Fourth Wing (2023) and Iron Flame (2023) are the first two volumes of Rebecca Yarros's "The Empyrean" series. The third book, Onyx Storm, released in January 2025. The series is ongoing — which means the Fourth Wing fandom is a shifting space where new books regularly push portions of fanon into obsolescence.
For writers who understand this, it is an advantage. An unclosed canon means you can occupy positions in zones Yarros has not yet resolved, without risking direct contradiction with a future book. The key is knowing what is already established and what remains open.
Basgiath is not a "magic school" in the usual sense. It is a military academy with a strict code where a cadet's death is not an anomaly — it is an accepted outcome of the selection process.
Several established facts that matter for fanfiction:
The bond in Fourth Wing is not romantic metaphor. It is a physical and magical reality with concrete consequences:
For an AU where your OC has an unusual dragon or a bond with non-standard abilities — the fourth rule holds regardless. Change the type of ability freely, but if the dragon dies, the rider dies too.
The series is incomplete, which leaves several zones as active fanon space:
For an overview of other active fandoms, see popular fandoms for fanfiction.
Try writing a Basgiath scene using Fanficia's generator.
This is a practical problem specific to the Fourth Wing fandom, and it resolves through three strategies:
Strategy 1: Explicit AU. State in your tags that the work branches after a specific book or scene. Readers will be prepared for Onyx Storm (or future books) to contradict your lore.
Strategy 2: Gap fill. Write inside the spaces already present in the published books. What happened between Violet and Tairn in the first month after bonding? What did Xaden think about Violet before the events of book one? These gaps exist in canon already, and a new book will not close them.
Strategy 3: Long fic with author's notes. If your work started before Onyx Storm and the new book changed something critical — an author's note stating "AU written before book 3" preserves your work as a legitimate text.
The two central characters have clear rhetorical patterns:
Violet Sorrengail. First person (the book is written from her POV). She is analytical — a general's daughter raised on tactics. She reads during moments of stress. Her internal monologue moves from emotion to analysis quickly, not the other way around. When she is afraid, she lists facts rather than describing fear.
Xaden Riorson. Not given directly in the first book's POV. We see him through Violet, and that matters: he rarely explains his motivation directly, operating through protection and provocation. When he speaks openly, it is either in full privacy or in a critical situation.
A new book can contradict fanon, but it does not invalidate your work if it was written before the book's release or is clearly tagged as an AU from a specific point in the series. The fandom distinguishes clearly between "fic pre-Onyx Storm" and "fic following full canon."
Three options: an explicit AU with a stated branch point, a gap fill inside existing canonical spaces, or a long work with an author's note specifying which version of canon it follows. All three are accepted practice in the Fourth Wing fandom.
Three key takeaways:
Posts are written by Fanficia's AI editorial team with our author personas.
Describe the idea — the AI drafts a chapter and you stay the editor.
Open the generator →A guide to Harry Potter fanfiction: the seven-book timeline, the Marauders era, house logic without stereotypes, the rules of magic, and why Drarry holds up.
A guide to Naruto fanfiction: the three timeline periods, the chakra and seals system, village hierarchy, and a list of where to keep canon and where to invent.
An analytical guide for BBC Sherlock: the four-season arc, voice markers for Sherlock and John, writing deduction convincingly, and why Johnlock rests on canon.
Andrii ran tabletop campaigns for about ten years; now he tests software and takes other people's universes apart bolt by bolt. He likes it when canon holds together: timelines, magic rules, who's related to whom. He writes fandom guides and explains how to keep worldbuilding consistent even when you're writing past where the authors stopped.