The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

“I would take a dagger over Raihn’s hands—would rather feel a blade than his fingertips brushing my skin, far too gently. And what kind of daughter did it make me, that despite everything, some part of me craved an affectionate touch?”

Oraya’s loyalty to Vincent in the first installment prevents her from developing her own identity and autonomy. His death does not erase this continuing struggle she must still overcome. Oraya’s eventual character arc will depict her overcoming these visceral reactions to their similarities and a newfound appreciation for both their similarities and differences.

“Sometimes I wondered if they remembered me. I was nothing to them back then, of course. Another faceless body, something more akin to a tool or a pet than a sentient being. These people, of course, knew who I was now. Knew what my past held. But I couldn’t help but wonder […] whether they actually remembered me. They certainly didn’t remember all those little mundane cruelties, to them just another part of another night. I remembered, though. Every humiliation, every violation, every strike, every casual agony.”

Though Raihn has physical freedom from his former enslavers and has claimed power as the Nightborn king, he’s still mentally enslaved to the traumas and insecurities of his past. He is obsessed with how the nobles view him, certain that they still only see him as enslaved. With this mentality, nothing Raihn accomplishes will ever be considered enough to escape that submissive identity. His character arc will emerge as he battles these negative self-perceptions and eventually rises above them.

“I was all at once very conscious of the crown on my head, worn by centuries of kings before me, kings who were cursed to rules of cruelty and paranoia. Kings I had killed, directly or indirectly, just like they had killed the ones who came before them.”

Raihn struggles with Love Versus Power. Though he has honorable intentions for claiming power, he doesn’t know if the ends justify the means. Raihn fears that power will corrupt him, and he will become just like Vincent, Neculai, and all other Nightborn rulers who came before him. Throughout the novel, his perspective shows hints of his fear of losing touch with his humanity. This fear is exacerbated by the cruel roles he must play to retain the nobles’ support.

“Two versions of [Vincent] that I couldn’t reconcile in life, and now was even further from understanding in his death. Vincent the king, who would kill my whole family in the name of power, who would slaughter an entire race, who would lie to me for nearly twenty years about my blood to protect his crown. And Vincent the father, who kept this little makeshift trinket I’d made him, right there will all his most precious possessions. Who had told me he loved me with his final breaths.”

The callousness of Vincent’s love is all Oraya has ever known. The discovery of his lies has broken her trust not only in him but everyone. She allowed herself the vulnerability of loving Vincent, only to learn that he killed her entire family, slaughtered countless Rishan, and lied to her about her identity for over two decades. Oraya must overcome her fear of The Vulnerability in Trust to repair her fractured relationship with Raihn.

“I fucking hated that I understood that, in some dark corner of myself. Raihn had made a bargain he had died trying to avoid fulfilling. Raihn had thousands of people relying on him. Raihn had his obligations tattooed onto his flesh. But I’d been denying for too long that I had my own obligations seared into my skin, too. And I’d just listened to Raihn talk about killing the people who now relied on me.”

The struggle of balancing love and power is explored in the complicated dynamic between Raihn and Oraya. In this passage, Oraya understands what Raihn has done for power and what he plans to do with it. She agrees with his intentions, but as much as she loves him, she also understands that they stand on two opposing sides. She is obligated to protect her Hiaj vampire clan, while he is obligated to protect the Rishan.

“He came from a small life in a small town, and spent most of his time trying to run from it. Of his limited options, he chose the one that gave him the most freedom. He loves freedom, the feeling of the sea wind through his hair.”

The Empowerment of Freedom is positioned early on as an important theme throughout the novel for both protagonists. Though Raihn has formerly been portrayed as a character with enviable power and freedom compared to Oraya, as more is revealed about his past, it becomes clear that he has also been a victim of imprisonment and oppression in their society.

“That used to bring her a lot of satisfaction. To see [vampires] afraid. A few brief moments where they felt the kind of powerlessness I had felt my entire life. […] If it feels good to have one person look at you this way, little serpent, Vincent murmured, imagine how good it feels to see a kingdom look at you like this. A shiver ran up my spine. A person could lose themselves in that kind of power. And I wanted to, as long as it made me feel something other than weak.”

A key theme of The Serpent and the Wings of Night, Fear as Power, is carried over into the sequel. In this passage, Oraya hints at this theme, exemplifying the way she still struggles with her grief over and love for Vincent despite the unsavory things she has learned about him following his death. Finally in a position of power and aware of her innate strength, Oraya experiences the power that can be found in others’ fear of her for the first time.

“Ever since Neculai’s death, I’d felt my power—the power of the Rishan Heir line—pulsing deep beneath my skin. […] For a couple of centuries, I’d done my best to ignore it. I didn’t want to accept what I was. Neculai’s fingerprints were already all over me. He’d made me everything that I was. I didn’t want my power to become [Neculai’s], too.”

Through the perspectives of Raihn and Oraya, readers can see how the two characters relate to one another despite not saying so aloud. Oraya struggles to find her individuality outside of what Vincent has shaped her into. Likewise, Raihn struggles with finding his identity outside of Neculai’s influence.

“The castle already looked so different. It was all a mess, still. Then again, she couldn’t help but contrast it to the decay that I’d seen when I had walked these halls during the Kejari—when I’d noticed for the first time the stagnant decay lurking beneath my home. No one could call this place stagnant now.”

This passage mirrors a passage in the first installment in which Oraya begins to see the castle as more decayed as the Kejari draws on. The closer she gets to Raihn and the more disillusioned she becomes about Vincent, whom she has always idolized, the more she can see the rot festering inside the castle. Following Vincent’s death, Raihn has tirelessly worked to clear out the castle and redecorate it in his preference. Oraya begins to see the castle not as decaying but as being reborn with new life. This also symbolizes the hope that can be found in Raihn’s and Oraya’s reign over the House of Night and the positive changes they intend to make to the kingdom.

“I saw myself in Evelaena as clearly as if I was looking into a mirror. Both of us built and broken by the same man.”

Evalaena acts as a foil to Oraya. Her unhealthy obsession with Vincent prompts Oraya to break free of her idolization of her deceased father. Evelaena’s ill fate is the catalyst for Oraya’s character growth and willingness to discover her own identity separate from Vincent’s influence.

“Mische sighed, dabbing at the last wound on her left wing. ‘Raihn has a lot of flaws, Oraya,’ she murmured, ‘but he knows how to love.’”

In this passage, Mische proves both to Oraya and to readers that Raihn’s ability to love exceeds that of his ruling predecessors. This statement hints that, unlike Vincent, Raihn will choose love over power despite the doubts that Oraya still has.

“Your father, Oraya, felt all those things, too. He was just as broken as the rest of us, and he was so determined not to acknowledge it that he flayed you with those sharp edges and then berated you for having skin instead of steel.”

The complexities of love explored within the first installment spill into the sequel, specifically when Oraya struggles to reconcile her simultaneous love and hatred for Vincent. In one statement, Mische convinces Oraya that Vincent’s love for her was real but also condemns him for showing his love in abusive and destructive ways.

“I’d grown so accustomed to seeing the different masks he’d worn over these last few months—the charmer, the king, the cold-blooded tyrant. Now, at the sight of him like this—blood covered, hair wild, that just-killed sheen in his eye—a visceral familiarity wrenched through me. Like we were in the Kejari all over again.”

This passage represents the subtle shift in Oraya’s view of Raihn. Before this moment, Oraya still clings to the view of Raihn as a heartless betrayer who falsified his love for her in the Kejari to kill her father and usurp the throne. But this passage illustrates her ability to see past the performances he puts on to the man beneath. This is the first step in The Vulnerability in Trust theme which is imperative to repairing their relationship.

“Now, as I wandered around the twilight-empty halls of the castle, I wondered if it had always been this…bare. So different than when my father had ruled this place, all the Hiaj art stripped away. I’d expected that they would quickly be replaced with Rishan art, Rishan trophies, Rishan artifacts—all the same preening signals of power, just with a different kind of wing. But Raihn hadn’t done that. He’d left the walls bare. The whole castle was empty, as if trapped in the space between an exhale and an inhale.”

As much as Raihn fears continuing the cycle of war and bloodshed that Neculai and Vincent are infamous for, Oraya can see the positive changes Raihn intends to make during his reign. Instead of replacing Hiaj art with Rishan counterparts, Oraya notes that Raihn has done away with cruel signs of power entirely. Just as the castle walls are bare, Raihn intends to clear the House of Night’s bloody history and begin again with a clean slate to unite the vampire clans and the humans in the kingdom in peace.

“I felt a pang of sympathy for [Raihn]. He had few pieces of his human identity left. I knew how much he valued the shards he could salvage. As much as he tried to pretend it was all about shitty beer, I knew otherwise.”

Raihn’s attachment to his human identity becomes apparent when he is recognized and feared in the human pub and forced to vacate the establishment. At this moment, Oraya relates to the feeling of having one foot in each world, neither truly vampire nor truly human. This is a significant turning point in their romantic relationship.

“Septimus still wanted me—or at least, wanted my blood. He wouldn’t kill me. Not yet. He’d just keep me locked up like a slave. He’d make me another tool to be leveraged. And why the hell wouldn’t he? That’s all I’d ever been. A thing to be used at the convenience of others, or a risk to be mitigated. Not a force in her own right.”

The Empowerment of Freedom causes Oraya to be more aware of her peers and recognize their interest or sympathy as either genuine, such as in Raihn’s and Mische’s case, or a power play, such as in Septimus’ case. Attached now to the power she has gained in freedom, Oraya is unwilling to sacrifice this feeling for alliances that might end in her re-imprisonment.

“These last months, waking up always felt like a battle, as if I was being dragged back to the land of the living kicking and screaming. This was not a battle. This was a gentle summons, sweet and tender. I felt, for the first time in so long, safe. Safe, for the first time since…Since…the last time I had woken up like this. In Raihn’s arms.”

This passage marks the shift in Oraya’s romance with Raihn. After being plagued with nightmares since Vincent’s death, Oraya sleeps peacefully for the first time in Raihn’s embrace. While there are still conflicts to work through in their relationship, this is the first sign that their love will win out in the end.

“Loving someone else is a dangerous thing […] Even for vampires. More dangerous still for a king. Vincent knew that. He was never going to open himself up to more weakness. And he already had exposed himself enough with the love he had for you.”

Vincent was never able to love anyone after Oraya’s mother because he feared it made him weak and vulnerable to his enemies. Jesmine’s willingness to love Vincent, however, provides Oraya with a positive outlook on Love Versus Power. Vale offers another positive example of love to Raihn.

“My fingertips ran up his spine again, this time following the swirls of smoky red. I had never met Neculai, never seen his Mark, but I couldn’t imagine this one on anyone other than Raihn. Every small detail of it seemed crafted to complement his body, the flow of his muscles, the shape of his form, even bending and reforming around his scars.”

Since the moment it first appeared, Raihn has viewed his Heir Mark as yet another inescapable facet of his character inherited from Neculai. However, Oraya sees the mark as exclusively Raihn’s, as it complements the proportions of his body in a way it couldn’t any other person, including Neculai. Her confidence in this belief prompts Raihn to further separate himself from his fears of becoming like Neculai.

“‘Can’t imagine it looked this good on Vincent,’ he murmured. I wondered if [Raihn] was seeing the same thing in my Mark that I had just seen in his—all the ways it complemented my specific form. I hadn’t noticed that before. Like Raihn, I had seen the Mark as something that belonged to someone else, superimposed onto my skin. It wasn’t until right now, looking at it through the lens of Raihn’s, that I considered the differences. The way the wings across my chest were a little smaller, more delicate, than Vincent’s, following the shape of my clavicle.”

Raihn returns the favor to Oraya in this passage by validating the ways in which her Mark differs from Vincent’s. She has previously only been able to see how it resembles her biological father’s Mark, but Raihn’s perspective helps highlight the significant differences between the two.

“Raihn’s scream cleaved through the air, even through the sounds of a kingdom falling. I forced my eyes open to see smears of blurring color. He was diving down after me, wings spread, covered in blood, a single hand reaching out for me. Something about this image looked so familiar, and then it clicked—the painting of the Rishan man falling, one hand outstretched. I’d always thought he was reaching for the gods. He was reaching for me.”

Oraya recalls a painting Vincent had hanging in the castle during his reign that depicted a bloodied Rishan man falling with his arm outstretched. The painting was described in the first book, and Oraya has always seen it as a tragic fall to one’s death following a defeat. Raihn’s reenactment of this scene illustrates another perspective on the painting in which a Rishan man sacrifices everything, even power and potentially his life, for love.

“Because that name was all those things, wasn’t it? Raihn. My downfall and my most valuable supporter. My weakness and my strength. My worst enemy and the greatest love I’d had ever known. All of that in one name. One person. One soul I knew as well as my own, just as confusing, just as flawed.”

As Oraya fully embraces both her love for Raihn and her place ruling the House of Night at his side, she proves that she does not have to choose in the conflict between Love Versus Power. Oraya sees her love for Raihn as a weakness but also her greatest strength. In proper balance, she and Raihn can retain their relationship while ruling successfully.

“Despite everything, I was not ready to let him go. I would never be ready to let him go. ‘I love you,’ I said. Because it was still true. After everything, it was still true.”

In the tragic end of the first installment, Oraya is unable to tell Vincent she loves him before he dies. The conclusion to the sequel allows Oraya to tell the sentient memory of Vincent that she loves him, giving her the closure she needs to move forward from her grief over his passing.