So the little gold dragon has managed to stop time to save Violet from getting stabbed.

Xaden, alerted by the dragons, kicked in the door right before the time freeze, so Violet stumbles over to his side right before time starts up again. Poor Andarna can’t hold frozen time for long. Xaden is furious, and a short bit of begging from Oren and the others doesn’t help.

Xaden’s shadows grab every assailant but Oren by the throat, then constrict. They struggle, but it doesn’t matter. Their faces turn purple, the shadows holding tight as they sag to their knees, falling in an arc in front of me like lifeless puppets.

So…not shadows? Basically his power is just some sort of demon forcefield that’s dark like shadows? Who knows, because this book has zero care for the fact that shadows don’t have mass.

It’s a shame because someone’s powers being legitimately just shadows would be interesting. There’s lots of limitations there, but limitations is where creativity thrives. I read someone once describe liking The Flash as like “he’s only got one power and he has to figure out how to use it to solve every problem, whereas Superman has every power but uses all of them to just punch.” (And yeah, Superman has other interesting things, but his powers ain’t one of them.)

Oren, being the only named character in the room, gets to be murdered by more conventional, knifey means.

Garrick and Bodhi, two marked kids that are part of Xaden’s general friend group, show up out of nowhere and basically go “aw, we missed it all, bummer.” They get started on cleanup duty like they’ve done this a million times before. Hmmmm….

Violet is currently freaking the fuck out, due to the murder attempt, the display of murderous power, and the fact that she has broken ribs. So naturally Xaden has to tend to her wounds. Which mostly consists of trying to get her to calm down and looking very mad at her bruises.

Oh, and taking off her armor to get a better look at her injuries. Of course. Can’t forget that.

Once all the bodies are removed from her room, Xaden gets Violet out and practically drags her up to the flight field, bickering all the way. Mostly about random stuff. Violet points out that he’s fully dressed at 2am and so were all of his marked buddies, but Xaden declines to explain.

At the field, all three dragons are waiting for them. Her two dragons and his one. And Xaden starts yelling and scolding at house-sized Mr. Tairn, which is kind of funny.

Turns out they can all talk to each other. Thanks to Tairn and Sgaeyl being mates, those two dragons and the two humans are all telepathic with each other. Andarna is out of the loop, but meh.

Xaden wants to know what kind of magic happened back there in the room because from his viewpoint it looks like Violet teleported.

The dragons explain that what happened wasn’t a signet. Andarna is too young to do the mixing between dragon and human that produces a signet, but she can directly give her own magic to Violet and let Violet wield it. It’s risky to do because a rider taking too much could kill the dragon. Also we find out that Andarna is only two years old and will get bigger, and it seems that yes feathertail is a baby thing not a breed thing.

There is much bickering among the group, mostly the humans yelling at the dragons for letting essentially a child bond and the dragons being like “eh, she’s very willful.” They all agree to keep this time-stopping thing a secret, since it’s way too powerful and also a baby dragon thing and the dragons don’t want humans to know what their babies can do.

We also find out that Violet recognized someone in the murder group, someone who got away. A rider who let the others into the room and then bounced.

The next morning at formation, Violet and Rhiannon talk about how surprising it is that they tried to kill her.

“Even worse, I think I’m getting used to it.” Either I have kick-ass compartmentalization skills or I really yam acclimating to always being a target.

This book has talked about her always being a target far more than it has actually targeted her. The only two times anyone has actually tried to do a murder before this, it’s been Jack, and the rest of the ‘threat’ has been people standing still while Violet goes “aaah!”

To be honest, I feel like there’s a perfectly fine amount of murder in this school if you take out them talking about it. The lack-of-safety-based deaths are completely absurd, but other than that it’s just one severely disturbed kid and a bunch of dragons. Without Violet getting spooked at shadows, the rest is fine and the night time murder attempt is appropriately shocking.

Oh and also let’s take some time to muse about how sexy Xaden is, why not.

Xaden switches a kid named Liam into Violet’s squad. Liam is a first year in Xaden’s inner circle and Violet immediately groks onto the fact that he’s there to bodyguard her. Violet is particularly pissed about this and insists that she doesn’t need a bodyguard, which makes sense if we follow what actually happens in the school and doesn’t make sense if we follow what Violet tells us about the school.

Well, I mean, it makes sense if Violet considers the previous night to be an aberration that is unlikely to happen again. It makes sense as a stupid thing that a character might do because people are illogical. But following her pages and pages of “oh no, this place is so dangerous, everyone wants me dead, I’m a target if I take crutches” talk, it’s out of step.

And it’s a disconnect that’s been present throughout. The author maybe just didn’t have time to add in all the personal danger she wanted, or maybe just didn’t feel it necessary, or just lost the thread while writing, but something got dropped probably in the editing stage. Because through the whole thing the book wants us to think that Violet is in danger but can’t bear to have her react appropriately to such because…idk, probably for the same ableist reason that Violet refuses medical care. Because there’s a strict view of what a strong and tough character looks like and the protagonist isn’t allowed to deviate from it.

Anyway, the kids don’t have time to argue too much about the bodyguard thing, because formation isn’t over. Side note, why do they have the time and space to chat incessantly during morning formations? Eh, nothing else this military has done has shown decent discipline, I guess. The command announces that someone has been accused of breaking one of the Big Rules, and…handling this with the appropriate authorities just isn’t how they do things here, I guess. Instead they handle it in front of the whole school by having Xaden walk up front and air his grievances.

Because of course. How else could the viewpoint character relay the scene to us? (By being a direct witness to the violation and thus involved in whatever trial happens? Psh, nah.)

Xaden announces to the whole formation (why?????? Ugh) the events of last chapter and then names Amber as the rider who facilitated the attack. She’s a bit character who is friends with Dain and doesn’t like Violet. Dain is incensed by the accusation and demands that Violet deny it, then tries to touch her to get her memories of the previous night. She refuses, mostly because Dain is being an ass about it.

Apparently Xaden makes his accusation publicly but then after that all the leadership gets in a huddle to argue about it and just omg why is this happening in this forum????? Violet asks Tairn to share her memory – but just the Amber parts of it – with…everyone. Apparently that’s possible, dragons are just generally telepathic and it’s not an actual function of any bond. This fact is literally never brought up again. It’s rude to…talk widely, I guess.

With everyone now having seen Amber in the room breaking the very specific rule of “no murder while sleeping,” she is sentenced to death and immediately burned by a dragon.