Welcome to Threshing Day, the brutal, high-stakes trial where would-be riders at Basgiath War College fight to earn the bond of a dragon or die trying. Amid ruthless competition and dragon fire, these thirteen cadets must survive a battlefield where desperate rivals will do anything to gain an advantage and dragons decide one’s ultimate fate―and where a single choice can forge a rider…or destroy them.
Threshing Day
Xaden Riorson, the powerful leader. Rhiannon Matthias, the clever friend. Dain Aetos, the dutiful rule-follower. Liam Mairi, the kindhearted protector. Ridoc Gamlyn, the jokester. Sawyer Henrick, the underdog. Garrick Tavis, the dependable aide. Imogen Cardulo, the impulsive fighter. Bodhi Durran, the second-in-command. Mira Sorrengail, the fearless rider. Brennan Sorrengail, the brilliant tactician. Aaric Graycastle, the restless royal. Sloane Mairi, the determined sister.
On Threshing Day, there’s only one rule: don’t die.
When Dragons Choose, Everything Changes
The following ratings are out of 5:
Story/Plot: 📕📗📘📙
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌏
Character development: 😋🙂😁😘
Narrator(s): 🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙
Narration type: Full Cast Duet Narration
Character Backgrounds and Plot Summary
Threshing Day takes an event I already knew from the Empyrean series and makes it feel completely different by showing it through the eyes of thirteen characters. Instead of following Violet, we get perspectives from Xaden, Rhiannon, Dain, Liam, Ridoc, Sawyer, Garrick, Imogen, Bodhi, Mira, Brennan, Aaric, and Sloane. Each story gives another piece of the puzzle surrounding the day dragons choose their riders, when survival is anything but guaranteed.
Brennan’s story was one of my favorites because of the pressure he carries into Threshing. He wants any dragon except orange because orange dragons have reputations for being opinionated and unpredictable. Naturally, a huge orange dragon chooses him. I actually laughed at the sheer inevitability of that moment, but I also loved what it says about Brennan. He doesn’t get to choose the easy path, and his Threshing immediately establishes the kind of person he is.
Mira’s experience gives us another great character moment. She has already set her hopes on a green dragon, but the massive green doesn’t simply accept her. He puts a claw into her leg and essentially tests whether she will stand her ground in front of him and her family legacy. Watching Mira refuse to back down made me appreciate her even more.
Then there is Xaden, whose Threshing carries considerably more weight than simply finding a dragon. He is responsible for the 107 marked ones, and only ten are present with him this year. His deal with Major Sorrengail has kept them alive. Xaden is also tied to a woman he despises, including the expectation that he will eventually marry the spoiled aristocrat. When other riders threaten the marked ones with swords, Xaden is already facing danger from every direction. Then Sgaeyl appears. The ruthless blue dragon, who killed her previous rider for cowardice, choosing Xaden felt like exactly the kind of dangerous partnership he needed.
Highlights and Limitations
What I enjoyed most was seeing familiar characters before they became the people I know from the main books. Their choices during Threshing take on a different meaning when I know what comes later. The collection also adds pieces of dragon lore and explores how the bonds between riders and dragons begin, something that the main books naturally have less room to examine. The publisher describes the book as thirteen stories featuring familiar characters and their dragons, and that structure really is the heart of the experience.
I particularly enjoyed the contrast between the characters. Brennan trying to avoid an orange dragon only to be chosen by one, Mira being physically tested by her dragon, and Xaden dealing with both his enemies and the appearance of Sgaeyl all feel very weighty even though they happen during different years of the same brutal event.
My biggest limitation was actually the same thing that made the book interesting. These are thirteen relatively short stories, so I sometimes wanted more. Just when I became completely invested in one character’s thoughts and circumstances, that perspective ended and we moved to someone else. I would have happily listened to considerably more from several of these characters. This is a companion collection rather than a full continuation of the main story, and I think it works best when approached with that expectation.
Narration
The full-cast narration was a fantastic choice for this particular book. With fourteen narrators bringing the different perspectives to life, each character gets a distinct voice rather than having the entire collection feel like one narrator simply changing inflections. The audiobook runs about 5 hours and 52 minutes and includes narrators such as Teddy Hamilton as Xaden, Frankie Corzo as Mira, Zion Jang as Brennan, Jake Bordeaux as Dain, Anthony Palmini as Garrick, Robb Moreira as Ridoc, Nick Mills as Liam, and Jasmin Walker as Rhiannon.
Teddy Hamilton was particularly effective for Xaden because the performance captured the weight and calculation behind his thoughts without making him sound detached. I also really liked hearing the different voices as the collection shifted from one character to another. For me, that made the thirteen-story structure easier to follow and gave the audiobook a more immersive feel.
Final Opinion
I went into Threshing Day wanting more Empyrean content, but what surprised me was how much I enjoyed seeing the same pivotal day from completely different perspectives. Knowing what these characters eventually become made their Threshing experiences more meaningful, especially when a dragon’s choice reveals something about the rider that isn’t obvious from the outside.
Xaden’s story was probably the one I was most eager to hear, but Brennan and Mira ended up being two of the biggest surprises for me. The orange dragon choosing Brennan after he specifically hoped to avoid one was exactly the sort of character irony I enjoy, while Mira’s refusal to back down when her dragon tested her made her scene especially memorable.
I would have loved longer stories for some of the characters, but I never felt like the collection was pointless. It adds background, gives familiar characters more dimension, and lets the dragons themselves feel like an important part of the story rather than simply magical companions. For anyone already invested in the Empyrean world, I think experiencing Threshing Day through these thirteen perspectives makes an event we thought we understood feel surprisingly new.
