“Captain Lera Dorrell’s Guide to Vanquishing the Venin” is a text referenced in Iron Flame, the second book in The Empyrean Series by Rebecca Yarros. It is described as a property of Cliffsbane Academy, a training institution for dragon riders and fliers outside of Navarre.

This guide seems to be an instructional book that provides insights on how to fight and defeat the Venin, the dark wielders who are the primary antagonists in the series.

It was only in the last fifty years that we realized they were no longer solely coming from the Barrens. They’d begun to take recruits, teaching those who never bonded a gryphon to channel what was not theirs to take, to upset the balance of magic by stealing it from the very source. The problem with mankind is we too often find our souls to be a fair price for power.

It is somewhat fitting that the only weapon capable of killing a dark wielder is the same thing that drove them to soullessness… power.

Many of our most esteemed tactitions have tried to estimate the approaching tipping point – where the outcome of the war may have been decided even though we still fight. Many believe it will come in the next decade. I fear it will arrive much sooner than that.