously solitary black dragon who wasn't supposed to choose a human at all. Later in the year she also bonded a second, younger dragon, Andarna, outside the normal rules - making her the only rider in her year bonded to two dragons.

Her wingleader, Xaden Riorson, is the son of the man who led a rebellion in Tyrrendor six years earlier, an uprising crushed and its leaders executed on the order of Violet's own mother. Xaden's dragon, Sgaeyl, is mated to Violet's Tairn, which links the two riders whether they like it or not. Xaden began the year under pressure from his own people to see Violet dead as payback against her mother, but instead the two grew close and became a couple over the course of the year. Violet's childhood friend Dain Aetos also cared for her and tried to look out for her throughout, but she ended the year firmly with Xaden, not him. Her close circle also includes her roommate Rhiannon Matthias and other squadmates who survived the year's culls alongside her.

The larger plot of the book centers on a cover-up: cadets are taught that Poromiel is Navarre's enemy and that venin - ancient magic-draining monsters - were destroyed long ago. Violet's own research proves otherwise: venin are real, they're the actual cause of the protective wards failing, and Navarre's leadership, including her mother, has known this and hidden it. Violet also learns that her brother Brennan, long presumed dead, is alive and has been secretly leading resistance efforts against the venin threat, working with people connected to Xaden's father's old rebellion. The truth becomes undeniable near the end of the book when a field exercise near the border turns into a real attack by venin and their wyverns rather than the expected Poromiel raid; several riders and cadets die, and Violet personally fights and kills a venin, confirming everything she's uncovered.

The book ends with Violet choosing not to expose the cover-up publicly but instead to align herself with Xaden and the hidden resistance network tied to Brennan and the Tyrrendor rebels, while continuing to live and study within the official Riders Quadrant. Going into the next book, the open threads are: the true scale of the venin threat and how far the wards have really degraded; how much Violet's mother and the rest of Navarre's leadership know and are still concealing; the future of Violet and Xaden's relationship now that they're openly bonded and allied; Andarna's unusual, still-not-fully-understood nature as a young dragon who bonded outside the normal rules; and how long Violet can keep operating inside the official college structure while secretly working against its leadership's version of the truth.

Violet Sorrengail is now a second-year rider at Basgiath War College, bonded to her dragon Tairn as well as a young, unusually gifted dragon named Andarna, whose true nature she has kept largely secret. Early in the year she learns her brother Brennan, believed dead, is alive and a lieutenant colonel leading a rebellion in Aretia against a hidden venin threat that Navarre's leadership has long covered up. Violet is drawn into that rebellion over the course of the book, secretly researching the wards that protect Navarre and uncovering that they were built on incomplete or deliberately falsified information left by the First Six.

Her relationship with Xaden Riorson, stationed at the Samara outpost and secretly organizing weapons smuggling for rebels fighting venin, deepens into a full romance, though his repeated secret-keeping strains their trust throughout the book. Late in the story she learns he carries a second, illegal signet (inntinnsic, letting him sense others' intentions) inherited through his dragon Sgaeyl's original bond to his grandfather. Violet's friendship with Dain Aetos ruptures after she learns he used his memory-reading signet on her without consent, blaming him for squadmate Liam's death, but the two reconcile after Dain turns against the sadistic vice commandant Major Varrish — who had been torturing Violet — and helps kill him alongside Xaden.

Over the year, Violet secures an alliance with Viscount Tecarus (whose niece Cat is Xaden's ex) to obtain a magic-amplifying luminary in exchange for training 100 gryphon fliers at Aretia, and gryphon riders and dragon riders begin uniting against the venin threat. The book ends with a full venin siege on Basgiath after the traitor Jack Barlowe (now revealed as venin) destroys the college's wardstone. The wards are restored only after Violet's mother, General Lilith Sorrengail, sacrifices herself so that Sloane (who manifests a siphon signet) can fully imbue the stone, and after Violet discovers Andarna belongs to a seventh, previously unknown dragon den required to reactivate the wards alongside dragons from the six known dens.

Going into the next book, the wards are back up and the venin attack has been repelled, but Lilith is dead, the cover-up about venin has been publicly exposed, and many riders have defected to Aretia to join the rebellion. Most urgently, Xaden has just confessed to Violet that he drew on magic directly from the earth during the final battle to save her — the same act that corrupts people into venin — meaning he has now become venin himself, an open crisis unresolved as the book closes.

Violet Sorrengail is nearing two years at Basgiath War College as full war breaks out against the invading venin army, and an uneasy three-way alliance forms between Navarre, Poromiel, and Tyrrendor's revolutionaries. Violet's central private mission throughout the book is to find a cure for Xaden Riorson, who has turned venin but has been resisting channeling his power; she comes to believe the seventh breed of dragon (Andarna's kind, the irids) may hold the answer. To protect this secret, Violet has Imogen erase the memory of Jack Barlowe, a venin who discovered the truth.

Over the course of the book, Violet and her friends commit treason by altering a wardstone to let Poromielan gryphon fliers use magic inside Navarre's wards, cementing the alliance but getting Violet's squad punished and reassigned. Violet assembles a hand-picked team — including Mira, Dain, Ridoc, Xaden, Cat, Drake, Prince Halden, and Anna — after her first mission (searching for her father's research) turns into a trap that kills Captain Grady and Aura Beinhaven. Xaden is also reinstated as Duke of Tyrrendor with a Senarium seat, formally elevating his status and pulling him into politics alongside Violet.

The squad travels abroad seeking her father's remaining research and allies: in Deverelli they recover books from Violet's father's collection, lose Anna when Prince Halden is caught stealing, and only survive King Courtlyn's wrath because Xaden channels his venin power to kill the threat — the first time he fully gives in, though he pulls back afterward. They secure use of the Deverelli palace as a base. Searching further islands for the seventh dragon breed, they encounter a queen who can offer no troops (Dunne), a triumvirate that tries to poison them (Hedotis, where they learn Xaden's mother married one of the triumvirate), and a lethal card game on Zehyllna that costs gryphon flier Trager his life but secures an army of 40,000. The irids finally appear, but refuse to offer a cure for venin or troops, and disapprove of Andarna; Andarna chooses to leave with the irid Leothan to be trained among her own kind, and Andarna and Violet's bond is broken with Violet's consent, leaving Violet without a dragon.

Meanwhile, Navarre has been suffering constant destructive storms since losing Lilith's storm-wielding ability, and a mysterious silver-haired venin storm-wielder, later identified as Theophanie, keeps appearing at key moments, including during a venin infiltration of Basgiath disguised as scribes. When Aretia is attacked, the squad returns to defend it and Dunne's temple. Theophanie kidnaps Mira and slits her throat (Mira survives thanks to Brennan's healing, boosted by Sloane siphoning power from Dain), and fails to kill Jack Barlowe, who is sent back to a Navarre cell. In the climactic fight, Aaric's signet is revealed to be precognition; he gives Violet a dagger, and she kills Theophanie. At the same time, Xaden fully channels his venin power in battle, unleashing his shadows against the venin forces — a major, unresolved turning point in how much of himself he has now given over to the affliction.

The book ends with Violet waking twelve hours later with no memory of anything after killing Theophanie, discovering she is now married to Xaden and is Duchess of Tyrrendor. Imogen admits to erasing her memory but says she only did what Violet asked, leaving the circumstances and reasoning behind the marriage and the memory wipe as the major open mystery heading into the next book. Other open threads: whether a cure for Xaden's (now fully channeled) venin condition exists, Andarna's fate and training among the irids, the status of the war alliance and the 40,000-strong army, Xaden's political position as Duke, and Jack Barlowe's knowledge in Navarre custody.