The Fourth Wing characters who matter most are Violet Sorrengail, a frail cadet who becomes the first rider in history bonded to two dragons, and Xaden Riorson, the Fourth Wing wingleader whose father was an executed rebel leader.
At Basgiath War College, where many cadets don’t survive training, knowing who is friend and who is foe decides who lives. Rebecca Yarros introduced them in the Empyrean series opener on May 2, 2023, according to Fourth Wing on Wikipedia.
Below, you’ll find each rider with a dragon and signet, then the side characters, the villains, and the loyalties that tie them together. Spoilers appear throughout, and the big ones are clearly marked so you can skip them.
Fourth Wing Characters at a Glance
Fourth Wing follows a cast of riders at Basgiath War College, each paired with a dragon that grants a magical ability called a signet.
Violet is the only rider bonded to two dragons, Tairn and Andarna, while Xaden leads Fourth Wing alongside Sgaeyl. The table lists the key characters and their dragons.
| Character | Role | Dragon | Signet |
| Violet Sorrengail | Narrator, first-year cadet | Tairn (black Morningstartail) and Andarna (golden feathertail) | Lightning wielding and time-stopping |
| Xaden Riorson | Fourth Wing wingleader | Sgaeyl (navy-blue daggertail) | Shadow wielding |
| Dain Aetos | Second Wing squad leader | Cath (red swordtail) | Reading recent memories by touch |
| Rhiannon Matthias | Violet’s best friend | Feirge (green daggertail) | Summoning objects |
| Ridoc Gamlyn | Squad mate | Aotrom (brown swordtail) | Ice wielding |
| Sawyer Henrick | Squad mate | Sliseag (red swordtail) | Metallurgy |
| Liam Mairi | Xaden’s foster brother | Deigh (red daggertail) | Farsight |
| Imogen Cardulo | Second-year rider | Glane | Erasing recent memories |
| Garrick Tavis | Flame Section leader | Chradh (brown scorpiontail) | Not revealed in the book |
| Jack Barlowe | Cadet antagonist | Baide (orange scorpiontail) | Inflicting pain |
| Mira Sorrengail | Violet’s sister | Teine (green clubtail) | Extending wards |
| Brennan Sorrengail | Violet’s brother | Marbh | Mending |
| Lilith Sorrengail | Commanding General of Basgiath | Aimsir (brown) | Storm wielding |
| General Melgren | Commanding General of Navarre’s armies | Codagh (black swordtail) | Foreseeing battle outcomes |
| Professor Kaori | Dragon-lore professor | Smachd | Illusions |
Violet and Xaden drive nearly every plot thread, so they come first.
The Main Characters of Fourth Wing
Three characters carry the story: Violet Sorrengail, who narrates, Xaden Riorson, her enemy turned partner, and Dain Aetos, her childhood friend. Each pulls Violet toward a different idea of who she should become, which is why the book keeps returning to their choices.
Violet Sorrengail and Her Two Dragons
Violet is a 20-year-old trained as a Scribe until her mother, General Lilith Sorrengail, forced her into the Riders Quadrant.
A chronic condition leaves her prone to torn muscles and broken bones. She bonds with Tairn, a black Morningstartail, and Andarna, a golden feathertail, which makes her the first rider in history with two dragons, per SparkNotes’ Fourth Wing character list.
Her signets are lightning and time-stopping.
Xaden Riorson and Sgaeyl
Xaden is a 23-year-old third-year and wingleader of Fourth Wing, and he leads the marked cadets, the children of rebels branded with rebellion relics.
His father, Fen Riorson, was executed by Violet’s mother, so Xaden begins the book treating Violet as an enemy.
His dragon Sgaeyl is a navy-blue daggertail, and his shadow-wielding signet is among the rarest in the series.
Dain Aetos, the Childhood Friend
Dain is Violet’s childhood friend, a second-year squad leader in Second Wing, and the son of Colonel Aetos, who advises Lilith.
His dragon Cath is a red swordtail, and his signet lets him read recent memories by touch. Loyal to Navarre above all else, he uses that signet to spy on Xaden through Violet.
Side Characters Who Shape the Story
The side characters in Fourth Wing fall into two groups: friends and squad mates who help Violet survive training, and family and faculty who control what she is allowed to become.
Most carry their own dragons and signets, and several change the plot more than their page time suggests.
Violet’s Friends and Squad Mates
Rhiannon Matthias, Violet’s best friend, summons objects with the green daggertail Feirge. Ridoc Gamlyn wields ice with the brown swordtail Aotrom, and Sawyer Henrick wields metallurgy with the red swordtail Sliseag.
Jesinia Neilwart, a deaf first-year in the Scribe Quadrant, stays Violet’s friend after the switch. Liam Mairi, Xaden’s foster brother, guards Violet with farsight and the red daggertail Deigh.
Family, Faculty, and Basgiath Leadership
Lilith Sorrengail, Basgiath’s Commanding General, wields storms with the brown dragon Aimsir. Mira, Violet’s 26-year-old sister, extends wards with the green clubtail Teine. Brennan, Violet’s brother, has the rare mending signet and is believed dead for most of the book.
Villains and Rivals in Fourth Wing
Fourth Wing has three layers of enemies: cadets like Jack Barlowe who want Violet dead, officials who guard Navarre’s secrets, and the venin, magical riders of wyvern who threaten the whole continent.
The first two are human problems inside Basgiath, while the third is the war the college hides.
Jack Barlowe and Oren Seifert, the Cadet Threats
Jack Barlowe is the book’s primary antagonist, a first-year in First Wing who threatens Violet’s life on the Parapet and resents her more after Tairn ignores him and chooses her.
His dragon Baide is a vicious orange scorpiontail, his signet is inflicting pain, and he has icy blue eyes rimmed in red.
Oren Seifert is another jealous cadet who treats Violet as an enemy, though he stays a lesser threat.
Officials Who Guard Navarre’s Secrets
General Melgren commands Navarre’s armies from his black swordtail Codagh, and his signet lets him foresee a battle’s outcome, except when three or more marked ones gather.
Late-book spoilers follow. Colonel Aetos secretly sends Violet, Xaden, and a group of marked cadets toward a venin attack at Resson.
Professor Markham, the head of the Scribes who mentored Violet before the switch, is complicit in the government’s conspiracy.
Venin and Wyvern, the Enemy Outside the Walls
The venin are the real danger behind the war. They ride wyvern, dragon-like creatures that breathe fire but die when the venin who created them dies, a weakness Violet uses in the final battle.
Navarre’s wards repel venin, so most Navarrians believe they are fiction and the government conceals their existence.
The Poromelian gryphon riders attacking Navarre’s outposts turn out to be defending themselves against venin, and a venin’s poison nearly kills Violet at the end of the book.
How the Fourth Wing Characters Connect
The relationships in Fourth Wing run on three threads: Family histories tied to a failed rebellion, friendships formed under life-or-death pressure, and the mental links between riders and dragons.
Knowing who is bonded, fostered, or related to whom explains most of the book’s loyalties and betrayals.
The rebellion sits under everything. Because Lilith executed Fen Riorson, Xaden and the other marked cadets treat the Sorrengails as targets, and Violet starts the book as someone Xaden should hate.
Liam and Xaden grew up as foster brothers, which is why Xaden trusts Liam to guard Violet, and Imogen’s place among Xaden’s allies comes with her own family’s executions behind it.
The dragons then complicate the politics. Tairn and Sgaeyl are mated and cannot stay apart for long, so Violet and Xaden end up sharing mental space whether they want to or not.
That telepathic link turns a rivalry into an alliance and eventually a love story, while Dain stands on the other side as the childhood friend who tries to protect Violet by controlling her choices.
His father’s post as Lilith’s advisor ties him to the same power structure Xaden is working against.
Friendship holds the rest together. Violet’s spare boot for Rhiannon, Sawyer’s history lessons, and Liam’s bodyguard duty all begin as trades or orders and end as loyalty.
At home, Mira protects Violet, Lilith pushes her, and Violet believes her mother loved Brennan best.
How Ranks, Dragon Types, and Signets Work
Basgiath’s Riders Quadrant is split into four wings, and each wing is divided into sections and squads. Cadets bond with dragons at an event called Threshing, and the dragon shares a magical ability, called a signet, with its rider.
Rank decides who gives orders, while signets decide what a rider can do in battle.
Fourth Wing is one of those four wings, led by Xaden, with section leaders such as Garrick Tavis above the squad leaders.
Violet serves in the Second Squad, Flame Section. The book names dragons by color and tail type, including daggertails, swordtails, clubtails, scorpiontails, feathertails, and Morningstartails, which is why the table above lists both.
Signets vary in rarity: Ice wielding is common, while lightning wielding is so rare that none had appeared in more than a century. A rider whose dragon dies does not survive it, as Liam’s fate shows, so every bond in the cast carries real risk.
Final Thoughts on Fourth Wing Characters
Fourth Wing characters are easiest to follow when you track three things at once: the rider, the dragon, and the signet that bond produces.
Violet and Xaden drive the plot, Rhiannon, Liam, and the squad keep Violet alive, the Sorrengails and Basgiath’s officers decide what she is allowed to become, and the venin makes the war larger than the college admits.
Keep the table above open as you start Iron Flame, the sequel published in November 2023, because the cast grows quickly from here.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why Is Violet’s Hair Silver?
Violet has long brown hair that fades to silver at the ends, and she usually wears it in a crown braid. The books have not explained why, and Onyx Storm silver hair explainer from The Direct reports that the reason stayed unexplored through the end of Onyx Storm in January 2025. Many readers tie it to the venin, but that remains a theory.
Is Fourth Wing LGBTQ?
The central romance is between Violet and Xaden, but the supporting cast includes same-sex relationships. Rhiannon Matthias, for example, is in an on-again, off-again relationship with Tara, a First Wing rider, and the book treats the couple’s struggle to find time together as an ordinary squad leader’s problem.
Who Will Play the Fourth Wing Characters on Screen?
Prime Video cast Esther McGregor as Violet Sorrengail and Emilio Sakraya as Xaden Riorson, according to Amazon’s Prime Video casting announcement. Meredith Averill is the showrunner, and Rebecca Yarros, Lisa Joy, and Michael B. Jordan are executive producers. As of November 2026, Amazon has named no other cast members and no release date.
