
Violet returns from a secret battle beyond Navarre’s wards with two dragons bonded to her, a brother she thought was dead, and the knowledge that venin—dark wielders once dismissed as myth—are real and advancing. Back at Basgiath War College, she and the surviving members of Xaden’s “riot” must lie to stay alive while leadership tightens its grip, new enemies rise, and the price of knowing the truth becomes torture.
As attacks escalate and the wards’ limitations are exposed, Violet gambles everything on forbidden research into how the First Six built the original protections. Her choices pull friends into danger, fracture trust, and ignite a revolution inside the heart of the war machine. But even with a luminary, new allies, and hard-won power, the final battle reveals a terrifying reality: the enemy is not only outside the wards—and the cost of love may be corruption.