What the collection does instead is take the one scene every reader has already lived through once, Violet's Threshing in Fourth Wing, and run it twelve more times with people who are not Violet. Thirteen cadets, thirteen temperaments, thirteen dragons, and thirteen different reasons a bond either forms or does not. That is a genuinely smart engine for an anthology: the rule of the day never changes, so everything that varies is character. The collection's own summary puts it better than any review could, in a single line: on Threshing Day there is only one rule, and it is don't die.

Rhiannon, Dain, Liam, Ridoc, Sawyer, Garrick, Imogen, Bodhi, Mira, Brennan, Aaric and Sloane all get their turn, and fans of the supporting cast will find that the smaller stories are where the book earns its place, since a main novel has never had room for them. But the story that will sell this book is one, and everybody knows which one. Xaden Riorson has spent three novels as the character readers understand least, because Violet learns him slowly and we only ever learn him as fast as she does. His Threshing, the day he bonded Sgaeyl, is the missing piece of that, and it arrives before the next main novel rather than after it. Whether that is generosity or a very deliberate setup is a fair question to ask of an author who knows exactly what her readers will comb through it for.

The criticism that exists is not about quality, it is about necessity, and it is worth stating plainly. A reader on Goodreads summarised the objection in a way I have not seen bettered: "Was Threshing Day necessary? Not really. It is definitely filler, written for the fans, and didn't add that much." That is a real position, and anyone who reads the Empyrean purely for the Violet and Xaden plot should take it seriously, because this book does not advance that plot. The counter argument is loud, though, and it comes with numbers: the collection sits at 4.65 from more than fifty thousand ratings two days after release, with seventy-one percent of them at five stars. Whatever else it is, it is not a book the fandom is merely tolerating.

Two practical things. The publisher is explicit that while it can work as an introduction, the collection contains spoilers and is best read after Iron Flame and Onyx Storm, and having seen what is inside, I would not argue. And the content note stands as it does for every Basgiath book: graphic violence, injury and death, plus on-page sexual content. A Threshing collection was never going to soften any of that, and it does not. The deluxe first edition, for anyone who collects, carries sixteen full-colour illustrations and dragon artwork on the page edges, though it is limited to the United States and Canada.

So : essential if you are here for the world rather than only for Violet, and skippable if you are here for the plot. Nobody who has finished Onyx Storm is going to be able to resist Xaden's Threshing, and that is really the whole review.