Synopsis of Iron Flame

Iron Flame is the second book in the Empyrean Series. With the upcoming release of Fourth Wing Book 3, Onyx Storm, I knew I needed to make a synopsis of Iron Flame. There is so much to remember from Fourth Wing Book 2. I wanted to make your life easier by putting everything you need in one post.

I knew when I picked up this book that I would need to write a synopsis of Iron Flame to remind myself of all the things that happened in this book. I am so glad that I did. The more information I wrote, the more questions I had about Fourth Wing Book 2. If you cannot remember all the details of the first book in the series, you can read my Fourth Wing Summary.

Iron Flame is the second book in the Empyrean series by Rebecca Yarros. The plot of this book is complex and detailed which is why this Iron Flame synopsis is so important to read before Onyx Storm comes out. This summary will contain Iron Flame spoilers. Please be aware. They will be marked and you can skip them.

Let me know what you think. I would love to hear your thoughts before Onyx Storm is published on January 21st, 2025!

Synopsis of Iron Flame

This summary of Iron Flame will NOT be spoiler-free. I have tried to keep the spoilers together but, If you have not read the book or do not want spoilers, you should avoid reading this synopsis of Iron Flame. Also, I will say that I tried my best to make this Iron Flame summary as accurate and concise as possible. I found it difficult to pick which details to include and which to leave out because there is so much information in this 623-page whopper. 

Iron Flame, the second book in the Empyrean series begins where Fourth Wing left off. Violet wakes up after her nearly fatal poisoned stabbing in Aeretia.  Violet is still spinning with the knowledge that venin and wyvern are real and her brother Brennan faked his death 6 years ago. He has been alive and well the whole time and living in Aretia which was supposedly scorched in the Tyrrish rebellion 6 years ago.

Violet realizes that they must go back to Basgaith and she devises a plan to fly back and try to save themselves. She is torn by the fact that she cannot tell the truth about what happened to Rihannon, Sawyer, and Ridoc but knows that she has to withhold the information from them for their own safety.

When they get Basgaith, during graduation, Colonel Aetos had already told everybody that they were dead, and was reading their name from the death roll. 

Because of their late arrival and the fact that everyone thought they were dead, Xaden got his assignment in the south in Samara, an 8-hour flight from Basgaith. He and Violet are each given leave once every two weeks which causes great anguish for them and Tairn and Sgaeyl,

They now have six days to prepare for the new incoming class. Dain is the new squad leader and Rhiannon is the wingleader. 

In the new incoming class are King Tauri’s son, Aaric Graycastle who changed his name for anonymity, and Sloane Mairi, Liam’s younger sister. Before he died, Liam made Violet promise she would watch over Sloane when she became a cadet.

Meanwhile, Andarna must go into “the dreamless sleep”, a time in which Feathertails sleep to become adolescent dragons. The new commander, Varrish, demands to see Andarna and when she does not come, he punishes Violet to near burnout using her signet.

Throughout, Violet is hesitant to tell her friends because she cannot tell them about Andarna’s dreamless sleep. She is pulling away from her friends and Xaden because she is upset with him for keeping secrets (ironic if you ask me). Meanwhile, Nolan is acting very strange, hardly coming out of the infirmary and when he does, he looks pale and exhausted. 

Varrish then uses the excuse of the RDS class to capture Violet and nearly torture her to death. He wants answers about Xaden, where they really were after the war games, and wants to know about Andarna. Dain is called in to read Violet’s mind and she shows him the torture she just endured. Just when she thinks, Dain will sentence her to death, he saves her just as Xaden comes. Violet and Xaden kill Varrish and the story is non-stop from this point on!!!

Violet finally tells everyone the truth about what has been going on and the secrets that have been kept from all of them about the venin and wyvern. Violet, Xaden, 3 scribes (including Jesinia), and 100 cadets leave the school with their dragons to fly to Aretia, Riorson House. They also take 4 professors (Devera, Kaori, Carr, and Emettrio) with them. 

Soon, Mira arrives at Riorson house as well with 40 more riders because General Lilith Sorrengail finally told her the truth. They resume school with the cadets to try to prepare them for the massive fight that is luring in the future. 

It is also around this time that Violet learns why Xaden did not kill her during her first year. In exchange for the marked ones having a chance in the quadrant, he owed a favor to be named later to General Sorrengail. That favor was to keep Violet alive if she made it across the parapet.

Violet and Xaden need to collect a luminary from Viscount Tecarus in order to get the forge up and running. He is a collector and wants Violet but makes her demonstrate her power. He releases a venin from a state of suspended animation that Violet defeats. Tecarus agrees to give them the luminary in exchange for training the flyers. They agree and must cross over the mountain on foot because the gryphons cannot fly at that altitude. 

The Fliers include Maren and Catriona Cordella (Tecarus’s niece and was once engaged to Xaden).  The squads and drifts begin training and learning together in order to create a cohesive unit. 

Meanwhile, Violet has been trying to raise the wards over Aretia using Warrick’s journal that they stole from the library at Basgaith. She thinks it worked until there is an attack and the wyvern they thought were dead turned out to be stunned. She knows she did something wrong and must figure out what it is.

Melgren asks to meet with Violet and Xaden. He admits that he saw the outcome of a fight against the venin and they lost. He said if they don’t help, then, they will lose the battle. Violet figures out that he was not giving them all the information, and that the bottle will actually be at Basgaith in order to lower the wards and lose protection over the most important grounds for the dragons. 

Violet asks Brennan to help her and he refuses. So, Xaden, Violet, fliers, and riders alike begin the long flight back to Basgaith to try and protect it. Of course, Violet is correct. Soon massive waves of venin and Wyvern arrive and when the fight begins, her squad is taken with protecting the ward stone but Jack Barlowe gets there first with his dragon Baide.

Major Iron Flame Spoilers

Below are the major spoilers for Iron Flame and the rest of the Iron Flame Synopsis. If you do not want to know, skip ahead or go back now….You were warned

Jack Barlow then sacrifices his dragon, Baide to extinguish the wardstone with her blood. While we are expecting Jack to die, he reveals that he will not die because he is venin “We might not be at full strength, capable of wielding greater magic under your protections, but make no mistake: we are already among you, and now we are free.”

They realize that the signet-blocking serum was created to keep Jack in check. Nolan and others knew what he was from the moment he was saved after the mountain collapsed on him. 

Xaden Revelas to Violet that he is inntinnsic (The ability to read someones thoughts)- a forbidden power that is a death sentence if anyone finds out.

Violet realizes that in order the raise the ward stone properly, she needs to fire from seven dragons, not six. She realizes Andarna is the seventh den of dragons (Black, Blue, Green, Orange, Brown, and Andarna) and she had been trying to tell Violet all along. She said that she was the head of her own den in Fourth Wing. Andarna waited 650 years for Violet to come along so she could hatch. 

In order to imbue the wardstone, Lilith Sorrengail has Sloane siphon her and Aimsir’s power into the stone so that Violet can save everyone.

Xaden revelas that he is venin. Violet realizes that the dreams she had been having about the sage were not actually about her. Rather, it was dreaming about what would happen to Xaden.

Frequently Asked Questions

Epilogue

Did you find this synopsis of Iron Flame helpful? I know that I will be re-reading this summary on January 20th to prepare myself for Onyx Storm. I have a lot of questions after I read this book that I hope are answered in the upcoming books in the series.