Is Fourth Wing Spicy? Spice Level + Every Spicy Chapter
August 28, 2026
Fourth Wing at a glance
- Author
- Rebecca Yarros
- Series
- The Empyrean #1
- Spice level
- Hot (3/5)
- Chapters
- 39
- Species
- human
- Published
- 2023
- Goodreads
- View on Goodreads →
Yes Fourth Wing is spicy! The romance is built on tension, and Rebecca Yarros knows exactly how long to hold it. Violet is smart and self-aware — she knows her weaknesses and works around them — and by the time she and Xaden stop circling each other, the payoff feels genuinely earned rather than a half-baked plot point.
What is Fourth Wing about?
Violet trained for twenty years to be a scribe — archives, quiet work, a life her body could survive. Her mother runs Navarre's army and sends her to the Riders Quadrant at Basgiath instead. The entrance test is a walk across a wind-battered parapet, and not every cadet reaches the far side. Violet's joints dislocate under ordinary strain, so out-fighting anyone is off the table in a quadrant where killing a rival counts as career progress. She has to be faster with her head than her rivals are with their hands. And dragons choose their own riders, so no cadet is owed a bond — and a cadet who doesn't get one doesn't leave.
Xaden Riorson leads the wing she lands in, and his father led the rebellion her mother crushed. He wears the mark for it. That makes him the person with the clearest motive to want her dead and the person her survival keeps depending on. The first half is proximity and threat: sparring, sharp conversation, both of them hunting for weaknesses. It shifts past the midpoint, once trusting him becomes riskier than fighting him.
The dragons are the best thing here — sardonic, powerful, entirely unimpressed by human rank, and the bond has to be earned rather than handed over. The stakes hold up too: cadets die in training, named ones included, so the tension never resets. This is fantasy first. The romance is a major thread, but the world, the rankings and the daily business of staying alive do the structural work.
How spicy is Fourth Wing?
We rate Fourth Wing 🌶️🌶️🌶️/5 (Hot on our Spice Scale). This means the explicit scenes are detailed and unhurried when they arrive, but the tension is built so carefully beforehand that the heat adds to the plot.
How much spice is in Fourth Wing?
Fourth Wing has 3 fully explicit chapters — but only about 15% of the whole book is spicy at all.
(New to how I rate? and explained — or see the full Spice Scale.)
What chapters are spicy in Fourth Wing?
Colour = the . No spoilers — just the chapter, how hot it runs, and what’s on the page.
| Chapter | Heat | On the page |
|---|---|---|
| Ch. 22 | Sizzling | kissing🗣 Flirty |
| Ch. 27 | Simmer | kissing |
| Ch. 30 | Sizzling | fingering🗣 Explicit |
| Ch. 30 | Blazing | penetrative sexfingeringnipple play🗣 Explicit |
| Ch. 31 | Warm | 🗣 Explicit |
| Ch. 32 | Blazing | penetrative sexoral (on her)fingering🗣 Explicit |
| Ch. 34 | Warm | kissinggrinding🗣 Romantic |
Want to jump straight to them? Every scene is mapped in the app →
Who should read Fourth Wing?
This is for readers who want a magic school with teeth: danger, trials, rivals who'd genuinely kill you, and a heroine who has to rely on being the smartest person in the room. If you loved the enemies-to-lovers build of A Court of Thorns and Roses, the deadly training and forbidden pull of From Blood and Ash, or the cutthroat academy of Zodiac Academy, you're in the right place. If you've read a lot of trials-and-factions fantasy, though, the bones will feel familiar — it leans on the survival-academy playbook without pretending otherwise. And skip it if you need heat from page one, or if a cast where anyone can die mid-scene and a heroine in constant physical danger isn't what you want right now.
Similar reads
If you liked Fourth Wing, try these next.
A Court of Thorns and Roses
Sarah J. Maas
Read my Spice Report →
From Blood and Ash
Jennifer L. Armentrout
Buy on Bookshop →
Zodiac Academy
Caroline Peckham & Susanne Valenti
Buy on Bookshop →
FAQs
Is Fourth Wing spicy?
Yes — I rate it Hot (3/5), with 6 spicy chapters, 3 of them explicit. The explicit scenes are in chapters 22, 30 and 32.
What chapter does Fourth Wing get spicy?
It first gets spicy in chapter 22, and the first explicit scene is in chapter 22.
What percentage of Fourth Wing is spicy?
6 of its 39 chapters (~15%) have on-page spicy scenes, and 3 of those are explicit.
Is Fourth Wing okay for younger readers?
SpiceBook doesn't give formal age ratings, but with a spice level of Hot (3/5), this is written for adult readers — the explicit scenes are clearly on the page. Read the content notes and decide what's right for you.
What's the spice like across the rest of The Empyrean?
See the Empyrean spice guide for the full breakdown.
Is Fourth Wing more fantasy or romance?
Fantasy first. The dragons, the quadrant and the survival stakes carry the story, and the romance builds alongside them rather than steering — though by the back half it's a major thread.
Find every spicy scene without the hunt.
SpiceBook maps the spicy chapters in every book — join the Library for $3/mo.
Reading the whole series? The Empyrean spice guide →
