Having survived her brutal first year in the Riders Quadrant, Violet Sorrengail returns to Basgiath War College to find the rules have changed. The new leadership—led by a sadistic vice commandant—makes it clear that cadets who don't fall in line won't survive to graduate, and Violet's loyalties are under a microscope. She and Xaden Riorson are more entangled than ever, but the secrets he's still keeping put a wall between them at the worst possible moment.
As the physical trials grow crueler and the interrogations more dangerous, Violet is forced to decide who she can trust with the truth about Navarre's crumbling defenses. The threat she glimpsed at the end of her first year is no longer a rumor, and proving it will mean risking everything—her rank, her dragons, and the people she loves.
The second book in Rebecca Yarros's Empyrean series raises the stakes on both the battlefield and the romance, pushing Violet from a fight for personal survival toward a fight for the kingdom's future. Expect brutal training, hard-won alliances, and a relationship tested by secrets and impossible choices.