A Vow in Vengeance
58 pages • 1-hour read
Jaclyn RodriguezA Vow in Vengeance
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Prologue 1-Chapter 6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: The section of the guide feature depictions of death, sexual violence and harassment, graphic violence, sexual content, and enslavement.
Prologue 1 Summary
Six years ago, 14-year-old Rune and her mother hide in a freezing cabin to avoid the Selection, a ritual in which immortals take mortals from their villages. They cannot light a fire because patrols would see it. Rune clutches the last remnants of her family: a broken toy king and a bone fishhook pendant from her twin brother. The immortals took her brother when she was six and her father when she was 13.
A knock signals the arrival of druids, one of three types of immortals with deadly magic. Rune’s mother pushes her into a crawl space beneath the floorboards, hoping the druids cannot sense how many people are inside. She tells Rune that as long as she does not fear the immortals, they hold no power over her.
The druids break down the door. Rune watches through the cracks as her mother goes willingly. When a guard suggests burning the house as a message (xvi), fire spreads with unnatural speed. Rune crawls out into the snow and watches her home collapse, her mother and the druids gone. Overcome with fear and hate, she vows to get her family back and runs.
Prologue 2 Summary: “Royal Decree”
A royal decree signed fifteen years ago (xviii) by King Altair of the Seraphs, King Silas of the Druids, and King Eldarion of the Elves establishes the Selection. Each year, one hundred mortal souls will be reaped as penance for the mortal uprising. Each year, the nine remaining mortal territories must submit to the Selection process at random. Failure to appear results in forfeiture of life and property. The Selected will never see mortal lands again.
Chapter 1 Summary: “The Selection”
Six years later, 20-year-old Rune Ryker stands in Vexamire’s ruined capital for the Selection of her territory, Westfall. Her bounty poster identifies her as the Wraith of Westfall, wanted for attacking her former master, the Lord of Westfall, and burning his manor. Rune spent five years as his supreme spy after her mother was taken. Now a fugitive, she pushes through the crowd, trying to avoid recognition while drawing the druids’ attention with her moon-white hair and emerald cloak.
Kasper, the adopted son of the Lord of Shadowfell—a neighboring mortal territory—recognizes Rune and reveals he is also on the run. Druids emerge from shadows, forcing everyone to kneel with magic. King Silas appears with Queen Vesta and his sons, Prince Draven and Prince Ansel. The king announces his sons will conduct the Selection. Rune catches Prince Draven’s notice as his younger brother chooses victims. With only one spot left, Rune breaks protocol and whispers to Prince Ansel to pick her. Amused, Draven allows his brother to keep the transgression secret. Prince Ansel selects Rune.
Chapter 2 Summary: “The Wall”
The Selected are separated from the crowd. Queen Vesta uses a shadow portal to transport herself, the king, and Prince Ansel away. Prince Draven appears beside Rune, teasing her before vanishing into shadows. The Selected climb a long staircase inside the Wall. On a landing, Rune finds a crying toddler who has been abandoned. She carries him the rest of the way, singing a lullaby her mother taught her.
At the top, they reach a terrace. King Silas orders those under 18 to step forward. A guard tries to take the toddler from Rune, and she lies about being underage, but the king sees through it. The children are taken away through a portal. Silas reveals the Selected will join the druid kingdom of Sedah. He presents them with a choice: swear an Oath or jump to their deaths. Prince Draven approaches with a bowl of crimson liquid, telling Rune it is not blood before joking that he might be lying. She drinks.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Arcana”
The drink is sweet and addictive. Magic compels everyone to swear an oath, binding their souls to serve the druid kingdom forever. The transformation causes excruciating pain. A voice demands that Rune yield, and she does. When it ends, she has pointed ears, sharpened canines, and glowing gold eyes. Her wild curls have become straight and silky. One woman immediately runs to the plank and jumps.
King Silas explains they are now changelings and will be trained in magic using tarot cards that channel powers called Arcana. Kasper draws The High Priestess. Rune meets Ember, a red-haired girl who drew The Star, and Morgan, a lava-cursed man. When Rune’s turn comes, she feels an immense pull from the cards. The vizier calls her result impossible. King Silas makes her draw again after questioning her about her family’s history. She draws the same card: The World.
Commander Soto takes charge of the changelings. Prince Draven creates a shadow portal that transports them to a canyon containing a massive castle built over a lake of lava. A wyvern flies overhead. Commander Soto welcomes them to the Forge, an academy where they will train for a year before undergoing the Descent to become full immortals.
Chapter 4 Summary: “Sedah”
In the entry hall, Commander Soto orders the changelings to discard all personal belongings as an offering to their god, Azazel, and change into uniforms. Rune tries to hide a broken toy king figurine from her brother, Remus, in her boot, but a guard confiscates it. When Rune refuses to give up the necklace her father gave her, Prince Draven intervenes, unmasking to reveal his face. He demands the necklace, and she surrenders it. He makes it vanish into shadows.
The changelings are led to an oval lawn where Sedah-born druid students are assembled. Commander Soto warns against harming changelings outside of training and dismisses them to find their Hearths, residences assigned by Arcana. Ember goes to The Star’s Hearth, and Morgan to The Moon’s. Rune finds The World’s Hearth at the far end of the Oval. It is the smallest and appears empty, though she finds evidence of one other resident.
The Hearth is luxurious, with a shared living space and a large library. Rune hears footsteps and confronts the other resident: Prince Draven, who tells her he does not want her there either.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Roommates”
Enraged, Rune throws her boot at Draven. He uses magic send it back through a shadow portal so that it strikes her in the head. She throws vases and a penknife at him. He turns the knife into a salamander, then magically paralyzes her and binds her to a chair. He materializes her necklace from shadows and returns it, explaining that attachments to the past are forbidden.
Draven reveals they are the only two people chosen for The World Arcana in five hundred years. The power grants the ability to use all other Arcana. He realizes she volunteered for the Selection in hopes of finding her family. He reveals her mother is not at the Forge; as a Selection deserter, she was likely sent to a prison called Destarion and then sold to the elves. He says the children chosen in the Selection were all orphans. He warns her to stay out of his way.
The next morning, Rune finds Draven has left a copy of her bounty poster with a taunting note. In Introduction to Tarot, Professor Atum explains the origin of tarot cards and demonstrates alchemy. After class, a Sedah-born druid named Mira confronts Rune, calling the changelings “scabs.” Rune taunts her back, and a brawl erupts. Mira grabs Rune by the throat, mentions that mortals once caused a “Curse,” and slams her into a wall. Professor Vexus arrives, stops the fight, and orders everyone to his class.
Chapter 6 Summary: “Practical Magic”
Professor Vexus reveals that Sedah-born druids have no more practical magic experience than changelings, as druids cannot channel magic until age twenty. He distributes personal tarot decks and explains the rules of using them. Upon completing the Descent, a druid’s Major Arcana is tattooed on their dominant hand. Over-channeling magic can cause a user to burn alive from the inside out.
When organizing practice groups, Vexus is shocked to learn Rune also has The World Arcana. During practice, Rune is unable to summon her card, and Vexus mocks her. After class, she drops her cards. A druid named Wynter helps her, accidentally touching one of the cards, and apologizes because others are not supposed to handle someone else’s deck. He reveals he has the Judgment Arcana, making them practice partners. He explains Judgment’s powers include mind control and necromancy, the same as those of King Silas.
Wynter confirms that magical power translates to social and political power in Sedah. The realization gives Rune a new goal: if she becomes powerful enough, she can change things and find her family or get revenge. They head to Minor Arcana class.
Prologue 1-Chapter 6 Analysis
The narrative establishes The Illusion of Choice Under Authoritarian Rule by framing the druid regime as a system of psychological coercion. The Royal Decree presents the Selection not as an act of cruelty but as a justified “penance” (xviii) for a past mortal uprising, reframing political domination as moral necessity. This pattern continues at the top of the Wall, where the Selected face a false dichotomy: swear a binding Oath of loyalty or jump to their deaths. This ultimatum is presented as a choice, encouraging the oppressed to participate in their own subjugation. Furthermore, the Oath is extracted under the influence of a magical liquid, eliminating the possibility of genuine consent. Even the confiscation of personal belongings is framed as a voluntary “offering,” turning confiscation into ritualized compliance. The regime’s power therefore operates through multiple mechanisms—physical threat, magical compulsion, and symbolic ritual—each reinforcing the illusion that obedience is voluntary.
Rune’s characterization is defined by her response to this oppression, illustrating The Transformative Nature of Vengeance. Rune channels the trauma of her family’s capture into a deliberate pursuit of vengeance. The mantra from her mother, “They may steal my freedom, my love, my very breath, but so long as I do not fear them, they hold no power over me” (xv), shapes Rune’s understanding of resistance. Vengeance becomes a catalyst for self-reconstruction, as the fearful girl in the prologue is replaced by the “Wraith of Westfall” (7), an identity forged through rebellion. Consequently, she seeks to exploit the Selection rather than escape it, carefully ensuring she will be chosen. This strategic inversion of victimhood reveals how vengeance provides Rune with a sense of agency, enabling her to transform a ritual of oppression into a path of infiltration. Vengeance thus functions as a force of personal reconstruction, granting Rune the resolve to survive while requiring her to abandon the identity she once held.
This shedding of identity is reinforced through repeated moments of physical transformation and shifts in naming. The forced conversion into “changelings”—marked by pointed ears, fangs, and altered hair—visually represents the regime’s attempt to reshape mortal identity. For Rune, the loss of her curly hair represents a “stripping of my heritage and my history,” (32) symbolizing the severing of her connection to her past. The term “changeling” itself draws on folkloric associations with replacement, emphasizing that the Selected are being remade into something alien. This depersonalization is reinforced by the confiscation of personal totems. Prince Draven’s assertion that “Your attachment is the issue” (47) articulates the regime’s ideological objective: to eliminate personal histories and loyalties that compete with allegiance to the state. Identity therefore becomes a contested space, shaped by the tension between individual memory and institutional control.
Just as the state imposes a new identity upon the changelings, it also dictates their place within its rigid power structure through the tarot card system. In Sedah, magic is assigned and regulated through rituals controlled by the ruling authority. The classification of Arcana into tiers reveals a pre-existing caste system, a reality confirmed when Wynter states that “Power is the only thing that matters in Sedah” (82). creates a hierarchy in which social value is determined by magical classification. Rune’s drawing of the “impossible” (35) World card immediately disrupts this order, marking her as an anomaly within the system. Her inability to summon her card further distinguishes assigned potential from actual power, establishing a central conflict in which Rune must learn to master her ability in order to challenge the system that categorizes it.
Rune’s primary challenge in mastering this power is her antagonistic relationship with Prince Draven, which introduces the theme of Intimacy as a Tool for Survival and Power. Their connection is forged not through mutual understanding but through conflict and forced proximity, beginning with his cold during the Selection and escalating into a battle for dominance within their shared Hearth. The dynamic is immediately transactional; Draven uses his power to take her necklace, asserting authority, yet later returns it while revealing information about her mother. This exchange establishes their relationship as one defined by negotiation, where knowledge and vulnerability function as forms of leverage. As the only two known wielders of The World Arcana, their forced cohabitation turns their shared quarters into a space of constant strategic tension. Their proximity reframes intimacy as a calculated exchange necessary for survival within the Forge’s political hierarchy.
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