Onyx Storm: Chapter 3

[penwalla]

Sometimes I worry about Violet. She has your sharp wit, quick mind, and steadfast heart paired with my bullheaded tenacity. When she finally and truly gives that heart, I fear it will overrule the other gifts you’ve given her and logic will cede its voice to love.
And if her first two liaisons are any indication of what we might expect… Gods help her, my love, I’m afraid our daughter has atrocious taste in men.

—Recovered, Unsent Correspondence of General Lilith Sorrengail

And once again, we have to have other characters tell us how great Violet is.

Violet heads to the Senarium.

“I’ve known this was coming and have a plan. Two weeks is a lot of time to overthink every possible scenario,” I reply as the crowd slowly parts to the side of the hall in what I’ve come to think of as the Xaden effect. I can’t blame them for staring. He’s gorgeous. I can’t blame them for backing up, either. He’s not only terrifyingly powerful, he’s known to be responsible for splitting Navarre’s riot and providing weapons to Poromiel.

Safe to say not every gaze trained on him—on any of the three of us—is friendly.

Why are any of the gazes trained on you friendly? You've been openly rebelling against the government! Violet, do you actually think anyone is staring at Xaden because he's hot? Do you actually think, in this hallway where everyone is crowded in because they're negotiating a peace treaty against a threat against Navarre that could destroy them all, that they're distracted by Xaden being hot?

Which, actually, should the Navarre contingent not have leverage in the Poromiel talks? it's always been presented like the gryphons don't pose any threat to the dragons, and all the venin killing alloy is in Navarre. Yeah, the gryphon fliers are theoretically trained to kill venin, but clearly the rider training is adequate. Poromiel needs them more than Navarre needs Poromiel.

Xaden waits in the hallway while Violet is escorted into the Senarium, which consists of six nobles who represent six provinces of Navarre. Only one of them is friendly towards her, though she knows them all thanks to her mother.

Violet attempts to present her list of demands from Andarna as the council tries to assign her to a task force led by Captain Grady (one of Violet's professors from torture class) but gets overrun by the council. Uh...how? As Violet herself points out, the Aretian riot don't answer to the chain of command and can leave at any time. Obviously it would be better for them to remain behind the wards, but as the bookhas pointed out earlier, the venin are still picking them off on patrols. The increased numbers of the Aretian riot are needed. Also, as dragons in this series keep saying, they don't answer to humans. And Andarna, the only known seventh dragon type, is Violet's dragon. Why does the Senarium get to make demands of her?

Well, let me put this a better way. Why does the Senarium think they can make demands of her? Why do they talk like it's a foregone conclusion she'll obey them after she defected to the rebellion and took her dragons with her?

Actually, let's circle back to a more important question: where are the dragons on this mission to find a secret dragon clan? Shouldn't this be a dragon-only matter, considering how secretive they are about their own matters? Why are the humans even being allowed to run this mission without dragons telling them how and what to do?

“Determining the members of the squad is one of Andarna’s demands.” In every scenario I’d thought through, Andarna’s compliance had always been the card I’d mentally played.

“Then it’s one that won’t be met.” Melgren folds his hands in his lap. “It’s a nonnegotiable military operation, not a class field trip.”

“We won’t go,” Tairn states.

“We have to go!” Andarna argues, her voice rising.

Then they should just go!

Seriously, what are the consequences of disobeying here? The Senarium can make whatever orders they want, but what is the cost of disobeying? If Violet just puts together the squad she wants and says, me and my dragons are fucking off, what is the Navarre military going to do? Because right now they're in the middle of a war with the venin, and despite the wards the venin are in Basgiath killing people, and half their Riders have defected to the other side. What is their leverage that Violet needs to negotiate with them at all?

Violet leaves the Senarium disappointed, but not before she receives a note from Tecarus, who tells her she has three days to hold up her end of the bargain.

Scene change. Violet's overslept after the long day before, with Xaden asleep in bed beside her still. They wake up and start to have sex, only to have to stop midway through when Xaden loses control and starts to channel venin-style.

Chapter end!

We're back, baby! This book is dumb as fuck again. I love that despite this books featuring the dragons so heavily in its marketing, it has exactly two dragons who approach being actual characters and the dragons as a group exercise no power at all, despite supposedly having all of it.

If you type "dragons don't obey humans" in your book and then that's never actually true, I'm left to disbelieve all your worldbuilding, Yarros. Which makes this already badly constructed series nigh-unreadable.

Having read a bit about the goings-on at Entangled, the publisher of this book, I now understand a little bit how it came to be. I think what I've read confirms my theory that Yarros is not a fantasy fan and isn't really interested in writing an epic fantasy novel. Everything in this book that isn't one on one scenes of Violet and Xaden's romance feels like it's had zero effort put into it. From what I've heard, Yarros was apparently pitched this concept by someone at Entangled, and it shows. Her heart's not in it. But she has a five book deal and the marketing machine behind her, so...the show must go on.

See y'all next time.