[4] The novel's protagonist Violet displays many symptoms and parallel experiences to those with Ehlers–Danlos syndromes, including joint pain and hypermobility as well as her hair getting grayer.

Despite years of training to be a scribe like her late father and her many physical weaknesses, including chronic pain and fragile joints stemming from an illness in her infancy, Violet is mandated by her mother to join the Dragon Riders Quadrant.

All cadets in the Rider Quadrant must endure deadly challenges and a ferociously competitive environment to bond with a dragon that they will eventually be able to telepathically communicate with and receive a unique magical power (signet) from.

All children of rebels are denoted with tattoos, signifying them as 'marked ones,' and are forcibly assigned to the Rider Quadrant as a form of institutionalized retribution.

She befriends Rhiannon Matthias, but narrowly escapes an assassination attempt from Jack Barlowe, who views her as a liability to the quadrant.

Once in Basgiath, she is reunited with her childhood friend and longtime crush Dain Aetos, who is concerned for her safety and attempts to persuade her to move to the Scribe Quadrant.

Dain, a second-year, is their squad leader and Violet learns his signet is memory reading, which she agrees to keep secret due to its classified status.

To overcome her physical disadvantages, Violet offers to teach Rhiannon history in exchange for combat training, and befriends two other cadets in their squad, Ridoc and Sawyer.

Violet's squad is granted an audience with the dragons before Threshing, where they are surprised to find a very small and rare golden feathertail, a breed known for its resistance to bonding with humans.

After weeks of anxious waiting, Violet finally begins to receive power from Tairn, but has not yet learned how to shield her emotions from her dragon's.

Violet's squad seizes General Sorrengail's map of military outposts, earning them the chance to shadow soldiers on the front lines.

They fly to Montserrat, a military outpost, where Violet reunites with Mira and realizes that she and Xaden have the power to communicate telepathically due to their dragons' bond.

Although she is devastated at his betrayal, Xaden tells her that Poromiel is being attacked by venins, evil creatures that corrupt magic and whom Violet and most of Navarre believed only existed in folklore.

The squad receives a missive from General Aetos, Dain's father, revealing that they have been lured into a trap and venin are attacking Resson, the outpost they are at.

She is gravely wounded by a venin and Xaden and the survivors take shelter in Aretia, the former Tyrrish capital believed to have been abandoned since the rebellion.

Publishers Weekly gave the book a starred review, praising its worldbuilding, characters, and "sexy dark academia aesthetic".

[7] Alana Joli Abbott, in a review for Paste, praised its use of familiar tropes and compared it favorably to fantasy series like Blood Trials by N.E.

[10] Kimberly Terasaki of The Mary Sue wrote about a phenomenon within the fandom of portraying Xaden, a primary love interest of the protagonist, as white in fan art despite the fact that he is described as dark-skinned in the book.