52 pages • 1 hour read
Glow of the Everflame
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Chapters 1-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes descriptions of child abuse.
Diem Bellator kneels in the grass near her home with the glowing Crown over her head. She is convinced that being chosen as Queen of Lumnos is a mistake. Her brother, Teller, encourages her to either find Prince Luther Corbois or to tell their father, Andrei, what has happened. Diem doesn’t want to see Andrei because they have just argued. Suddenly, Luther’s sister Princess Lily Corbois arrives and bows to Diem, who insists that she cannot be the queen because she is a mortal. (It has been decreed that only a Descended can rule Lumnos.) Noticing Diem’s gray eyes, Lily insists that Diem must have Descended blood. She urges Diem to ask Luther for help and states that Diem must soon undergo the Period of Challenging—a point in time when any of the royal houses can challenge her right to the Crown. If Diem retains the Crown after the Period of Challenging, she must then undergo the Rite of Coronation.
Hearing this, Diem panics, remembering her best friend and lover, Henri Albanon. He hates the Descended, and she is worried about his reaction when he discovers her connection to the Crown. Lily and Teller encourage Diem to stay in a cabin “on the royal hunting grounds” until she figures out what is happening (10).
Chapter 2 Summary
Diem tries settling in at the cabin but is so worried that she cannot sleep. Then Luther appears. The last time they saw each other, they argued and kissed. Now, she demands to know the whereabouts of her mother, Auralie, still convinced that Luther is behind Auralie’s disappearance. He refuses to give her any information, insisting that she come to the palace and accept the throne.
Diem and Luther ride Luther’s horse to the palace. The ride is invigorating, and Diem is attracted to Luther’s smell until she realizes that Luther must be the man who Henri recently saw killing a half-mortal child. (Luther’s horse looks the same as the horse that Henri described.) Her attraction turns to anger, and she silently vows to kill the Descended after the Challenging and Coronation.
Chapter 3 Summary
At the palace, Diem and Luther encounter Sorae, the gryvern—or dragon—meant to protect the Crown. Diem greets Sorae, asking if she’ll help fight the Descended to save the mortals. Luther interrupts, informing Diem that she must meet the royal family. He reminds her not to tell them about her mother, her inability to use her magic, or her hatred for the Descended.
Chapter 4 Summary
Diem meets with the Corbois family—Remis Corbois (the late King Ulther’s brother and Luther’s father), Remis’s wife Avana, and his daughter Lily. She feels shabby in comparison to their finery. Remis also introduces her to his brother, Garath Corbois, Garath’s wife Freah, and their sons Aemonn and Tarah. She meets more cousins, including Eleanor Corbois and Alixe Corbois. Everyone starts asking questions about Diem’s origins. Diem says that her mother is mortal, and she doesn’t know her birth father. Shocked, Remis insists that Diem form an alliance with House Corbois so that they can protect her from the machinations of the other houses. She decides to postpone her decision on this point.
Chapter 5 Summary
After the meeting, Diem confronts Lily for breaking her trust and revealing her whereabouts at the cabin to Luther, but she forgives Lily when the girl apologizes. Diem also speaks with Luther, who is worried that the houses will destroy her if they think she is a mortal. He gives Diem a tour of the grounds but does not directly answer her questions about his childhood or his future plans. Before the Crown appeared over Diem’s head, Luther was expected to inherit the Crown. Now, Diem is convinced that he is disappointed. However, he swears allegiance to her, and the conversation devolves into bantering and flirting. The mysterious disembodied voice that Diem sometimes hears inside her head now urges her to fight, and Sorae appears at her side. Luther grabs onto Diem, and the guards stand by, doing nothing. After Luther leaves, Diem hears him scolding the guards for failing to protect her.
Alone, Diem studies herself in the mirror and undresses for a bath. Luther knocks, and she answers the door, naked. As she dresses, he presents her with several gilded “Fortosian steel knives” (55)—the only material that can kill the Descended. He tries to apologize for their argument, but she dismisses him.
Chapter 6 Summary
In the morning, Eleanor comes to Diem’s chambers, offering to accompany her to breakfast so that she will not be alone. Remembering her family and her home, Diem feels sad. After dressing, the women head to the hall, chatting about Luther and House Corbois. Diem names Eleanor her advisor when she notices how kind and insightful she is.
Eleanor helps Diem orient to palace life. She explains Remis’s former role as Ulther’s Regent and offers insight into Luther’s relationship with the house, revealing that Luther is the most powerful of the Descended.
Chapter 7 Summary
In the garden, Aemonn offers to escort Diem to the upcoming Ascension Ball. Diem reveals that she is engaged to Henri, but Aemonn insists that she needs a Descended by her side at the ball to impress the other houses. He also reveals that Luther is Keeper of the Laws and is responsible for enforcing the Crown’s rules. Diem realizes that Luther is behind the deaths of all half-mortal children.
Chapter 8 Summary
A Corbois kingsman named Elric finds Diem and insists on taking her to the dungeons. She is shocked to find Teller and Lily waiting for her there. Teller is worried that Diem will not survive the upcoming Challenging; the ritual calls for a battle to the death, and the contestants can only fight with magic. Luther arrives, and Diem is suddenly overcome with the urge to fight him. He dismisses Teller and Lily so that he and Diem can discuss the Challenging.
Diem’s hatred overwhelms her, and Luther goads her, insisting that she fight him if she hates him so much. A red mist appears between them, and Diem starts yelling, accusing him of killing innocent children. Luther insists that she is wrong, and their argument intensifies. Furious, Diem starts to, and black strands of magic swirl around her. She gives herself over to the magic, suddenly feeling free, and she realizes that she is in fact one of the Descended. After the magic dissipates, she tells Luther that she will join House Corbois if he promises to protect her family and friends no matter what happens during the Challenging.
Chapter 9 Summary
After her encounter with Luther, Diem is overwhelmed by emotion. Her thoughts reel as she tries to make sense of who she is and what she can do.
In the morning, Luther brings Diem breakfast in her room, and they discuss Diem’s magic and her mother. Luther reveals that he was helping Auralie to spy on Ulther when she was a palace healer, but he insists that he cannot tell Diem where Auralie is, for fear of betraying Auralie herself. Diem wants to know more but realizes that Luther might just be trustworthy. He promises to bring Auralie back in two months if she doesn’t return beforehand on her own. Diem’s heart surges with joy.
Chapters 1-9 Analysis
When Diem Bellator is unexpectedly chosen to be the new Queen of Lumnos, her Quest for Self-Discovery begins. This second installment in the Kindred’s Curse Saga opens where the series’ first book ended: with Diem “doubled over on [her] hands and knees in a circle of smoldering, newly blackened grass” (2), with a shining Crown swirling above her head. Because Diem has always believed that she is a mortal, she now struggles to come to terms with the reality of her situation. She repeatedly tells herself that what she is experiencing has “to be a hallucination” (1). If she believes that she is the new queen and accepts the throne, she will be denying her origins and casting off her mortal and familial ties, and she is forced to reckon with the realization that becoming who she is allegedly destined to be will require her to let go of her previous identity and plans for the future.
As the alleged Queen of Lumnos, Diem struggles under the unfamiliar Burden of Leadership, and she agrees to go to the palace with Luther because she is a curious and strong-willed person who is eager to make sense of her situation on her own terms. She initially has “no intention of keeping the throne, and certainly no desire to fight anyone to the death for it” (11), but she wants to prove to the royal family and the other royal houses that this is “all one massive, unthinkable mistake” (11). However, as soon as she enters the palace grounds, Diem is submerged in the world of the Descended, and this perilous setting compels her to face her new appointment and decide how best to use her gods-given power. The floating Crown above her head is symbolic of destiny; Diem cannot remove the Crown and must therefore assume her role as queen-to-be before she is ready to accept it. This situation forces her to navigate complex political dynamics and liaise with the royal family. These challenges complicate Diem’s sense of her own identity, and she questions whether she really does hold such a high degree of power and authority.
In the midst of these broader political conflicts, Diem’s developing relationship with Luther—a primary character from Spark of the Everflame—makes her realize the Challenges of Balancing Love and Duty. Diem has yet to accept her childhood sweetheart Henri’s marriage proposal, but she still feels attached to Henri because of their shared history. Her nostalgia for her old way of life and sense of self now become entangled with her lingering loyalty to Henri, who also symbolizes Diem’s past in Mortal City. By aligning herself with Luther, Diem adds innumerable complications to her already confused emotions for Henri.
Although Diem does not yet know what her romantic future holds, she feels compelled to use the Crown to defend her people, and her main dilemma now is to decide where her loyalties lie. She holds an innate sense of loyalty to the mortals, but she also recognizes the necessity of working with Luther if she wants to “[s]urvive the Challenging,” “[c]omplete the Rite of Coronation,” “[a]nd destroy the Descended” (24). Diem is therefore caught between her sense of loyalty and her desire for vengeance. She wants to protect the mortals and bring an end to the Descended’s rule to avenge the innocent lives that they have destroyed over the years.
At the same time, Diem knows that she must become close with Luther to enact this plan, and their increasingly complex interpersonal dynamics cause her to experience intense emotions that challenge her most fundamental beliefs about who she is. While Diem’s problems and challenges are unique, her inner conflicts illustrate the common experience of being thrust out of childhood and into adulthood. For Diem, this prospect requires her to accept her new circumstances and summon her internal resolve to survive.
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