payment page
Summary
Chapters 71-82
Chapter 71
The unified Prythian army is overwhelmed by the sheer number of Hybern’s troops, especially after further Hybern reinforcements arrive by sea. Nesta and Elain are almost frozen with fear and appear unlikely to reach the Cauldron. Rhysand sends out Azriel and Cassian to lead the remaining Illyrian troops, each aware that theirs is a suicide mission. Suddenly, the sound of a horn cuts through the battlefield. Prince Drakon leads a huge legion of flying seraphim to aid the Prythians, as Miryam leads her armies by sea. Drakon explains to Rhysand that they had been on Cretea the whole time, hidden by illusion-magic in order to conceal their location from Jurian. They sailed for Prythian when they heard about the war with Hybern, joining another army, that of Queen Vassa, along the way. Vassa, Drakon explains, was directed this way by Lucien but was actually found by a human merchant who discovered the truth of the corruption of the other human queens. To the shock of Feyre and Nesta, the human merchant is their father, who leads three ships each named for his daughters.
Chapter 72
Vassa attacks Hybern’s ships in the form of a flaming bird. Nesta, aware that she has the King of Hybern’s attention because she holds some of the Cauldron’s power, volunteers to serve as bait, drawing the King away from the Cauldron so that Feyre and Amren can reach it. Despite Rhysand’s objections, she goes with Cassian into the fray as Feyre and Amren, shielded in invisibility, make their way to the Cauldron.
Chapter 73
With the battle raging behind them, Amren and Feyre make their way to the rocky outcrop where the Cauldron sits, following the trail of blood left by the Weaver. Suddenly, they see the King of Hybern, his focus on Nesta, who beckons with the Cauldron’s power in the distance. He snaps the Weaver’s neck, killing the powerful ancient being, and winnows towards Nesta. Amren and Feyre reach the unguarded Cauldron and Feyre puts her hand to it. Instead of reading the spell, however, Amren kicks the book aside and Feyre realizes that Amren has lied about her plans.
Chapter 74
Amren apologizes for lying as Feyre feels herself being absorbed into the Cauldron. She sees through the Cauldron as it searches for the power Nesta has taken from it. On the battlefield, Rhysand and Helion transform into their monstrous, powerful beast forms and Helion fights with a calm Hybern commander. The Cauldron’s vision locks onto Nesta, and the King of Hybern winnows in front of her. Nesta’s plan, Feyre realizes, was to use her powers from the Cauldron to land a killing blow on the King. The King, however, uses the father of Feyre, Nesta, and Elain as a human shield, preventing Nesta from delivering the blow. Their father, sensing that he will soon die, tells Nesta that he loves her and apologizes for difficulties in their past. The King asks Nesta if she will return her power in exchange for her father’s life, and though she says yes, he snaps their father’s neck anyway, and Nesta’s powers flicker out. Cassian, however, attacks the King with his sword and the two begin to battle. As Nesta closes her dead father’s eyes out of respect, her power returns. The King snaps Cassian’s wings and breaks his leg, and Nesta turns to face him. She unleashes a tremendous burst of power, but the King winnows away. As Cassian crawls towards Nesta, she takes his sword and points it at the King. Though he quickly disarms her, she uses their proximity to unleash more power at him, sending him hurtling through the trees. Still, he is undefeated and walks towards Nesta as Cassian begs her to flee. They kiss and embrace as the King approaches them, wielding a lethal vortex of power. As Feyre attempts to bargain with the Cauldron, Elain suddenly appears and stabs the King through the neck with a blade borrowed from Azriel.
Chapter 75
As Elain rushes to Cassian, Nesta stands up and twists the knife embedded in the King’s throat, decapitating him. Elain screams in horror as she sees her body’s dead father, jolting Nesta from her almost trance-like state. From the Cauldron’s vision, Feyre sees everything happening on the battlefield. Rhysand desperately needs help, and Helios is struggling in his fight with the Hybern commander. Miryam and Drakon fight Jurian, and Feyre realizes that Hybern might win the battle even without its King or the Cauldron. The Cauldron seems to withdraw into itself, and Feyre is back in her own body, on the rocky outcrop. She informs Amren that the King is dead and then threatens to kill Amren for her apparent betrayal.
To her surprise, Amren states that it is her plan to be killed. The Book of Whispers did not contain a spell for destroying the Cauldron, but rather, for Amren to unbind herself from her faerie form. When she is unbound, she claims, she will wield her original power and destroy Hybern’s entire army. Varian appears and begs them to stop, and Feyre reminds Amren that she once claimed that, in her original form, she would be unable to tell friend from foe. Amren, however, notes that she has learned about humanity, and about love, from her friends and from Varian. After bidding Feyre and Varian farewell, she hurls herself into the Cauldron while Feyre reads the spell. The Cauldron splits in three and Amren emerges, a colossal shining being. She moves through the battlefield, destroying every Hybern soldier and ship before disappearing.
Chapter 76
Rhysand winnows to the mountain crop. Feyre feels dangerous power emanating from the broken Cauldron, which is at once a void and a growth that threatens to destroy the world that it once created. Feyre realizes that she might have destroyed her entire world by unbinding Amren. Rhysand, however, says that Feyre might be able to fix the Cauldron by serving as a conduit between it and Rhysand’s own vast store of power. Feyre sends his power into the Cauldron, and it slowly repairs. When she turns to Rhysand, she sees that he has died after giving all his power to the Cauldron.
Chapter 77
Feyre screams and cries as she feels the mating bond that connects her to Rhysand disappear. Her friends and the other High Lords appear, and Feyre continues to scream and lash out in a state of panic and horror. She feels that she would rather the universe be destroyed than live without Rhysand. Distraught, she demands that the High Lords heal him, but Thesan shakes his head, indicating that this is not possible. Feyre readies herself to try and invade the High Lords' minds and force them to somehow bring back Rhysand even if it breaks the rules of magic or the laws of the land. Tarquin, however, walks up to Rhysand and drops a bead of light from his hand onto Rhysand. The other High Lords, including Feyre, do the same until only Tamlin is left. She begs him to save Rhysand, offering him anything he wants, and he drops a bead of light into Rhysand, who comes back to life. While he was drifting into the afterlife, he also brought Amren back with him, and they pull her out of the Cauldron to discover that her eyes are no longer glowing, which implies that she has lost her other-worldly powers and is now a normal high faerie.
Chapter 78
Feyre and her sisters cremate their father’s body with magic after saying a prayer for him. Lucien appears and walks back with Feyre and Elain towards the camp, while Nesta stays behind. He tells them about his adventures finding Vassa, and their father’s success in securing a deal, with limitations, from the death-god who imprisoned her. When Feyre returns to the camp, she finds Rhysand sitting with Drakon and Miryam.
Chapter 79
Feyre introduces herself to Drakon and Miryam, who put aside their conflict with Jurian at Mor’s urging. She asks them if they might be able to hide the Cauldron permanently somewhere on Cretea and they agree. Next, Feyre calls for a meeting. The following day, the High Lords and their parties descend upon the half-ruined estate owned by Feyre’s family. Lucien ignores Beron and Eris, but is crushed when Tamlin looks at him with open hatred. Feyre speaks with Vassa, who requests help breaking the curse that binds her to a death-god, and they agree to discuss things further later. Feyre calls the meeting to attention and requests a renegotiation of the treaty.
Chapter 80
Feyre relays her story to the assembled group, telling them about the various hardships of her life and her transformative love for Rhysand. Others also share their stories. As expected, the various assembled High Lords argue about minor aspects of the proposed treaty and agree to resume negotiations another time. Feyre, Rhysand, and the others winnow back to Velaris. Grateful to Tamlin despite their past, Feyre hands Lucien a letter to pass on to Tamlin when he inevitably sees him again someday, wishing him the best. Nesta shuts herself in her room, but Elain declares that she intends to start a garden.
Chapter 81
This brief chapter is narrated by Rhysand, who, weeks after their return to Velaris, appreciates the laughter of his friends ringing through the town house. He shares a drink with Azriel and Cassian and reflects optimistically upon the future.
Chapter 82
Feyre joins Rhysand on the roof of the town house as he looks over the city and up at the stars. She is wearing red lingerie, gifted to her by a local vendor as thanks for saving Prythian, and Rhysand jokingly reminds her that she is wealthy and does not need to collect free gifts. They reflect upon the recent past and Rhysand says that it was Feyre’s voice that urged his soul to linger for longer on the border of the afterlife, making his resurrection possible. Together, they fly around Velaris happily.
Analysis
The dramatic conclusion of the novel drives home the theme of redemption. At this pivotal moment, when the fate of their world is on the line, many characters who have previously displayed selfish, apathetic, or even cruel behavior make surprising sacrifices and demonstrate unexpected qualities. Feyre’s father, for example, seeks to make up for his past inattentiveness towards his daughters by treating Vassa with fatherly kindness and commanding several ships to aid in the Pythian alliance. Feyre and her sisters are shocked to see their father arrive at the field of battle, remembering him as a lazy and passive man who, in their childhood, accepted their family’s poverty without lifting a finger to help his daughters. Nesta, in particular, demeaned their father for his apparent disinterest in working to improve their situation. Now, he sails in with three ships named for Feyre, Nesta, and Elain, and in the end makes the ultimate sacrifice, losing his life in the course of battle. Jurian’s story similarly highlights the novel’s exploration of redemption. His help is essential in defeating the King of Hybern, and he sets aside his differences with Drakon and Miryam, demonstrating his surprising willingness to make up for his past mistakes.
Perhaps the most surprising redemptions in the novel are those of Eris and Tamlin. At first, Eris is presented as being just another scheming son of the villainous Beron, hardly distinguished from his brothers. Feyre blames him for Mor’s suffering at the hands of her family, and for the betrayal of Lucien. However, in these final chapters, Eris leads his father’s troops in the battle, sustaining serious injuries in the process. Though Feyre still regards him with suspicion, believing that he is only motivated by a desire to succeed his father upon the throne of the Autumn Court, she notices an expression of genuine regret on his face as he passes by his estranged younger brother, Lucien, signaling his own sense of remorse and guilt.
Despite his deep feelings of bitterness toward Rhysand and Feyre, Tamlin leads his Spring Court soldiers against Hybern, helping to turn the tide of the battle. He hates Rhysand for, as he understands it, taking Feyre away from him. Nevertheless, when Feyre begs for his help in resurrecting Rhysand, offering anything he wants in exchange for his assistance, he drops a bead of light onto Rhysand and simply tells her to be happy. Given his personal demons, the road to recovery will be a long one for Tamlin. Nevertheless, in aiding Feyre at this crucial moment and helping to revive a man whom he regards as a bitter enemy, Tamlin proves that there is still good in him. When she gives Lucien a note to hand to Tamlin, she realizes that she genuinely wishes for the best for him. Redemption, the novel suggests, is always possible for those willing to right their past wrongs.
In contrast, the King of Hybern and his men are single-minded in their pursuit of evil. There is no redemption to be found in Hybern, and its soldiers continue to fight until their deaths due to their all-consuming feelings of entitlement over humanity. In the meeting she calls with the various human and faerie lords, Feyre proposes that the two species work out a new, more cooperative relationship, rather than simply rebuilding the wall and keeping their worlds separate. Pointing to her own life, as well as the relationship between half-human Miryam and Drakon as examples, Feyre suggests that faeries and humans can learn to live together, changing their world rather than simply returning to their old ways. The conclusion of the novel suggests that difference can be a source of strength and cooperation rather than division, and that old habits and stifling traditions can, and perhaps must, be overcome.
