An Ember in the Ashes

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2015

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapters 1-4

Part 1, Chapters 5-10

Parts 1-2, Chapters 11-15

Part 2, Chapters 16-20

Part 2, Chapters 21-26

Part 2, Chapters 27-30

Part 2, Chapters 31-37

Part 2, Chapters 38-40

Parts 2-3, Chapters 41-45

Part 3, Chapters 46-50

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Part 2, Chapters 38-40Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2: “The Trials”

Part 2, Chapter 38 Summary: “Elias”

The third trial pits Elias’s platoon against Helene’s in a battle to the death that will end when Elias or Helene defeats the other. Elias orders his people to injure only, but when he heeds his own command, one of his men starts to choke for no reason. When the rest of his platoon is overcome by similar afflictions, Elias realizes that “every time one of my men shows mercy to the enemy, one of their comrades falls” (336). Shaking with rage and sorrow, Elias orders his men to kill.

Elias hates himself as he kills Helene’s platoon—men he’s known since they were children starting out at Blackcliff. Finally, he faces Helene, who comes at him with reckless abandon. Something snaps in Elias, and battle rage floods him. He knocks Helene to the ground, and the chapter ends with him bringing his dagger down toward her neck.

Part 2, Chapter 39 Summary: “Laia”

While the third trial goes on, Laia, Izzi, and the cook tend to their chores, and cook tells an old story about the jinn. Long ago, the jinn lived apart from humans and concerned themselves only with learning. As humans grew more powerful, they longed for the knowledge of the jinn, but the jinn steadfastly refused to share. When hard times befell the Scholars, they sought help from dark creatures to trap the jinn, believing obtaining jinn knowledge would let them be great once more. From the gifts the other creatures gave, the humans created a powerful weapon “that would conquer the jinn forever” (345).

The humans imprisoned all the jinn but one in an ever-growing forest. The remaining one went mad so that darkness fell wherever he went, giving him the name Nightbringer. Nightbringer helped the Martials build their superior army and weapons so they could destroy the Scholars to get his revenge. When Laia’s parents were alive, Nightbringer infiltrated the rebellion and helped the traitor who got them killed. As the cook continues the story, she starts to studder and grabs her head as if in pain. When Laia and Izzi try to help, she shoos them away, and Laia wonders if the cook knows so much because she was the traitor who betrayed the resistance.

Later, the Commandant summons Laia to the house’s front room, where an Augur declares she’s the one, and drags her into the night. After binding, blindfolding, and gagging her, guards toss her into an unfamiliar room.

Part 2, Chapter 40 Summary: “Elias”

Elias’s dagger breaks against the armored shirt the Augurs gave Helene for winning the second trial, but armor was forbidden in the third trial, so she is disqualified. Elias is numb with shock that he almost killed Helene, and he collapses beside her, whispering her name over and over while thinking “nothing is worth this” (352). Elias is named winner of the third trial, but it doesn’t feel like a victory.

Later, Elias waits to see Helene in the infirmary. Marcus is there, haunted about killing Zak during their battle. An Augur walks Elias back to his quarters, and when Elias asks why the Augurs made them fight one another, the Augur says they didn’t have a choice. A war is coming, and they must all be ready because that war is the only way to right an ancient wrong. At Elias’s room, the Augur bids Elias goodnight, telling him his prize for winning the trial is inside.

Part 2, Chapters 38-40 Analysis

The third trial pits Elias against Helene and Marcus against Zak. Since there can only be two aspirants left alive at the end of the trials, this trial was likely meant to narrow the field to the eventual winners with the final trial to determine who would be emperor and second. Helene’s unintentional breaking of the rules saves her life and throws off the ratio of aspirants for the final trial. The armor also keeps Elias from killing his best friend, which he might have done wrapped up in the blood rage as he was. When Helene comes at Elias, his training and sense of self-preservation kicked in. After killing so many of his friends to get to her, he has temporarily dehumanized his friends, which allows him to attack Helene as if she’s a foe.

The terms of the third trial’s battle harken back to Elias’s first trial. When he saw the field full of people he killed, there was no stipulation that he willingly struck down all these people in battle, and the possibility of killing his own men by showing mercy to Helene’s men shows that it doesn’t matter how Elias might have killed someone. A deliberate murder makes someone just as dead as not acting to save someone’s life, but either way, that death would weigh on Elias’s conscience.

No explanation is given for why the third trial requires friends to fight one another, or why showing mercy to the foe causes friends to fall. The Augurs claim they have little choice about the contents of the trials, so it may be that they argued for a less inhumane battle. It may also be that the Nightbringer has laid forth the terms for the trial so he may find a new emperor willing to do whatever it takes to avenge his fellow jinn. This further develops the theme of The Power of Choice in that no one seems to feel they are able to choose how things play out—even the Augers’ hands are tied if they are to be believed. This lack of agency is turning Elias into someone he doesn’t even recognize and someone he is ashamed to be. Helene’s decision to cheat also comes from this lack of choice—if she felt she had a choice, then she would also likely feel that she has a fair chance, but without a fair chance she will bend rules to help her win (especially since Zak cheated in a previous trial and was not reprimanded for it).

The story the cook tells in Chapter 39 provides necessary backstory and sets up the rest of the series. The history of the jinn and their relationship with the Scholar Empire shows how the Martials rose to power and came to conquer the Scholars. It also shows how a group is not good or evil and that the conquerors and conquered can change depending on the situation. In the cook’s story, the Scholars lusted for power and were responsible for the destruction of the jinn and Nightbringer’s rise to power. Like the Martial Empire in the story’s present, the Scholars were ruthless in their quest to obtain what they wanted, and they didn’t let anything get in their way. In the present, the Martial Empire has done the same thing to the Scholars that the Scholars did to the jinn. The Scholars are not better than the Martials. Rather, they are just weaker at this time, which let them fall to Martial attacks.

The cook struggles to speak about her history with the resistance and Laia’s parents. She reveals that Nightbringer infiltrated the resistance, which lends credit to the idea that Nightbringer had a hand in the deaths of Laia’s parents and that he may be at least partly responsible for the cook’s physical reaction to the story. While the cook cannot verbally tell the story, she is able to help Laia free Elias later, suggesting that, if her condition is a result of a curse, the spell is specific to revealing information and does not restrict the cook from assisting the resistance or anyone else who goes against the empire in different ways.

Elias’s conversation with Marcus in Chapter 30 is the first time Marcus is shown as anything other than over-confident and cruel. Being forced to kill his brother has shaken Marcus, and the fact that Zak asked for death has possibly left Marcus questioning their upbringing within the empire’s strict society. This will likely affect Marcus going forward and may change how he views Helene and the Scholars. It may also let him slip farther into his internal darkness and make him the tool the Nightbringer wants him to be. The Augur insists the coming war is the only way to right how the Scholars wronged the jinn, which either foreshadows the war fixing the situation or the war making things worse.