What happens at the end of Fourth Wing?
Rebecca Yarros published Fourth Wing on 2 May 2023 — 512 pages, book one of a planned five, and the reason a generation of readers now knows what a signet is. The last 60 pages abandon the war college entirely.
Spoilers from here, obviously.
The war games are a set-up
The final exercise sends Xaden's squad to Athebyne, an outpost beyond Navarre's protective wards. Violet works out why on arrival: the place is deserted, with a note from Colonel Aetos telling Xaden his team's job is to survive if it can.
Dain Aetos is the reason. He'd been using his signet — reading recent memories through touch — on Violet without her consent, and passed what he found to his father. The touching that reads as comfort throughout the book is a surveillance method.
Resson, and who doesn't come back
The squad reaches the village of Resson and finds venin — the magic-draining creatures Navarre insists don't exist — plus the wyvern they conjure. Two riders die in the fight: Soleil, and Liam Mairi, whose dragon Deigh is killed first. A rider cannot outlive their dragon.
Violet discovers mid-battle that her lightning kills both wyvern and venin, and that killing a venin drops every wyvern it conjured. She's poisoned in the process and passes out.
Who's waiting when she wakes
She comes round in Tyrrendor, mended, with no idea where she is. The mender walks in and it's Brennan Sorrengail — her older brother, supposedly killed in the rebellion six years earlier. He welcomes her to the revolution. That's the last line of the book.
Also unresolved by the final page: Violet has bonded two dragons, Tairn and Andarna, which shouldn't be possible; she's told Xaden she can no longer trust him after learning he's been working with gryphon riders; and the squad has an iron box out of Resson they can't open, which is what the venin came for.
What to read next
Iron Flame picks up immediately and arrived on 7 November 2023, followed by Onyx Storm in January 2025. Book four has no publication date — Yarros confirmed on Instagram in March 2026 that she'd started writing it. Before that arrives, Threshing Day is out on 29 September 2026: thirteen short stories about the riders and their dragons, and expressly not book four.
Yarros has been blunt that she was working 12 to 15 hour days on Onyx Storm and has slowed down since. The wait is the price.