Divine Rivals

Iris learns firsthand about the horrors and dangers of life in the trenches, including the “barrage” strategy, a high-casualties tactic in which one side attempts to cross the distance between their opposing trenches. They do so by firing heavy artillery “which causes smoke to rise and conceal the soldiers who crawl across the zone to take their opponent’s trenches” (224). For several days, Iris and Roman fill pages with stories from the front. One night, she has a nightmare about her mother, and Roman comforts her.

In the heat of the afternoon, Roman is grateful for the cool feel of the wind, but the wind often forewarns of a barrage in the trenches, for Dacre’s army uses the wind to send enough drifting smoke out to cover their attempts to overtake the Sycamore Platoon’s trench. In the chaos of battle and death, Roman and Iris attempt to flee in the direction of Avalon Bluff as instructed, but an enemy grenade blows them apart.

Iris finds Roman with shrapnel in his leg. She helps him to the nearest lorry for transport back to the Avalon Bluff infirmary but does not leave with him. Roman begs her to retrieve his bag. Due to her lack of injuries, Iris is recruited to help carry the wounded from the trenches to the trucks. She finds Roman’s bag along the way and manages to board the last lorry from the trenches, despite there being many more wounded left stranded. She tells the myth of how Enva fooled Dacre to the wounded soldiers in her lorry, holding Lieutenant Lark’s hand until he dies of his injuries.

Attie greets Iris when she arrives in Avalon Bluff and brings her to see Roman, who is asleep after the surgery to remove the shrapnel from his leg. Marisol escorts Iris and Attie to the bed-and-breakfast and fixes them a meal before bed. Iris wakes the next morning and remembers Carver’s letter. The letter reveals that Roman is Carver, and Iris wonders if he has been purposefully playing her for a fool.

Angry and hurt by Roman’s betrayal, Iris visits him in the infirmary. Roman assures Iris that his feelings and all of his words to her in the letters are true. He hobbles up from the bed to kiss her, but they are broken apart by a nurse who insists that Roman remain in bed to rest and recover. Iris seizes the opportunity to flee. Later, she writes to herself about the situation. After rereading Roman’s letters, she is convinced that he has been honest about his feelings, but she is still unable to reconcile the two different versions of him that she has separately fallen in love with.

Roman returns to Marisol’s, and Attie convinces Iris to visit him. Iris is hesitant because she does not yet know what she wants. After laying eyes on Roman, however, Iris decides to forgive him. They go on a walk, and she removes all of her metaphorical armor to connect fully with him. He professes the depth of his feelings for her, and when Iris jokingly asks if he’s proposing, he dramatically drops to his knee, ripping his stitches. The injury interrupts the moment, and Iris grabs the nearest lorry driver to escort them back to Marisol’s.

Iris meets Roman in the garden to continue the interrupted conversation from the previous day. She begins with requesting that Roman read Carver’s last letter aloud to her, which she believes will “bring the two of [them] together” (274). Roman does, and when he proposes to her at last, she agrees to marry him. They decide to make it official only after he secures Attie’s and Marisol’s blessings.

As Roman and Iris type their war articles at Marisol’s kitchen table, the evacuation siren sounds. Attie decides to stay and help defend the town against Dacre’s approaching army, but Iris decides to leave with Roman, who is still recovering from his leg injury. Meanwhile, Marisol’s wife, Keegan, arrives at Avalon Bluff with her retreating platoon and searches for Marisol. She also carries a letter for Iris, which details how Forest was injured and taken to the town of Meriah but had to evacuate when the town was attacked. The E Brigade reports that Forest now fights for Enva in a new auxiliary force. Certain that Forest will be headed to defend Avalon Bluff, Iris stays to reunite with her brother. Roman stays too, determined not to leave Iris.

When the group returns to Marisol’s, they discover that someone sneaked into the house to steal two emergency dash-packs. With Dacre due to arrive the following morning, Iris seizes the opportunity to spread her mother’s ashes in a nearby field. Keegan teaches Iris and Attie how to drive a lorry and insists that if the battle goes poorly, they must flee with Marisol and Roman to River Down, a city that is 50 kilometers west of Oath. In the chaos of the battle preparations, one of Roman’s war-correspondent jumpsuits mysteriously goes missing. Attie, Marisol, and Keegan prepare an impromptu surprise wedding for Roman and Iris.

After Roman and Iris marry, they settle in for dinner at Marisol’s with fellow soldiers who have gathered to celebrate the marriage. Iris cherishes this town that has become home and these people who have become like family to her. Roman and Iris share an intimate night together and promise to remain together tomorrow, no matter what happens.

Iris and Roman wake to the sound of bombs being dropped on Avalon Bluff. Once the bombs subside, Marisol, Attie, Roman, and Iris begin helping wounded soldiers in town. Iris insists that Roman stay with a wounded female soldier while she obtains a stretcher. She finds herself near a young soldier crying for his mother when a second wave of eithrals flies over with more bombs. The soldier won’t stop moving, which draws the eithrals to Iris’s location. She locks eyes with Roman as the bomb drops.

Iris’s life flashes before her eyes as the bomb drops. When it doesn’t explode, she notices that it is a metal canister that spits tear gas. In the chaos, Marisol and Attie head for the lorry to flee, but Iris cannot leave without first finding Roman. Suddenly, Iris is found by Forest, whom she mistakes as Roman because her brother is wearing Roman’s stolen jumpsuit and a gas mask. Forest drags her in the opposite direction from Marisol and Attie, into the golden fields outside Avalon Bluff. When Iris notices that he runs without a limp, she realizes that he is not Roman. In the distance, Iris spots Roman limping after her across the fields. She attempts to run to him, but Forest reveals himself and drags her away as the tear gas swallows Roman whole.

Forest reluctantly agrees to allow Iris to return to search the field for Roman. When they arrive, Dacre’s forces are celebrating the capture of Avalon Bluff, and Roman is nowhere to be found—only “traces of [his] blood and a circle in the dirt that [she] can’t explain” (342). Forest plans to return to Oath, but he is unwilling to find a lorry evacuating people from Avalon Bluff. In the night, Iris handwrites a letter to Roman; she does not have her typewriter but hopes that somehow her words will reach him anyway. As Forest continues to avoid roads and passing lorries, Iris swears that she will eventually find Marisol and Attie at River Down. On their fourth night together, Iris notices that Forest wears the gold locket of their mother’s, which she lost in the trenches with the Sycamore Platoon. Iris realizes that Forest could only have found the locket because he fought for Dacre. When she catches sight of the evidence of three mortal wounds to Forest’s heart, liver, and intestines, she wonders how he could possibly have survived.

When they arrive at their old home in Oath, Forest reveals that he was injured and brought to Meriah to heal but was too weak to evacuate once Dacre invaded the area. Dacre used his power as a god and “healed [him] before [he] died […] held [him] by the debt of [his] life, and [he] had no choice but to fight for him” (349). When Forest found the golden locket in the trenches, the reminder of Iris gave him the strength to break free of Dacre’s command and bring her to safety. Iris understands, but she remains determined to find Roman. She opens the letter that she left behind on her bedroom floor months ago when she left to become a war correspondent. The letter is Roman’s confession, revealing his true identity.

Dacre takes the town of Avalon Bluff and walks the golden field. He finds a soul like ice, which “served him best” (351). The “soul” he finds is Roman, lying wounded in the grass. Dacre is thrilled to find his first correspondent and orders his strongest servant, Val, to take Roman below. Val draws a ring on the ground to portal Roman to the underworld.