SPOILER ALERT:This article contains massive spoilers for Rebecca Yarross best-selling fantasy novel Fourth Wing and its sequel Iron Flame, released Nov. 7.
It could be a while before the Fourth Wing TV series thats in the works at Amazon makes it to the screen, but with the release of the sequel novel titled Iron Flame, we have more than enough source material to begin anticipating the small-screen adaptation thats set to cover all five planned books in the series.
Author Rebecca Yarros has built a fictional world in which the centuries-long war between two kingdoms, Navarre (which has dragons) and Poromiel (which has griffins), covers up the rise of a power-hungry enemy called venin people whose souls have been corrupted by stealing magic from the earth. Its an intricate and specific universe, and this interview delves into the very unique terminology of her invention. If youre reading this, from here on out, were assuming youve read the books.
Iron Flame is Yarros follow-up to Fourth Wing, her New York Times best-selling romantasy that was released in May. Fourth Wing introduced Violet Sorrengail, a first-year student at Basgiath War College who became a dragon rider after training her whole life as a scribe, a more peaceful calling. In Iron Flame we return to Violets story just after she found out at the end of Fourth Wing that most of her life in the kingdom of Navarre has been a lie. More than 600 pages and lot of steamy romance and bloody battles later, Iron Flame concludes with an even bigger cliffhanger than Fourth Wing: Violets boyfriend Xaden is becoming a venin, the soulless, power-hungry enemy that Violet, Xaden and their revolution of dragon riders and griffin fliers are fighting so hard against.
Hes turning. So you go through the epigraphs, and theres certain degrees, Yarros toldVarietyin a sitdown interview Monday, just ahead of Iron Flames Tuesday release. One of the things I love to play with is that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and that when you want magic and you cant have it because you havent been chosen by a dragon or a griffin, what will you pay for it? And people will pay with their souls. You see it in our society, all the time, people will sell their souls for power. So its a matter of, how much of his soul did he exchange? And once you start, how do you stop and is it an addiction?
Yarros points to where Jacks stage of venin is versus the stage of venin that the Sage who fights Xaden at the end of the book is at as the example.
That venin bomb gets dropped on Violet after the second-biggest reveal in the book: Xaden does have a second signet, and its the only one that can get you killed. While Violet figures out that Xaden is an inntinnsic, a person who can read peoples minds with the power they channel through their dragon, for herself after much questioning, is there a chance Xaden would have eventually told her himself?
I honestly dont know, Yarros said. His goal in this book is that she has to love him while he can still keep secrets. And this is one of the reasons: if you fall in love with a CIA agent, hes not going to come home and tell you what he did at work today. Theres certain things you have to take on faith with the person that you love. Second, this is something that can get him killed on both sides from everyone, no one suffers inntinnsics to live. So this is the deepest, darkest secret he could possibly have and he would have to trust her implicitly.
Yarros says there is one key scene in the finale of Iron Flame that is a turning point for Violet and Xaden and could have pushed Xaden to reveal his inntinnsic nature to Violet, had she not gotten there herself: He is going off to fight the Sage and she has to go get the wards up [and] she finally trusts him to go do whatever it is he needs to do so she can do what she needs. And I like to think that once past that moment, he would have. But until that moment, she never shows the trust for him to go do what he needs to throughout the entire book. So Id like to think yes, but she figured it out.
SeeVarietys full QA with Yarros below, which covers Amazons TV series adaptation of Fourth Wing, the biggest cliffhangers from Iron Flame, and the correct pronunciation of Scottish Gaelic names.
You said youve had the deal in place with Amazon for a TV series since last December, well before Fourth Wing was released in May. How did that come about?
I was in edits at Liz Pelletiers [now an executive producer on the project for Fourth Wing publisher Entangled Publishing] house on Fourth Wing and we were having meetings with producers. And Im like, this is is insane, Ive turned in the first draft, but Im in edits. And we were going back and forth and then we entered an auction scenario. And the funniest thing is that, in the meeting with Amazon, they said, we had questions about this part of the ending. And I was like, that doesnt happen. And they said, no, here, when this happens. And I just looked at my editor and go, you gave them my first draft?! They have the first draft?! And you cant say that in the middle of the meeting. But I could just feel the blood running from my face, and Im like, there have been some changes!
But we knew in December it was going to be Amazon and (Michael B Jordans production company) Outlier and I could not be any happier about where it ended up. Outlier is such a great production company and they have a wonderful diversity and inclusion rider, one of the first companies to have them, which is why I was so joyful, because I knew they would respect the diversity of cast.
And then I just kind of tried to forget about it, because everything else was out of my hands. But it was wild to think this book wasnt even out yet and it had already been optioned and then you have to sit on that and not tell anybody. And I figured, well, maybe the book will do OK, because it has this option deal but a lot of things get options and never made. And then everything just kept snowballing bigger and bigger and bigger and we were going to announce on release day, which was also this first day of the writers strike. And you never want to add pressure, so youre like, absolutely, the writers need to do this and were gonna support this and off you go and get this done. And then the writers came out of strike, and we just kind of waited. And then it was wild when it came out.
You would be executive producing, but wouldnt be the showrunner, so where are you in the process with finding a writer for the potential series?
I cant talk about anything that theyre doing on that end that I know of. All I can say is that when I met with them in L.A., they did ask if I wanted to come sit in the writers room. And I would never get in somebodys way, but I just want to be like, hey, that plot point might mess with a point in Book Four, just a heads-up, just in case you want to do that!
For casting, would you rather the actors be unknowns or established?
I honestly dont have an opinion on it. Ive never done this before, so I dont have an opinion on if they should be established or if they shouldnt, or what attention that brings, because Im out of my depth of knowledge here. Im going to trust that they bring in the right people when they start casting. And then Im gonna hope that they fit whos described in the book, and I think well know when we know. But I honestly dont have a preference, just whoever can fit the character.
In some fan art, Xaden is depicted as white, though he is described by you as a person of color in the books. What are your hopes for that casting and how you think readers will react?
Were just going to say hes POC, were just going to leave it at that. I didnt rise to the bait of a lot of those posts, which I think probably got me some flack, but I knew we were already in development for TV, and I want to make sure that role is open to as much diversity as possible. So I was never going to give the readers my vision because I know that once you give the readers your vision, thats what theyre gonna stick to. And I wanted to make sure we left it open to as much diversity as possible.
Do you have a publication timeline for the remaining three books in the series? Are we going to avoid an A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones situation with the TV show and source material?
So I can promise, unless something happens to me, were not going to have that situation. We do have a publication schedule, it is just not public yet. Ive already said publicly that Im slowing down slightly, enough that I can put out books and still be healthy. I think I wrote like 851,000 words in 15-18 months I was just wiped out. I want to be able to deliver the best books possible, so I need to sleep a little. Ill be writing, I just need to write and sleep, not just write. Were slowing down a tiny bit, not every six months.
Do you have the titles picked out for the remaining books?
No, the titles always come to me when Im plotting. Im a really thorough plotter and I plot every single chapter and every single scene and how each romantic arc moves and each action arc moves and how each of the Easter eggs are put in. And it comes to me as Im staring at the plot board and looking at what is key, it just pops in. So until Im at that stage, I dont know yet. I do have the overall books plotted, though.
How did you decide to do a part one and part two for Iron Flame, and did you ever consider making part two into the third book in the series instead?
Yes. Probably about 30,000 words in, I called my editor and I said, I think this is a five-book series. And thats how we went from three to five. And then as I looked at what needed to be accomplished in this book in order to get to where we are at the end of Iron Flame, and to have brought in the additional characters and brought everything to this point, I knew that the defining end of Part One had to happen. And it was a point that my editor and I went back and forth on and luckily Im pretty persuasive dont get me wrong, she gets her way a lot but it was her idea to break it into the parts as opposed to one story. Because I told her when I handed it in, I think this is two books. She read it and said, I think its one. And I really thought it was two, and we break it here and I just need to develop it up but I hate that you dont get as much world building without the second part. And you dont get to expand the world and see whats happening back here because it cuts there. So I feel like it just wouldnt have been as rich. So she said, its one book, but its part one and part two. OK, great. And now you have to leave room in book three to explore what happened in their absence, you have to explore what happened there.
Firmly in Iron Flame spoiler territory now: How did you decide where to pick up in the timeline after the cliffhanger reveal Brennan is alive at the end of Fourth Wing?
Because you end Fourth Wing in Xadens POV, which is done for a very specific reason, because Violet is just so inquisitive and so demanding that the first way I wrote it in her POV, it was a 7,000 word chapter where he explained everything because she was like, you will tell me now. And it was an info dump at the end. So we cut it and we put it in Xadens POV. You have to pick up immediately from there because so much has happened. Do we go back to Basgiath or stay? Whats going on with Andarna? Whats going on here? Where do I stand with Xaden? Oh my gosh, my brothers alive. You cant just open it back up at school and be like, Previously on Fourth Wing If one of my older brothers let me think they were dead for years, I would be so happy to find out they were alive and so mad that they let me feel that. Violet is that really good mix of, Im mad, but Im so thankful, but Im mad, and you lied, and Xaden lied.
Violet is much less perceptive in Iron Flame than she was in Fourth Wing, missing or ignoring several things said in passing that a reader would be likely to notice. What was the reasoning behind her shift?
Think about what makes you you, and what makes your self esteem and what makes your sense of purpose. Violets entire sense of self is based on her knowledge. Her knowledge of history, her knowledge of being raised as a scribe, her knowledge of everything thats been poured into her. Her wit and her intelligence is what helped her survive first year, and all of it is gone. She doesnt know what of what shes been taught is a lie. She doesnt know if its her brother that just lied to her or her boyfriend or her best friend Dain or her mother or the guy she thought was like an uncle, Dains father. Everything that defines who she is as a person has been stripped bare, and she is floundering.
And I know a lot of readers expect her to come back and be strong and badass. But its illogical to think that when you strip away someones everything, that makes their identity, that theyre not going to flounder. And she has to learn that she has to trust herself again before she can trust anyone else. And she finds that in knowledge and in history and in books. And then theres also the element of, but do you want to know? Because if you desperately love this man, you desperately love him, and you desperately need to believe him, maybe you dont want to know because maybe hes going to tell you something that is going to make you walk. Because if you almost walk that first time, how many strikes do you give somebody? So shes very torn between, I need to know everything because I know nothing now, and maybe I dont want to know, because maybe loving him should be enough. And shes 21 and shes torn between those two emotions, and I think its more realistic than having someone come out of the gate swinging.
How much of Dains arc did you have planned for the start? I know some fans were afraid of having a Tamlin situation (from Sarah J. Maas A Court of Thorns and Roses series) with Xaden as the love interest in book one and concerns about a possible redemption for Dain, which he does get in Iron Flame, but it does not lead into a romantic relationship with Violet or an end to Violet and Xaden.
I knew Dains arc in book one. So while writing book one, I had the interrogation scene from Iron Flame already in my head, I knew exactly where he was going. And some things get changed in edits where I feel like he gets villainized a little more. I always say Im the ultimate Dain apologist, because when youre in first-person POV, you only see it from Violets point of view. It is never confirmed that he knew they were going to die, it is never confirmed that he knew what they were sending them into. All he did was see something and trust his father. So how many of us would trust our father over trusting anyone else in the world? And I knew where that was going and I loved feeling it play out when hes looking at her saying, if you had just trusted me, we wouldnt be here. And to someone else, youre thinking, hes going to kill her. And really hes saying, you could have come to me and it never would have gotten this bad. He never would have sent them there, it wouldnt have happened. So I knew that from the get-go.
And it kills me when people are like, is this a Tamlin situation? Because Im not Sarah J. Maas, and she paved that way and I am so grateful to her and to Jennifer Armentrout, to all those women who paved that romantasy way before me but we are capable of multiple plot lines and multiple plots devices and multiple love storylines. So I dont think we had to fit in the Tamlin box. And they handle their trauma very differently. And Xadens already seen so much trauma at his age that hes pretty well set in who he is.
Why is it so unseasonably hot in Aretia, and everyone comments on it more and more as the book goes on?
It grows hotter as more dragons arrive. Just like the Vale is tropical at Basgiath, as more dragons arrive in the valley in Aretia, the temperature rises.
Why did Jack, who is confirmed by the end of Iron Flame to have been venin for a chunk of Fourth Wing, save Violet and not just let her die, or kill her, in the tower?
I think theres a certain element of Jack turning venin Im trying to think what doesnt give it away for book three. OK, hes still in hiding at this point and who better to convince everyone that nothings wrong with him than Violet. By saving Violet, hes still hiding what his true nature is and hes still trying to prove to the professors who have been trying to quote, unquote, mend his soul and bring him back that he is fixable that he is mendable when really in the background, he is orchestrating this entire takedown of the wards. How else do you prove that youve changed besides saving your one-time mortal enemy? And also, it throws her off kilter. Its like smiling at a bully.
Teenage Andarnas tail is revealed to be a poisonous barbed scorpion tail after she battles Solas. Were told by Tairn that dragon tails are determined after the feathertail childhood stage by choice and need. When specifical in Iron Flame does Andarnas turn to scorpion and why that choice?
It was still a feathertail when she went into Resson, and then when she goes through that explosion of growth, she comes out and thats when her tail forms. Its during that explosion of growth. And Im sure you can put together why its a scorpion tail. I wanted readers to dig into the choice. So if you are Andarna and you are a feathertail and you watch the thing closest to you that you love most in the world poisoned by a dagger, would you not become the poison yourself? Its honestly just the natural progression of the character. This is what she just watched happen.
How did you decide how spicy you wanted Iron Flame to be in comparison to Fourth Wing, and how you wanted to go about fitting in the sex scenes in this book, as war continues to spread and increase on The Continent?
Right, its kind of illogical to be like, were gonna stop and were gonna have sex now. I wanted to keep it proportionate because its a romantasy. And I did have a discussion with my editor on it, and while Im so thankful that men are reading it and men are liking it and if men dont like it, thats cool, too, Im just glad you tried it I write romance, a romance set in a fantasy world. So theres going to be some steam. Its just the way it is. But you have to make sure you keep that tension and you keep that build. And one thing I love about Iron Flame is that she offers Xaden the exact relationship he offered her in the last book. She turns the tables on him and says, we could just keep it to sex, and hes like, no but for an entirely different reason. So her reasoning in the last book was no, because you dont get to say who I fall for, and his is, no, Im out to win your heart, Im not just in it for your body. So youre gonna naturally have that tension build and I like to build my romantic tension to a breaking point. And you do that because theyre not together at the beginning and yet they are, but theyre not, but they are. And its so fun, because hes just like, we totally are, and shes like, were not.
What is the purpose of Xadens ex Catriona? What did you want to do with that character and why did you want to introduce her now?
So I wanted to introduce her now because I wanted everyone to see where the griffin fliers come from. But also, I wanted them to see Catrionas not out to get Violet just because she loves Xaden, or because they had this relationship, shes out for the power. And if it were a man pulling that power move, it would just be that, a power move. And they wouldnt be called catty. So Im interested to see how readers react because I want to see where the feminism in there plays off. She flat out says, you think this is about a man, this is about a crown. And any man in that situation would absolutely take another man to task over winning that crown.
But one thing I really wanted to bring the fliers in for is a scene where theyre discussing how the fliers are chosen. And the fliers are like, you jump and if you land you get to keep your griffin. And the riders are like, yeah, and if you dont, you fall to your death. And the fliers are like, no, dude you swim to shore and you pick another major! What is wrong with you people? One of the points of Basgiath is its overly brutal it shouldnt be that brutal. It is awful. And I want the riders to see that; they have to understand that the way theyve been taught is not the only way. And something is wrong with asking those kids to cross that Parapet, something is wrong with making them die on the Gauntlet, and something is wrong with how theyve been trained. And you need the fliers in order to do that.
Violet discovers Xadens second signet is an inntinnsic and he tells her specifically hes a kind of inntinnsic and not a full inntinnsic. This is the explanation for all that head prickling Violet experienced when he looked at her in scenes in Fourth Wing, yes?
It was so funny, because, yes, its when hes reading her and everyone would be like, oh my gosh, why does this always happen? And Im just like, its coming! Just give me a book, just hold on a second. What I love about that is he says, its a kind of inntinnsic but they dont have any alive. So how does he know exactly what he is? How does he know if thats full? How does he know what it is? He has no clue. They have no inntinnsic alive. So he has no idea what he is. And he has no idea, is it intentions? Is it words? Is it thoughts? He has no clue. All he knows is he has to hide it or theyre going to kill him.
Xaden said he stopped reading Violet on purpose when he fell in love with her, which he says was when they first kissed in the snow. So any time Xaden read her after that it was an accident?
Yes. Its kind of like if youre sitting in class in college, and the hot guys down there and your eyes just accidentally wander, its more of that. But no, he stops the second he realizes that hes no better than Dain by violating her privacy. But he also has no shame in the fact that he does it to keep the marked ones safe to begin with.
Its revealed in Iron Flame that Xaden had a deal with Violets mother General Sorrengail to keep Violet alive, as the favor Sorrengail requested in exchange for putting the marked ones under Xadens oversight in the riders quadrant. And this information confirms Xaden did want to kill Violet when he first met her, but specifically couldnt because of that deal. Why did you choose to reveal that, which is hard news for Violet to hear and will likely be tough for fans who had theories that Xaden had loved Violet innately from the start or when he heard stories from her brother Brennan?
I think asking any 23-year-old guy to be rational and perfect is a little ridiculous. Theyre 23-year-old guys. Were not talking about Rhysand, who is 500 or something, or other heroes that are immortal. Hes a kid. And he loves Brennan. He doesnt know Mira. If he has one chance at revenge, its Violet. And not only is Violet his chance for revenge, but the mother has just taken that chance away from him. So naturally, his instinct because he doesnt know Violet and he does know Brennan and I would hope that if someone knew my sister, they would care for me, but they wouldnt know me.
So that is one fan theory that Ive heard, that he already loved her because of stories Brennan told. And I was like, Brennan hasnt seen her since she was 14, and thats creepy. So were gonna stop that one right now. Theres no way Xaden is falling in love with a 14-year-old girl. And it might be hard for readers, but hes not the guy whos going to save the world, hes going to be the guy who saves people who are important to him. And thats it. Her mother killed his dad and not only that, but Brennans switched sides and told him horrible things about his and Violets mother. And were not in Xadens head second year, and for a very good reason, because we would know what his second signet is and you know whats going on and then all your tension is relieved. Its just a logical human emotion to want revenge on someone who put you through that much pain.
Why did you choose Liam as the one that Violet would hallucinate during her long interrogation by Varrish, when she could have also imagined Mira or Xaden or anyone else she loved was there?
Because Liam is the one who protected her. He spent the entire end of his life, from the time hes placed in another squad, protecting her and being her bodyguard. And naturally, she has this immense guilt. Part of her just floundering in this book and not thinking things through and not being as logical as she is is because shes gotten someone killed, someone that she deeply cares about. At least she feels like she got him killed. It was Liams choice to go into that battle. But in her mind, especially after Sloane accuses her and things like that, she thinks that its her fault. So in that moment, you would draw from the person that had kept you safe. And logically, if Xaden had been there, it would have confused readers is he there, is he not, whats going on? But you put Liam and the readers know that, OK, shes hallucinating. Plus, I wanted to see him again, selfishly.
There are a lot of mentions made in Iron Flame about Violet having the possibility for a second signet through Andarna, on top of the control of lightening she has as her signet through Tairn. Is this scene with Liam a hint that Violets potential second signet has something to do with a connection to the dead?
I will tell you that thats third book but every single hint you would need to know what her second signet is is in Iron Flame. Its manifested. Read it again and then call me.
Will we learn more about the Navarre royal family in the third book, now that General Sorrengail has outed Aaric as Cam, the son of the king?
Book three, man. Because you also have a lot of bad blood between him and Xaden over what happened with his older brother. And you dont get to see a lot of that because youre never in Xadens head for it.
Youve previously said that well get more of Xadens POV when he stops telling secrets. We only got one chapter of his POV again in Iron Flame, same as Fourth Wing. What about in book three?
When the man stops keeping secrets. Hes not exactly an open book, nor is he as forthcoming as hed like to think he is. Hes like, I tell you the truth no he doesnt! No, hes like a male Celaena Sardothien, Ill tell you my my plan when its time. No, he likes to think hes open, hes not. Hes like, ask me anything but not that!
So if Violet hadnt asked him about his second signet, was that something he was always going to keep to himself or would he have told her he is an inntinnsic eventually?
I honestly dont know. His goal in this book is that she has to love him while he can still keep secrets. And this is one of the reasons: if you fall in love with a CIA agent, hes not going to come home and tell you what he did at work today. Theres certain things you have to take on faith with the person that you love. Second, this is something that can get him killed on both sides from everyone, no one suffers inntinnsics to live. So this is the deepest, darkest secret he could possibly have and he would have to trust her implicitly. And I would like to think that he probably would have once she theres a moment in the finale, when he is going off to fight the Sage and she has to go get the wards up, where she finally trusts him to go do whatever it is he needs to do so she can do what she needs. And I like to think that once past that moment, he would have. But until that moment, she never shows the trust for him to go do what he needs to throughout the entire book. So Id like to think yes, but she figured it out.
Immediately afte the death of General Sorrengail, we see three different immediate reactions from her three estranged children: Brennan, Mira and Violet. How did you decide how each of them would react to her choice to sacrifice herself by using Sloane to siphon her power into the wardstone?
Oh, gosh, Im just cautious when my mother reads this. I love complicated family dynamics. And I think when you have a complicated family dynamic like they do with their mother, theres nothing more tragic than losing that person before you get the answers you want and the anger that comes from not getting the answers that you want that theyre not capable of. Brennan is so mad at her and so angry, but in that moment, its still his mom that died. And theres still an element of, no matter how much you might be angry with the parent for a choice theyve made, its still your mom. Mira has always been closer to her mother, she has always modeled her mother, she has been very much a mirror of her mother. And naturally, shes mad they didnt bring her in on the decision, they didnt do anything like that. And Violet is, as usual, caught up in everyone elses decisions in that moment, but knowing what has to be done. But it was logically the only choice to make in order to power that wardstone.
And the fact that its Sloane who kills her is poetic. You can incite someone to revenge very easily and she emotionally manipulates Sloane without a second pause. One of my favorite parts of the book is when shes helping Violet up the stairs after the interrogation chamber and shes like Im paraphrasing you tell me what you wouldnt do to save your children. You think were at fault for locking them out, for not giving them pieces of the wards, for not giving them weapons. You tell me what you wouldnt do to keep your kids safe.
Clarify something: Xaden is king of Tyrrendor by birth?
By birth, if it were still a kingdom and not a province. So technically, he would be the Duke. Theres an epigraph where they removed the right to go sit on the council and gave it to the Duke of Lewellen and theres so much that got taken out of edits. This book, had it not been edited down would have a lot more in it. So youll see in book three, how it is Aretia has been allowed to survive without being caught. Something got cut out in edits and I was like, oh, my gosh OK, book three! Technically, he would be the Duke and he would be the person sitting in the seat of Tyrrendor. So its a question of Lewellen, whos the current Duke, what hes going to do with the existence of Aretia.
The book ends with Xaden having become a venin or is he still in the process of turning into a venin?
Hes turning. So you go through the epigraphs, and theres certain degrees. One of the things I love to play with is that absolute power corrupts absolutely and that when you want magic and you cant have it because you havent been chosen by a dragon or a griffin, what will you pay for it? And people will pay with their souls. You see it in our society, all the time, people will sell their souls for power. So its a matter of, how much of his soul did he exchange? And once you start, how do you stop and is it an addiction? Look at where Jacks stage is versus where the Sages stage is.
Is Jack lying when he tells Xaden you cannot turn back from being a venin once you begin?
I mean, no one has ever. No ones seen it. But we havent read book three yet.
We end the book there in that scene with Jack in Xadens POV, meaning we dont get to be in Violets head for her reaction to Xaden becoming venin. And when we pick up in Xadens POV, shes asleep next to him and we get no dialogue between them. So presumably, whatever Violets reaction was to seeing his red-rimmed eyes, she felt safe enough to sleep in her bed with him that night even though she knows hes turning venin?
Correct. Welcome to conflict. How do you keep a couple together and apart and together and apart for five books? Would you like some conflict? Have some conflict.
The dream that Xaden has featuring the Sage in that final scene, which reveals how he began to turn venin, appears to be the same dream Violet has been having featuring the Sage throughout all of Iron Flame but that Violets dream has actually been from Xadens POV this whole time. Does this mean the Sage (who says hes actually General!) always wanted Xaden, or he wanted Xaden to get to Violet, or he wants both?
Really hope you like book three.
Is it the same dream? They seem to have shared the dream.
Or did they? It does seem like the same dream, doesnt it? I think you should really enjoy book three. I think book three should be just so enjoyable.
Will they remain at Basgiath for book three, now that the wards are up in Navarre, but not fully in place in Aretia and unable to be fully raised without finding another dragon like Andarna?
Yes, theyre at the college at the end because they have to be, as Xaden states this is not a spoiler that thats the only place that Violet is safe from him. Jack is the biggest evidence of the weakness in the wards. They feel invincible, I think everyone with a strong military feels invincible. And Jack is absolute evidence that they are not, that there are weaknesses in the wards they arent aware of. You see it in Fourth Wing when he shoves the energy into her while theyre sparring. So its been setup since since Fourth Wing. And I think that youre going to see more of where those weaknesses are in book three, but also, how do you secure the rest of the continent? Because the whole point of Fourth Wing when I wrote it was very much, would you give up your shield to become your neighbors sword? Would you give up your own safety to secure your neighbor next door? And some people would and some people wouldnt.
There are a couple bonus chapters in the new special edition of Fourth Wing what do the bonus scenes reveal and is it key information you need for Iron Flame?
Its just two scenes from Xadens POV. Theyre just delicious, fun little bits. They dont really add, other than the fact that you know that he wanted to kill her beforehand. It is the scene right after Threshing, when he sees Dain kiss her and he confronts Dain about not being the person who would have broken the rules for her. And it is the sparring scene. And I chose those scenes very carefully because theyre scenes in which he would naturally have his shields up. Because one of the reasons you cant be in Xadens head is you would know what his second signet is from the get go. So there were scenes that he had to keep his shields up.
Andarnas den is not named in Iron Flame, correct? Im not missing the name for the secret seventh den of iridescent dragons?
No, youre not missing it. Youre looking at future books for that.
Andarna says she waited for Violet, that she was left by her kind as the last one for more than 600 years and decided to hatch when she finally did for Violet. The Empyrean are the only ones who know whats going on here and what Andarna is?
The Empyrean is very much like, leave us alone, were not telling you anything. But you learned from Tairn and Sgaeyl, I believe, that its the eldest of each den that knows intrinsically what color scales those babies are. And thats why she was allowed to bond because shes the eldest of her den.
And Andarna says she chose to hatch when she heard the elders talking about how Violet was predicted to be the greatest scribe not a rider. Why?
Book three, man! I love Andarna. I think its fun that shes a teenager, too. And she eats everything because I have teenage boys and my editor is like, why is she eating everything, and Im like, have you ever been with teenagers? Shes eating all the sheep, and I love that Brennan is like, how do I find enough sheep? There are logical questions when Violet brings the entire riot to Aretia and Brennan is like, how do I feed you? But everything regarding Andarna is coming. That is not an Iron Flame question, my dear.
Im trying really hard to pronounce all these names correctly. I think youre aware of the issues surrounding mispronunciation of some of the words derived from Scottish Gaelic, and have recently faced criticism for that on social media?
Yes, Im aware. I had to find a Gaelic tutor, because I was even pronouncing that word wrong and it went very wrong for me. And that is something that I just have to own, too. And Im sorry.
I never knew the book would be this big and if I had, I probably would have made different choices. My family is Scottish, I come from Scotland, ancestry-wise. So my great grandmother was born in Glasgow. My moms family is all clan Hamilton. It was really just choosing Gaelic words as a love letter to my mom and her family and my ancestors. And then I had a moment where, you know when you read a word and it sounds different in your head? Thats what happened to me. And I remedied it by finding a Gaelic tutor. And Im sorry. So ask me in a year and maybe I will be able to pronounce those with some efficiency and confidence. But alas, at the moment thats not going well for me and I am sorry.
This interview has been edited and condensed.