67 pages • 2 hours read
Sarah J. MaasA Court of Silver Flames
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1, Chapters 1-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “Novice”
Part 1, Chapters 1-5 Summary
As the story begins, human sisters Elain and Nesta are forced into a primordial magical Cauldron on the orders of the Fae King of Hybern. He hopes to use them to demonstrate the Cauldron’s power to transform humans into the immortal magical race called the Fae. He does this to gain the support of the mortal queens who rule the human realms because they wish to become immortal too. In return, they will support Hybern’s plan to tear down the wall separating their territories from the Fae realm. Secretly, the king plans to conquer and rule both realms once the wall is down. Elain emerges from the Cauldron as an immortal Fae. Nesta struggles and resists the transformation. As she submerges, she points at the king, marking him as her future target for vengeance.
After this initial replay of what transpired in the previous novel in the series, the saga resumes sometime after Nesta’s transformation and the death of the King of Hybern. Order has been restored to the Court of Night, where Nesta’s youngest sister, Feyre, rules as High Lady, with her husband Rhys as High lord. Rhys’s friend and trusted general, Cassian, has been sent to collect Nesta at her apartment. She has been living a dissolute life in a slum as she tries to forget the trauma of war and her Fae transformation. She wrested enough power from the Cauldron to kill the King of Hybern, but she isn’t exactly sure what her limits are. Nesta isn’t happy about her new condition and resents Feyre and the rest of the court for what her life has become.
Cassian tells her that she has been summoned to the river house for a family conference. Though Nesta is angry at the order, she complies. When she arrives, she is greeted by Feyre, Rhys, and their chief advisor Amren. Amren is particularly critical of the way Nesta has been spending her time. Feyre says that she hoped her sister might pull out of her rage and depression but instead, she spends the palace’s money on drinking, gambling, and men. To end Nesta’s self-destructive tailspin, Feyre orders her to train with Cassian as a warrior.
The point of view now shifts to Cassian as he thinks about the formidable power that the Cauldron has given to Elain and Nesta. He listens as Feyre outlines Nesta’s new daily routine. She will be relocated from her apartment to the House of Wind, a palace 10,000 steps above the city. Two hours each morning will be devoted to combat training with Cassian at an Illyrian camp in the mountains called Windhaven. Nesta will then spend her afternoons assisting the High Priestess Clotho in the court library. If she resists, she will be returned to the human lands, where everyone will treat her with suspicion. Given this alternative, Nesta grudgingly complies with her sister’s demands.
Cassian then meets separately with his childhood friend and current king, Rhys. While Cassian sympathizes with Nesta’s plight and remembers the attraction the two shared during the final battle with the King of Hybern, he is willing to follow the orders that Rhys sets. The king has some additional duties in mind for his commander. Rhys wants Cassian to use diplomacy to figure out what the human queens are plotting. Since the last war, it seems that they may be conspiring against the Fae again.
Morrigan, the court seer and third in command of the Court of Night, arrives to winnow Cassian and Nesta to the House of Wind. Winnowing is a power of teleportation possessed by only the most powerful of the High Fae. Hovering right above the house, Mor drops Nesta into Cassian’s arms so that his wings can fly them both down to the spell-warded terrace. After they arrive, Cassian informs Nesta that the only people living there will be the two of them and his friend Azriel, who is Rhy’s spymaster and part of the inner circle of the Court of Night. After getting Nesta settled, Cassian flies off to a meeting in the city with Mor.
Cassian and Mor have known each other for many years and act as one another’s confidantes. As they chat at a café, Mor informs Cassian about problems in the kingdom of Valhallan to the north, which doesn’t want to sign the latest peace treaty. The kingdoms of Montesere and Rask might also cause trouble in the future: “Cassian groaned skyward. That had been the fear during the recent war: that those three territories across the sea might ally with Hybern. Had they, there would have been no chance at all of survival” (55).
All the Fae rulers have heard that the human queens may start a new conflict with the Fae that would once more redraw the map of the Fae realms. Mor speculates that the humans might have some new weapon in their arsenal to allow them to conquer the magical kingdoms on their borders. It will be up to Cassian to determine what the human queens are planning. Vassa, one of the queens whom the others have ousted, might prove a valuable ally, and Cassian is instructed to speak to her.
The following morning, before they begin training, Cassian has trouble getting Nesta to eat breakfast. She is painfully thin and often refuses to eat, but she resentfully chokes down some porridge and scrambled eggs. Both Nesta and Cassian wistfully remember an emotional encounter during the battle that killed Cassian before he was resurrected by the Fae. At the time, he told her, “I have no regrets in my life, but this. That we did not have time. That I did not have time with you, Nesta. I will find you again in the next world—the next life. And we will have that time. I promise” (66).
The two are doing their best to forget what passed between them, though Cassian gets easily distracted by the sight of Nesta in the form-fitting leather pants she is wearing for training. Mor returns to winnow them to the camp at Windhaven. Once they arrive there, a group of young soldiers complains about allowing a female to train in their midst. It is an insult that she will also be using their weapons. For her part, Nesta refuses to train at all. She sits down and tells Cassian that she agreed to attend training but not participate in it.
Part 1, Chapters 6-11 Summary
After secretly admiring Cassian’s body during his morning workout, Nesta reports to the library from one in the afternoon until six in the evening. She meets High Priestess Clotho. Like the other priestesses, she suffered mutilation and torture during the previous war. Now she cannot speak, and the bones in her hands are shattered. However, she writes copious notes, giving Nesta her instructions for the day.
That evening, the magical house silently serves Nesta her dinner. She demands wine, but the house gives her water to drink instead. Nesta vows to descend the 10,000 steps to get some wine for herself in the city.
That same night, Mor winnows Cassian to a meeting with the banished queen Vassa, the human general Jurian, and the sons of the Autumn King—Lucien and Eris. Cassian has a particular hatred of Eris for breaking his engagement with Mor and abandoning her after her family left her to die.
Cassian masks his dislike because he wants to find out who is stirring up trouble in the human realms. He starts his inquiry with Vassa. The entire group speculates about who might be initiating trouble, and Vassa singles out Briallyn, a human queen who entered the Cauldron and emerged immortal but a crone. This was the Cauldron’s punishment for the power that Nesta stole from it, so Briallyn now hates Nesta and wants revenge.
After the meeting ends, Eris quietly confides to Cassian that the Autumn King, Beron, has allied with Briallyn against the other Fae kings. The human queen probably has the backing of Koschei, the sorcerer who enchanted Vassa and is himself bound to a lake on the continent. Although immortal, he cannot free himself from the binding spell and continuously seeks a way out of his predicament.
Despite Cassian’s hatred of Eris, he is forced to consider him an ally. For his part, Eris is willing to betray his own father, the Autumn King, to benefit himself. Back in the House of Wind, Cassian considers what he has learned. He knows that the Court of Night is concerned by his report:
But no one had been able to decide which was the bigger threat for them: Briallyn and Koschei, or Beron’s willingness to ally with them. While the Night Court had been trying to make the peace permanent, the bastard had been doing his best to start another war (98).
Meanwhile, Nesta has been trying to walk down the spiral staircase of 10,000 steps but stops after 111 stairs. She is overcome with dizziness and nausea and painfully makes her way back to the house.
The following morning, Azriel joins the other two for breakfast. He is concerned about their constant bickering. He informs them that he has been tasked with spying on Briallyn and is about to depart on that mission. During training that morning at Windhaven, Nesta once again refuses to participate. Complaining about the cold, she goes to a shop in the village to find warmer clothes and makes the acquaintance of a shopkeeper named Emerie.
That afternoon, Nesta settles into her routine at the library and meets several acolytes. One of them is named Gwyn, and her attitude is nearly as belligerent as Nesta’s. Later in the day, the house offers Nesta food without being asked. Apparently, this is a sign that it likes her.
That evening after dinner, Nesta once more tries to descend the spiral staircase in search of wine. This time, she loses her balance after 66 stairs and tumbles a long way down. While trying to stop her fall, she claws the walls and is surprised afterward to see sparks etched in the stone. She is alarmed to realize that this may be one of her new powers from the Cauldron.
Nesta again refuses to train the following morning, saying she won’t do so in the frigid mountaintop village. Later, Feyre visits Cassian to ask him how the training is proceeding. He confides that Nesta hates him. Feyre assures him that she does not. She says Nesta hates her and has felt that way since childhood. Feyre and Cassian can’t decide how to help Nesta until Cassian gets a brainstorm. Although she refuses to train in “that miserable village” (132), there may be another alternative.
Part 1, Chapters 1-11 Analysis
A Court of Silver Flames is divided into four parts: Novice, Blade, Valkyrie, and Ataraxia. Each corresponds to a stage in the emotional and physical development of the protagonist, Nesta Archeron. We are given a glimpse of Nesta’s temper in the preliminary material describing her plunge into the Cauldron:
The Cauldron struggled like a bird under a cat’s paw. She refused to relent. Everything it had stolen from her, from Elain, she would take from it. Wrapped in black eternity, Nesta and the Cauldron twined, burning through the darkness like a newborn star (3).
Nesta begins the story as a spoiled child and evolves into a heroine by the novel’s end. The book’s initial segment is rather dense with exposition because it spends a fair amount of time recounting everything that preceded the events now taking place. Since this is the final installment in the series, all the major characters have a long history together. Each initial scene requires context, so much of the material in these chapters refers to past events.
In terms of characters, the focus is immediately set on Nesta and Cassian. The narrative oscillates between their respective points of view for the balance of the novel. It is essential to recognize that in the preceding books, they developed strong feelings for one another that have since been suppressed, and the bulk of this story will concern itself with their relationship.
Hampering their budding romance is Nesta herself. Though she is the oldest of the three Archeron sisters, she frequently behaves like an immature adolescent. The reasons for her rebellious, wild child attitude are rooted in her sense of self-loathing, which she seeks to suppress:
I am worthless and I am nothing, Nesta nearly said. She wasn’t sure why the words bubbled up, pressing on her lips to voice them. I hate everything that I am. And I am so, so tired. I am tired of wanting to be anywhere but in my own head (78).
While Nesta’s rejection of others based on self-hatred is perfectly reasonable from a psychological perspective, her outbursts and self-destructive behavior not only alienate her from everyone surrounding her but also from the reader. Nesta is not presented as either a likable or sympathetic character.
Because Nesta’s problematic behavior is foregrounded, this segment focuses heavily on the Mastering Emotions theme. At least initially, Nesta is incapable of mastering hers. She spends most of her time trying to suppress negative emotions and all the bad memories associated with her immersion in the Cauldron. Emotional containment becomes more important to her than liberation. For Nesta’s family, her physical containment may also be necessary. The move to the House of Wind is, in part, intended to keep her confined and out of trouble. Feyre explains that Nesta’s emotional problems are at least partially due to the dysfunctional Archeron family dynamic:
Our mother. She only had an interest in Nesta. She ignored me, and saw Elain as barely more than a doll to dress up, but Nesta was hers. Our mother made sure we knew it. Or she just cared so little what we thought or did that she didn’t bother to hide it from us (130-31).
Though the youngest sister, Feyre has always functioned as Nesta’s parent. In the novel, she transfers that role to the sentient House of Wind. The physical structure functions as something of a straitjacket to keep the eldest Archeron sister from harming herself or others. The house refuses her wine to limit her substance abuse. Its dizzying spiral staircase effectively prevents her from pursuing vices in the city on her own. While the house will later become a symbol of Alienation and Connection, its principal purpose in these chapters is to enforce isolation. It separates Nesta from the world and does the same for the library’s priestesses. This move emphasizes alienation at the expense of connection. Nevertheless, Nesta forms a tentative connection with the house itself and a young priestess named Gwyn.
While the theme of Overcoming Abuse by Males will feature far more significantly in later sections of the book, a misogynistic attitude is introduced in this segment. Nesta is treated to a display of Illyrian warrior arrogance when a group of trainees at Windhaven refuses to have their training camp or weapons sullied by the presence of a female. A more extreme version of male abuse is exemplified by the priestesses who retreated to the library after suffering at the hands of soldiers in the war with Hybern. The injuries to the High Priestess Clotho are brutal and sadistic and all perpetrated by males, as the wording of the novel makes clear. Essentially, the depiction of these atrocities sets up a problem that Nesta and her friends will resolve by the end of the book.
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