54 pages • 1-hour read
Glow
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Chapter 55-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of sexual content, graphic violence, and death.
Chapter 55 Summary: “Auren”
While Slade is busy planning his strategy, Auren is outdoors during daylight hours practicing her magic. She notices a dark blotch forming in the middle of her gold, but imagines she is seeing things. Manu appears to try to persuade her to attend the Conflux voluntarily. He explains that this is a mere formality to keep the people from growing angry that justice doesn’t apply to the ruling class. He says, “Piece of advice, Doll, never let the people come up with their own narrative, because you’ll rarely like what they say” (584-85).
Their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of Rissa and Polly. The latter is still snarling at Rissa for having “rescued” her from life as a royal saddle, where she was content. She tells Rissa, “You thought that everyone—me included—wanted out as much as you did, but you were wrong” (589). Polly demands that Auren give her money and then heads for the town’s nearest brothel to seek employment. Rissa remains behind, admitting that she might like to stay in Fourth Kingdom. Auren suspects that Rissa has taken a liking to Osrik, though she won’t admit it.
Chapter 56 Summary: “Auren”
That evening, Slade must give Manu a final answer. Auren suggests going to the Conflux herself, but Slade forbids it. He reminds her that their combined fae powers are enough and that they must protect themselves.
Chapter 57 Summary: “Auren”
The couple engages in a passionate lovemaking session before facing the political minefield that lies ahead of them. Afterward, Auren falls asleep.
Chapter 58 Summary: “Auren”
Hours later, Auren awakens to realize that Slade has gone to meet Manu without her. When she rushes downstairs, she learns that dinner ended an hour earlier and that Manu is preparing to depart. After dark, she walks out into the garden to clear her head and finds Rissa there. During their conversation, the women are surprised when their guard is murdered. Two shadowy figures appear. One stabs Rissa while the other presses a drugged cloth over Auren’s face.
Chapter 59 Summary: “Slade”
Slade is managing logistics at the army base near town when he receives news that Auren is missing. He quickly concludes she has been taken to the Conflux against her will. Slade immediately summons Argo, intending to ride to Auren’s rescue.
Chapter 60 Summary: “Auren”
When Auren emerges from her stupor, she finds herself in Second Kingdom, where the Conflux will convene. She is being held prisoner by Queen Isolte, a religious fanatic who has pinch power. She says, “The gods bestowed this power of pain on me so I may exact punishment on immoral souls. It is no sin, my lady. It is my duty as a patron of sanctity” (648).
Every time Auren tries to summon her gold, Isolte subjects her to excruciating pain, throwing off her concentration.
Chapter 61 Summary: “Auren”
Auren is led outdoors where the Conflux has convened in a courtyard. She is forced to stand inside an enclosure of 10-foot poles positioned before six thrones, where she will be interrogated. The royal attendees include First Kingdom’s King Euden, Second’s King Merewen, and Third’s Queen Kaila. The Fourth Kingdom’s throne, belonging to Slade, is empty. The throne of Fifth Kingdom is occupied by Kaila’s puppet ruler, King Hagan. The sixth throne, once held by Midas, is also empty.
Chapter 62 Summary: “Slade”
Meanwhile, Slade is flying at top speed to reach Auren in time. He has already reached the burning desert of Second Kingdom when Argo is shot in the wing and tumbles to the earth, breaking one of his legs. Slade is able to rot the iron bolt out of Argo, but he realizes that the beast cannot be moved. He fears he will be too late to rescue Auren.
Chapter 63 Summary: “Auren”
Auren tries to summon her power, but gold leaks through her skin and down to the ground. King Merewen tells her, “My great-grandfather had the power of runes. And the one you’re standing on? It drains a person’s magic out of them, like squeezing out a tube, but you won’t be able to use it so long as you’re in there” (677).
Auren is accused of stealing Midas’s gold touch and killing him. Kaila uses her power of capturing voices to speak back the final conversation between Auren and Midas. She has edited out parts of their speech to make Auren sound guilty and concludes, “Lady Auren was jealous he had announced his engagement to me. In her rage to get back at him, she seduced King Ravinger, and then she attacked” (679-80).
At this point, Kaila notices that the gold dripping from Auren’s fingers is tinged with dark veins, like Slade’s rot. She says that Auren has stolen King Rot’s powers, too. The other royals are fearful that Auren might take their magic as well, and they pronounce her guilty.
Chapter 64 Summary: “Auren”
The Conflux immediately condemns Auren to death, and six guards surround the cage, intending to stab her. She thinks, “After all I did to be free, I’m going to die trapped behind bars anyway, locked in a cage I can’t escape” (688).
Just as the first blade pierces her skin, Auren senses a commotion, and Slade arrives on a timberwing. King Merewen instantly orders his young son to use his power to set up an impenetrable veil of fabric to protect the royals. A separate veil seals Auren into her cage.
The gold flowing from her now rises, threatening to drown her. Slade hacks at the barrier to no avail. He then aims his fae power at it, unintentionally opening another rip in the world. The rift leads to Annwyn, and Slade tells Auren to flee there, promising to come find her. She plunges into Annwyn.
Chapter 65 Summary: “Slade”
Keeping the rift open as long as he can to give Auren time to land, Slade eventually collapses from exhaustion. Ryatt arrives on another timberwing and flies Slade to safety. The latter learns that Ryatt and the army followed Slade and rescued Argo.
Now, Slade demands to fly straight to Deadwell. He hopes he can enter the rift there to find Auren in Annwyn. When the two brothers reach Drollard Village, they are shocked to discover that it is deserted. Worse still, the rip itself is gone.
Epilogue Summary: “Queen Malina”
In Seventh Kingdom, Malina is ready to perform the ritual that will restore the realm. The twins take drops of blood from her hands, and Malina immediately feels a surge of magical power through her own veins, just as they promised. However, she grows alarmed when she sees that nothing has changed in the kingdom. Instead, the broken bridge between Orea and Annwyn has been repaired. Malina realizes that she was tricked by the twins, who are actually fae. They tell her, “The fae are returning. And this time, Orea will be ours” (715).
Chapter 55-Epilogue Analysis
The novel’s final chapters sets up a confrontation between the powerful and the powerless that foregrounds The Corrupting Influence of Power. Auren’s refusal to attend the Conflux thwarts the plans of the royals and is a further threat to their power. In the guise of a friend, Manu tells Auren, “If we let King Midas’s death stand without questioning? The people will be incensed. They’ll get dangerous ideas. Whether it’s to kill another royal without consequence or to take it upon themselves to mete out judgment, both of which we don’t want” (584). Manu’s reasoning here reveals that he is trying to protect his sister’s power base, not serve the interests of justice impartially. His protests to Auren expose how the royals are more interested in controlling the populace than in ruling and serving them well.
By this point in the story, however, Auren has developed enough confidence in her control of gold-touch that she is now determined to use it to survive. She says, “[I]n this world, if you don’t have power, you don’t survive” (658). Aware of her relative powerlessness as a commoner, Auren embraces the necessity of using her magical abilities to defend herself against the machinations of the corrupt monarchs. Likewise, Slade is prepared to use his rot power to defend Auren and his domain. Since Auren and Slade are determined to use their magic for self-defense, they become an even greater threat to those who covet power and fear its loss.
The defiance Slade and Auren exhibit speaks to The Struggle for Personal Agency. However, their magic begins to behave in unpredictable ways that rob them of the ability to mount an effective counterattack. After Auren is captured, she has trouble directing her gold-touch because of Queen Isolte’s pinch power. Later, the runes beneath her cage drain her magic entirely. She says, “Not only can I not stop it [the leaking gold], but I also can’t direct it” (675). Auren’s helplessness is a recurring pattern that she has tried to overcome over the entire course of the series. Even though Glow shows her mastering her inner demons, she is still no match for outer circumstances beyond her control. In this way, her fight for true personal agency is not yet won.
The same proves to be true of Slade’s struggle for personal agency. While he wields his rot power with surgical precision and has enough fae magic to keep the rift in Drollard open, he is also defeated by external conditions. The barrier created by King Merewen’s son keeps him from rescuing Auren. His use of fae magic to shatter her prison exhausts and depletes him. Worse still, it opens another rift to Annwyn. Although this portal does allow Auren to escape the Conflux, it has the unintended consequence of closing the rift in Drollard. Ryatt and Slade return home to find the rip closed and everyone vanished, which suggests that Slade’s powers may have unintentionally caused harm to his villagers.
The novel’s Epilogue contains one final example of a character seeking self-determination only to be defeated by magic that has gone awry. Queen Malina learns that her participation in the ritual to raise Seventh Kingdom didn’t go as she expected. The fae twins tell her, “You made the bargain, Majesty. We needed the blood of a pure Orean royal to accept the restoration of the bridge, and you gave it” (713-15). Now, a fae army is free to invade Orea. Glow ends with Auren, Slade, and Malina pursuing their individual quests for freedom, with the cliffhanger suggesting that they will face many more challenges before securing their happy ending.
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