Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)

by Rebecca Yarros

Jesinia Neilwart, Curator of the Scribe Quadrant at Basgiath War College.

A rider without their dragon is dead. —Article One, Section One The Dragon Rider’s Codex

Conscription Day

Compulsory enlistment = drafted

to enter their chosen quadrant

Every Navarrian officer, whether they choose to be schooled as healers, scribes, infantry, or riders, is molded within these cruel walls over three years, honed into weapons to secure our mountainous borders from the violent invasion attempts of the kingdom of Poromiel and their gryphon riders. The weak don’t survive here, especially not in the Riders Quadrant. The dragons make sure of that.

Mira.

Violet’s sister Mira's name means brave

“Damn it, Mom,

So the general is their Mom

trying to save me.

Mira is the protector

“Hi, Mira.” A smile tugs at the corners of my mouth. She might be here to say her goodbyes, but I’m just glad to see my sister for the first time in years.

Years? What happened when her dad died

“She’s spent her whole life training to become a scribe. She wasn’t raised to be a rider.”

prohibited power of mind reading

At twenty-six years old, Mira’s a younger version of our mother. She’s tall, with strong, powerful muscles toned from years of sparring and hundreds of hours spent on the back of her dragon. Her skin practically glows with health, and her golden-brown hair is sheared short for combat in the same style as Mom’s.

Mira is 26 which means she's been out of school for 3 years

She’s everything I’m not, and the disapproving shake of Mom’s head says she agrees. I’m too short. Too frail. What curves I do have should be muscle, and my traitorous body makes me embarrassingly vulnerable.

Mom

Mom is a general

Mage light = magic light

picks up the end of my long braid, scoffs at the section just above my shoulders where the brown strands start to lose their warmth of color and slowly fade to a steely, metallic silver by the ends, and then drops it. “Pale skin, pale eyes, pale hair.”

She's is washed of color paler than siblings weird hair. Foreshadowing she different unique fragile but strong

“It’s like that fever stole all your coloring along with your strength.”

A fever stole her coloring. Why?

curse the sickness that nearly killed her while she was pregnant with me or the library Dad made my second home once she’d been stationed here at Basgiath as an instructor and he as a scribe.

There is more to know here.. Parents hiding something why?

more than a year since his heart finally failed,

Dad died over a year ago. Was he killed? It's says. His heart failed him

“I am the daughter of a scribe.”

“You’re the daughter of a rider, you are twenty years old, and today is Conscription Day. I let you finish your tutoring, but like I told you last spring, I will not watch one of my children enter the Scribe Quadrant, Violet.”

she’s not tall enough to mount any dragon

“Mira, Violet deals with more pain before lunch than you do in an entire week.

Mom knows Violet’s strong

Mom’s storm-wielding signet power she channels through her dragon, Aimsir.

Aimsir = weather seasons

the memory of my brother. No one has dared to mention Brennan or his dragon in the five years since they died fighting the Tyrrish rebellion in the south.

Brother died 5 years ago and immediately dad's health starts to fail. Used pronoun They he's gay

Dad did, too. His chest pains started right after Brennan’s death.

“You scored in the top quarter for speed and agility during the entrance exam. You’ll do just fine.

“So much like your father,”

Is this foreshadowing? I think this the reason her mom is putting her in the riders quadrant. Because something's fishy she was supposed to be a scribe. Now all of a sudden mom throws her to the riders quadrant so what happened? Why the change? I think that dad died over a year ago and his death sparked something that made her mom move Violet to the Riders quad. Vi starts training six months later, she starts training for the for the riders quadrant because her mom made this decision. I think she protecting her daughter.

I’ve been training with Major Gillstead

In the thirty minutes I’ve been gone, all my personal items have been packed into crates

“What are you doing?” “What Brennan did for me,”

I’m pretty quick with daggers,

Lightning quick.

First use of lighting

What I lack in strength, I make up ...

my favorite collection of dark fables.

one scar, the one her own dragon gave her during Threshing.

Ditch the books.” “Dad gave this one to me,”

a collection of stories that warn us against the lure of magic, and even demonize dragons, but it’s all I have left.

The book from her Dad = warns of the dangers of magic. And demonizes dragons

folklore about dark-wielding vermin and their wyvern?

French for venmon

Hidden meaning usually moral or political

don’t try to channel power without being a bonded rider and red-eyed monsters won’t hide under your bed, waiting to snatch you away on their two-legged dragons to join their dark army.”

Definition of what the venin are

Dad can’t save you.

specially made for you with Teine’s scales sewn in, so be careful with it.”

Teine = fire pronounce chenna

rider whose powers can make big things very small.”

“And smaller things…much, much bigger.”

liability in sparring

No one else has hair that fades out to silver like this, and they’ll already be aiming for you.”

the natural pigment seems to gradually abandon it no m...

eyes are ...