To Kill a Kingdom

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2018

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Chapters 40-43Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 40 Summary

Newly transformed, Lira dives into the water of the lake and remembers how powerful she is in her siren form. The Sea Queen orders her to steal Elian’s heart, so Lira beckons to him, though she has no intention of following her mother’s orders. The sirens all begin to sing their songs at once, and the humans are immediately dumbfounded by the beautiful sounds. Lira joins them in song, and Elian walks towards her, but she can tell by the look in his eyes that her song isn’t affecting him: Lira is in love with Elian, and because he has her heart, he’s immune to siren songs. Lira eases him forward, and she asks if he knows what she wants from him. He refuses to give her the Crystal, but she just smiles and asks for his heart instead. They kiss, both of them finally accepting their love for each other. Lira tells him that he’s immune to their song, and Elian, deciding to trust her completely, gives her the Crystal.

When Lira touches the Crystal, it imbues her with infinite power immediately. The Sea Queen demands that Lira give the Crystal to her, but Lira refuses, threatening to kill her mother instead. She reveals that she was the one who freed the Eye from the chamber. Angrily, the Sea Queen sends the Flesh-Eater to attack Elian.

Chapter 41 Summary

The sirens attack Lira as the Flesh-Eater goes for Elian’s heart. Lira appeals to the sirens, asking them if they want to continue living and dying for the Sea Queen when she doesn’t care about any of them. She offers them a different way should they choose to follow her instead. They side with Lira and allow her to go save Elian. The Flesh-Eater pulls Elian below the surface and Lira follows. She overpowers the merman, and he releases Elian long enough for the prince to swim to the surface. They fight, and the Flesh-Eater tries to bite a chunk out of her shoulder. Elian stabs the beast. The merman tries to strangle Lira, but his life is fading, and his grip is weaker than before. Then Elian stabs him through the skull with his knife, finishing him.

They barely get a chance to relish their victory before they realize the Sea Queen has placed a spell on the water to make it act like a deadly acid. The sirens all scramble to get out of the water, and Lira quickly puts a barrier of protection around her and Elian using the magic of the Crystal. The sirens who couldn’t escape the water burn until they melt away to nothing. Madrid shoots the Sea Queen, but it doesn’t even wound her, and Lira realizes that they are on their own. The Sea Queen puts up a fire barrier using her trident, blocking the sirens and the humans from coming to help Lira and Elian. Lira moves Elian away with magic and faces the brunt of her mother’s attacks, using the Crystal to protect herself.

Chapter 42 Summary

The Sea Queen attacks Lira with lightning, but when she sets her sights on Elian, Lira catches the lightning and throws it back at her. The bolt pierces her mother’s side. Her mother attacks again, this time knocking Lira back with a whip of water, plunging her deep into the lake. Elian rescues her, and Lira tells him to stay back, afraid that her mother’s wrath will kill him. He refuses to leave her side. Using magic, she builds tall, thick walls of ice, separating them from the Sea Queen. The queen does her best to break the walls, and Lira and Elian kiss as it crumbles around them, Lira shielding them from the falling icebergs with her magic. The Sea Queen finds their embrace pathetic and promises to keep Lira’s memory alive as the Princes’ Bane. Lira in turn promises to erase the Sea Queen’s memory completely.

Lira finally uses as much of her power as she can summon to conjure two large cyclones and propel them towards her mother. The cyclones devour the Sea Queen, and her trident lands near Khalia’s fin. The cyclones also cause an avalanche of snow and rock to fall from the mountain’s peak towards Lira and Elian. She shields them again with her magic. When everything clears, Lira sees her mother lying dead in the snow. She can’t believe that the Sea Queen is dead, and she kneels next to her broken body, waiting for her to dissolve. Elian waits beside her, and they watch together as the Sea Queen fades into sea-foam.

Chapter 43 Summary

Elian and the crew of the Saad sail, as they have now done many times, to the Diávolos Sea to visit Lira, who has now become the Sea Queen. As the Sea Queen, she is more magnificent than ever. She uses the trident with both Eyes of Keto and has tentacles instead of a fin. She has also opened the sea kingdom up to all of the 100 human kingdoms, officially making it kingdom number 101. Elian, who was once the future king of Midas, has given up the throne to his sister, who is a much better ruler than he could have ever been. Yukiko has married Galina and improved Eidýllio’s status, proving that she was always meant to be an effective leader. When Lira arrives to greet Elian and the crew, she transforms herself into a human form without the violence of her mother’s method and boards the Saad with Elian, ready to hear all about his latest adventures.

Chapters 40-43 Analysis

With the Crystal of Keto, Lira’s powers match her mother’s. However, it’s the love that Lira has found that ultimately defeats the Sea Queen. Lira’s mother saw love as a weakness, like other human emotions, but because of Lira and Elian’s love for one another, she gained a crucial advantage. Love carried Lira to the top of Cloud Mountain, giving her the chance to free the Crystal. Love also provided Lira with backup in situations that might have killed her if she were fighting alone. Though the Sea Queen came close to killing Lira several times, her desire to protect Elian ultimately saves both of their lives.

Even the Sea Queen’s death causes Lira remorse. Like Elian, she now only kills because she needs to. She also regrets having to kill her own mother, even if she never felt as if her mother loved her or even cared if she lived or died. Ultimately, Lira fulfills her promise to Crestell and becomes a fair, compassionate queen, opening up her kingdom to the world and allowing the sirens to experience freedom that they haven’t enjoyed in generations. Elian, on the other hand, gives up his throne, preferring to sail as the captain of the Saad rather than rule as the King of Midas. His sister, Amara, becomes queen in his stead.

Christo ends her dark fairy tale with a classic “happy ending” instead of the bittersweet ending of the Hans Christian Anderson story, “The Little Mermaid.” In the classic, the titular mermaid dies in the end, her body becoming sea-foam, while the prince marries another princess. While Christo borrowed the sea-foam trope from Anderson’s tale, she allows her darker and more morally ambiguous heroine to find happiness. It is significant, however, that Elian and Lira retain separate lives as the story ends; although they love each other, each character ultimately values their independence strongly and would likely be unhappy playing second fiddle to their partner’s ambitions.