War Games

One early War Games battle uses a hundred-mile battlefield across most of the central range. Fourth Wing has no outpost and must both protect its own flag and steal First Wing’s crystal egg from a defended mountain practice fort.

The final event is built to look like a real emergency: an alert tests how quickly cadets muster, sends wings in different directions, lasts five days, and requires squads to claim outposts on a first-come, first-served basis. Wingleaders receive headquarters sites and decide which squads stay with headquarters.

During the final field exercise, Xaden’s headquarters squad is sent to Athebyne. Cadets expect a scenario objective at the outpost, after which third-years are likely to patrol while younger cadets rest.

War Games are meant to sharpen tactical readiness before cadets face the exercise itself. Mira treats combined signet strategy and wing-level command thinking as advantages for a squad and its whole wing.

The final event is also used to test cadets against attack conditions that feel real rather than theoretical, especially their ability to respond quickly to an emergency alert.

War Games are dangerous enough that cadets may die if they are not prepared. Combat rules allow dragon attacks, fire, and signets, and the first battle turns lethal when Jack attacks Liam.

The final test has a reputation for killing cadets, with cadets warned that it traditionally costs ten percent of the graduating class.

The Riders Quadrant runs War Games as a wing-against-wing exercise; Fourth Wing and First Wing are the opposing sides in the first battle shown.

Colonel Aetos is identified as the officer in charge of that year’s War Games operation, with Lilith Sorrengail absent when the orders were given.

Fourth Wing wins the first shown round against First Wing: Garrick returns with the crystal egg, Dain has the flag, and the wing celebrates on the flight field. The victory is overshadowed by Jack’s death, Liam’s injury, and Violet’s newly manifested lightning destroying part of a practice fort.

The final War Games exercise stops functioning as a normal scenario at Athebyne. The garrison is empty, the expected structure breaks down, and Colonel Aetos’s written assignment to Xaden says only that the mission is to survive if they can.

For Xaden’s headquarters squad, the final assignment becomes a real battlefield choice at Resson rather than a cadet exercise. A relocation to Eltuval is available only if Xaden abandons the Poromish trading post and its civilians.

Brennan rules out the idea that the Athebyne mission accidentally became part of a wyvern attack, further exposing the final War Games cover as a deliberate setup.

After Resson, the surviving cadets are supposed to return to Basgiath and preserve the appearance that they are still finishing the final War Games competition. Xaden’s plan depends on getting back before graduation so that cover can hold.

At Basgiath, War Games remains the official explanation for the group’s absence and losses. Other riders believe Fourth Wing lost by failing to appear, the Death Roll includes living survivors from the final exercise, and graduation proceedings treat Liam, Soleil, and the other dead as casualties of the final test.

The shared War Games absence later becomes a danger marker around the Resson survivors. Varrish notes that recent attacks seem focused on those who disappeared during War Games, and Violet fears the people connected to Athebyne and Resson are being targeted after Masen’s death.

Jack Barlowe’s survival recontextualizes the first battle’s aftermath. Markham says Jack was crushed under a mountain months earlier, and Violet identifies that as the moment her signet first flared and she believed she had killed him.

When Andarna recounts her life with Violet to the irids, War Games is part of the story that leads into Resson. Violet tenses as that portion approaches because it carries the memories and losses she still struggles to contain.

The crystal egg is First Wing’s defended objective in the first shown War Games battle, hidden in a mountain practice fort. Dain and Cianna treat it as a high-value target under previous War Games scoring, and Violet reads it as a likely symbolic nod to the dragon eggs brought to Basgiath when Navarre unified.

War Games are one of the rider trials Violet names when defending the sanctity of squad identity. In her view, squads are forged by Parapet, Gauntlet, Threshing, and War Games rather than by administrative mergers with outsiders.