Onyx Storm

Hours after the battle that nearly destroyed Basgiath and claimed General Sorrengail's life, Violet follows Xaden through the tunnels beneath the war college.

Hours after the battle that nearly destroyed Basgiath and claimed General Sorrengail's life, Violet follows Xaden through the tunnels beneath the war college. He's gone to the interrogation chamber where Jack Barlowe is chained—the venin prisoner who knows what Xaden is becoming. Strawberry-red rings circle Xaden's irises, the mark of someone who channeled dark magic from the earth itself. He did it to save them all, but the cost may be his soul. Andarna reveals she scorched a dark wielder during the battle and believes her kind—the irids, the seventh breed of dragon—might know how to reverse the damage. Violet makes a vow: she will scour every library, cross every ocean, and break every law to find a cure. She sends for Imogen.

Dark wielders disguised as scribes feed on patients within Basgiath

Two weeks after the battle, Violet's war college has barely stitched itself together. Patrols hunt dark wielders in blinding snowstorms while Poromish peace negotiations stall. Then a scream rips through the infirmary—every overflow patient lies desiccated, drained of magic and life. Venin wearing cream-colored scribe robes have been feeding unnoticed inside the wards. Violet, Rhiannon, and Ridoc fight their way down to the interrogation chamber, where more dark wielders are trying to free Jack Barlowe. One silver-haired female with a faded forehead tattoo vanishes before Violet can act. Xaden arrives and obliterates the remaining attackers with shadows, but afterward admits something terrifying: he sensed them the same way they sense him—because he is becoming one of them.

Violet rewrites Navarre's defenses to preserve a collapsing alliance

The Senarium refuses to let flier cadets wield behind the wards, dooming the Poromish alliance. But Mira returns with a breakthrough: a method to nullify individual wardstone runes without destroying the others. If they alter just the right rune, fliers access their magic while protections against dark wielders hold. At midnight, Violet leads her squad into the wardstone chamber. Sawyer, the metallurgist still recovering from losing his leg, reshapes the iron with trembling arms. Maren, a flier, tests whether she can wield. A rune bulges and nearly ruptures, but Ridoc's ice patches it before catastrophe strikes. The stone holds. Maren's rock floats above her palm. By morning the alliance has a path forward—and Violet has committed treason against her kingdom.

The morning's signed accord erases Violet's crimes hours before her arrest Colonel Aetos storms into Battle Brief and charges Violet with high treason. But the timing is spectacularly unfortunate—for him. That very morning, the Aretian accord was signed, pardoning every prior offense. Xaden, now seated on the Senarium…