# CHAPTER 24: The Blade Between Us
Hello everyone, it’s me again! How are you all doing? Today I will continue to walk with you and review CHAPTER 24 of *Fourth Wing* — a chapter that crackles with tension, heartbreak, and the slow burn of two souls who refuse to admit they’re already tangled. So grab your flight leathers, steady your heart, and let’s dive into the chaos.
---
The morning after the kiss that shouldn’t have happened, Violet finds herself caught in a storm of confusion and hurt. She wants to talk about it. She *needs* to. But Xaden Riorson has built walls higher than Basgiath’s ramparts, and he’s not about to let her through.
“That’s not up for discussion,” he says, his eyes flashing with something raw before a cool mask of indifference slides into place.
Violet tries to push. She reminds him they’ll be stationed together for the rest of their lives, that avoiding each other is impossible. But Xaden’s answer is razor-sharp: getting involved — even on a physical level — is a colossal blunder. No point talking about it.
Her chest feels hollow, like he reached inside and eviscerated her with just four sentences. Because she *knows* he felt it too. She was there. There was no mistaking that kind of enthusiasm. But maybe it was just the churam. Maybe it meant nothing.
She nearly chokes on her own voice as she asks, “What if I want to talk about it?”
Xaden doesn’t flinch. “Then feel free, but it doesn’t mean I have to be a part of the conversation. We’re both allowed our boundaries, and this is one of mine.”
Then he drops the real bombshell: He’s taking over her training. If Liam can’t report deadly situations properly, and Rhiannon can’t keep her from being pinned by Barlowe, then Xaden will handle it himself. Everything when it comes to her.
Violet is left breathless, furious, and hopelessly tangled in feelings she didn’t ask for.
---
The next day, with winds howling outside and flight hours cancelled, Xaden has Violet on the mat. He’s fully dressed this time — fighting leathers, boots, and more daggers than she can count strapped across his body. It’s absolutely toxic how attractive she finds this look. One glance and her temperature spikes.
He tells her to leave her blades off the mat. She protests: “But you’re armed.”
“You either trust me or you don’t,” he replies, tilting his head just enough to expose the rebellion relic curling around his neck — the same one she caressed while he pressed her against the foundation wall a month ago.
Nope. Not thinking about that.
But her body has no problem remembering.
She strips her daggers, laying them on the floor, and turns to face him, arms out. She’s still wounded from the attack, stitches pulling, but Xaden doesn’t care. “The enemy doesn’t give a shit if you’re wounded,” he says. “If you don’t know how to fight in pain, then you’ll get us both killed.”
She reluctantly agrees. Then he shows her a weapon he had made specifically for her: a beautiful dagger with a solid black hilt engraved with Tyrrish knots, old runes of intricate swirls and ties, the blade honed to lethal perfection.
“It’s yours,” he says.
Her heart stumbles. He took the time to have it made. That gives her soft, confusing feelings she really doesn’t want to have.
But Violet knows the rules: the only weapons allowed are ones you earn. She tries to hand it back.
Xaden smiles for a flash — and then moves with impossible speed, sweeping her feet out from under her and taking her to the mat in a single, fluid motion. The ease of it is appalling. And ridiculously hot.
With his hips settled between her thighs, she has to fight every instinct not to brush that stray lock of hair from his forehead. *It was a mistake.* The memory cools her off just in time.
“There are a dozen of these daggers strapped to my body,” he says. “Start disarming me.”
Violet challenges him quietly. “I know how to handle *you* on top of me.”
He lowers his mouth to her ear. “You won’t like what happens if you push me.”
“Or maybe I will.”
The heat between them is dangerous. He dares her to disarm him before he tests that theory in front of everyone. She can’t help but tease: “I didn’t take you for an exhibitionist.”
“Keep pushing, and I guess you’ll find out.”
Their eyes lock. He asks if she still thinks kissing him was a mistake. The way he says it — arrogant, taunting, hungry — makes her forget the entire quadrant could be watching.
She scoffs and starts plucking knives from their sheaths, flinging them across the mat. Then she locks her legs around his hips, rolls him over, and pins him with a forearm against his collarbone. She strips the remaining daggers from his side, one by one, until she snatches the last one from his hand with a triumphant smile.
“Thank you.”
But Xaden isn’t done. He shoves his palms into the mat with unnatural strength, arching them both until her spine kisses the mat again. She’s pinned beneath him, breathless, his body lodged firmly between her thighs. She has to fight not to arch up and test whether he still thinks that kiss was a mistake.
“That’s not fair to use your powers on the mat,” she breathes.
He reminds her that Emetterio doesn’t allow powers in challenges, but out in the real world, the field is anything but level. She needs to learn to use whatever she’s got.
Violet admits she can only ground, shield, and move parchment. Xaden sighs. They’ll work on that too. Then he takes up a fighting stance. “Now, earn your nickname and try your best to kill me.”
---
February turns into a blur of exhaustion. Xaden takes every unscheduled moment of Violet’s day. Dain grits his teeth every time the wingleader pulls her out of squad training. But Violet can’t argue with the results. She’s learning to take down the strongest fighter in the quadrant — well, almost. She hasn’t beaten him yet. But he never lets her win, and that’s exactly what she needs.
He also doesn’t kiss her again. Even when she pushes.
March arrives buried in snow. Every morning, Violet wakes up wondering if today is the day she’ll spontaneously combust. Her signet still hasn’t manifested. The relic on her back burns with building power, screaming for release, but nothing comes.
Then Captain Fitzgibbons reads the death roll: Sharla Gunter and Mushin Vedie. Vedie’s signet manifested in the middle of Carr’s class — and he burst into flames. Killed himself with his own power.
Ridoc jokes that maybe Violet should be glad her signet is still hiding. But she’s not. She’s proving to be the one thing her mother hates: average. The only power she has besides shielding is the one she’s not even supposed to whisper about.
There’s a small, secret part of her that hopes her signet hasn’t manifested yet because it’s different — not just useful, but meaningful. Like Brennan’s was.
The Squad Battle looms closer. Dain stresses that every cadet needs to be at their best. Cianna snidely notes Violet might slow them down on the Gauntlet and in wielding. But Rhiannon’s skills, Liam’s and Heaton’s strength on the mat — they’ll make up for it.
Then Xaden appears and announces Violet won’t be going to Carr’s class today.
Dain bristles. He argues that she needs to practice wielding, that as her squad leader, he’s responsible for her development. The tension between the two men goes ice-cold.
Xaden doesn’t argue. He simply pulls a pocket watch from his cloak and holds it out. “Pick it up, Sorrengail.”
Violet takes a breath, throws her mental feet into the floor of the Archives, and lets white-hot power flow through her. She envisions her power twining between her fingers, forming a hand of its own, stretching across the few feet to Xaden. She hits a wall of resistance, then pushes through. Her power brushes his hand, closes like a mental fist around the watch — and pulls.
It’s impossibly heavy. She grunts, strains, and finally yanks. The watch flies toward her, and she catches it before it slaps her in the face.
Rhiannon and Ridoc applaud. Xaden simply takes the watch, drops it back into his cloak, and says, “See? She’s practiced. Now, we have things to do.”
He guides her out of the crowd, hand pressed against the small of her back, and Violet hates how much she leans into his touch — and misses it the second it’s gone.
---
He leads her toward the dormitory, and when he opens the door for her, she stops, staring at him like they’re meeting for the first time.
“You opened the door for me.”
“Old habits die hard,” he says. “My father taught me that—”
His voice dies. Every muscle locks. A shadow of grief crosses his face, and Violet’s heart aches. People don’t really move past grief, she knows. They just learn to swim. She changes the subject, asking if it’s too cold for flying.
He blinks, masks himself again, and says he’ll wait.
When she returns in her fur-lined flight leathers, they walk out toward the flight field. Violet presses him: why did he pull her out of class? What’s really going on?
Xaden tells her that third-years have flight field that afternoon. If she’s going to survive, she needs to keep up. “Winning the Squad Battle is nothing in the scheme of keeping you alive. You’ll be on the front lines before the rest of them come next year,” he says.
She asks if that’s what will happen — if she’s really heading to the front. He admits that there’s no telling how long Sgaeyl and Tairn will tolerate being separated. They’ll both have to sacrifice to keep their dragons happy.
They pass the Gauntlet, where Second Wing is practicing in the snow. Xaden admits that when he was a first-year, he thought winning was the pinnacle too. But after three years, seeing the things they do... the games are a lot more lethal.
Then they reach the stairs, and Violet’s heart launches into her throat.
Commandant Panchek. Colonel Aetos. And her mother, General Lilith Sorrengail.
Violet snaps to attention. Dain’s dad offers a warm smile. Then her mother steps forward, eyes cold as the winter wind. “I hear you’re having trouble wielding.”
The words cut deeper than any blade. Violet blinks, stepping backward as if distance could protect her from that icy rebuke. She tries to defend herself, says she has the best shields in her year. Her mother parries effortlessly: “With a dragon like Tairn, I would certainly hope so. If not, all of that incredible, enviable power will have been... squandered.”
Then the questions come: What powers is she wielding from the golden dragon? Tairn’s warning rumbles through her entire body: *Do not speak of it.*
Violet plays it safe, saying feathertails are known for being unable to channel power. Colonel Aetos mentions that the scribes can’t find a tome about feathertails, and that Violet’s father was researching something about them during the second Krovlan uprising.
Violet lies smoothly: she doesn’t know where his notes are. But she does. She knows exactly where they are — in the one location he spent all his after-hours time. But Tairn’s warning keeps her silent.
Her mother forces another smile. “Glad to see you’re alive, Cadet Sorrengail. Even if the company you’re forced to keep is more than questionable.”
*Shit. Shit. Shit.*
She can’t step in front of Xaden. She can’t glance his way without telling her mother where her allegiance lies. Without telling herself.
Xaden speaks up, voice low: “I always felt that we resolved any of those questions years ago.”
Her mother dismisses them both. “Do see if you can master some kind of signet, Cadet Sorrengail. You have a legacy to live up to.”
The words carve into the confidence Violet has spent eight months building, talon-sharp and merciless.
---
Afterward, as they walk toward the flight field, Xaden notes she didn’t tell her mother how she escaped the attack in her bedroom. Violet’s voice turns flippant, brittle. She says her mother spent nearly an entire year ignoring her when her father died, then years barely tolerating her existence because she wasn’t perfect like Brennan or a warrior like Mira.
Xaden’s voice softens. “She doesn’t know you very well, then.”
Violet scoffs. She asks him what he meant about resolving questions years ago. He says, “Just reminding her that I paid the price for my loyalty.”
“Paid what price?”
“Boundaries, Violence.” The mask drops back into place.
But then Tairn and Sgaeyl land ahead, accompanied by a small, shimmering dragon — Andarna — and Violet can’t help but smile. They’re all flying today. Xaden explains that everyone needs to learn: Violet needs to learn how to stay on, he needs to learn why it’s so hard for her, Andarna needs to learn to keep up, Tairn needs to learn how to share space in tighter formation, and Sgaeyl has to learn how to follow instead of lead.
“Dragon relationships are absolutely incomprehensible,” Violet murmurs.
Xaden grins. “Yeah? You should try a human one sometime. Just as vicious, but less fire.”
---
The Squad Battle arrives with all the violence and spectacle Violet expected. After two events, their squad sits in seventh place out of twenty-four. Her own sky-race time was the slowest in the squad — she kept forcing Tairn to release his magical hold, and he’d have to dip and catch her and toss her back into the saddle, over and over, bruising her pride and her backside.
But now it’s the final challenge. Liam is on the mat, fighting a rider from Second Wing. Rhiannon screams for him to tap out. The crowd presses so hard that Violet can barely stay upright.
Mikael cries out, his back arching in what looks like a broken spine waiting to happen. Liam holds the leg lock with brutal precision.
“Fuck me, that looks like it hurts,” Violet mutters.
“Yeah, he’s not walking for a while,” Ridoc agrees, wincing.
If Liam wins, their squad jumps to third. The battle may be a game to some, but every commandant, professor, and officer is watching — waiting to see who rises, and who falls.
---
Panting with excitement and nerves, Violet can only hold her breath as the match reaches its peak. The crowd screams. Liam presses deeper. And in that frozen moment, all of Basgiath’s chaos narrows to a single mat, a single rider, and the brutal, glorious determination of survival.
---
**Reader’s Impressions & Star Rating:**
This chapter hits like a crossbow bolt to the chest. The push-pull between Violet and Xaden is exquisitely painful — every glance, every taunt, every almost-touch is drenched in yearning and denial. Xaden having that dagger forged specifically for her? Melting. The mother-daughter confrontation is a masterclass in emotional devastation. And that final battle scene leaves you breathless. If you’re not crying, gasping, and desperately needing more, then you weren’t paying attention.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4.9 / 5 Stars
**Next Chapter Prediction:**
I think the Squad Battle has only just begun. With Liam on the mat and Second Wing fighting tooth and nail, we could see a brutal upset — and maybe, just maybe, Violet’s hidden signet will finally explode at the worst possible moment. And with Xaden and Violet dancing ever closer to the edge, one of them is going to break. My bet? It won’t be Violet.
To listen free the next reviews chatpers, please access website novelsaudio.com and search keyword: Fourth Wing or click the link in the description of this video or if you want to listen or read full the Fourth Wing please access website novelsaudio.com