The Library
Rebecca Yarros · The Empyrean
Dragons that bond you by choice or torch you by mistake, a war college that kills you before you meet one, and a girl nobody bet on. You laugh or you don't get back up — so we laughed, and we never left.
Book one of The Empyrean, Rebecca Yarros's dragon-rider series — and the reason half your feed lost its mind in 2023. Violet Sorrengail was raised to be a quiet scribe, until her general mother marches her into Basgiath's Riders Quadrant, where cadets die crossing a rail-less parapet before they ever meet a dragon. She's the smallest, most breakable person in the room — which the college reads as a death sentence and she reads as a reason to get creative. Dragons that bond by choice. A wingleader called Xaden with every reason to want her dead and the wrong reaction entirely. A war the kingdom's been lying about for generations. High stakes, high heat, banter on a killing floor. Start here; read in order.
Riders · Rebels · Dragons
The squad, the dragons, and the family that made her. Find your people.
One war college that keeps trying to kill her, and the whole lying, burning, gods-watching world it turned out to be part of. Start at Basgiath. Follow the map out.
Four quadrants carved into a mountain, one rail-less parapet to earn your leathers, and a Codex that says the quiet part in stone. It has been lying to every cadet who ever crossed for it — and we'd still bleed for it. The place that keeps trying to kill her is the only one that ever made her a weapon.
Enter Basgiath War College
The dragons' own valley behind Basgiath, where Threshing decides your whole life every October first. You walk in on foot and pray something enormous decides you're worth keeping.
Enter The Vale
Razed by dragonfire and struck off the map — so of course it's still standing, rebuilt in secret, forging the only blades that kill a venin for good. The scorch mark that became an army.
Enter Aretia
Navarre's largest, most rebellious corner — last to kneel, first to burn, still carving its runes like it never agreed to forget. House Riorson's ground, and every marked one it made.
Enter Tyrrendor
Six provinces behind a six-hundred-year ward, one crown, one war college that sends its kids into a war it swears isn't real. We'd bleed for it — and we know how that sounds.
Enter Navarre
Gryphons, not dragons. Fliers, not riders. Navarre's four-hundred-year enemy across the border — who turn out to be fighting the exact same war. The best allies we never saw coming.
Enter Poromiel
A border trading post where the war stopped being a rumour and started taking people we loved. Riders and fliers first fought venin side by side here — and Liam Mairi didn't come home.
Enter RessonThree books deep, a fourth announced, and a five-book plan we are absolutely not emotionally prepared for.
The parapet, the bond, the slow burn that ruined us all. She was supposed to fold on page one and bonded two dragons instead. If you're new: this is where you cross.
Second year, higher stakes, and a last page that put the entire fandom on the floor. 'Be afraid.' We were. We reread it immediately, obviously.
The lie cracks all the way open, the map gets bigger, and the war stops being theoretical. The one where the world of these books finally shows its whole hand. We are not calm.
Announced, untitled, and already living rent-free. The Empyrean is planned as five, so we're barely past halfway. We'll be here. Pretending to be patient.
We're Caffeine and Curses. The Library started as my design research — I can't put a dragon on a shirt without knowing a morningstartail isn't shaped like a daggertail — so we keep the notes here where everyone can use them. The pages are fan-made, not official; the licensed designs are in the shop.
Officially licensed
New designs, new Library pages, and the occasional unhinged reread — straight to your inbox. No corporate nonsense. Aretia would approve.
Admit one obsessive reader.
You're on the list — welcome to the Library. ✦
One email when it actually matters. Not a byte more.
The useful stuff.
Fantasy romance with the emphasis on both. A scribe who was never meant to survive gets forced into dragon-riding boot camp, bonds two dragons instead of the allowed zero, and falls for exactly the wrong person while the war she's training for turns out to be a cover story. Grief with teeth, banter on a killing floor, a slow burn that pays off. If 'enemies to lovers, but everyone has a dragon' does something to you — yeah. It's about you.
Read them in release order: Fourth Wing (2023), Iron Flame (2023), then Onyx Storm (2025). A fourth book has been announced, and the series is planned as five in total. Start with Fourth Wing — the later ones only land the way they do because you crossed the parapet in order first.
Yes — it's open-door. The romance is a genuine slow burn, so most of the heat arrives later in book one and beyond, but when it arrives, it arrives. This isn't the fade-to-black kind, so if you want the dragons and the war-college grit without the steam, consider yourself warmly warned. We're completely normal about it. (We are not.)
No. The Library is a fan-made project by Caffeine & Curses, built by readers who are personally unwell about this series. Fourth Wing, The Empyrean, and all characters belong to Rebecca Yarros and her publisher. The merch in our shop is officially licensed; these Library pages are our own love letter, not an official source.
Right here. Our Fourth Wing collection is officially licensed and made by fans who actually read the books — signets, dragons, quotable damage, the lot. Use the shop link on this page, or go straight to /collections/fourth-wing-merch.
These pages are fan-made. For officially licensed merch, see our shop.
FAN · MADEDESIGNED · AUSTRALIASHIPPED · WORLDWIDE
The Empyrean, ©2023-2025, Rebecca Yarros.
Here be spoilers
This whole place is written for people who already fell in — so we spoil freely, name names, and never explain the lore. That's kind of the point. Not caught up yet? Wander gently.
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