The Battle of Basgiath

At a glance

When

The last night of Iron Flame — the assault on Basgiath War College itself, deep in the year the whole kingdom swore this couldn't happen.

Where

Inside the walls. The one place the wards were built to make impossible, breached from within.

Trigger

Jack Barlowe — alive, and venin — drives a dagger into his own dragon, Baide. Her blood puts out the wardstone's flame and the wards fall.

The enemy

Wyvern by the thousand and the venin behind them, flooding a college that trained a whole generation for a war it kept off the record.

The save

Brennan mends the shattered wardstone; Violet pours raw power into it past burnout; her mother stops her before it kills her and finishes it herself.

The cost

General Lilith Sorrengail has Sloane siphon her life and Aimsir's into the stone — general and dragon die lighting the wards. Sawyer loses a leg below the knee.

Outcome

Seven breeds of dragonfire — Andarna the hidden seventh — raise the wards. The wyvern fall, the venin retreat, and an iron flame burns black on the mended stone.

After

Hours from the win, Xaden pulls power from the earth to keep fighting for Violet — and turns venin. The war is real, in the open, and personal now.