Empyrean Books in Order
At Basgiath War College, dragons choose their riders. Most students don't survive to graduation.
Rebecca Yarros's Empyrean series follows Violet Sorrengail, who was supposed to live quietly as a scribe until her war hero mother forced her into the deadliest quadrant at the realm's most brutal military academy. Violet is small, has a chronic illness that makes her bones fragile, and is the obvious target from day one. Then there's Xaden Riorson, the Wing Leader whose father killed her brother. He's supposed to be her enemy. That lasts about as long as you'd expect.
The first book, Fourth Wing, became a publishing phenomenon in 2023. BookTok pushed it onto bestseller lists worldwide, and it stayed there. Yarros writes academic rivals who hate each other until they don't, training sequences that actually feel dangerous, and romantic tension that builds across hundreds of pages before paying off.
The series combines military fantasy with romance in roughly equal measure. Dragons bond with riders telepathically. Political conspiracies threaten the realm. Secrets get revealed at the worst possible moments. Each book ends on a cliffhanger designed to make readers preorder the next one immediately. The formula works. Yarros has become one of the bestselling authors in the world.