The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Part 2

Parts 3-4

Part 5

Parts 6-7

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Themes

Love Versus Power

Content Warning: The source material includes mention of rape and suicidal ideation. In addition, it describes enslavement and enslaved persons; outdated terms are only replicated in this guide in quotes from the source material.

The novel explores the ways love contradicts, conflicts with, and contributes to power. Initially, most characters see love as antithetical to power. In his three centuries of life, Raihn has repeatedly witnessed how the vampiric desire for power and control has eclipsed love. Most significant among these experiences was King Neculai’s love story with his wife, Nessanyn, who became Raihn’s secret lover. Though “Neculai had loved Nessanyn,” his love “hadn’t saved her from anything,” as Nessanyn dies because of the choices Neculai made to keep control (32). Raihn desires power, not for the sake of control, but to enact positive change for the vampire clans under the House of Night as well as the humans who often fall victim to their savagery. To gain the power necessary to enact change, however, requires him to do things that betray his love for Oraya. Raihn admits that his problem lies not in “protecting [his] crown from Oraya but protecting Oraya from [his] crown” (116). This admission reveals how entwined love and power are and how difficult it can be to balance both without losing one or the other.

Characters such as Vincent and Neculai illustrate what happens to love when power is prioritized above all. Neculai’s love for Nessanyn was shackling. As Raihn states, “he loved her so much he choked the life out of her” (185-86). In the end, Nessanyn died alongside Neculai, both killed by Vincent when he usurped Neculai’s throne. Vincent’s love for Oraya’s mother was all-consuming, but through the gaze of his memories, seen as his greatest weakness and a helpless distraction from his desire for power. Vincent cut that weakness out by sending her mother away, only for his fear of the power her love held over him to become so great that he is forced to return years later to kill her. His love for Oraya prevents him from killing her despite the threat she represents to his power, but he still expresses that love through power, exerting abusive levels of control over her.

Raihn and Oraya challenge and eventually transcend the contradiction between love and power. As Raihn faces more and more difficult choices to keep his throne, the dark memories of his past failure to protect Nessanyn from Neculai and Vincent’s cruelty resurface. Raihn must continuously use “her memory to manipulate the people around him” (35), callous behavior he is disgusted and ashamed to admit reminds him of Neculai. In his desire to keep Oraya safe amongst the vipers at court, Raihn keeps her under lock and key in her chambers and under constant supervision by trusted guards. While this decision is born out of a desire to protect the woman he loves, Raihn soon realizes this behavior resembles that of both Vincent and Neculai. Vincent never allowed Oraya to roam about the castle or leave his domain during her 20 years in his care. Similarly, “Neculai had locked Nessanyn up” which is “a sudden, unwelcome thought” to Raihn (116). Despite Raihn’s noble intentions in seizing power, he nevertheless finds himself at first abusing it in ways that hurt the people he loves. Eventually, his love for Oraya outweighs his desire for that power. This is illustrated by him giving her full reign to roam the castle and continuously defending her presence against bloodthirsty nobles desperate to remove Raihn from the throne: doing so threatens his power but affirms his love. In the final battle, Oraya chooses to save Raihn’s life rather than seize the throne for herself, elevating love over power. Yet in doing so, she wins the throne for herself and Raihn. The union of Nightborn factions that their love achieves suggests that their reign will be more stable than those before them, implying that love is the best basis for power after all.

The Empowerment of Freedom

Newly escaped from the prison of her past and the restrictive lies of her father, Oraya experiences a story arc centered on empowerment and freedom. Thanks to the 70 years he spent enslaved by Neculai. Raihn understands Oraya’s struggles in a way no one else at the House of Night court can. When Oraya reels at the discovery that her entire life has been a lie, Raihn does not allow her to demean herself, but rather states: “That’s what happens when one person gets to shape your entire world. They can make it into whatever they want, and you’re stuck inside those walls, whether they’re real or not” (264). This truth encapsulates one overarching theme of the novel, wherein both characters obtain freedom from their past and discover what empowers them.

Though Oraya has been forced to marry Raihn and stripped of her right to rule the House of Night by his decision to usurp her father, Raihn still acknowledges the freedom Oraya deserves. As he notes in Chapter 28, “Oraya didn’t need to be saved. She just needed a soul beside her on the dark walk to her own potential. Someone to protect her until she was strong enough to save herself” (226). Where Vincent kept her confined to certain areas of the castle, Raihn grants her the freedom to explore its entirety at will. Where Vincent kept Oraya in the dark about her origins and identity, Raihn does everything in his power to aid Oraya’s quest for truth. Raihn initially imprisons Oraya out of concern for her safety, but unlike Vincent, he quickly realizes that by denying her freedom, he denies her power and betrays their love. When he grants her physical freedom, he also grants her the ability to discover truths about herself and her past that will empower her.

Raihn helps Oraya find empowerment by handing “her the power that Vincent had tried to keep away from her her entire life” (226). He protects her from threats and arms her with both literal weapons and life-saving knowledge. Raihn understands the “magnificent thing [Oraya] could become” (226). Instead of seeing it as a threat to his own power as Vincent had done, Raihn sees it as something to celebrate and encourage. With Raihn’s help, after a lifetime of altering herself to fit Vincent’s expectations, Oraya begins to find who she is outside of his influence: She “had forged [her]self by his hand, by the bounds of the mold he’d poured [her] into, and never further. It had been comfortable. But now, too damned much was relying on [her] to not venture beyond those walls” (517). As Oraya learns more about her past and her biological mother, she breaks free of the mold Vincent forced her into. She begins to reclaim the innate power he kept hidden from her and forges her own path forward—a path that embraces both love and power and goes against everything Vincent’s ever taught her about survival. Two key attributes symbolize her newfound empowerment: her wings and her weapons. Having discovered that she is half vampire, Raihn literally pushes Oraya to claim her innate power by pushing her off a ledge so that she can claim her wings and fly on her own. Flying gives her freedom of movement and empowers her to claim her autonomy. Her father’s sword, the Taker of Hearts, at first seems to tether her to his legacy, but when it breaks, she forges it into new weapons fitting her style and preferences. She takes the legacy her father left her and remakes it into her own.

The Vulnerability in Trust

Oraya grew up believing that Vincent was the only person in the world whom she could completely trust, yet throughout the series, she has learned that everything he’s told her has been a lie. She is not a full human or his adopted daughter; she is his half-vampire biological child. She is not fragile and destined to remain confined in the castle but an apex predator with the ability to summon Nightborn wings capable of flying her anywhere she wishes to go. As Oraya uncovers the countless lies her father had raised her to believe, Raihn remains alongside her, repeatedly proving to her what true love and trust should be. Yet, at the climactic conclusion of the first installment, Raihn egregiously betrays her by murdering her father and seizing the Nightborn throne. In The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King, Oraya and Raihn discover that to rebuild the trust between them, they must first be willing to make themselves vulnerable to being hurt again. The trust they build despite the betrayal and pain in their past symbolizes the way their rule will enable the Hiaj and Rishan vampires to overcome their centuries of conflict to build a new House of Night.

Oraya recognizes the vulnerability in trust most through her relationship with Vincent. She thinks: “Vincent had ruined me. He had saved me. He had loved me. He had stifled me. He had manipulated me” (184). As his daughter, Oraya loved Vincent more than anyone else in her life until Raihn, yet after learning difficult truths about the ways Vincent harmed her without her notice, Oraya believes her love for him made her ignorant of the dangers of trusting any vampire in power within her world. She believes that “love was terrifying. To be so vulnerable to another person” (186). Not only was Oraya a victim of Vincent’s abusive love, but her own love for Vincent prevented her from seeing the warning signs. After being so severely harmed by recent discoveries about her flawed relationship with Vincent, Oraya carries these negative perceptions of love, trust, and vulnerability with her into the next stage of her life. A part of this includes her romance with Raihn, which cannot be repaired until she allows herself to trust him—a vulnerability she is not sure she will ever be able to willingly allow.

Oraya admits that “losing [her] trust in Vincent was more than losing trust in a single person. It had broken something within [Oraya], destroyed [her] ability to put that trust into anyone else” (539). Throughout the sequel, Oraya must discover how to rebuild her fragmented trust in Raihn to reinvent the House of Night’s vicious image following Vincent’s death. This is easier said than done, however, for Raihn must embody many roles to retain the allegiance of his court. Even Oraya, who knows him best, admits his act is meticulous as he “embodied the role of conqueror king just as easily as he had embodied the role of human in the pub, and the role of bloodthirsty contestant, and the role of [her] lover, and the role of [her] kidnapper” (11). His various roles as the bloodthirsty, conquering king and the vampire leader of the Rishan rebellion who is supposed to despise Oraya make it increasingly difficult for her to rebuild their former trust. Eventually, however, Raihn makes himself vulnerable enough to allow Oraya to see past his performances. When Oraya takes off his clothing and his exterior armor, she recognizes the real him behind the masks, and she opens herself up to be vulnerable to him in return. Raihn honors her vulnerability by helping her to reclaim her power. As they build the army they need to secure the Nightborn throne, they must ask members of enemy factions—including Hiaj and Rishan vampires and human beings—to set aside their conflicts and trust them, opening themselves up to the possibility of betrayal and harm. Their interpersonal vulnerability sets the stage for a political vulnerability that eventually creates the bedrock of trust among the Nightborn people upon which they build the new house of Night.