The following version of this book was used to create this guide: Yarros, Rebecca. Fourth Wing. Entangled, 2023.

In Fourth Wing, Rebecca Yarros crafts a fantasy world where dragons collaborate with humans to fight a multi-generational war that has been raging for 600 years. In the kingdom of Navarre, young people are conscripted into the king's powerful army and made to fight in a war against the neighboring nation of Poromiel. Many are trained at Basgiath War College The army college is divided into three divisions: infantry, scribes, and the most elite group, the dragon riders.

Twenty year old Violet Sorrengail's mother is the army general and her father, who recently died from a heart attack, was a devoted scribe. Violet is bookish, small, and has a disability that makes her bones and joints weak. From childhood, she loved history and reading, and spent most of her time with her father. So when her mother forces her to train to become a dragon rider six months before the first training event for the riders, Violet begins to fear for her life.

Despite her self-doubts and the doubts of others, Violet makes it through the first day of training at the Riders quadrant. She struggles as the year of training continues, and has a target on her back due to her status as a daughter of a high profile military official. In the quadrant, some of the riders-in-training are marked with tattoos identifying them as children of rebels who had challenged the king a few years before. These trainees hate Violet the most, because her mother took part in the mass execution of all of their parents. Most frightening of all is Xaden Riorson, the son of the leader of the rebellion, who vows to kill Violet in revenge when he has the chance.

After many trials, injuries, and hundreds of hours of training, Violet is chosen as a rider by the most powerful dragons in the kingdom, Tairn and Andarna. Violet soon finds out that Tairn, her dragon, is mated and deeply bonded to her sworn enemy's dragon: Xaden Riorson. Mated dragons are bonded for life, and if one dies, so does the other; however, their riders are in such close bonding with their dragons, that the same rules apply: if Violet dies, so does Xaden. After bonding with her dragons, Violet continues her training with more of a target on her back than ever, because those not chosen by a dragon to bond are extremely envious of her newfound power and status. However, she has gained a new powerful ally in the form of a previous enemy, someone whose life is inextricably intertwined with hers.

Violet continues to hone her powers and trains hard to strengthen herself. She soon discovers that she has been given a powerful magical gift by her bond to the dragon Tairn: she can wield lightning. The weeks pass on and Xaden and Violet become closer, and eventually begin a sexual relationship. Violet falls for Xaden, but he is secretive and closed off to her romantic advances. He tells her not to fall for him, yet she insists there's something between them.

As the year of training comes to a close, the final test of Violet's strength as a rider is at hand: the War Games. Violet and her group are stationed at a faraway outpost on the border of Poromiel. Soon after they arrive, Xaden reveals to Violet that he's been trading with the Poromiel soldiers and helping them, despite Navarre and Poromiel being sworn enemies. He tells Violet that Poromiel is not the real enemy; that the legends of demonic creatures called venin and wyvern are true, and they have been ravaging Poromiel for years. He tells Violet these creatures want to take Navarre as well, and that's who the military has been fighting all these years, and they've been lying to maintain control and safety of their own nation, at the expense of the neighboring kingdom of Poromiel.

Violet is deeply angry that Xaden has kept this from her, but before she can react or leave, fighting breaks out in the neighboring village in Poromiel. The demonic creatures are attacking and killing innocent civilians. Xaden tells Violet that he thinks the government has sent them there to die knowing the venin and wyvern would be there, because they know that he knows the truth.

Violet springs into action, unable to watch innocent people be killed. She, Xaden and their other groupmates fight the wyvern and venin and are eventually able to drive them back. In the battle, Violet is stabbed with a poison blade, and nearly dies. She awakes in the Xaden's home in the old rebel capitol, and has to deal with the realization that the reality she thought she knew was all a lie.