53 pages • 1-hour read
A Dawn of Onyx
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.
Chapters 7-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary
The next day, Arwen meets the butcher’s son, Jaem, who is infatuated with a young woman named Lucinda. As Arwen Treats Jaem’s mangled fingers, he describes his plan to bring something back from town for Lucinda tomorrow. Arwen learns of his weekly trip to a nearby town to sell the keep’s leftover meat for extra coin. His father is unaware of this practice, so Jaem leaves at midnight. Believing that this is her chance to escape, Arwen plans to sneak onto Jaem’s cart when he leaves tonight.
After a long day of working with Dagan in relative silence, Arwen is grateful when the chipper Mari arrives. In private, Arwen makes a comment about Dagan’s ambivalence toward her, and Mari reveals that he used to be an advisor to a previous king and served in the Onyx army but then retired to the apothecary. Dagan is rumored to be a warlock, but Mari has seen no evidence of magic from him. And as grumpy as he is, he secretly enjoys helping Mari with her research on Fae and witches. Mari suggests having dinner together later, and Arwen feels guilty when she declines.
Later, Arwen is in the infirmary and overhears Lieutenant Bert asking Dagan about her. She initially tries to flee out the window but then listens from a hidden vantage point as Dagan dismisses Bert and lies, claiming that Arwen is not there. That night, as Barney locks Arwen in her cell, she uses charming comments to distract him while she manipulates the door’s alignment. When he leaves in a hurry, he doesn’t realize that he never fully locked the cell.
She begins to fall asleep but is awakened by her old cell neighbor, who is now standing outside her cell. She decides not to trust him because he previously refused to help her escape despite his own ability to do so. When he notices the injury on her arm—sustained from her failed attempt to escape out the infirmary window—he asks who hurt her. She admits that she accidentally did it to herself but does not reveal how.
In the ensuing conversation, Arwen finds herself disclosing truths she’s never admitted to anyone. She admits to wanting more than her small-town upbringing and laments the fact that she has “barely lived” (97). She blames her stagnation on her responsibility to care for her ill mother and young sister in Ryder’s absence. When she also admits to loving her longtime friend Halden, the stranger doesn’t believe her, claiming that she doesn’t “light up” (99) when she talks about him. He pries further until Arwen is forced to admit that her many fears had kept her trapped in her hometown. When she admits to seeing positive aspects of Shadowhold, he admires her optimism. Arwen studies him, causing him to smile, but when she states that she is trying to understand him, he closes down emotionally and leaves the dungeon.
Chapter 8 Summary
At midnight, Arwen sneaks out of her cell and into the camp of sleeping soldiers outside. As Jaem’s cart pulls up, Arwen rushes forward, but she collides with a drunken Lieutenant Bert, who is determined to sexually assault her before she is returned to the dungeons. He drags her toward his tent but is interrupted by the stranger from the dungeons. Arwen is shocked to hear Bert address the man as King Kane Ravenwood. The king punishes Bert with a knee to the face, shattering his nose, busting his lip, and swelling one eye shut. He calls Bert a stain on his army and assures the lieutenant that he will soon pray for death. As soldiers arrive, the king orders them to bring Bert to Commander Griffin for severe punishment.
When King Ravenwood finally addresses Arwen, she wavers between her deep fear of him and her newfound anger at his deception. With Jaem long gone, her escape attempt is a failure, so Arwen turns to return to the castle. Trying to change her misconceptions about his character, the king reassures her that she will not be punished for her escape attempt. He then offers her a deal. If she stays at Shadowhold and continues to work as a healer, he will consider this service a payment for her brother’s debt and will also find her family and bring them safely to her. When Arwen asks why he needs her at the keep instead of on the front lines, he admits to being intrigued by her particular skills. He also mentions the existence of a seer. Arwen agrees, adding the condition that she be permitted to live outside the dungeons and roam the castle without Barney’s supervision. He grants her requests but warns her that if she tries to escape again, her family will suffer.
Chapter 9 Summary
Arwen is given new chambers in the servant’s quarters for the night. The next day at work, Dagan asks about her sullenness, and Arwen relates the details of Bert’s assault and pending torture, as dictated by the king. Arwen is frustrated when Dagan shows no concern, but he then pulls a parcel from a nearby cabinet and beckons her to follow him. Dagan leads Arwen to a training arena and opens the parcel to reveal two swords. He states that he has years of experience in teaching women to defend themselves, and he offers to do the same for her. After a long but successful lesson, he proposes to teach her every morning before the apothecary opens. Arwen accepts. Returning to the castle, she compliments Dagan’s keen swordsmanship, which far exceeds the skills of the Onyx soldiers. When she thanks him for the lesson, she receives her first genuine smile from him.
Arwen visits Mari in the library, hoping to learn more about the king, the seer that he mentioned, and the castle itself. Deciding to trust her, Arwen tells Mari everything about her life. The only detail she withholds is Powell’s abuse. After telling Mari of her mother’s illness, Mari mentions several medical texts, and Arwen realizes that she now has resources that her hometown lacked. She hopes to discover how to treat her mother’s illness, and Mari agrees to help.
That night, Arwen explores the castle and passes a room where the king holds meetings. A large man emerges, sobbing. When the king notices her she enters the throne room and officially meets the young Commander Griffin—the same blond man who chased King Ravenwood down the other day. The king instructs her to call him Kane, then insults her by implying that she has never been with a man and is therefore naïve in more ways than one. Arwen impulsively slaps him, amusing the king, but Commander Griffin quickly restrains her. Kane commands Griffin to unhand her and calls her “nothing more than a nuisance” (131). Offended, she hurries to her quarters, reflecting that the interaction has ruined the more positive aspects of her day.
Chapter 10 Summary
Arwen writes a letter to her family, informing them that she is safe in Onyx and that she is researching her mother’s illness. She carries the letter around for days as she works up the courage to speak to Kane about sending it. When she meets with Mari in the library, Mari shows her a book that identifies her mother’s illness as “Plait’s Disorder.” The cure involves a daily concoction that abates symptoms, improves quality of life, and lengthens life expectancy. While the ingredients are uncommon, the keep has them all, except for one. The last, burrowroot, is native to the Onyx Kingdom and blooms only during a lunar eclipse. Mari explains that the next one is in two months and will only last for eight minutes.
Arwen ventures to the throne room to ask Kane for help. She crosses paths with him in a hall; he is surrounded by four soldiers and Commander Griffin, and they are all dressed in hunting gear, as if they’re going on an expedition. Arwen acts uncharacteristically kind toward Kane, then asks him to deliver her letter to her family in Garnet kingdom. He agrees and surprises her by apologizing for his behavior the other night. She then asks to join his group’s outing. He agrees despite Commander Griffin’s annoyance.
Chapter 11 Summary
Arwen is forced to ride on horseback with Kane. When he asks why she wanted to join them, she admits to feeling cooped up in the keep. Kane has noticed that she doesn’t like being confined and implies that he made efforts to ease her anxiety while in the dungeons. They eventually come to a glade and find an injured person whom Arwen assumes has been mauled by woodland beasts. As the men investigate, she wanders off to search for the burrowroot. Finding it at the base of an oak tree, she tries to memorize the landmarks so that she can return during the eclipse.
When the men decide to return to the keep, Arwen asks to stay out a little longer, wanting to find a nearby pond. Kane offers to help her find one and sends the men back without him. As they walk, she asks about the gory scene in the glade, his answer is vague. When she asks if the culprit was an animal, he tells her that the situation is complicated.
They eventually enter a large field with a body of water. Arwen challenges Kane to a race toward the pool. He agrees, and they decide that the loser must offer the winner a truth. They strip to their undergarments, and Arwen surprises Kane by winning the race. She is delighted to take up with her old hobby of running. When Arwen asks what Kane used to do for fun, he reveals that his mother taught him to play the lute. Arwen notices his distraught expression as he recalls the memory. Instead of asking him for a truth, Arwen begs him to let her go so she can return to her family. He refuses, and their outing comes to an abrupt end.
Chapter 12 Summary
On the ride back to Shadowhold, Arwen struggles to ignore her growing sexual attraction to Kane. When they dismount, she uses her question to ask Kane why he allows everyone, even his own people, to believe that he is a monster when he clearly isn’t. He answers, explaining that vulnerability gets in the way of his duties, so he tries to avoid love, mercy, and compromise. When Arwen says King Gareth of the Amber kingdom has those qualities but still manages to keep his people safe, he argues that unlike Gareth, he has never forced his citizens to join his army. He also points out that Arwen is a captive of Onyx kingdom, thereby disproving the statement that Gareth keeps his people safe. When he asserts that there are many things she doesn’t know, Arwen asks him to educate her, but Kane insists that he cannot.
Arwen meets Mari in the great hall for a meal. Mari complains that in her research of Fae lore, she has found nothing but children’s stories. When Arwen suggests that Mari return to her previous subject of witches, Mari begins acting strangely and eventually admits that she is a witch; the gift was passed down from her mother. Mari has been testing some spells lately with no luck. When Arwen offers to help, Mari reveals that she needs an amulet that belonged to a centuries-old witch named Briar Creighton. Briar became King Kane Ravenwood’s lover in the past, and gifted the amulet to him. Mari plans to steal it from his study while he is out in the woods that day.
Mari and Arwen sneak into the king’s study, using a password-protected secret passageway. As they’re searching the study, they’re interrupted by Kane’s pet, a strix (an intimidating owl-like creature that is known to eat humans). The strix launches itself at Arwen just as Mari finds the locket. Mari channels the power from the amulet to magically contain the strix. As Kane and his guards approach, Mari sets the strix free, and the women slip back into the secret passage just before the men enter the study. Arwen scolds Mari for putting them in a dangerous position, but when Mari explains that she wants to become a brilliant witch like her late mother, Arwen grows sympathetic.
Chapters 7-12 Analysis
This section expands on the novel’s political and magical scope, pitting Arwen’s perspective against Kane’s in order to illustrate The Ambiguity of Political Propaganda and the conflicting perspectives of warring nations. As Arwen remains isolated from the familiar world of Abbington and is forced to navigate the treacherous landscape of the rival kingdom of Onyx, she must reexamine her beliefs, fears, and loyalties as she contends with her contradictory status as a closely watched captive and a respected healer.
Within Arwen’s broader struggle to acclimate to this enforced lifestyle, she must also grapple with The Prison of Fear that originated from her sheltered lifestyle and hampered her ambitions for years, even long before her current state of captivity. For example, she admits to Kane that she once “wished for more” (97) than her life in Abbington, although she then buried that wish beneath the weight of duty and fear. She essentially admits that she has used her focus on her family as a convenient excuse to hide from the world. Arwen’s fear often manifests as panic attacks, claustrophobia, or elevated physical sensations, and her description of the emotion as a “constant and cloying” feeling, “like thick syrup” (97), invokes the impression of a suffocating presence that has shaped her choices for years. These frank exchanges with Kane lay the groundwork for her internal development.
Golden also uses these chapters to complicate Arwen’s perceptions of Onyx and its ruler. When she discovers that the mysterious prisoner from the opening chapters is really the king himself, she must recalibrate her initial impression of the Onyx leader, rejecting or modifying many of the notions that the Amber kingdom has perpetuated in its propaganda. Notably, her growing exposure to Shadowhold challenges her one-dimensional view of Onyx as a land of unimaginable horrors, and Arwen wryly notes that “none of these people had gnarled horns or grotesque claws” (137). She also acknowledges that, apart from Bert, “nobody had even been too unkind” (137), and this realization reinforces the novel’s focus on The Ambiguity of Political Propaganda.
Kane himself becomes a key vehicle for exploring this theme, particularly as the two characters’ conversations reveal their conflicting philosophies on the issues of leadership. Kane views “compromise, mercy, [and] love” (160) as vulnerabilities that harm a king’s ability to protect his people, while Arwen upholds her simplistic view of Amber’s King Gareth as “kind and just” (160). However, her naïve view is shaken when Kane sarcastically counters, “You’re here, aren’t you? A captive of his greatest enemy” (160). This exchange forces Arwen to question whether either king’s approach is free from moral compromise. Kane’s admission that “most of the rumors […] are true” (160) further complicates the simplistic binary of hero and villain, hinting at the deeper nuances that dominate the politics of their world. Additionally, Arwen’s worldview grows notably more complex when she sees beyond Kane’s selfishness and recognizes his ability to be “playful and charming and surprisingly caring”(158), thereby disrupting her previous certainty in his undiluted villainy.
In addition to expanding her worldview with these ideological shifts, Arwen begins to address her own unbalanced approach to The Tension between Self-Sacrifice and Self-Interest. Specifically, she increases her agency by developing tangible skills to combat her crippling sense of fear. Her self-defense training with Dagan is a practical step toward this goal, and she also uses her friendship with Mari to focus on living for herself rather than subordinating her needs to those of others. Although she is initially hesitant to accept Mari’s invitations, she reflects that it has been “a long time since [she has] had an invitation of friendship from anyone” (88). In the past, her familial responsibilities prevented her from making friends beyond her relatives and Halden. Thus, her friendship with Mari stands as the first deep relationship that she forges for her own personal benefit.
Unlock all 53 pages of this Study Guide
Get in-depth, chapter-by-chapter summaries and analysis from our literary experts.
- Grasp challenging concepts with clear, comprehensive explanations
- Revisit key plot points and ideas without rereading the book
- Share impressive insights in classes and book clubs