Book Review: Iron Flame

Spoilers!

You will not die today. If there is a battle cry in Rebecca Yarros’ 2023 book, Iron Flame, the explosive follow-up to Fourth Wing in The Empyrean series, that would be it. Violet, Xaden, Rhi, Ridoc, Sawyer, Mira, Brennan — all of the Continent, its civilians and leadership, Navarre included, will not die today. Okay, many from the infantry will die, and of course, the venin (the corrupted powerful wizard and witch-like creatures) and their wyvern (corrupted dragons, essentially), too, but not our lovely cast of characters we’ve come to love.

Yarros set the bar high coming off of Fourth Wing’s cliffhanger that Brennan, Violet and Mira’s long-thought dead brother, was still alive and part of Xaden’s revolution. And for the most part, the action is nonstop from the get-go, even after Violet and Xaden return to Basgiath, claiming they ran into a drift (a grouping) of gryphons and their fliers rather than the real enemy of the Continent, the aforementioned venin and their wyvern. Some of my favorite parts of the book are the ways in which Navarre leadership, including at the war college, continue to propagandize to the citizens and students alike about the real threat. Echoing are own time, Markham, the lead scribe, has a slogan fit for 1984: “Do not take in strangers. Your kindness could kill.”

Probably the most sluggish part of the book is what comes next after they return to Basgiath, though. Violet is still distrustful of Xaden because he hid the secret of Brennan, among other things, and Violent is unwilling to share those same secrets with Rhi and the others because she worries it’ll put them in danger. I understand, obviously, why this needed to be in the book, but I was so glad when Yarros had Violet finally tell Rhi the truth and move on! Rhi, Ridoc, and Sawyer are too good as friends, and as a group, to not be in the fold. That said, I did like the part of the book focused heavily on the Archives and Violet trying to understand how the wards (defensive magic around the borders of Navarre) were erected 600 years previously. She works closely with her friend in the Scribe Quadrant, Jesinia. Without much coaxing necessary, Jesinia is all-in on helping Violet read books that are heavily classified. It is this book smuggling that leads to the next issue.

For context before I get there, naturally, Varrish, the new vice commandant at Basgiath, is distrustful of Xaden and Violet. Since their dragons, Sgaeyl and Tairn, respectively, are bonded, they need to have regular visits with each other (Xaden is sent to the Samara outpost) necessitating Xaden and Violet to have regular visits. Each time Violet leaves, Varrish checks her bag, thinking she’s smuggling something. He’s constantly accosting her. In one of the coolest moments early on in the book, Tairn tires of this, and as a reminder of how dragons do not answer to humans, he grips Varrish’s dragon, Solas, by the neck.

In any event, because Basgiath is an absurdly cruel (or prudent, depending on your perspective) war college, they prepare second-year cadets, like Violet and her squad, for potential capture by gamifying interrogation. Except Varrish being the human villain of the book, takes the opportunity to truly torture Violet, particularly with the potential assistance of Dain, her former best friend and whose signet (the magic manifest from a rider’s bond with his or her dragon) is gaining access to short-term memories. Obviously, Violet can’t let that happen since then Dain and Varrish would know about Aretia and the revolution. Varrish’s real interrogation begins after he catches Violet stealing one of two books from the Archives. Thankfully, Violet holds on through gruesome interrogation — being constantly broken and mended again — and that’s largely due to the help of Liam, who returns as a source of willpower within her subconscious. That was beautiful. An important sidebar, but through this interrogation scene, we learn what Nolon, the mender at Basgiath, has been up to: He mended Jack Barlowe back to health. Yes, that Jack Barlowe. The one we thought Violet killed in Fourth Wing. When Violet had to kill someone for the first time and it was a rather pivotal moment for her character and growth. And he’s back?! I didn’t understand why they brought Jack back at first, but talking it through with others, they were testing a serum on the cadets to block their bond to their dragons in order to figure out how to block Jack, I think. More on what they were trying to block shortly.

Anyhow, thanks to Violet holding on, Dain redeems himself by eschewing the “rules” he’s known for stridently following and after seeing what Violet let him see, he turns on Varrish and sides with Violet. At which time, Xaden storms in with his right-hand men and kills every guard along his path. He then gives Violet the opportunity to kill Varrish, which she takes — a marked change from her reluctance to kill in the first book, but she was just savagely tortured by him. Additionally, in back-to-back redemptive moments, Violet’s mother of all people shows up and redeems herself, too. She allowed them to escape and was proud of Violet. From there, through communication among the dragons who then share it with their riders, if they are trustworthy, Violet, Xaden, and Dain alert all of the cadets about what they’ve seen. Many of those cadets, about 100 or so with their dragons, go with Violet, Xaden, and the rest back to Aretia. What a scene rather early on in the book! That felt momentous. Like seeing the Battle of Hogwarts three books in. Except, Yarros has far more up her sleeve.

After arriving back at Aretia, thanks to some professors also coming along, they start a war college back up with similar courses. Beyond that, the main two goals are to fortify their defenses by trying to create a second ward at Aretia, which involves more book reading by Violet (who gets help from Dain and Jesinia), and forging a more front-facing alliance with the gryphons and their fliers. They join in the same squad. That brings a new character for us to hate on like Jack in the first book, who is also trying to kill Violet: Cat. She’s Xaden’s former lover and someone who can heighten someone’s emotions; ergo, she heightens all of Violet’s insecurities surrounding her relationship to Xaden. Violet not only wins in a challenge match against Cat, but then Xaden makes sweet love to her to prove, partly, his love. Later, Cat will also redeem herself by coming to respect Violet and her courage while also standing side-by-side in battle against the venin. Additionally, more riders come from Navarre, including Mira, because they were allowed to depart by the Navarrian military leadership.

Fairly deep into the book, Violet and Xaden are still arguing about who can trust who. Their communication really sucks! Xaden does that whole, “You should have asked me thing!” and Violet is ignoring all the questions she does have for him. That’s not going to work. So, they try to communicate better. In so doing, that only brings forth yet another damning secret (in Violet’s eyes). Xaden, because Sgaeyl bonded with his grandfather, I believe, has a second signet in addition to his ability to wield shadows. He is an inntinnsic, which in this culture, is a death sentence because it’s the ability to read minds. Xaden’s is slightly different, as he can only read intentions. Still, it freaks Violet out.

Before they can really deal with all of that, we finally hear from Navarre’s General Melgren. I was wondering what was going on with them. I mean, surely they had to have some sort of response to the revolution! General Melgren, along with General Sorrengail, Violet’s mom, want their help fending off a looming attack from the venin and wyvern at one of their outposts. Xaden and Brennan do not want to help Navarre, whose leadership left everyone else outside of their borders to die and is now begging for help. Later, though, Violet realizes the venin and wyvern are actually going after the Vale where the dragon hatchlings are, and Basgiath. Now, the riders mount up and fly to protect the hatchlings and the wards from falling. But the wards do fall because freaking Jack is villainous again, and worse than that, he’s turned venin and killed his own dragon, Baide, to destroy the ward at Basgiath. That means all of Navarre is exposed to the incoming onslaught from the venin and wyvern. Jack’s motivation makes a lot of sense for a villain, though. He’s pissed that Tairn chose Violet, of all people, and he thinks humans can have more power than what’s offered by bonding with dragons.

To recreate the ward, Violet nearly sacrifices herself to imbue it with her signet’s power (lightning). Her mother, in another, ultimate act of redemption, sacrifices herself through Sloan’s (Liam’s little sister, which was whole other side plot throughout the book that was fun since she initially hated Violet, blaming her for his death) siphon signet to imbue the ward instead. Then, correcting her mistake setting up the ward at Aretia, thinking it needed six dragons breathing fire corresponding to six dragon breeds, Violet realizes there’s actually a seventh breed, Andarna, her own dragon! Andarna can not only breathe fire now, which resulted in an awesome moment where she saved Violet from a venin, but she’s like a camouflage dragon breed. They reestablish the ward and save everyone.

Well, sort of. But that aforementioned battle scene was Yarros’ equivalent of a Battle at Hogwarts and this is only the second of apparently five planned books!

I said sort of because Xaden survived in a one-on-one battle against the Sage, one of the generals among the venin (it seems the most powerful is a creature known as Maven, but nobody knows much about one since it’s never been captured), but to do so, he used the power under his feet, as Jack attested to, from the earth instead of his dragon. He turned himself venin, essentially, to defeat a venin. Ah! It was astonishing to have a moment where Xaden, who has been built up as one of the most powerful people across the entire Continent, helpless to take down the Sage. That’s how powerful this enemy is.

At the end of Iron Flame, Yarros hits us with another cliffhanger. Xaden visits Jack, who is still alive and in prison, to ask what the cure for becoming venin is. Jack tells him cures are for disease. This isn’t a disease, but power, which rather than being curable is “enviable.” What a great line from a villainous character.

Finally, just to put this marker out there … When Xaden and Violet are trying to be more open with their communication, Xaden mentions his mother left him early and he doesn’t know much about her. I bet she comes back somewhere in the Empyrean series!

It goes without saying that I’m all in on the Empyrean series and I can’t wait to read Onyx Storm, which I’m lucky with my timing since it comes out on Tuesday!