A Dawn of Onyx

The habit of mentioning the day’s “roses and thorns” (high points and low points) is a tradition with Arwen’s family. This ritual acknowledges the fact that hardships that exist in tandem with the comforts in their lives. In the novel’s earliest scenes, Arwen’s “rose” from her day’s work in Abbington is that she saved a man’s finger. Although she does not mention her thorn, her thoughts reveal that she is worried over the year-long silence from her brother, Ryder, who may have died in service of King Gareth’s army in the war against Onyx. In these early scenes, the rose-and-thorn game allows Golden to introduce the novel’s chief characters and conflicts, but in subsequent chapters, while Arwen works as a healer for Onyx, she decides to play the game to maintain her positivity about her current circumstances. As she wryly reflects during her self-defense lessons, “Rose: I was finally using an adult’s sword” (211). While she also has many potential thorns to list, her focus on the game shows that she doesn’t live in constant fear anymore. By applying her family tradition to a new setting, Arwen celebrates the fledgling idea that she has found a place to belong: a place where the roses will finally outweigh the thorns.