Chapter 8 exemplifies Violet’s intelligence once again. The sexual tension builds with her and Dain’s conversation after they catch Rhiannon leaving Tara’s room. A lot of the cadets are getting comfortable with each other and starting to pair off into casual/romantic relationships. I love the representation of queer characters in this series, and we get our first glimpse of that with Rhiannon and Tara’s relationship and its normalcy within the quadrant. It seems that Violet has a romantic past that we are unaware of at this point in time. When Dain warns her about Jack, he grabs her face, and I can’t help but wonder if he used his signet to read her recent memories here.
Violet seems to be more concerned with the upcoming fighting challenges. She’s spending a lot of time collecting types of poisonous flora in Navarre.
Professor Kaori’s class answered a lot of questions about dragons, but also raised some questions. SPOILER!!! In my first read, this was where I knew that Violet was going to bond with a black dragon. Black dragons are known for being intelligent and cunning, which is exactly how I would describe Violet in general. The foreshadowing is heavy here. On top of that, the story of Brennan’s death and the black dragon’s involvement in that event furthered that theory even more. This is where one of my first theories arose. SPOILER WARNING!!! Since Brennan actually lived through the Tyrrish Rebellion, did Naolin successfully resurrect him using his siphoning signet? I think we’ll find out in later books.
The snippets of Violet’s fights show her technique is working. There’s a highly likely possibility she wouldn’t have made it out alive without Brennan’s advice and her poison collecting. She proves that brute strength does not always lead to success, just like Kaori said.
At the end of the chapter when Xaden walks onto the mat in place of Rayma, it’s apparent that he’s either going to threaten her or kill her.
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