QUICK LINKS: Fourth Wing Recap by Chapter 1–10 | 11–18 | 19–27
Fourth Wing Chapters 28–39 Summary
This chapter-by-chapter summary of Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros contains spoilers.
Chapter 28
Two days after Montserrat, Violet is a wreck waiting outside Professor Markham‘s office. She needs to know if Mira made it out alive. Xaden finds Violet and brings coffee. He admits his plan to destroy her is over because he can’t get her out of his head. Markham arrives and confirms no riders died at the outpost. Violet nearly falls over with relief.
Over the next few weeks, Violet pesters Xaden with personal questions through their mental link. He answers some but stays tight-lipped about the scars on his back. When the War Games begin in May, Xaden surprises Violet with a custom saddle fitted with straps to keep her secure in the air.
During the games, Violet spots the hidden egg outpost and tells Xaden. Then Jack attacks Liam, stabs him, and kicks him off his dragon toward the rocks below. Violet uses Andarna’s power to stop time, giving Tairn just enough room to catch Liam before time restarts.
Furious, Violet charges at Jack on the tower. The power she’s been holding back explodes out of her, and she summons a massive bolt of lightning that destroys the tower and sends Jack to his death in the rubble. Tairn then delivers the news Violet has been waiting for. Her signet has finally manifested. She’s a lightning wielder.
Chapter 29
Violet lands sick with guilt over Jack’s death and ends up on her knees in the mud. Tairn shields Violet from the crowd with his wings. Dain suggests that Violet simply never use her lightning again. Xaden shoves Dain aside and tells Violet the harsh truth. As a lightning wielder, she’s the most powerful asset the kingdom has. Xaden thanks Violet for saving Liam and asks Rhiannon to take her back to the citadel.
Back in her room, Violet throws daggers at a target to clear her head. Violet always hoped to be a healer like her brother Brennan, and it bothers her that she seems built to destroy rather than fix. Xaden shows up and admits he can’t keep his distance. When Violet gets upset about what her power says about who she is, Xaden listens and tells her she’s allowed to feel the weight of it in private, even if they have to be tough soldiers in public. He offers to let her hit him if she needs to vent. Instead, Violet kisses Xaden.
Chapter 30
Violet wakes up to find Xaden already gone, though he left a small jar of flowers on her nightstand. The room is a disaster. Their combined powers had gone haywire overnight and destroyed the furniture and scorched the curtains. Before Violet can process the mess, Professor Carr shows up at her door. Violet is banned from library duties until she can control her lightning. The leadership can’t risk her setting fire to irreplaceable scrolls.
Professor Carr takes Violet high into the mountains, where the cold air counteracts the intense heat her body generates when she uses her gift. He shares his theory that nature compensated for Violet’s extraordinary power by giving her a physically fragile body. He also warns Violet that she and Xaden together are a formidable pair, and military leadership could see that as a threat. Violet’s loyalty to Navarre has to come first.
Summoning lightning without a natural emotional trigger proves harder than expected. Xaden picks up on Violet’s struggle through their mental connection and sends her a vivid memory of their night together. The rush of desire hits Violet immediately, and the lightning follows. Professor Carr pushes Violet to keep going. She pulls off several more strikes, but the control just isn’t there yet. Mastering this power is going to take a long time.
Chapter 31
The next morning, Xaden stops by to help Violet clean up her room. Violet decides to be honest. She tells him she can’t do casual because she knows she’ll fall for him. Xaden shuts her down and insists there’s no future between them, but Violet isn’t buying it. She tells him he doesn’t get to control her feelings and cuts things off until he’s willing to risk his heart. Violet kicks him out and tells him to come back with a new training target once he stops being a coward.
While cleaning, Violet finds a hidden note from her father tucked inside an old book of fables. The note warns that history can be erased by a single desperate generation and hints that folklore might hold more truth than Violet realized. She’s left wondering what her father was trying to protect her from.
The next few weeks are painfully awkward. Violet and Xaden keep training together, but the tension is obvious enough that even their friends notice. The Reunification Day festival makes it worse. The king and top generals are present and clearly watching the children of the rebellion. Violet makes small talk with the king and General Melgren while Liam stands beside her, barely holding it together at a party that celebrates the defeat of his own parents. When the king asks about Xaden, Violet defends his loyalty.
When Violet slips away from the party, she uses their mental bond to track down Xaden. Garrick and Bodhi warn Violet that Xaden is in a dark mood, but she doesn’t care. Violet knows she belongs at his side. She walks out onto the parapet where Xaden is waiting.
Chapter 32
Violet risks crossing the dangerous parapet at night to reach Xaden. She finds him sitting alone while the rest of the school celebrates the anniversary of the rebellion’s defeat. Violet confronts Xaden directly. He clearly cares for her beyond just being teammates.
After a tense back-and-forth, Xaden drops his guard. He admits he’s been jealous of Violet’s friendship with Dain and that he’s tired of pushing her away.
Violet convinces Xaden to leave the ledge and takes him back to his room. She wants to be there for him on a day that usually brings grief and isolation. Violet tells Xaden she’s in love with him. He doesn’t say it back, but he makes it clear he needs her just as much. They spend the night together, and their combined powers grow so intense that Violet accidentally summons lightning that shatters the window. Xaden uses his shadows to shield Violet from the glass.
Their night is cut short when Garrick bangs on the door. He tells Violet and Xaden to gear up and get to the courtyard. Basgiath is under attack.
Chapter 33
The entire quadrant is pulled out of bed in the middle of the night for a massive formation. It looks like a real emergency, but it’s the start of the final War Games. The scenario mimics a total collapse of the border wards. Fourth Wing is assigned to the southeast, and Xaden sets up headquarters at Athebyne. Violet recognizes it as the place Xaden had been visiting in secret earlier in the term.
When the squads move out, Xaden pulls Violet, Liam, and Imogen onto his own team. He justifies the move by pointing out that their dragons can’t be apart for long and that Violet’s lightning makes her a valuable asset. Dain is furious and gets into a public fight with Xaden, accusing him of using Violet as revenge against her mother.
Things get worse when Dain sees how Violet reacts to Xaden. Dain figures out they’re together and is visibly devastated. He accepts that Violet has made her choice and tells her goodbye.
Before they take off, Violet notices Andarna has a new harness that lets her latch onto Tairn if she tires during the long flight. Violet watches Xaden and Dain head off in different directions. By picking a side, Violet has changed the course of her future.
Chapter 34
The group flies for seven hours and crosses the border where the magic wards end. The magic beyond the border is rawer and harder for the dragons to navigate. They stop at a lake near Athebyne for a break. Xaden pulls Violet aside, helps ease the cramps in her legs, and they share a quiet moment acknowledging their commitment to each other.
The peace doesn’t last. A woman’s voice breaks the silence, and two gryphon riders appear with their mounts. Violet reaches for her lightning, but Xaden stops her and tells her to trust him. The squad arrives, but nobody attacks. Xaden hands Violet off to Liam and goes with Garrick to speak with the riders. Then Xaden tells the group they arrived sooner than expected. The whole encounter was planned.
Chapter 35
Violet is devastated to find out Xaden has been working with gryphon riders behind her back. She feels betrayed, especially knowing her own dragons and the entire squad already knew. Xaden justifies his secrecy by revealing something terrifying.
The venin, creatures everyone dismisses as monsters from children’s stories, are real. These dark magic users are draining the world of its life force, and Navarre’s wards have been the only thing holding them back. The government has been hiding the war from its own people.
Xaden hands Violet a specialized weapon used to kill the venin, one Violet suspects her mother and other high-ranking leaders already know about.
On the way to Athebyne, Violet thinks about her father. Xaden had been trying to warn her about this erased history for years. The scribes have been rewriting the past to keep the public in the dark.
The garrison is completely abandoned. Xaden asks about Dain, and the pieces fall into place. Dain violated Violet’s trust by scanning her memories through touch and leaking Xaden’s secret meetings to the military. A letter from Dain’s father confirms the worst. The War Games have been rigged into a death trap. The squad was sent there to be executed.
Chapter 36
The squad quickly grasps how bad the situation is. They are up against four venin and a pack of wyvern, with hundreds of civilians caught in the crossfire. Xaden gives everyone the option to leave, but the whole group stays.
The battle is devastating. Soleil and her dragon die early after wandering into a patch of ground drained of all magic by a venin. Violet covers with her lightning while Tairn draws the wyvern away from civilians. Liam spots unstable materials nearby and uses them to trigger a massive explosion, taking out an enemy.
Then it gets worse. A wyvern brings down Liam’s dragon, Deigh, and since their lives are linked, Liam starts to die too. Violet stays by his side as he goes. Liam asks Violet to protect his younger sister and to listen to Xaden. Xaden arrives just in time to say goodbye and carries Liam to his dragon.
Dozens of new wyvern appear, and the group is outnumbered. Xaden builds a temporary wall of shadows to hold them back and tells Violet she’s the only one powerful enough to take out the leaders of the horde. Driven by grief and rage, Violet climbs back onto Tairn for one final desperate charge.
Chapter 37
A venin climbs onto Tairn’s back mid-fight and stabs him. Violet moves out onto the dragon’s spine to deal with the attacker. The fight is brutal. Violet breaks her arm and takes a poisoned knife to the side. Xaden blinds the venin with shadows, and Violet drives her runed dagger into its ribs. As the creature dies, several wyvern drop from the sky. Killing a venin kills every wyvern it created.
Violet tells Tairn her plan and asks Xaden to drop his shadow wall before he burns out. Xaden lets it fall. Violet draws power from Tairn and uses Andarna’s gift to slow down time. She lines up a lightning bolt and hits the lead venin rider. Most of the remaining wyvern drop. Xaden kills the last venin rider with his shadows and a dagger.
The battle is won, but Violet has nothing left. She slides off Tairn’s back and falls.
Chapter 38
Violet plummets from Tairn’s back. Andarna slows time just enough for Xaden to catch Violet. She’s barely conscious but senses Xaden’s terror before she drifts off. When Violet wakes briefly, the squad is arguing. Her arm is broken, the poison is turning her blood dark, and her connection to her dragons has been severed. Violet feels completely alone inside her own head.
The group knows Violet won’t survive a long flight back. Xaden decides to take her to a nearby secret location. Garrick warns it could blow their cover, but Xaden doesn’t care. Violet’s life is all that matters.
Pain and guilt consume Violet on the way. She blames herself for Liam’s death and knows her trust in Dain led to the ambush. Violet realizes that if she dies, Xaden will likely die with her. When they arrive, Xaden carries Violet and begs her to keep fighting. As Violet nears the end of her strength, a familiar voice calls out, and Xaden asks the man to help save her.
Chapter 39
Xaden spends three days at Violet’s bedside while she’s unconscious. When Violet wakes up, her wound has mostly healed and left a faint silver scar. She’s warm toward Xaden at first and even kisses him, but as the memories of the battle return, she pulls away. Xaden confirms that Liam is gone and gives Violet the small wooden dragon Liam had been carving for her.
Violet is willing to keep Xaden’s secrets and fight for their cause, but she no longer trusts him. Xaden doesn’t flinch. He admits he’s fallen for Violet and promises to spend every day earning her trust back. Violet is still hurt, but she doesn’t hide the fact that she still loves him.
Xaden tells Violet there’s someone she needs to meet. A man walks in, and Violet realizes it’s her brother Brennan, who everyone believed had died years ago. Brennan is a mender and the one who saved Violet from the poison. He welcomes his sister into the heart of their revolution.
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