I started reading Fourth Wing several days ago and… it’s been a surprise. I had cottoned on that the whole Empyrean series was about dragons but was expecting a ‘regular’ romantasy and… it’s dark. It’s very dark. Darker, in many ways, than The Hunger Games, with its violence or threats of such on every other page compared to Collins’ novels which have some time away from it.

The first chapter of Rebecca Yarros’ book left me considering opting for another book. I think it’s excellent, if a bit too much in some respects (excessive swearing and mentions of casual sex numerous and lusty enough to put an erotic romance to shame) but nevertheless… these constant ellipses are a written metaphor for the constant shock on my face.

It is absolutely… horrible. I don’t think it’s meant to shock, exactly – though it certainly does – it’s more that’s it’s just absolutely unapologetically dog eat dog. I wonder if it had to be so specifically horrible, so specifically cruel to not only teenagers (‘only’!) but to teenagers from very poor and unprivileged backgrounds, some who clearly have no other choice but to sign up to train as riders of notably cruel dragons, which involves them first having to walk across a tiny parapet way up in the sky above a valley in the wind and rain.

I should probably be more descriptive.

The beginning of the book in question sees a young woman called Violet having to enlist as a cadet for the ‘Rider Quadrant’ of her educational facility, Basgiath (it’s like the worse Hogwarts ever in terms of danger). She has spent her life applying herself to studies that will enable her to be a Scribe at the Worst Hogwarts Ever, but her mother decides 6 months before the Scribe training would begin that, as she herself is a commander of the Riders who fight the Bad Guys with whom the country has been at war for time immeasurable, her daughter must also be a Rider. Her oldest daughter is a Rider, and it seems (we don’t yet know enough) that her late son was one, too. In making this decision, the mother dismisses her late husband’s library-littered education of his youngest daughter.

If this doesn’t make the mother sound bad enough – throwing her daughter into a vastly different training with 6 months to prepare when everyone else has had years to prepare – the training involves a sign up day that involves walking across a parapet in the wind and rain where the prospective trainee may well fall off to their death. If they make it to the other side they still aren’t safe because aside from the small individual squads they are placed in, any trainee can kill them at any time – it’s in the metaphorical rule book. Again, these trainees have been studying for years, so parent of the year here is callously setting her daughter up to be killed because she can’t handle her daughter not being a Rider like she is. Or at least that’s the reason given at this point.

This post is not actually about Mother Dearest, although I’d certainly say she’s complicit in what happens next.

No, this post is about the parapet. Having left her mother’s office having failed to convince her mother to let her become a Scribe (her Rider sister tried to stop it happening, too, and failed), Violet goes to join the line of candidates moving up the stairs to the start of the parapet they have to cross. Violet’s sister, Mira (so many characters are called Mira recently!) has given her some leather gear that can hide the small daggers that Violet is thankfully skilled at using, as well as a pair of boots with rubber soles to stop her slipping on the parapet. These shoes become an element in themselves – Violet notices how many candidates have the same slippery-soled boots as she would have continued wearing if her sister hadn’t stepped in. And when Violet finds herself talking to the girl in front of her, she makes the girl switch one of her boots with hers so that now both of them stand a chance, even if Violet has numerically reduced her chances by fifty percent. (‘Violet is a good person’, says Yarros, via subtext.)

The person ahead of the girl – who is called Rhiannon – is a boy, Dylan, whose parents Violet spotted crying their eyes out and having to tear themselves away from his side. Dylan’s from an obviously lower socioeconomic background and his rucksack is overweight (Mira repacked Violet’s for her and chucked a lot of stuff away). Joy of joys, the rucksacks must be carried across the parapet too.

So we now have two potential friends for Violet, or allies, as Mira warns – never make friends – in Rhiannon and Dylan. Well, not Dylan, as it turns out. He takes to the parapet, starts walking across, and in the wind and rain and with his cheaper slippery boots… he slips. But then he grabs hold of the parapet with his hands, dangling off the edge – he’s saved! Rhiannon tells him to pull himself up. He can’t. He falls. He’s dead.

It’s much worse in the book itself.

It’s fair to say that Yarros set Dylan up to look like a main character to make the impact of his short appearance in our reading lives more impactful. You get to know a remarkable amount about Dylan and his family and you feel for him as he steps onto the parapet. And you look forward to the later chapters where Violet and Rhiannon and Dylan will hopefully all be flying in the wars and… yeah, that’s not going to happen.

It is horrible. Yet it can’t be said that it isn’t well done. Yarros did, after all, make you feel for Dylan as much as you would a favourite main character – his character development within a small number of pages is very good. And the setting and high stakes increase it. Within these small number of pages, she sets the tone for the entire Empyrean series.

And ultimately, for all that I’ve ranted here, the reason I felt the need to write about the chapter is because while it is awfully horrible, it is also very successful. You instantly feel a lot for Violet and Rhiannon, even if Violet is somewhat the stereotypical average underdog main character. You also know, now, if you didn’t already (and why would you? it’s called a romantasy for goodness’ sake) that you’re in for a difficult if breathtaking read. You find out straight away that Yarros favours immersive, film-like, scenes, with detailing that makes it all too easy to picture.

Dylan was unprepared, like Violet and, shoe-wise, at least, like Rhiannon. Rhiannon makes it across as does, inevitably, our shrinking Violet.

And Yarros has you completely snared because you want to look away but can’t. And the new trainees will be dealing with death around every corner, and dragons that are not like those in other stories – these dragons bond to humans because they must, and they are not fond of humans. (In a later chapter, a petrified new student makes a bolt for it and gets turned into ashes.)

Fourth Wing is not going to be what I thought it was – I thoughts Wings referred to a building, and I thought it was going to be lower fantasy. But Yarros has indeed snared me. I will read this fantasy cough horror with a completely new readiness…

Have you read this book?