penwalla

Chapter forty-three opens with an ominous quote about the Cliffs of Dralor, which are very difficult for gryphons to fly due to the altitude.

Okay, let's go. Violet's gotten the luminary delivered to the forge at Aretia, so now all the cadets are in formation getting ready to hike these insane cliffs while the gryphons...fly them? I guess the riders and the fliers are going to hike the trail together to bond, while the gryphons risk their lives flying the cliffs. Tairn gives Violet another pep talk that amounts to "dragons are great and we like you, so you are also great." Man,Tairn has really grown on me--he's like one of the few characters that feels like he has a real personality.

Naturally, Violet's squad is paired with Cat's drift.

Violet is making friends with Cat's best friend, Maren, whose gryphon is named Daja. It's not clear to me if gryphons have the same level of sentience that the dragons do, but clearly there's a bond there. The gryphons are actually walking the path alongside the others, and the risk is that they'll fall off and not be able to catch themselves? I think? Like could they not fly the entire way if landing is the risk because it might cause a rock slide? Whatever, it's just more of Yarros's inability to create worldbuilding that makes sense.

Naturally, the conversation immediately shifts to Violet and how special she is.

After another few minutes of tense silence, I ask, “So where are you from?”

“Draithus,” Maren answers. “I’d ask about you, but everyone knows you grew up moving outpost to outpost until your mother was assigned to Basgiath.”

My footsteps almost falter.

Sloane glances back at me with raised eyebrows.

“You’ve been a hell of a ransom target,” Maren explains as we come to a series of carved steps meant to deter wagons. “Honestly, most of us figured Riorson would nab you after harvest his first year and gift you to us.”

“You mean Cat figured.” Sloane’s tone has suspicious bite.

“Cat definitely figured,” Maren agrees.

Naturally, these fliers, despite being friends with Cat for years and only knowing Violet for hours, are happy to let Violet and Sloan shittalk Cat. Because Cat is a blonde woman and therefore evil. Anyways, Sloane (Liam's sister) is also here, and she's gotten over hating Violet because she's been reading her brother's letters about her. This is an important moment, and one that I think deserved to not be shoehorned into this point in the story.

Thankfully, this conversation is interrupted by a falling rock, which Violet tries to move with magic and fails before Tairn smashes it with his tail.

The fliers then ask about the parapet, and we find out that the gryphon fliers don't die on conscription day--if they can't bond a gryphon, they just get transferred to another branch of the military. Maren rightfully points out that Basgiath is weird as fuck. Violet and Sloane do not react to this at all, which is absurd. This whole hike is supposed to be about bonding with the fliers and is a great opportunity to drive home the differences between fliers and riders and use it to demonstrate the depravity of Basgiath. But noooo.

And then...one of the dragons in Aretia's first hatchling is born. This apparently changes the magic in the area in a way other creatures can sense, so Tairn is grumpy about it.

Next scene. Everyone is exhausted due to the length of the climb and the change in altitude. Apparently the riders and fliers are also fighting--would have been nice to actually see that instead of hear about it in passing. The gryphons are taking the worst of it, because most of them aren't able to tolerate the same altitudes dragons can.

They come to a section where they need to jump across, and Violet is now constantly comparing herself to this small and short flier. I guess because they're both tiny. Violet uses Dain's sword to attach a rope so that they can use it to swing across, since they're both simply too tiny to jump. Again, I'm not against Violet not being able to do things due to her physical limitations, but it feels like Yarros forgets about them frequently and also never lets them deliver lasting consequences. Violet says she's exhausted and can't go on, but...she does.

And she can always just willpower through everything, which is not how being disabled works.

Violet makes it but the flier doesn't, and in the chaos of trying to save her Ridoc gets shot twice. She screams for Brennan as the chapter ends.

Chapter forty four. Ridoc has two arrows stuck in him and the flier has just fallen off the cliff. Violet's shoulder is dislocated.

Dain puts Violet's shoulder back in as Luella (the dead flier's) gryphon dies. They bond for life, unlike the dragons who can bond again. Side note: if Yarros was going to write about someone with frequent shoulder dislocations, she could have done some research. We put shoulders back in on nonsedated peopled without them being in agony all the time in real life, and people with frequent dislocations are actually pretty easy to reduce--the problem is that their connective tissue is so battered that their shoulders don't stay reduced.

Trapped in the fog, Violet thinks she hears Tairn--but nope, it's a wyvern swooping down to eat the dying gryphon.

Welp.

This is fun stuff so far!

Violet tells the others to flee as Brennan heals Ridoc and takes off on Tairn to fight the wyvern, since her signet is the most useful right now. Is it? She admits she can't wield with one hand and as we learned recently, she also can't aim. But whatever.

I slide my hand out of my jacket with a wince, then gasp with pain as I rotate my palms downward and open myself to Tairn’s power. It flows through me, filling my muscles, my veins, the very marrow of my bones until I am power and power is me. My skin starts to hum, then sizzle.

We break through the clouds, and I throw my arms wide, pushing past the pain and screaming with it all in the same breath, setting the molten energy within me free, and for the first time in my life, I force the power downward.

Energy erupts through me, searing my skin on the way out as lightning strikes within the cloud below us, webbing out like the many branches of an overgrown briar patch, twisting and turning, drawn to the energy harnessed within the wyvern.

Four distinct shapes light up beneath us, two directly under and two closer to the edge of the cliff, flashing brightly with the endless stream of power.

Violet defeats four wyvern, but now there's a new problem: the venin know that the dragons are hatching in Aretia, and now they're all going to be a target. And honestly, I'm all for it. A lot of this chapter doesn't make sense, and it feels like Yarros is just inventing new rules for her magic on the fly--apparently now Violet's lightning is attracted by venin because of their dark magic, which meant she didn't need to aim. And despite her arm being fucked up, she was able to wield despite saying she couldn't like a couple paragraphs earlier. But at least it's entertaining!

Chapter forty-five.

The death rolls are being read. Riders and fliers are being killed by the venin.

Meanwhile, the fliers and riders still aren't getting along--Cat's drift in particular all hate Violet because they think she let Luella die. There's a brief moment of introspection as Violet wonders if Basgiath's murder college ways are worse than the gryphons actually experiencing grief and not murdering each other, but she doesn't dwell on it. Side note: the Basgiath murder rules have basically been forgotten since Violet became a second year, and it feels like a massive oversight. Did she do anything as a second year to stop the cadets murdering each other? No, except for Sloane. In fact, Violet explicitly has refused to learn the names of the first years under her until they bond dragons and are therefore not going to be killed, because it would hurt her too much.

It's just another massive failure on Yarros's part. The murder isn't useful now as a plot device, so she's discarded it, and the implications are staggering but she never thinks through any part of the story.

Next scene. Violet and co arrive for a new class. Andarna acts like a brat.

“It’s not that. Did she grow again?” he asks, pulling at his collar. “I feel like she grew.”

“I think a few inches this week.” I nod. “We had to add a link to her harness on each side.”

“Soon I’ll be able to fly without it,” Andarna notes with a huff.

Ridoc pivots to make his own observations, smiling up at Andarna. “The little Mini-Tairn is becoming ferocious, isn’t she—”

“I am no one’s miniature.” Andarna’s head darts toward him, and she snaps her teeth less than a foot in front of his face.

My heart bolts. “Andarna!” I shout, turning quickly to put myself between her and Ridoc as she withdraws.

Andarna is extremely annoying and I knew she would be. Though it is very funny to see Tairn parent her because she clearly got all her flaws from him.

There's some decent squad banter and we find out Rhiannon's family has arrived in Aretia, along with a flood of other refugees.

Okay, rune class. Not very interesting, and everyone is weirdly skeptical about the existence of runes. The banning of runes is an interesting bit of lore--clearly it was a powerplay by the riders, since runes can be used to do things that would otherwise require the cooperate of someone with a relevant signet. Violet manages to do the assignment, but Cat does it first, and if you want more detail, sorry, but all of this happens over the course of a page or so.

One of the skills a writer needs to have is deciding what scenes can be brief exposition and which ones need more time and space on the page. And despite the length of this book, it feels like Yarros is bad at this. We so often have stuff that's glossed over that ought to be on the page! And then we spend way too much time on just random conversations that are fine to read but aren't moving the plot along.

We're at 71%. I may yet finish the book.