Onyx Storm In One Breath
This is the Onyx Storm summary and recap, and it spoils the entire book, including who dies. If you haven’t read it yet, my spoiler free videos are waiting. And if you only need the quick recap before book four, you’re in the right place.
The one breath version: after the Battle of Basgiath, Violet and Xaden need allies and a cure. Violet’s dead father left clues that point to a seventh breed of dragon. So the squad crosses the sea, island by island, to find them. They find the irids, who reject Andarna and say there is no cure. By the time they get home, a queen is dead, and the war is at the door.
Where Book Three Begins
The prologue is a snowy night at Basgiath, right after the battle. Violet’s mother, General Sorrengail, died in it. Xaden channeled the earth to kill the Sage, and faint strawberry red circles now show around his irises. Violet follows him through the tunnels in her socks, and listens to the prisoner Jack Barlowe tell Xaden he will slip.
Andarna confesses she scorched a venin in the battle, and Violet decides to keep Jack alive, because killing him would start a manhunt. She swears to find a cure. Two weeks later, in January, peace talks with Poromiel are on day four of seven, and venin disguised as scribes slip inside the walls and drain the infirmary. Cadets have already killed thirty-one venin around Basgiath, seventeen of them Xaden. He tells Violet he can sense the rest, because he is one of them. Scared yet, he asks.
The Wardstone Plot
Poromiel will walk unless its fliers can wield magic behind Basgiath’s wards. Mira brings a runed disk that shows how the runes can be changed. So at midnight, Violet, Rhi, Ridoc, Imogen and Maren sneak into the infirmary and fetch Sawyer, who lost his lower leg, because only a metallurgist can alter the rune.
Before that, the king’s council voted six to one against protecting the fliers, so Violet calls her next plan treason. They climb to the wardstone in the northwest turret. Sawyer reshapes the runes, Ridoc ices the metal, and Maren lifts a rock. The fliers can wield. The accord is signed at eight, it pardons everyone who flew for Aretia, and Xaden becomes Duke of Tyrrendor, a title he does not want.
It gets Violet charged with treason by General Aetos, now Basgiath’s commanding general. Queen Maraya sides with her, and Aetos takes revenge by sending her squad to the Samara outpost.
Newhall
At Samara, the squad hears that the village of Newhall will be attacked, and Maren’s family is there. They vote to go. Violet and Tairn fly ahead and kill wyvern with lightning, then a tornado throws them into a mountainside and knocks Tairn out.
Garrick arrives impossibly fast, because he has a second signet, distance. Then Theophanie walks out of the village in silver hair and gauzy robes, with lightning at her command, and kills Maren’s parents, leaving her seven-year-old twin brothers alive. She calls Andarna an irid, and offers to teach Violet.
Violet’s kneecap is dislocated and Brennan mends it. Back at Basgiath, Xaden declares the boys citizens of Tyrrendor. Then Xaden shows up as Professor Riorson, and Violet says their relationship just ended.
The Quest Squad
Xaden teaches Signet Sparring in a stone pit, and beats nearly every cadet there. He says only one person could take him down. Everyone looks at Violet. In the dark, she follows the bond to find him, and strikes lightning straight up through the wards.
Captain Grady’s quest squad is told to go north, and Violet wants to go south. Grady says six months to find the seventh breed. Aura Beinhaven becomes her chaperone, because the Code of Conduct forbids any relationship with her professor.
Anca And The Citrine
Violet’s father left her a book with a six-letter lock. The password is Aimsir, her mother’s dragon. Inside, a letter says go to Deverelli and find the merchant Narelle Anselm.
To get a meeting with the Deverelli king, Violet needs the Amelian Citrine, in the empty village of Anca. Prince Halden, her ex, tells her the price. At Anca, Aura Beinhaven sets fire to a figure in a doorway, and it is Captain Grady. He burns to death. Then a wyvern kills Aura, and Mira recovers the citrine. A note signed T says Theophanie can take Violet whenever she likes.
Deverelli
Violet chooses her own squad: Xaden, Mira, Dain, Ridoc, Cat, Drake and Halden. They stop in Athebyne, then Cordyn, where Tecarus warns them not to make a deal they cannot keep, and then cross the sea in a day. Magic disappears on Deverelli, and so does her bond with Xaden. In the capital, Narelle, who is ninety-three, gives her six books her father wrote, all locked. Violet guesses the Krovlan rebels promised dragons they couldn’t deliver, which is why the uprising failed.
Without magic, Xaden is calm and relaxed, and they finally spend a long, open-door night together. At King Courtlyn’s dinner, Xaden introduces Violet as his consort. Then Anna Winshire’s head is served to his panthers, and Halden is stabbed. Guards attack. Xaden snaps the necks of twelve of them with shadows, even where no magic exists. Violet saves everyone by trading the shell of Andarna’s egg.
Unnbriel
Back at Basgiath, Aaric announces that he’ll come as royal representative, and Halden is furious, because Aaric is his brother. In March, the squad sets out, resting at Athebyne, Cordyn and Deverelli before the open sea. They reach Unnbriel, the isle of the war goddess Dunne, and win entry by fighting. Violet cracks a rib beating Queen Marlis, and sees silver hair on the temple children.
Three champions fight with daggers, Xaden against one, Dain against another and Violet against Marlis, and lightning strikes twice with no magic on the isle. The queen refuses an alliance. Her price is twelve dragon eggs, two of each breed. Violet says they don’t trade in dragons. The priestess also speaks of a dedication Violet’s family didn’t complete, and nobody explains.
Hedotis
Hedotis is the isle of wisdom. Its people have violet eyes, because of a mineral called viladrite in everything they eat, as Violet’s father recorded. It is also where Xaden’s mother Talia lives. She left when he was ten, the night of his birthday. She has married a triumvirate member, Faris, and has two young sons.
At dinner, the triumvirate wants a contract marriage between Xaden and Cat or Aaric. Xaden answers by demanding a lifetime contract with Violet Sorrengail. Talia has stocked chocolate for weeks, and nobody gets a fork. Then the chocolate cake comes, and it is poisoned. Garrick almost dies, until Violet uses a field guide her father wrote and feeds him fig. She had already poisoned the triumvirate first, with arinmint and tarsilla, and she forces them to take an antidote. No alliance.
Zehyllna And The Irids
On Zehyllna, the isle of luck, the squad must accept whatever gifts the god hands out in a card game. Mira gets wine, Garrick a rusted bucket, Violet a broken compass, and Drake a kitten he names Broccoli. Trager draws an arrow, and it kills him. His gryphon Silaraine dies with him. Aaric agrees terms for forty thousand soldiers, and Violet admits to Xaden she froze. He tells her there is no cure for him. Trager and Sila are burned on a black sand island.
Then the squad splits up and six irids find Violet and Ridoc. They call Andarna a weapon, refuse her, tell Violet there is no cure for venin, and call Xaden an abomination. Ridoc sees Xaden’s red eyes, and demands the truth.
Home To Bad News
They arrive back after three and a half weeks. Violet tells Ridoc everything, and he agrees to keep Xaden’s secret if Rhi, Sawyer and Jesinia are told. Theophanie’s letter has arrived before them. And Suniva has fallen, with about twenty-five thousand dead, and Queen Maraya killed. A dozen wyvern and a dozen venin dropped in during a thunderstorm, set fire to the textile district, and took six crates of alloy daggers from the armory. Violet works out that the storm carried them in, and that Theophanie must be behind it. Xaden’s birthday follows, and she gives him a black onyx cuff.
Aretia
In Aretia, Felix trains Violet, and Sawyer learns to mount Sliseag with his prosthetic leg. Lynx manifests shadows. Tyrrendor opens its borders to thirty thousand refugees. Xaden returns on day seventy-three of holding on, and the two of them have the night they have been delaying.
Then comes a shared nightmare of the Sage choking them, and Violet learns she is a dream-walker, a signet she gained by bonding Andarna. She proves it with Maren’s family portrait. Wyvern attack Aretia, and then Leothan, an irid, arrives and takes Andarna, breaking her bond with Violet. Mira then reveals Violet was nearly dedicated to Dunne, and Xaden admits his secret. Mira storms out to the front, and Theophanie captures her.
The Last Chapters
The finale is the Draithus battle, and I cover it in my ending explained video. Theophanie demands Violet and Bodhi within five hours, or Mira dies. Short version: Mira lives, Quinn dies, Violet kills Theophanie, and Xaden disappears, leaving Violet a ring and a note.
My Summary Verdict
That’s the book. It is a road trip with a war behind it, and the second half moves faster than the first. The isles are vivid, the deaths hit hard, and Violet finally becomes a leader. My complaint is that the irids’ answer, no cure and no help, arrives after hundreds of pages of searching, and that the book is long. I’d still say it earns its length, because the battle at the end pays off the whole trip. For the full character and dragon guide, with the spice level and content notes, and the ending in detail, visit the Onyx Storm page on bookexplained.com. Which island was your favorite? Tell me in the comments.
