# CHAPTER 35: The Fall of Innocence
Hello everyone, it's me again! How are you all doing? Today I will continue to walk with you and review CHAPTER 35 of "Fourth Wing" — and I have to warn you, this is one of the most intense, heart-wrenching, and game-changing chapters in the entire book. If you thought the Threshing was brutal, you haven't seen anything yet. Grab your dragon-scale armor, clutch your loved ones tight, and let's dive into the chapter that will shatter your heart into a thousand pieces. Trust me, you're going to need a moment after this one.
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The morning had started with such promise. There they were, a squad of eleven riders, resting at a serene lake twenty minutes from Athebyne, preparing for what was supposed to be the final War Games exercise. Violet Sorrengail was sore from the flight, tense from the anxiety of what lay ahead, and desperately trying to hide the fact that she was head-over-heels in love with her wingleader — a man who, according to every rule in the Codex, she should never have touched, let alone given her heart to.
Xaden had been mercilessly teasing her, warning her to keep her longing looks in check, and when she quipped back with a daring "Promise?" — swoon, I know — he almost smiled. *Actually* smiled. It was a tiny victory that made her heart soar.
Liam, ever her shadow and protector, pulled her aside with genuine concern. He asked about what was growing between her and Xaden, and Violet, honest as ever, admitted she wasn't sure where she stood. But she noticed something troubling in Liam's eyes, a strange wariness she couldn't quite place. Still, they joked, they teased, and she told him how truly amazing he was. If only she knew those words would become hauntingly final.
When Violet returned from a moment of privacy, Xaden did something extraordinary: he took her hand *openly*, in front of the entire squad — his own damn rule broken for her. "None of them is going to say a single word about you — or us," he told her, his voice carrying the weight of absolute trust. He led her behind a cluster of towering boulders, out of sight of the others, and gave her a deeply intimate massage for her aching legs. What started as comfort quickly turned into something more heated. They kissed — a luxurious, soul-consuming kiss that made Violet feel like she was drowning in the best possible way. His words echoed in her chest: *"I'm going to keep you. You're mine, Violet."* And she, brave and unyielding, demanded the same in return. *"Only if you're mine."*
*"I've been yours for longer than you could ever imagine."*
And then... the world shattered.
A woman's voice sliced through their stolen moment like a venom-coated blade: *"Is this seriously how you dragon riders spend your time?"* There, standing thirty feet away, were two gryphon riders — creatures Violet had only ever seen depicted in death and ash. Her mother's stories had always painted them as monstrous enemies, but these were *people*. Fliers, as Xaden would later correct her. And the look on Xaden's face told Violet everything she feared: he *knew* them.
The moment erupted into chaos. Xaden threw shadows around her, protective and suffocating. Tairn landed with a ground-shaking roar. The rest of the squad — Bodhi, Imogen, Garrick, Soleil, Liam — materialized like phantoms, but nobody drew a weapon. They all just... watched. And then Xaden *passed* her to Liam like a piece of luggage and walked toward the enemy with Garrick at his side.
What followed was a betrayal so deep it carved out Violet's heart and left her hollow.
*"You're fucking early,"* Xaden said to the gryphon rider.
And everything Violet thought she knew turned to ash.
They weren't enemies. They were allies. Xaden had been supplying them with weapons — *shipments*, he called them — to fight something called **venin**. The mythical creatures from bedtime stories, the monsters that supposedly drained the very magic from the land... they were real. And Xaden had known all along. He had been meeting with these fliers, conspiring with them, aiding the kingdom's enemies right under everyone's noses.
But it was worse than that. As Violet's eyes swept over her squad, she saw it — the *rebellion relics* on their forearms, their necks, their wrists. Every single person in this squad was the child of a separatist. Every single one of them was a traitor. And they had all been chosen by Xaden, carefully, deliberately.
He had built an all-marked squad right in the middle of Basgiath, and Violet — the daughter of General Lilith Sorrengail — had been the only one blind to it all.
Even her own dragons had known. Tairn. Andarna. They had kept this secret from her, bound by bonds she couldn't begin to understand. *"Dragons are bound by bonds,"* Tairn explained, *"There is only one other bond more sacred than that of a dragon and its rider."* A dragon and its mate. Sgaeyl and Tairn. Of course.
The love that had burned so brightly in Violet's chest moments ago guttered and died like a campfire doused with ice-cold water. She had given everything to this man. Her heart. Her trust. Her *body*. And he had never truly let her in.
*"Were we ever really friends?"* she whispered at Liam, barely holding back the flood of tears.
*"We are friends, Violet, but I owe him everything,"* Liam answered, misery etched into every line of his face.
The rage came. Oh, it came — a torrent of fury that had lightning arcing through the sky before any of them could breathe. Violet shoved Liam, screamed at Xaden, called him a *fucking traitor*, a *cliché villain hiding in plain sight*. And through it all, Xaden stood there, that infuriating mask of calm on his face, insisting he had never *lied* to her — he just hadn't told her everything.
"I could lie to you, Violence, but I'm not. No matter what you think right now, I have *never* lied to you."
Then came the truth, delivered like a blade to the gut: The kingdom of Navarre knew about the venin. They knew that Poromiel was being ravaged by dark wielders just beyond their borders. And the leadership did nothing — because the only thing that kills venin is the same material that powers their wards. The wards that kept Navarre safe. The wards built on the blood and suffering of an entire kingdom. But here was the part that truly shattered her: her own father had tried to tell her. The forbidden book, *The Fables of the Barren*. He had left her breadcrumbs, hoping she would see what the scribes had erased from history.
Four hundred years of lies. Four hundred years of rewritten history to hide the truth.
Xaden pressed a runed dagger into her hand, a weapon meant to fight the venin, identical to the one on her mother's desk. And suddenly all those raids, all those searches her mother had conducted... it all clicked into place. Her mother knew. Her mother was complicit.
*"Because it hurts to think we're the kind of kingdom that would do this. It hurts to rearrange everything you think you know. Lies are comforting. Truth is painful."*
Violet believed him. She didn't trust him — she made that perfectly clear — but she believed the truth of his words. Because she had to. Because woven into that mess of deception and heartbreak was a love that refused to die.
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The fortress at Athebyne was empty.
No soldiers. No infantry. No riders. Just ten marked cadets and one Sorrengail, walking into a silent, ghost-filled garrison that should have housed two hundred people. The moment they set foot inside, every hair on Violet's neck stood on end. Something was deeply, terribly wrong.
And then Garrick found the missive. It was addressed to Xaden, in handwriting Violet recognized like her own: Colonel Aetos. The orders read: *War Games for Xaden Riorson, Wingleader of Fourth Wing. Your mission is to survive if you can.*
The blood drained from Violet's face. It wasn't a mission. It was a death sentence. Dain had read her memories without her permission. He had taken her private thoughts, her secret conversations, everything she had shared with Xaden, and handed them to his father. She had unknowingly betrayed them all.
But the true horror hadn't arrived yet.
Liam, using his distance-wielding signet, spotted them from the battlements: four figures in purple robes, approaching the trading post of Resson below. Destabilized red veins spiderwebbing around glowing red eyes. *Venin.* Real, living, breathing venin, stalking out of a valley to destroy a town of three hundred innocent people.
The missive gave Xaden a choice: abandon Resson and its people, or abandon his command. But to Xaden Riorson, there was no choice at all. He asked his squad — not ordered, *asked* — and one by one, every marked rider stepped forward. "We've lost faith in our king," Garrick said. "We get to decide how we die." Liam stood at Violet's side, his voice steady: *"We watched as our parents were executed because they had the courage to do the right thing. I'd like to think my death would be just as honorable."*
And then there was Violet. The flier at the lake had sneered at her, called her just another Sorrengail too entitled to risk her pretty neck for anyone outside their borders. Well, fuck that.
*"I've been defenseless,"* she told Xaden, lifting her chin. *"And now I'm a rider. Riders fight."*
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The battle for Resson was an apocalypse.
Blue fire rained from the sky. Wyvern — monstrous, two-legged dragon abominations created by dark magic — tore through the air like nightmares given flesh. Venin drained the life from the land, turning grass to ash, flowers to husks, people to shriveled shells. Death rained down from every direction, and the ten of them — *ten*, because Soleil was already gone, desiccated by the venin's dark power — were all that stood between Resson and annihilation.
Violet flew on Tairn's back, calling lightning from the sky with all the power she possessed. Her aim was ragged, her body trembling with the effort of channeling Tairn's immense strength, but she kept fighting. She watched Xaden rope shadows around a wyvern's neck, watched Sgaeyl tear through monsters with brutal precision, watched the townspeople flee into the mines while the squad protected their escape.
And then she saw Liam.
He was fighting for his life, Deigh locked in a death spiral with a massive wyvern. Violet screamed, pushing Tairn to intervene, but it was too late. The wyvern's claws sank deep into Deigh's underbelly, shredding scales and flesh as they plummeted toward the hillside. Tairn slashed and bit, desperate to free his comrade, but the wyvern held on, mindlessly willing to die if it meant killing its prey.
*Crash.*
Deigh's body folded at an unnatural angle. The wyvern limped away. Deigh didn't move.
Liam fell from Tairn's back into Violet's arms, his injuries internal, the venom already coursing through his veins. She caught him on the ground, cradled his head in her lap, and begged him to hold on. *"Please stay. Fight to stay. Please, Liam."* But even as she said the words, she could feel the pulse under his skin growing weaker, could see the light dying behind those sky-blue eyes.
"At Parapet —" He choked on the pain. "You have to take care of my sister."
"Liam, no. You'll be there."
"Promise. Just promise you'll take care of Sloane."
"I promise. I'll take care of Sloane."
"It's been. My honor."
And then Xaden was there, lifting Liam into his arms, carrying him to Deigh's body, giving them one last moment together. Violet watched from her knees as Xaden knelt beside his foster brother, watched his shoulders shake with soundless sobs, watched the shadows writhe around him like living grief.
When Xaden's soul-rending scream tore through her mind, Violet knew. Liam was gone.
But there was no time to grieve. A horde of wyvern — dozens of them — poured from the valley like a plague of locusts. Xaden threw up a colossal wall of shadow, holding them back with every ounce of his power, and yelled over his shoulder: *"Go! I'll give you as much time as I can!"*
Violet mounted Tairn, her grief transmuting into pure, cold rage. *Violence.* That's what Xaden had called her all those months ago. And violence was exactly what she intended to deliver.
Lightning split the sky, striking wyvern after wyvern. But then a venin — the same one who had killed Soleil — leapt onto Tairn's back, sinking a serrated, green-tipped dagger into his scales. Violet stood on her saddle, two runed daggers in hand, and faced her enemy on a flying dragon's back.
The venin was unnaturally fast, anticipating her every move. Violet broke her forearm blocking a strike. Pain exploded through her side as a dagger sank beneath her armor, sending acid racing through her veins. She was dying — she could feel it — but she refused to fall. When Xaden's shadows engulfed them, providing the cover she needed, Violet channeled her lightning, illuminating the darkness for one blinding second... and plunged her blade between the venin's ribs.
The venin fell. And with her death, half the wyvern in the sky crumpled and dropped like stones.
Only one rider remained, the venin general who had killed Soleil's killer. Xaden pulled him from his wyvern's back with shadows and drove a dagger through his heart.
They had won.
But Violet was already slipping away, the poison burning through her like liquid fire. The last thing she saw was Xaden's face — pure, unadulterated terror — before she slid from Tairn's back and fell into a darkness that seemed to have no end.
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She woke, gasping for breath, in a bedroom that smelled like cedar and Xaden. He was there, gaunt and hollow-eyed, three days of sleepless worry etched into his face. The poison had nearly killed her — black, corrupting veins had crawled through her system, and it took a master healer she had never met to pull her back from the edge of Malek's embrace.
She looked out the window and saw a city she recognized from drawings and history books. Aretia. The burned, ruined capital of the Tyrrish rebellion — rebuilt, thriving, hidden.
Xaden had brought her to the one place in the world that his enemies would never think to look. He had exposed his greatest secret, his most precious sanctuary, to save her life. He told her about Melgren's blind spot — how the rebellion relic he bore prevented the general from seeing outcomes when more than three marked ones gathered. He told her about the weeks of rebuilding, the quiet war being waged from the shadows. And he told her about Liam — how they had laid him to rest, how he hadn't left her side since.
But love couldn't be rebuilt in an hour. Violet looked at him with steel in her eyes and told him the truth: she believed him. She would fight with him. But she couldn't trust him with her heart again. Not yet.
"I've never lied to you, Violet. Not once. I never will."
"One step at a time."
And then the door opened, and a familiar voice filled the room.
*"That definitely wasn't an accident, little sister."*
Violet turned, and standing in the doorway, alive and smiling, was a brother she had mourned for three years.
**Brennan.**
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## Reader's Impressions & Star Rating
Oh my *gods*. This chapter was absolutely devastating. Watching Violet's world collapse when she realized Xaden's betrayal, only to have her father's forbidden book and the venin truth re-frame everything — my heart went through a complete spin cycle. And Liam. *LIAM.* I don't think I've ever wept so hard over a fictional character. He was the purest soul in this entire book, the loyal friend who never wavered, and his final scene with Violet and Xaden left me sobbing into my pillow. The battle at Resson was visceral, terrifying, and brilliantly paced. And the ending with Brennan? Chills. Absolute chills. I gave this chapter a standing ovation through my tears.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 5 / 5 Stars
## Next Chapter Prediction
Now that Violet has discovered her brother Brennan is alive and that Aretia has been secretly rebuilt as a hub of resistance, she's about to enter the inner circle of the revolution in ways she never anticipated. Xaden wants her fully in — not just for her lightning signet, but because her mother's position as General makes her uniquely positioned to learn leadership secrets. I predict that Brennan will share the full history of what really happened during the rebellion — including what Fen Riorson truly fought against — and we'll see Violet torn between loyalty to the only family she has left and her dawning horror at everything her mother has covered up. Plus, with the poison fully purged, Violet needs to master her new reality: her signet is more powerful than ever, Xaden is begging for redemption, and back at Basgiath, Dain is still poisoning the well. Get ready for a reckoning, because this Sorrengail is done being used.
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