58 pages • 1 hour read
Jennifer L. ArmentroutThe War of Two Queens
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 41-50Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 41 Summary
In the Blood Forest, Poppy, Casteel, Kieran, and the others battle a group of Craven as they search for Malec. Malik, who was forced to accompany them, asks for a weapon, but Casteel refuses.
As the fighting worsens due to increased numbers of Craven, the group suspects they are near Malec’s resting place. Reaver arrives and decimates the remaining Craven with his fire breath. He reports that he found ruins nearby. The group travels to them, and Poppy performs the locator spell using Malec’s name, his ring, and her blood. It produces a trail of ash and light. They follow it into the forest to a mountain of rock and blood trees with an ominous cave. Before they can enter, skeletal, snake-filled creatures called Gyrms emerge from the darkness.
Chapter 42 Summary
Poppy and her companions fight the Gyrms. During the battle, Poppy realizes the Gyrms are hesitant to attack her and might recognize her Primal essence. She unleashes her powers and incinerates the remaining Gyrms and their snakes.
With the immediate danger gone, the group enters the cave, where they find Malec’s tomb encased in bone chains. Reaver helps free the tomb, and the group prepares to transport it to Padonia. On the way back, Casteel notices Poppy is experiencing pain in her jaw, which stems from her developing fangs—a sign that her transformation into a Primal is nearly complete.
Chapter 43 Summary
Poppy and her companions return to Padonia with Malec’s body, which they place in the stables. Poppy then nervously prepares for the Joining with Casteel and Kieran. Casteel reassures her, and they leave the manor to a secluded spot by the River of Rhain, where Kieran is waiting for them. There, they strip off their clothes and begin the ritual.
Chapter 44 Summary
Poppy initiates the ritual by drinking blood from Casteel’s chest and Kieran’s throat. The intense exchange of blood and energy ignites emotions, desire, and power between them. Casteel and Kieran then drink from each other and finally from Poppy, completing the physical and spiritual union between them. The eather of Poppy’s Primal powers wraps around them in silver cords. As the emotional bond intensifies, Poppy has sex with them both.
Chapter 45 Summary
Poppy, Casteel, and Kieran lie together on the grassy riverbank after the Joining. Their hearts and breaths synchronize, showing the ritual was a success. They find that Kieran’s curse mark is missing and hope the Joining may have nullified it. However, they agree that they still need to bring Malec to Isbeth to ensure the curse is lifted.
After their quiet moment, Kieran swims in the river while Poppy and Casteel talk. They discuss the responsibilities ahead of them and decide to leave Vonetta behind in case something happens to them. After they return, Poppy finds herself alone in the stables with Malik. Poppy is shocked to learn that her bloodstone dagger was made from the bones of Preela, Malik’s bonded wolven.
Chapter 46 Summary
Casteel watches soldiers prepare outside Padonia’s gates. Kieran joins him, and they discuss their bond from the Joining, which now links their heartbeats. He also tells Valyn that he must stay there, because Vonetta, as regent, will need his leadership if Casteel and Poppy die. Though his father resists, Casteel manages to convince him to stay behind. When Poppy enters the hall in full armor, Casteel admires her strength and beauty. The group then leaves for the Bone Temple and travels through the Blood Forest.
Casteel and Poppy feed from each other when they camp for the night. Later, she dreams of the Consort weeping, and a familiar man she thinks is Vikter. She wakes to find herself between Casteel and Kieran. Casteel kisses her, and Kieran reminds them they need to sleep.
Chapter 47 Summary
Poppy, Casteel, and their army approach Carsodonia. As they near the Bone Temple, they see Isbeth’s amassed forces. Poppy is both nervous and resolute as she and Casteel dismount and prepare to confront Isbeth. Malik and others unload Malec’s casket. At the top of the Bone Temple steps, they meet Isbeth, accompanied by Callum and her knights.
Isbeth demands proof that Malec is still alive before lifting Kieran’s curse. Poppy uses her powers to signal the wolven, who bring Malec’s casket forward. As the casket is opened, Malec is revealed to be a withered husk, though still alive. Callum inspects Kieran’s arm and confirms the curse has been lifted.
Isbeth then stabs Malec in the heart with a shadowstone dagger. Callum reveals the truth about the prophecy: Poppy’s role as Harbinger of Death and Destruction was not to cause the destruction herself, but to bring it about. Isbeth attempted to kill Malec to awaken Kolis. Casteel, enraged, kills Callum, but it is too late. Poppy realizes that the ancient Primal is coming.
Chapter 48 Summary
A wave of energy erupts from Malec’s body and shakes the Bone Temple. Cracks form in the ground and a gray mist that smells like stale lilac appears. In the chaos, Millicent is knocked unconscious, Malik is injured, and fissures open beneath the soldiers and wolven.
Strange creatures known as the dakkai emerge from the cracks. Poppy taps into her primal essence to fend them off. The draken join the fight and rain fire on the creatures. Despite trying to protect all of her allies, Delano dies in her arms. Driven by rage, she confronts Isbeth, and the two fight using their powers.
The battle continues to worsen, and as their enemies close in on Casteel and Kieran, Poppy realizes the true identity of the Consort. She isn’t just the Queen of the Gods, but the true Primal of Life. Poppy screams the Consort’s name, Seraphena, to summon her.
Chapter 49 Summary
Poppy is struck by a bolt of lightning that causes her to become a swirling mass of light and shadow, with wings of eather sprouting from her back as she fully embraces her Primal power. She rises into the air, along with the bodies of the fallen soldiers and wolven, including Delano, Naill, Emil, and Hisa.
A massive draken, Nektas, emerges from a tear in the sky and kills the enemies below, while Poppy, now an avatar of light and darkness, focuses on Isbeth. She tells her that she will be erased from history. Poppy then breaks Isbeth’s body piece by piece. Despite Casteel warning her against it, she watches as her mother’s body disintegrates before fainting.
Chapter 50 Summary
Poppy awakens, held by Casteel and Kieran. She realizes she now has fangs, which signals the completion of her Culling. However, her main concern is that Naill, Delano, Emil, and others who died in the battle are somehow alive again. Casteel and Kieran explain that when she fainted, thousands of glowing lights fell from the sky and restored life to the battlefield. Nektas arrives and says that Reaver took Malec to Iliseeum to ensure he survived, and Millicent escaped, though Malik is chasing after her.
When Poppy asks how she resurrected everyone, he says Seraphena helped, and Nyktos stopped the souls of the fallen before they could enter the afterlife in either the Vale or the Abyss. He then explains the complex history of the Primals and how Kolis, the true Primal of Death and Poppy’s great-uncle, stole the essence of Eythos, the original Primal of Life.
Poppy learns she is a “cosmic restart” (625) meant to give birth to the first Primal descendants since Nyktos. However, despite stopping Isbeth, Kolis is awake and they only slowed him down a little. Poppy, Casteel, and their allies must prepare for the battle with Kolis and other newly awakened gods.
Chapters 41-50 Analysis
The final section of the story serves as the climax for both the romantic arc of the novel and the storyline surrounding the war with Isbeth. While the curse she placed on Kieran in the previous section should hypothetically force him, Poppy, and Casteel into a position where they must play along with her demands, these stakes are complicated by how Armentrout decides to resolve the issue. Isbeth states that the only way for the curse to be removed is if she does so, and which she will only do if they bring Malec to her. When Poppy, Casteel, and Kieran finally participate in the Joining, Poppy’s primal status supposedly negates the curse. While this is never confirmed either way, Callum does note, “I suspect there is not much I could do that would seriously harm him” (594).
The lack of a solid answer means that, once again, politics and war take a backseat to the emotional and physical intimacy between the triad of Poppy, Casteel, and Kieran. The importance of the Joining is not what it can do, but what it means for the relationship of the characters involved and their understanding of The Balance of Love and Power. It’s also representative of how love can manifest in different ways (See: Symbols & Motifs). As heartmates, the love between Casteel and Poppy is passionate and all-consuming, while the relationship between her and Kieran is steadfast and stabilizing. However, as noted in Poppy’s narration, “What I felt from him was the same as I’d felt before—sweet and soft. Not as intense as what came from Casteel, but no less meaningful” (551). The importance of their bond can be seen when they stand side by side. The heavy focus on Poppy’s consent in the lead-up to performing the Joining also continues into the performance of the ritual. Both men repeatedly assure her, and before anything overtly sexual begins, they tell her they need her explicit spoken consent.
The relationship between the trio transforms, but so does Poppy herself. When she summons Seraphena during the final battle, she completes her Culling. This is accompanied by a physical transformation with the appearance of fangs and wings made of eather. At this point, her role as the Primal of Blood and Bone is fully realized, and the burden of balancing life and death comes with it. Poppy’s transformation and what it reveals also serves as a tentative conclusion for the questions regarding the theme of The Conflict Between Fate and Free Will. While her status as a Primal, and what it meant for the realms, is part of a larger plan centuries in the making, she is unique. As Nektas notes, the Primal of Life and the Primal of Death were never the same individual before. Poppy has the capacity for creation and destruction, and thus the ability to be something entirely new.
Finally, Isbeth’s death shows the cost of unchecked ambition and the consequences of vengeance, reflecting the theme of Freedom and Justice Versus Tyranny. She represents the destructive side of power, driven by her grief and desire for revenge. Her decision to stab Malec, her heartmate, with a shadowstone dagger in an attempt to kill him and release Kolis reveals the extent of her ambition. This choice, and her subsequent downfall, is depicted as a tragic one. When she stabs Malec, she is crying and apologizing to him. However, she cannot let go of her hatred, so her love for Malec and her son becomes twisted and corrupt. She is willing to sacrifice everyone and everything in her quest for revenge. She literally loses herself to it, as emphasized by the graphic description of Poppy breaking Isbeth’s body apart. Her death also shows the consequences of revenge, as it has cost her everything, including her legacy and all memory of her.
While the immediate conflict with Isbeth is resolved in these chapters, the larger cosmic battle between the forces of life and death remains unresolved. The revelation that Kolis, the true Primal of Death, has been awakened serves as a cliffhanger and sets the stage for the conflict in the subsequent books of the series (See: Background). While the titular “War of the Two Queens” has finished, the actual war is far from over.
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By Jennifer L. Armentrout
