Basgiath War College · Riders Quadrant
Empyrean Reading Order
Read Fourth Wing, then Iron Flame, then Onyx Storm, then Threshing Day. The first three are the main novels and run in publication order. Threshing Day is a companion collection catalogued as The Empyrean #3.5, and it reads best after all three.
The order, in short
- Main novels
- Fourth Wing, Iron Flame, Onyx Storm
- Companion collection
- Threshing Day, published September 29, 2026
- Recommended order
- Fourth Wing, Iron Flame, Onyx Storm, Threshing Day
- Catalogue position
- The Empyrean #3.5
- Reading position
- Last, despite the number
- Book four
- In progress, untitled, no announced date
- Official reading order
- Not announced by the author
- Reading order here
- This site's own recommendation, spoiler-conscious
The path
Fourth Wing
Start here. It builds the Riders Quadrant, the Parapet, the Gauntlet and Threshing, and it ends on a reveal that changes what the whole series is about.
Iron Flame
The second novel widens the war and answers questions the first book raises about the wards, the fliers and the history the college teaches. It also introduces riders who matter in the collection.
Onyx Storm
The third novel, and the current end of the main storyline. It leaves the arc open, and the fourth novel will continue it.
Threshing Day
Read it last. Thirteen riders tell their own Threshing, arranged by year, framed as testimony collected after the fact. Nothing in it moves the main plot forward, and everything in it changes how the earlier books read.
Why the number says 3.5 and the reading says last
A catalogue number records where a book sits in a series. It is not a reading instruction. Threshing Day is numbered 3.5 because it belongs to the Empyrean world between the third and fourth novels, and because it is a companion collection rather than the next chapter of the main story.
Read it last anyway. The frame is retrospective: two Basgiath dragonkind professors collect rider testimony and transcribe it from Navarrian after the fact. That frame assumes the reader knows the riders, and several of the accounts land hardest if you have already seen where those riders end up.
One account in particular pays off a death that Fourth Wing spends its entire length preparing. Read the collection first and you lose the scene the first book was building toward for six hundred pages.
Where to go, depending on what you want
| What you want | Go here | Why |
|---|---|---|
| The full series in order | Fourth Wing, then Iron Flame, then Onyx Storm | Publication order is also story order for the main novels. |
| The day the dragons choose | Threshing Day, after Onyx Storm | Thirteen accounts of one annual event, told by thirteen riders. |
| What Threshing is | Dragon Threshing | The ritual, the rules and the valley, without needing a book first. |
| The dragons themselves | Dragon Registry | Every named dragon, with riders held behind spoiler gates. |
| The college | Basgiath War College | The quadrants, the Parapet, the Gauntlet and the Vale on a map. |
| A dragon of your own | Play the game | Three minutes, no account, and the engine decides what answers. |
Do you need the books to play the game?
No. The game on this site is standalone. You create a cadet, walk into the valley, make a few choices and meet whatever answers. The engine, the scenes and the dragons it produces are this site's own invention, not an adaptation of any book scene.
If you have not read the series, set your spoiler level low and the archive will keep riders, pairings and later-book material behind its gates. If you have read everything, raise it and the same pages open all the way out.
What reading it last preserves
Spoilers: Threshing Day
This section contains material from later in the series.
The collection confirms what happened to Brennan Sorrengail years before the main series, and it hands over a death that Fourth Wing spends its whole length preparing, told from the perspective of the rider who lived it.
It also gives first-person accounts of moments the main novels only report: the ambush that shaped the marked ones before they reached the quadrant, a dragon who waited, and a bonding that began before the rider even mounted.
None of that is required to follow the main plot. All of it is better with the main plot already behind you.
Sources
Questions people actually ask
Fourth Wing, then Iron Flame, then Onyx Storm, then Threshing Day. The first three are the main novels. Threshing Day is a companion collection that reads best once the novels are behind you.
You could, because the stories look backwards to earlier years. It is not recommended: the collection reveals a death the first book spends its whole length preparing, and it assumes you know the riders.
It is an official Empyrean release, so it is part of the world. It does not continue the main plot that Onyx Storm leaves open. Read it for the thirteen Threshings, not for the next chapter of the war.
Yes, in progress, and no title or date has been announced. Threshing Day is not that book, and is catalogued separately as The Empyrean #3.5.
Because the catalogue number records where it sits in the series rather than when to read it. The collection is retrospective, so reading it after Onyx Storm costs nothing and gains a great deal.
No. The game is standalone and runs on this site's own invention. Your spoiler setting controls how much book material the archive shows you while you play.
Ready to be chosen?
No reading required. Your spoiler setting decides what the archive shows.