It’s been so long since I picked up the Empyrean series books, but I’m so excited to read them again, analyse them and come back with more theories.

This particular one is related to feathertails! I’ve been reading Iron Flame again and I’ve been thinking a little bit about Andarna. Why are they so secretive when it comes to feathertails? It looks like in Fourth Wing we learned that feathertails can accidentally give their gifts directly to humans without creating a signet, and that if you use it too much, you can kill the dragon (and the rider)… but not if the rider is venin. The venin would simply get the gift and kill the dragon. Interesting, isn’t it?

So why do I think that? Let’s back up a little bit. Nature, like all things, seeks balance. Dragons bond with humans and humans develop signets. Thanks to the bond, humans can also practise lesser magic, which in turn can help imbue them with power, or they can make runes work, also with the help of magic.

Now, where else can one get power from if not from a dragon? Gryphons, or directly from the ground, right? If you channel directly from the ground, then you have the same power as a rider, but you do not have… signets. Of course you can create runes, the same way as gryphon fliers, to be able to compete with a good number of signets, but there are special gifts which it looks like some of the venin possess. How?

I think the answer is in Papa Sorrengail’s research on feathertails. I think that baby dragons can be used by venin to access their powers directly. Which is why the dragons protect their hatchlings with such fierceness and don’t trust humans — because, judging by so many horrible ones, it’s hard to trust them.

But it’s this little line here that made me think of it: “You’ll do no such thing, or you risk every feathertail in the Vale,” I remind her. “Do you want someone who takes joy in the pain of others like Varrish bonding a hatchling?”

And then it is Varrish who says: “Some of us do not bow to the whims of our dragons. In fact, we influence them.”

Meaning that indeed, a hatchling or a feathertail would be easily influenced. In fact, it is also in Iron Flame, at the end, where we learn that Baide was made to do horrible things, influenced by Jack, her rider, who is venin.

So how come in Onyx Storm we see venin with legit signets? I think this is how… Not to mention that, as we know from Jack, once a dragon dies, the venin does NOT die with it — and if the general venin lived for centuries, no doubt they acquired much, much power in the time spent hunting feathertails.

I now wonder what it is with the Colonel’s research on feathertails, right?