Fourth Wing Chapters 5-10

Welcome back for more brilliant Violet and steamy Xaden! In this post I will be recapping chapters 5 through 10 and sharing some of the most important details I think we need to remember going forward, and some others that are just fun to relive ;)

I feel like, with these six chapters, we finally start getting into the meat of our story. We start getting to know our characters better, and we're really starting to learn what's going on in Navarre, as well as within Basgiath, and how things are going to start to progress moving forward with our cadets. We get our very first battle brief, sparring on the mat, and the Book of Brennan. We get one of my favorite parts of this section of chapters, which is the meeting under the trees, we learn tons about our dragons, and (Huh, I may have lied..this may have been my favorite section in this set of chapters), Xaden and Violet sparring!! Oh! There is also the introduction of the gauntlet. It's a lot and I am so ready to dive in! 

Blame it on Imogen

Okay, let's get this one out of the way, because it’s pretty bad…I completely forgot that Violet started out by poisoning her opponents so she could beat them at sparring! Like, I 100% forgot about this. I don't know how, I think just so many other things have happened since then, but it just wasn't one of the things that stuck with me. But reading it again, it reminded me just how incredibly smart and resourceful Violet truly is. She may not be as good of a poison master as Brennan, as we learn later, but the way she plans out what she's going to do each week and took breakfast duty just so she could have access to everybody's food is ingenious. I love that she was able to use this to her advantage to keep her alive as long as possible.

Something else I had completely forgotten about was the gauntlet. I actually was in the middle of reading Onyx Storm and someone else who was reading the series brought up the gauntlet and I looked at her like she was absolutely insane! It took forever for me to even remember that it existed. And then when I went back and read it this latest time, it became extremely apparent that I had absolutely no idea what it looked like because all I could picture was the course from Wipeout, and I knew that couldn't possibly be what it was! It wasn't until I was listening to the podcast that I got the idea to Google it. That hadn't even occurred to me before. I'm so happy that someone came up with their own rendering of what the gauntlet would have looked like because it made a world of difference in realizing just how difficult and dangerous it really was. If you have not Googled it for yourself, I highly recommend that you take a moment and do it. I can all but guarantee it's not at all what you were picturing in your head either.

The last piece of this section is something, or rather someone, that I had completely forgotten about. After the world finished Onyx Storm, it seemed like all the theories revolved around him. And I didnt even remember that he had existed. Naolin. We hear about him for the first time in dragon class…He was Tairn’s previous rider and he died trying to bring back Brennan. All I had remembered about that event was that Brennan had died and someone else died trying to bring him back. The rest of it had gone completely out of my head. Obviously Naolin is MUCH more important than I had previously realized, so I ‘m storing away the information for later…Naolin was a siphoner, and he burned out trying to save Brennan. There's a lot of things I'm wondering about this. Because the theory is that Naolin siphoned energy from the earth when he was trying to save Brennan and he turned venin…eventually becoming the sage from Onyx Storm. I don't remember if we actually find out what happened to Brennan on that field…was he near death and Naolin brought him back? Was he actually dead and Naolin brought him back but that's why he had to siphon from the earth? I don't remember what we find out about that, but what I am wondering about is that, if Naolin isn't dead, how is he no longer bonded with Tairn? I don't feel like this is ever really talked about, but maybe I'm forgetting that too. It said that Tairn was recovering for years after that. So would Naolin have been able to break the bond once he turned? It's a really interesting theory, and maybe other things throughout the books will cement it more for me as I reread, but right now, I just feel like there are so many gaps and holes, so I'm not totally sold on it yet. But the people in this community are geniuses, so they are probably on the right track and I am happy to follow. 

Favorite Scenes 

Okay, time to talk favorite scenes, because there are a couple of phenomenal ones in this section of chapters! 

Let’s start with the meeting under the tree. The first thing I noticed was that, when Violet is in the tree and she says she’s cloaked in shadows. She even says something about how the shadows wrap around her. I can’t help but imagine that it’s because Xaden knows she is there, which I’m positive that he does, and he's actually hiding her from everybody else, which I absolutely adore. We also meet Liam for the first time and I just freaking love him so much! I am not going to handle it well when I have to lose him all over again. I’m not ready… But moving on from that, I really enjoy everything about this scene because you get such an insight into the marked ones and what they’re dealing with. It’s really amazing to see how they stick together and want to support each other so they can all make it through to graduation. And Xaden might be a hard ass who refuses to sugarcoat anything, but he’s still very protective of who he considers his people and it’s a side of him we haven’t seen until now. Afterwards, when it’s just him and Violet, I love that we get this build of tension between them, finally! And it’s still sort of this, will he kill her, won’t he kill her thing, but the fact that he hasn’t killed her and is actually starting to give her pointers on things like throwing daggers at Jack, really makes you wonder what’s going on in his head because he certainly doesn’t seem like he wants to kill her. At least not completely. 

The other most amazing scene from this stretch of chapters is obviously the sparring match between Violet and Xaden! I could read it over over and over, and still not have enough! The way that he so outright flirts with her, shows her how easily it would be for someone to disarm and kill her, but then still teaches her in the same moment, is beyond perfect. And I love that Violet is obviously at a disadvantage fighting Xaden, but she still manages to take him out, even if he counters it immediately. It shows that she really does have what it takes, with the right teacher. I give Rebecca so much credit for being able to describe the scene in a way that, for the most part, I think paints the picture exactly as she intended. I can’t even begin to imagine the thought it would take to create this scene and be able to describe the entire sequence in a way that allows us to picture exactly what’s happening. It truly shows her talent. And then, of course she throws in thoughts like, “I’m not thinking about what else is a good fit at this angle” and I’m an instant puddle ;) I also love this scene because it shows the fast difference between Xaden and Dain. Throughout all of these chapters, Dain is still trying desperately to get Violet out. He doesn’t want her mended so that she has to go to the scribe quadrant, (what the actual fuck??) he’s talking to professors behind her back and he’s flat out begging her to leave. It’s maddening that he won’t just accept the fact that she’s there and try to help her survive. On the polar opposite side, you have Xaden who’s telling her to go fuck with Jack Barlowe so he leaves her alone, and then legit starts teaching her on the mat because he WANTS her to survive.

Should I Get the Wingleader? 

So this is going to be my new favorite section of the blog! One, pointing out all the times Violet’s scalp prickles when she’s around Xaden, and two, any other wingleader wonderfulness I haven’t already mentioned ;) So, first, scalp prickles!!! When I first read the book, I always just thought of that as some sort of connection between the two. Not like the bond, just some sort of attraction thing where she could just tell when he was staring at her. But now that we know Xaden’s second signet allows him to read intentions, it makes those scenes so much more interesting because it is Xaden trying to read her…and I love it! 

In this section of chapters, it happens three times. It first happens after the marked ones have their meeting under the tree. Xaden asks her if she’s going to tell anybody about the meeting and Violet obviously tells him that she’s not because they weren’t doing anything wrong. It says he stares at her as though he’s trying to look through her and ice pickles her scalp! Definitely checking to see if her intentions are true!

The second time it happens it’s after she throws diggers at Jack outside the sparring ring. She says there is no denying the prickles at her scalp and finds Xaden staring at her across the sparring gym, and he almost smiles at her. I have to imagine he was wondering if she threw the daggers because of what he said to her. Or just feeling proud of her for actually doing it. I really wish I had a better understanding of what it means to read intentions versus minds/memories because it’s so hard to fully understand what he’s doing, but I love it either way!

The last time it happens in this section of chapters is after Violet throws Aurelia‘s belongings in the burn bin after she falls off the gauntlet. She sees Xaden, Garrick and Bodhi  having a conversation, clearly having returned from somewhere on their dragons, and suddenly her scalp pickles and Xaden stops walking and becomes super rigid. That one has me asking questions because it didn’t even seem like he knew she was there, so how did he know to read her? Unless it has something to do with the shadows? I have no idea…

I’ve already talked a lot about my favorite scene with Xaden under the tree, and on the sparring mat, and a little bit after she burns Aurelia‘s things. But the one thing I didn’t yet point out that I wanted to save for here, was something I never would’ve picked up on before. We all know how much Xaden loves Violet’s hair. He’s not exactly shy about it later on in the book, but there was one little thing that happened when they were under the tree. He is retrieving her daggers after she throws them at him, and it says that she swears his breath catches when he looks at her braid. It is such a small little detail, super easy to miss, but I think it already shows the attraction that he has towards her this early on.  Knowing everything that ends up happening between these two and how much they end up loving each other, it’s so fun to go back and just see these little signs as it’s all building.

Scribes/Archives 

All right, here’s the section where I want to lay out some of what I think are the most important things to remember for future reading, and to potentially start throwing out some theories.

So, in this chapter, we have a lot of things start coming up that raise a lot of questions for our characters in our storyline. And I know some of those questions get answered later on and I have just forgotten them, but some of them don’t yet. One of the things that I for sure want to remember is from the battle brief at the very beginning of this section. We know that the wards failed and it’s not the first time. They’re failing pretty regularly at these outposts. The attack is also happening at a high altitude which doesn’t make sense for gryphons, unless they knew the wards were going to fail before they attacked. So, one of the things I am struggling with is that I can’t remember enough about the wards. I know we get a lot more of that in Iron Flame, and I’m really excited to go back and do that reread next because I think I’ll have a much better understanding going into it. But I do remember that the wards are powered by the ward stone and we know that that is fired by the dragons. But there’s also more to that because they’re able to extend the wards to the outposts and that’s the part I don’t totally remember. But whatever it is that pushes the words out and is failing, there has to be someone on the inside who knows that/why they’re failing, right? So that’s something I really want to keep in the back of my head and hold onto as I continue reading. 

There was also something that came up with the marked ones under the tree when they said they’re struggling with battle brief. And at first, I thought it just meant that they couldn’t keep up or they weren’t able to think critically enough for something like that. But after rereading Xaden’s response to them, I realized it’s something completely different. Xaden tells them that they need to learn what they teach them. “Keep what you know, but recite whatever they tell you.” I realized it’s because these marked ones know the truth of a lot of things, but the rest of the cadets don’t. So they need to pretend that they don’t know what’s really going on outside the wards. That raised a lot of other questions for me. Like, doesn’t leadership realize that these cadets would know what their parents were fighting for in the rebellion? How do they guarantee that they don’t talk? How do they know that the truth isn’t going to get out if one of them decides to talk? Unless that’s part of Xaden‘s deal with Lilith? I know that he takes responsibility for all of them. Would this count as a betrayal against Navarre? If they start speaking the truth, does that break the deal and Xaden dies? I just can’t believe they’re able to keep a secret like this so tightly under wraps, especially with so many people within the walls of Basgiath knowing the truth. 

The next part was about Nolon and Winifred. Obviously, it’s really hard to go back and read about Nolon taking care of Violet after we know what he does to her in Iron Flame. But what I actually really focused on during that whole mending scene, was Winifred. Nolon‘s wife. Violet mentions that she has silver eyebrows. Not gray, silver. I mentioned in the last post that anytime there’s a mention of silver, it always seems to relate back to venin. So that got me thinking…If Winifred is Nolon‘s wife and she has silver eyebrows, which maybe means silver hair, could that have anything to do with the venin? It seems like an important detail, and it does sort of makes sense why Nolon would be willing to help Jack once he turned venin, or once they found out. Because they should’ve just killed him on the spot, but they didn’t. I’m not saying winifred is venin, but it would kind of further that idea of veni having already infiltrated Basgiath.

The last thing I wanted to bring up just to hold onto it for future reference, were some of the comments about feathertails and orange dragons. When Violet is trying to calm herself down on the gauntlet, she recites a few facts about feathertails. And really all she says is that they are the dragon they know the least about, other than they hate violence so they are not suitable for bonding riders. While we obviously know a lot more about feathertails as we watch Andarna grow, I just want hold onto this memory that those are really the only two things anybody knows about feathertails because, if I’m remembering correctly, Jack makes some comments about feathertails later on that don’t make sense for him to know. And if I’m remembering that correctly, it leads me into a Jack Barlowe theory that I will share a little bit later. It also does bring up a comment about how orange dragons are the most unpredictable so they are always a risk. And that ties into this theory as well because of the different people who bonded orange dragons…most of them cannot be trusted. So I find those two dragon comments very interesting and extremely important. 

I also love how it talks about Sgaeyl and how she doesn’t follow dragon law. She does whatever she wants. And we obviously see this a lot with her, but I love how in your face it is during this dragon class. She bonded Xaden, even though either his grandmother or grandfather was her previous rider, and we know that she is the reason Andarna is at threshing even though she never should’ve been. I do also think there’s a heck of a lot more to that story than we know. But it still just goes to show that Sgaeyl does what Sgaeyl wants. Which makes her and Xaden the perfect match!

The Podcast 

After having read these chapters, I of course listened to the Fantasy Fangirls podcast. It’s really fun to listen to certain things because, in these episodes, they haven’t read the rest of the books because they weren’t out yet! And it’s super fun to hear their theories, especially about Xaden being an inntinnsic or them being fated mates. And they clearly picked up on these things long before I did. It’s really fun to hear how their brains work and how they’re starting to use all these little clues that Rebecca puts in the books to try to figure out what’s coming next. And more often than not, they’re pretty spot on! I do love their thought about why less dragons are bonding. I didn’t have any thoughts myself as to why this might be happening, but they were thinking that maybe they know the riders aren’t being properly prepared for what’s beyond the wards and it means they’re more likely to die, so they don’t want to bond almost as a form of protest. And I thought that was fascinating. Because the dragons have to know the truth because of the ones that are in active service with their riders, or the ones that are bonded with marked ones. They have to know that leadership is lying to everyone, and I find it really fascinating that that isn’t or doesn’t seem to be more commonly known among the riders once they bond their dragons. It’s a huge secret that they’re keeping. Which also begs the question that they asked, are the professors all lying as well? Do they all know the truth, or are they being fed the same lies from the leadership? Where does that line of deception end? All great questions that need answering. 

The last thing that they brought up that I thought was absolutely spectacular, was from the audiobook. They mentioned Teddy Hamilton because he reads Xaden‘s POV at the end of the book. And I can’t remember why it came up for this section of chapters, but I am not a fan of him for Xaden. The voice just doesn’t match the character for me and Nicole and Lexi made the same comment, that he’s a very talented voice actor, and it sounds like he’s done some other incredible work, but he just is not right for Xaden and it’s really frustrating. It was a little validating to find out I wasn’t the only one who felt that way lol. 

Until Next Time

Wow. We’ve reached the end of these chapters already! As always, thank you again for taking the time to read and enjoy this story with me! And if you have any thoughts, comments, questions or theories of your own, please comment on the post or email me. I would love to hear your thoughts on these things as well. We have so much of this story left and the journey wouldn’t be complete without you. Next time I will be analyzing chapters 11-15, and I hope you will join me again for all the fantasy feels!!