Siege and Storm

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2013

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Chapter 2

Chapters 3-5

Chapters 6-8

Chapters 9-12

Chapters 13-16

Chapters 17-19

Chapters 20-22

Chapter 23-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Chapter 23-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 23 Summary

Tamar leads them to the chapel. As the group gets to a dark passageway that leads to the Apparat’s hidden tunnel, the Darkling arrives, demanding Alina give herself up to save her friends. The Darkling brings out a shrouded woman whose woman’s flesh is covered with nichevo’ya bites. It’s Genya. A sympathetic David runs to Genya, who can only cringe in shame, and leads her back to the group. The Darkling promises to put an end to all of this if Alina relents. Alina kisses Mal goodbye and walks to the Darkling, thinking, “Like calls to like” (419).

Alina kisses the Darkling, creating a conduit to his magic. She starts making endless shadow creatures to deplete the Darkling’s powers and her own, determined to kill them both. Finally, Mal pulls her away. When he touches her, she sees “something beautiful as if through a golden door” (421). The Darkling collapses, the nichevo’ya whirling around him. With Alina in his arms, Mal leaps into the tunnel as the entire chapel collapses.

For some time, Alina is in a dreamlike state. She wakes on a litter being carried through a cave system. Mal is on the litter next to her and they touch fingers. When she’s well enough to talk, Alina tells Mal he should have let her die.

They are heading toward the White Cathedral, an underground cavern where the Apparat has escaped to. Tamar and Tolya think Alina is a saint; when she asks whether they serve her or the Apparat, they swear allegiance to her.

At the White Cathedral, the Apparat sinks to his knees to kiss Alina’s hem. The pilgrims chant her name. In a mirror, Alina sees that she looks ill and that her hair is entirely white. More than that—her power is entirely gone.

Epilogue Summary: “After”

The narrative switches to third person. Alina dreams of ships and of Nikolai. She dreams of the firebird. The Darkling survived and now rules Ravka, while she is hunted. The priest calls the White Cathedral a sanctuary, Mal thinks it’s a prison, but Alina sees it as a tomb. The old version of her is dead, but she’s meant for something greater. She will resurrect herself.

Chapter 23-Epilogue Analysis

The sea whip whose scales comprise Alina’s second amplifier is only loosely based on a creature from Slavic folklore (its name, Rusalye, comes from rusalka, a mythical aquatic humanoid created from the corpses of drowned women that lures men to their deaths). However, the creature that the novel sets up as the next quest item, the firebird, has a long and storied place in Slavic mythology. In fairy tales, the firebird is a giant, awe-inspiring bird that gives off bright illumination; only the worthiest and most heroic can typically capture this bird after a series of difficult travails. Bardugo’s use of Slavic aesthetics and folklore tends to be fast and loose, but in this case, the novel sticks to the traditional script associated with this legendary beast.

This section focuses on where to draw the line between Sacrificing Oneself for the Greater Good and simply engaging in self-harm. Throughout the novel, Mal has been walking this line, staying away from Alina to allow her the space to fulfill her destiny while acting out his pain and depression. There have also been hints that Alina is too ready to let herself be destroyed—in particular, when she gives herself up to the crowd of pilgrims in Os Alta. Here, in the final confrontation with the Darkling, Alina’s decision to give up to save her friends reads in part like submission rather than defiance—she accepts that “it’s over” (415) and that in “the moment the Darkling had slipped his hand over my arm in the Grisha pavilion so long ago, he’d taken possession of me” (416). In embracing the idea that like calls to like, Alina defeats the Darkling by playing on his greed for power, kissing him to intermingle their magic. Realizing that his power is now hers to draw, Alina drains his energy until it’s depleted, willing them both to die. She almost succeeds, but Mal saves her before she expires—thus saving the Darkling as well. Afterward, Alina is relieved her friends are still alive, but she wishes she were dead and the Darkling was no more.

The new version of Genya, whom the pilgrims disparage as “ruined” is a symbolic mirror of the powerless and white-haired Alina. At first, Alina is horrified to find she can no longer summon—the identity she has been trying to grow into seems to no longer be an option. Instead, she fears that without her magic, she has no choice but to embrace either the Apparat’s vision of her as the Sun Saint, resurrected to serve his religious zealots, or Nikolai’s desire to make her queen, using her as an emblem without any actual decision-making power. However, the novel ends with two hooks for the sequel: an external one in the quest for the firebird and an internal one as Alina buries her old incarnation in the White Cathedral, knowing “she was meant for something more” (432).