61 pages • 2-hour read
Fall of Ruin and Wrath
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Chapters 7-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of substance use, sexual content, graphic violence, sexual harassment, and death.
Chapter 7 Summary
The following morning, Lis works in the garden. She tries to calm her nerves as she works up the courage to talk to Claude about the shadow market in Archwood. She is exhausted, having only slept a few hours the night before. When she woke in the morning, the first thing she saw was a lunea dagger sitting on her nightstand; she took it from Jac’s barn purely out of instinct.
Grady comes to Lis in the garden and tells her that someone saw her leaving and reentering the grounds last night. In the distance, Lis can see two fires burning. Grady explains that the fires are at Jac’s farm and at the pub that the lord was taken from. The flames are golden, which means they were set with Hyhborn magic. When Grady expresses his disappointment that the fires aren’t related to the Iron Knights, Lis scolds him for speaking too openly about rebels. She has always feared that his interest in them and his distaste for Hyhborn will lead him to trouble.
Realizing that she cannot lie to Grady, Lis tells him about overhearing the guards talking and her efforts to save the lord. Grady is angry at her for putting herself in danger. She decides not to tell him that it was the same lord from the orphanage. As they look out at the fires, Lis hears the same words she heard before: “He’s coming.”
Later that morning, Lis meets with Claude. She does not tell him about the lord, instead explaining that she overheard his guards talking about the shadow market and the Hyhborn they captured. Claude is angry, feeling the same fear as Lis: If the Court of Primvera hears of the people of Archwood killing Hyhborn, it will retaliate. Lis then tells him about hearing the name Muriel, but Claude does not know who Muriel is. He thanks her for the information and then asks her to see if she can learn of anyone else who is involved.
As Lis goes to leave, she realizes that she knows nothing about Muriel. If he is in Archwood and she has never overheard his thoughts or seen any visions of him, he is likely Hyhborn. She muses over why a Hyhborn would be involved in capturing Hyhborn leaders.
Chapter 8 Summary
Later that evening, Lis sits looking at a party in the Great Chamber. She watches as the wealthy in Archwood pleasure each other. She does her best not to worry about the border or the shadow market but struggles to enjoy herself. She also thinks of the lord, knowing that the voice she heard was about his return. She wonders how she can know of his movements yet not be able to use her intuition on him with her mind or her touch.
A man approaches Lis and tries to convince her to pleasure him. She grabs his hand, reading his mind, and learns that he has a wife. She smiles at him darkly, calling him by his name, which scares him away. Naomi then joins her. The two talk about the rumors of Hyhborn in Archwood. Lis chooses not to tell her about the lord or the shadow market. Noami flirts with her, touching her body, and makes a joke about Grady being nearby and how that prevents her from pleasuring Lis.
Naomi then brings up Claude, whom she says she is worried about. He has been drinking more and experiencing mood swings, which makes her nervous that something is bothering him. Lis wonders if that “something” is more than just the news of the shadow market.
Chapter 9 Summary
Lis leaves the party and returns to her bedroom. She is restless as she lies in bed: She cannot stop thinking about Naomi touching her or the lord’s body in the shower. She pleasures herself to thoughts of both. However, even after finishing, she still feels restless. She feels drawn to go outside to the gardens. As Lis walks through these, she sees orbs of light in the sky. They appear each year around the time of the Feasts, in late spring and early summer. The lowborn do not know what they are, but they assume that they are related to the Hyhborn. One comes close to Lis, allowing her to see that it is full of many small, pulsing clusters of life. After a minute, it returns to the sky.
Lis’s intuition tells her to stop. She has the urge to follow a path, down which she hears voices. As she listens, she has a vision of violence and blood. She knows she should run, but the thought of someone dying urges her forward. When she realizes that she is hearing two Hyhborn lords talking, she is confused about how her intuition works. Distracted, she trips, drawing their attention. When Lis hears one of them laugh in the shadows, she realizes that it is “her” lord. The other lord reacts angrily toward Lis. She turns to leave, but her lord asks her to wait. He speaks to the other, calling him Nathaniel, and then punches him through the chest. Light explodes from him, burning Nathaniel until only ash remains.
Shocked by what she saw, Lis starts to back away. The lord tries to stop her, but she ignores him. She is then grabbed around the throat and lifted into the air by another lord, whom her lord calls Muriel. He tries unsuccessfully to get Muriel to drop Lis, but Muriel instead asks about what happened to Nathaniel; her lord admits that he killed him. The two then argue, with her lord accusing Muriel of betraying his trust. Muriel then accuses the lord of getting information that he shouldn’t have and warns him that King Euros will be upset.
Muriel warns the lord that if he does not stay away, he will harm Lis. When the lord acts like he doesn’t care, Lis has a strong feeling of “betrayal” that enrages her. The lord assures Muriel that he is free to go, so Muriel flees into the trees, still holding Lis. She struggles to free herself but fails. She then sees a dark shadow approach, followed by the “flash” of a lunea dagger. She feels the grip on her neck loosen, but then someone else grabs her arm. She is thrown through the air. When she lands on the ground, everything goes dark.
Chapter 10 Summary
Lis slowly recovers, slipping in and out of consciousness. She hears the lord talking with a man named Bastian, and she feels him touching her skin and the warmth of healing beneath it. Finally, she regains consciousness to find him holding her in the garden.
Lis initially tries to flee the lord, remembering the betrayal she felt when he let Muriel take her. However, the lord laughs at her, insisting that he would never have let Muriel harm her. He teases her that “na’laa” has many meanings, including “outspoken” and “stubborn,” but also “ungrateful” (116). He then asks Lis why she was in the garden. When she mentions the orbs, he calls several of them down into the garden. He tells her that they are called “sōls” and that they contain the souls of the nature that surrounds them. As they pulse around Lis, he explains that they can understand her and that they like her.
Lis finally asks the lord’s name. He tells her that he is Thorne, a revelation that feels “life-altering” to Lis, as she finally knows what to call him. Lord Thorne again asks Lis why she happened to be in the gardens, and she insists that she was just walking. Although Thorne seems not to believe her, he lets it go.
Lis asks questions about Muriel and Nathaniel. Thorne gives her little information but confirms that Muriel was trying to have him killed because Muriel and others are afraid of him. Lis realizes that she feels a strange mix of fear, attraction, and fascination when she interacts with Thorne. She forces herself to tell him that she needs to return home. In response, Thorne moves close to Lis. He reaches down and ties her robe closed. She thinks that he is going to kiss her, and she isn’t sure how she feels about it. However, at that moment, the air grows cold, and the light around them disappears. Thorne urgently tells her that she needs to go home, and Lis runs. As she does, the feeling that she should’ve stayed by Thorne’s side and fought overwhelms her.
Chapter 11 Summary
A group of ni’meres—Hyhborn who have the bodies of large eagles and the heads of mortals—attacks Archwood. They kill three of the guards on the castle wall, and the body parts of others are found. Lis listens as Claude discusses the attack with his guards. They tell him that they think the ni’meres were looking for something in the garden. Claude instructs his guards to find the other missing bodies and then dismisses them.
Claude asks Lis what she knows. When she tells him that her intuition doesn’t work with Hyhborn, he angrily smashes her glass of water and plate of food to the floor. He reminds her that her intuition also doesn’t work on herself. He asks her if she was involved in the ni’mere attack, but she insists that she knew nothing about it. Claude then calms down, apologizing for his temper.
After Claude leaves, Grady cleans up the broken plate and glass. Lis spots a mark on his arm. When she asks what it is, Grady tells her that he burned himself while making a new blade. She then asks if Grady plans on telling Claude that he wants to be his next blacksmith. However, Grady is unsure if that’s what he wants to do.
Grady warns Lis about staying out of the garden. Although she agrees with him, she still regrets not staying by Thorne’s side to fight with him. She thinks of being at his side as the place where she “belongs.”
Chapters 7-11 Analysis
As the first section of the text explores Lis’s feelings of liminality, this section begins her discovery of a place where she feels she can belong. This feeling is inseparable from her developing relationship with Thorne, who provides her with several things that she has lacked throughout her life, including personal connection, companionship, and touch without the possibility of her gift overwhelming her. The depiction of the pair’s sexual intimacy underscores this point. The relationship between Lis and Thorne does not center on sexual contact. Although they touch each other, Lis repeatedly thinks of the act as a form of emotional connection that is, paradoxically, all the more meaningful because it does not entail the barrage of thoughts touch usually entails for Lis. With Thorne, she finds relief in the act of close contact, something that she is unable to have with anyone else. That Thorne, as a Deminyen, needs pleasure to “feed” yet largely forgoes sexual contact with Lis further positions their relationship as unique and significant.
This developing connection increasingly challenges Lis’s self-sufficiency, driving her character development. Even as Lis runs from the danger of the ni’meres attacking the courtyard, she has an “inexplicable feeling that [she] shouldn’t be running. That [she] should be standing at his side, facing what was coming” (123). For Lis, this is a new feeling, as her life has thus far been defined by ensuring her own survival. Thorne’s introduction thus brings the theme of The Clash Between Survival and Rebellion into focus.
As Lis gets to know Thorne, her knowledge that, like other Hyhborn, he is a brutal, violent leader is complicated by what she learns about him as a person. After their first meeting, she notes the fires in the distance that signify Thorne seeking revenge for his kidnapping and torture. Although she notes that several lowborn Archwood citizens die because of his violence, she also thinks, “He’d sought revenge. But could it even count as revenge when whatever his actions were likely prevented another Hyhborn from being used in such a manner? Sounded more like justice to me, as harsh as that was” (80). Her willingness to side with a Hyhborn over her fellow lowborn emphasizes her growing recognition of Thorne’s personhood. Similarly, when the two discuss their lives in the garden, Lis notes, “The Lord laughed—and the sound was deep and…and nice. Unexpected. He hadn’t laughed like that last night” (114). Moments like this serve to humanize Thorne. Lis begins to understand who he truly is, which calls into question the brutality of his reputation.
Lis’s dagger, an important symbol associated with The Struggle for Autonomy, first appears in this section. When Lis wakes up and finds it sitting on her nightstand, she notes, “[T]aking it wasn’t something I’d consciously thought of doing. I’d just done it, guided by intuition” (79). The lunea dagger is an example of Chekhov’s gun, a narrative principle where an author draws attention to an element that will play an important narrative role later on. In this way, the dagger foreshadows danger for Lis, even if she cannot currently articulate why she has it or why she would ever need it. The dagger creates a mood of impending danger and foreboding, inviting the reader to wonder whether Thorne is the Hyhborn she will need protection from.
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