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 2, Chapters 38-50Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “Blade”
Part 2, Chapters 38-43 Summary
The training group on the roof has now expanded to 11 priestesses. During their workout, Gwyn tells Nesta about the ancient Valkyries’ mental control techniques. Hoping to quiet her roiling emotions, Nesta asks for a copy of the instructions. Later in the session, she challenges Cassian to let her fight with weapons. He gives her a wooden sword, but she learns how to handle it quickly, and it gives her a sense of tremendous focus: “For three days, she’d had fire in her blood. For three days, she had dreamed of swords and stairs and combat. She couldn’t stop it. Had fallen into bed so tired that she had no chance to even read before she was unconscious” (416).
That evening, the fire that now fuels Nesta drives her to climb down 6,000 stairs before returning to the house. The following afternoon in the library, Gwyn coaches Nesta through the Valkyrie technique for mental stillness. It takes many attempts and much concentration, but by the end of the session, Nesta feels peaceful.
A few days later, Cassian takes Nesta to a blacksmith’s shop on the outskirts of the city. He wants her to get an appreciation for weapons by seeing how they are made. The blacksmith allows her to forge a sword, a dagger, and a great sword. Nesta’s technique gets better as the day progresses. Back in the House of Wind, she continues to drive herself physically but no longer feels helpless. At the end of one training session, Nesta decides to spar with a punching block. After she finishes for the day and leaves, Cassian studies the thick piece of wood. It has begun to smolder and eventually dissolves into a pile of ash.
The next day, the court receives a visit from Helion, Lord of the Day Court. Rhys is hopeful that Helion’s extensive libraries contain information that might help with Feyre’s delivery. Helion is also adept at magic and has come to assess the two enchanted soldiers captured by Azriel and Cassian in the bog. He concludes that they are under the power of the Crown, which is now in Briallyn’s possession. Rhys wants Helion to put additional enchantments on the Mask to keep Briallyn from taking that too. Nesta’s blood is used in the spell, but she doesn’t want to know how to break it. Cassian realizes she is protecting herself from the temptation to use the Mask someday.
That night, Cassian visits Nesta’s bed chamber and is surprised to find her reading books about battle tactics. They resume their torrid romance, but both still deny that their encounters have any meaning beyond sex.
Early the following morning, Cassian gets an unexpected summons to the river house. Azriel, Rhys, and Amren are already waiting for him. They have had a visit from the blacksmith, who claims that Nesta cursed the weapons she forged. He deposits them with the king and leaves. Everyone is convinced that Nesta has unintentionally fashioned enchanted weaponry.
Amren urges Rhys to use the magical weapons to become high king over all the Fae. She says the Cauldron has orchestrated events to make this possible. Rhys rejects the idea, but Amren warns him that the Cauldron might offer the same benefits to someone else if he doesn’t act.
Later, Nesta, Cassian, and Eris meet secretly in the Spring Court. Cassian explains what happened to Eris’s soldiers. The prince behaves arrogantly toward Cassian, but Nesta puts him in his place. When Tamlin appears in animal form to threaten the interlopers in his kingdom, Nesta warns him off too. She says she will kill him if he mentions their private meeting to anyone.
Part 2, Chapters 44-50 Summary
During training, Cassian notices some new techniques that Gwyn and Nesta are trying and correctly surmises they come from the Valkyries. He admits to having known the last of their kind before they were all exterminated in a battle 500 years earlier. He promises to incorporate some of their methods into his training lessons.
That night, Cassian dines at the river house and tells everyone of Nesta’s plans to revive the Valkyrie ways. Elain says that such a future would suit her sister. She remarks that Nesta converted every high-society ball into a battlefield in the human realm. She had been taught to dance at an early age and loved music. Cassian thinks this training in dance may explain her ability to quickly learn balance during her daily sessions with him. After he departs, he ponders Nesta’s past and wishes he could bring music back into her life.
After training the following morning, Cassian accidentally reveals that Nesta has made three magical weapons. She is furious that no one told her. He says that the group took a vote, but Amren and Rhys had voted against it. Even though they were overruled by the rest, Nesta is still angry at Amren’s betrayal because she thought of them as friends. She is so enraged that she manages to descend all 10,000 of the house’s steps. Once she emerges into the city, she goes directly to Amren’s house to confront her.
When Nesta arrives, she quarrels with Amren until Feyre winnows in to stop the fight. Vindictively, Nesta tells Feyre that the others are keeping secrets from her too. She tells her sister about her life-threatening pregnancy. Feyre is devastated. Cassian receives a mental message from Rhys, who also has a telepathic link with his wife. The king is so enraged at what Nesta has done to her sister that he instructs Cassian to take Nesta out of the city before he kills her.
Nesta herself is aware that she has gone too far and feels bitter remorse for hurting Feyre. She adds this to the long list of reasons to justify her self-loathing. As Nesta walks aimlessly through town, Cassian flies down and scoops her up. Azriel has already packed supplies for them, so Cassian takes Nesta directly to the mountains.
Even though he receives a telepathic message from Feyre telling him to come back and that Rhys has rescinded his threats, Cassian says it might be wise for the couple to stay away. They will hike in the mountains for a few days. Cassian barely speaks to Nesta once they land, except to give her orders to carry their heavy backpack. She does so as penance. Even though she can barely propel herself forward during their grueling mountain trek, she doesn’t complain.
The couple hikes for two more days without speaking. At one point, Nesta passes out from dehydration but refuses to drink water. She feels particularly self-destructive and doesn’t care whether she lives or dies. Finally, when they camp on the third evening, Nesta breaks down into tears: “She bowed over her knees, saying into her palms, ‘I can’t undo it. I can’t fix it. I can’t fix that he is dead, I can’t fix what I said to Feyre, I can’t fix any of the horrible things I’ve done. I can’t fix me’” (503). Cassian consoles her by saying that she doesn’t need to fix anything. She only needs to forgive herself so that she can move forward.
Once Nesta’s emotional storm abates, Cassian sits quietly with her by the lake until the sun sets. Then, he hands her his Illyrian sword and asks her to execute an eight-pointed star maneuver. She does so perfectly, and the activity seems to calm her mind: “The sword was an extension of her arm, a part of her as much as her hair or breath. Every movement bloomed with purpose and precision” (509).
Part 2, Chapters 38-50 Analysis
This set of chapters is still part of the section called “Blade” and goes even further to explore the reason for the title than the preceding segment. The theme of Mastering Emotions dominates this grouping and relies heavily on Valkyrie lore and magical objects as the symbols most illustrative of Nesta’s state of mind. As the segment begins, Nesta’s attention is immediately captured by Valkyrie techniques for quieting the mind. The preceding section gave her a glimpse of what tranquility might feel like while she briefly wore the Mask. She explores the sensation much more fully with Gwyn’s aid as she tries to sink into a meditative state and eventually succeeds: “Strange—so strange to find her body suddenly … calmed. Distant. Like she’d somehow indeed been able to step back. Let it rest. And her mind […] for the first time in her life, she felt utterly settled into her own skin” (411).
As Gwyn points out, the Valkyries regarded developing the mind just as important as developing physical battle skills. Nesta has already demonstrated a direct correlation between her lack of emotional control and her lack of physical control. Her inability to control either one was why her family sent her to the House of Wind in the first place. Not only did her addictive behavior endanger her own health, but her reckless emotions triggered her Cauldron-born powers in unpredictable ways.
At this point in the story, Nesta is interested in exerting self-control instead of seeing herself as the helpless victim of others and their powers. The physical link to her increasing mental stability is demonstrated by her growing adeptness as a warrior. She learns Valkyrie battle techniques along with meditation. The two merge completely when she insists that Cassian train her in the use of swords:
Every hated enemy, every moment she’d been powerless against them simmered to the surface. And with each movement of the sword, each breath, a thought formed. It echoed with every inhale, every thrust and block. Never again (402).
Not only does Nesta learn to wield a sword relatively quickly, but she also has the opportunity to forge weapons. The link between Nesta’s emotions and her supernatural powers becomes apparent after the weapons she forges are proven to have magical properties. While working at the blacksmith’s forge, Nesta registers her growing sense of emotional control as she hammers the pieces of steel and imbues them with supernatural qualities. As her focus and clarity increase, so do her powers. While engaging in sparring practice with a wooden post, she channels her energy so intensely that the post disintegrates into ash.
Although Nesta is showing marked improvement in her mental state and is progressing well in her battle training, she suffers a dramatic emotional relapse into rage when she feels that the court circle has betrayed her. This precipitates yet another confrontation with the Night Court that sends her fleeing from the city with Cassian. As dramatic as Nesta’s improvement was, her descent into self-hatred is just as dramatic. During her days in the mountains on a forced hike, she reaches rock bottom and wishes herself dead:
No amount of driving her body into the earth would make her good. She knew it. […] Wished someone would smother the voice that whispered of every horrible thing she had ever done, every awful thought she’d had, every person she’d failed (500).
Even Cassian is unprepared for Nesta’s suicidal thoughts and is shocked to finally learn the depth of her self-loathing: “Cassian knew that Nesta often hated herself. But he’d never known she hated herself enough to want to…not exist anymore. [...] Only Nesta could save herself from that feeling” (493).
Once more, the body-mind connection is apparent. Only after Nesta is so physically exhausted from the mountain trek that she can no longer move does she break down and admit how much she hates herself and how little she deserves to be loved. Because she doesn’t have the strength to push him away, Cassian is finally able to get through to her and make her see that she needs to forgive herself. As she regains emotional control, Nesta demonstrates her recovery by executing various precise cuts with her sword. Her mind and body are once more constructively reunited.
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