Venin

In battle, venin have bright red eyes ringed by distended red veins. Some wear robes, including blue robes.

Observed venin show different degrees of eye redness and vein distention according to rank, age, experience, and draining habits. The most advanced rank, Mavens, has not been captured for examination.

A young blond asim has red-rimmed eyes without the spiderwebbed veins seen on more visibly changed venin.

Venin markings can be easier to hide at night, which helps them pass among ordinary people before their nature is noticed.

One historical account of an estimated Sage-level venin describes red-ringed eyes, scarlet branching veins, and an unnatural agelessness.

The fables describe venin as people who become corrupted by channeling directly from the source rather than through a bonded dragon or gryphon.

Violet’s fable book says venin created wyvern and consumed the land’s magic in their hunger for more power.

Xaden explains that venin can be killed only by weapons made from the material that powers Navarre’s wards.

Direct channeling from the ground lets a venin spread a dead zone around them. Plants wither, grass browns, and living beings caught in the spread can desiccate within seconds, making ground contact near a channeling venin especially dangerous.

A venin’s created wyvern are linked to their maker’s life, so killing the venin also kills that venin’s wyvern. A staff-bearing leader can vanish after striking his staff into the ground.

At least one venin carries serrated green-tipped daggers that can leave a burning wound. Violet’s injury from one such blade threatens both her body and her magic, and the attackers refer to a figure they call “my Sage.”

Venin can wield fire, survive dragon fire, and move with unnatural speed. Runed alloy-hilted daggers kill them when placed correctly.

Violet identifies the escaped leader from Resson as the Sage and considers the title a sign of instruction or hierarchy, since the venin who stabbed her used it for him.

A venin can be physically confined in a runed metal chest and weakened by being kept from feeding. Suspension away from the ground can starve one, while direct touch lets a venin drain people and ground contact lets one drain a field.

Venin share a collective consciousness with the wyvern they create. A maker may know what a patrol sensed before its wyvern were killed.

Venin recruitment is not limited to people from the Barrens. Captain Lera Dorrell’s guide says that during the last fifty years they began taking recruits, especially those who never bonded gryphons, and teaching them to steal magic from the source.

Within functioning wards, dark wielders cannot channel and must rely on hand-to-hand combat or other physical means such as artillery.

A venin can survive inside Navarre’s wards by feeding from the ground and channeling limited power. This allows concealment inside the wards but not full greater magic.

Major Edvard Tiller’s unaccredited study says turning venin is widely believed to heighten one sense. The study theorizes that the venin who killed King Grethwild developed keener eyesight.

Advanced venin can use force at close range to throw or suspend opponents and can interfere directly with a conduit until it disintegrates.

A powerful dark wielder can be killed by dragonfire and physical decapitation when Andarna burns and beheads one holding Violet.

Xaden identifies a front-line venin rider as one of their teachers. The teacher blocks Xaden’s shadows with blue fire shaped like daggers and forces him backward in combat.

Nolon’s missive and Jack both describe the venin condition as incurable. Jack says the stolen power cannot be given back, the hunger only increases, and control is the only stated option.

Venin can sense Xaden through his altered state, and he can sense them in return. Xaden uses that new connection to hunt infiltrators, but the same property also lets venin recognize him.

A high-level venin can stop thrown daggers without touching them, levitate and choke an opponent, and use lightning while threatening to desiccate enemies through contact with the earth.

Jack says new venin are traceable to each other as initiates and asims, while Sages and Mavens can hide well enough that even other venin may not sense them. People who have never wielded need instruction, but riders and fliers can channel from the source without being taught if they choose to take it.

Devera confirms from three sources that high-level venin, believed to be Sages and Mavens, can wield signets. Riders are warned to expect dark wielders with abilities like those of their own friends and squadmates.

Outside warded territory, Jack describes channeling from the earth as easy as breathing. His refusal to identify his own Sage keeps the upper hierarchy partly hidden.

The irids give a harsher explanation for the lack of a cure: channeling stolen earth magic kills the soul one piece at a time rather than storing it for later recovery.

Theophanie and two red-robed venin can vanish together by joining hands and taking a single step, in a manner Violet compares to Garrick’s signet.

Theophanie says venin are careful with their words and also lie. Her bargain at Draithus separates the city’s survival from Mira’s, making even negotiated terms dangerous.

Theophanie shows that a dark wielder can wield storm power, stop weapons, exert overwhelming physical strength, hear whispers at a distance, and use civilians as leverage to tempt another person into earth-channeling.

A venin can drain magic from the earth in an expanding circle. Ground already drained or repurposed can form a barrier against that method.

Stone does not kill venin by itself. Theophanie’s death by a marble temple dagger depends on a vulnerability beyond ordinary venin rules because she is not only a dark wielder.

Xaden’s link to Berwyn clarifies one Sage-initiate relationship: he considers himself Berwyn’s initiate, calls the bond one that should not exist, and cannot physically kill him despite wanting to. After feeding more deeply from the source, Xaden is no longer an initiate and is colder, more powerful, and visibly more marked.

Stories and jokes associate venin with the Barrens; Xaden recalls Fen Riorson joking that they were hiding there and waiting to come for Navarre.

Xaden says venin drained the Barrens. Their threat is kept outside Navarre by the wards, while attacks beyond those protections have reached villages near the Poromish border.

An Aretian map shows venin spreading out of the Barrens through Poromiel, with older red flags and recent orange flags marking their advance. Brennan believes their territory and numbers are expanding quickly enough that they may be strong enough to come for Navarre in six months or less.

Brennan thinks venin may strike Navarre before finishing Poromiel because the energy in Basgiath’s hatching grounds could feed them for decades.

Venin take Anca, drain it, and pull back to reassemble in Zolya. Devera and Rhiannon read the movement as organized occupation and campaign behavior.

Dark wielders destroy Zolya and take up residence at Cliffsbane.

Venin forces take Pavis with seven dark wielders and a horde of wyvern, leaving Nyra and Malla completely drained. They skip Cordyn and many intervening miles, and Bodhi interprets Pavis as preparation for Draithus.

Venin enter Samara after the outpost perimeter falls, and the outpost nearly exhausts its power supply killing them off. Officers later find the Newhall attack strange because venin do not usually target such a small village.

Venin-drained territory holds less available power, making wielding difficult and dangerous. Current intelligence says wielding in drained land can draw venin.

Battle Brief shows venin flags retreating from northern Braevick and moving southwest through Krovla. Violet and Devera consider the movement a possible repositioning toward Aretia rather than random conquest.

Suniva falls to dark wielders, and routes back toward Navarre must be planned around dark wielder and wyvern patrols.

Jack Barlowe is a venin inside Basgiath’s wards. He feeds from the ground while hidden there and helps guide the assault on Basgiath from within.

An unnamed venin killed King Grethwild, according to Major Tiller’s study.

Xaden Riorson has red-ringed eyes after the battle at Basgiath, and Jack treats his condition as venin power rather than a curable disease.

Theophanie is a powerful venin who targets Violet, teaches or recruits through promises of power and knowledge, and refers to rival teachers such as Berwyn.

Berwyn is Xaden’s Sage. Xaden considers himself bound to Berwyn as an initiate before his deeper turn changes his status.

Poromish fliers report that a venin horde destroyed a village near Draithus two days before the battle at Resson and was moving north.

During the evacuation outside Resson, a blue-robed female venin channels from the ground and kills a civilian, Soleil, and Fuil with the spreading dead zone. She remains a direct threat after attacks fail to stop her and she tries to escape on a wyvern.

The same blue-robed venin climbs onto Tairn’s back, drives a sword between his scales, and wounds Violet with a green-tipped blade. Xaden’s shadows disrupt her long enough for Violet to use lightning for illumination and stab her between the ribs with a runed dagger, making the venin turn ashen and fall from Tairn.

The danger from Resson continues after the battle through Violet’s unknown venin-associated wound and Bodhi’s broken arm from a venin. Xaden regrets not telling Violet about venin before Athebyne, and Tairn blames him for leaving her ignorant until that ignorance helped put her in danger.

At Cordyn, Tecarus releases a confined red-veined venin as a test for Violet. The venin’s ability to drain people and the field makes the test dangerous to everyone at the palace until Violet kills it.

At Pavis, Xaden kills one venin, but another channels behind Sgaeyl and nearly kills him.

Seventeen venin accompany the wyvern horde at Aretia’s cliffs. The Sage directs the test attacks with his staff and calls off the horde when the wards kill wyvern and Violet’s lightning nearly hits another.

Melgren says dark wielders will overrun Samara on the solstice unless the battle outcome changes. When venin and wyvern mass opposite Samara, Violet suspects their patience at the border is part of a coordinated deception.

Jack’s lures and campus knowledge help draw a venin and wyvern assault toward Basgiath. He says they are already among the defenders and that a specific male figure wants Violet.

During the Basgiath battle, mounted dark wielders ride among the wyvern, and killing a venin can drop several linked wyvern. A young blond asim boards Tairn, fights toward Violet, and falls after Violet shoots him in the sternum with a handheld crossbow.

A more advanced dark wielder suspends Violet and interferes with her conduit while the horde waits for permission to attack. Andarna kills him by burning and beheading him, and a leader on a larger wyvern arrives afterward.

Xaden fights a venin teacher during the battle at Basgiath. The general binds him invisibly, resists his shadows, and uses emotional leverage to force him toward channeling from the earth.

Inside Basgiath, venin in scribe robes feed on patients, drain victims into desiccated bodies, and coordinate around freeing Jack Barlowe while wanting Violet alive. The attack reveals that restored wards have not removed the threat from within the college.

At Newhall, Theophanie stands in the drained center of the village, lures Violet out from the wards, and escapes by wyvern after demonstrating high-level venin power. Her offer to teach Violet makes the encounter a recruitment attempt as well as an attack.

At Suniva, twelve venin coordinate with twelve wyvern to destroy a large capital by exploiting weather, fire, inside information, and targeted strikes. Their first strike on the armory prevents defenders from using many anti-venin weapons.

At Dunne’s temple near Draithus, Theophanie is joined by two red-robed venin. They leave by joining hands and vanishing together after Theophanie gives the order.

The battle at Draithus includes at least a dozen dark wielders with hundreds of wyvern. Venin enter the city in person, wield staffs, fire, green-tipped blades, and wall-draining power, and one fatally wounds Quinn even while dying.

Violet kills Theophanie at Draithus with a marble temple dagger after recognizing that ordinary anti-venin assumptions are not enough for her. Theophanie’s death ends that attack’s leading dark wielder.

After the Draithus battle, Xaden confronts Berwyn at a canyon mouth guarded by two robed venin. He kills the guards with shadow-driven daggers but cannot kill Berwyn, and his own deeper source-channeling changes his status among venin.