A Court of Silver Flames | Everyone Read It… Except Me

I have officially finished A Court of Silver Flames, and I am going to go ahead and say something I did not expect when I started this series. This one may be my favorite. I cried at the end. Actual tears.

That is saying something because if you had asked me several books ago how I felt about Nesta Archeron, I would not have had many kind things to say. She frustrated me. She made me angry. There were plenty of moments when I wanted someone to shake some sense into her. Somewhere along the way, though, I started seeing all the things underneath that anger. By the time I reached this book, I wanted to understand her. Now I do.

SPOILER WARNING: Everything beyond this point is spoilers. If you have not yet read this book and don’t want to know what happens. STOP READING NOW! You have been warned!

I also need to say that this book gave me more Cassian, more Azriel, more questions about Eris, the beginning of the Valkyries, the Blood Rite, a sentient house that I absolutely adore, and enough emotional damage to keep me busy for a while.

I am not ready to leave this world forever. I know I still have more Sarah J. Maas books to read, and I will be diving back into all of this. I think I need something different first, though, because Nesta wore me out in the best possible way.

The Permise

A Court of Silver Flames shifts the focus away from Feyre and Rhys and places Nesta and Cassian at the center of the story. Nesta is not doing well after the war. Actually, that is putting it mildly.

She is drinking, sleeping with random men, spending ridiculous amounts of Rhys and Feyre’s money, avoiding everyone who loves her, and making herself as miserable as possible. She has been Made into something she never wanted to become, watched her father die, survived a war, and is carrying so much guilt and self-hatred that she would rather destroy herself than figure out how to live with any of it.

Eventually the family intervenes. Nesta is sent to live at the House of Wind, where she will train with Cassian and work in the library. She absolutely hates this arrangement, which means Cassian has the pleasure of dealing with Nesta Archeron before breakfast every day. Bless him.

What begins as an attempt to get Nesta back on her feet becomes something much bigger. She starts training. She meets Gwyn in the library. She gets to know Emerie. The three women begin training together and eventually revive the idea of the Valkyries.

Meanwhile there are political problems brewing, ancient magical objects turning up, a human queen causing trouble, Eris being Eris, and Nesta discovering that the power she took from the Cauldron is far more dangerous than anyone fully understands. By the time this book reaches the Blood Rite, I was completely invested.

Characters

Nesta: She is obviously the heart of this book, and what a journey she has. I think one of the biggest things I finally understood about Nesta is how much she hates herself. She is not just angry with Feyre, Rhys, Cassian, Elain, or the world. She is angry with herself. She believes she has failed everyone. She believes she does not deserve Cassian. She believes she does not deserve her friends. She believes love is something she has to earn or repay.

That is why her relationship with Gwyn and Emerie matters so much. They do not demand anything from her. They simply become her friends. There is a moment late in the book where Nesta thanks Emerie for being her friend even when she did not deserve it. Emerie tells her there is no debt. That might be one of the most important things anyone says to Nesta in this entire book.

Nesta slowly learns that not everything has to be paid for. Friendship is not a debt. Love is not a debt. Being cared for does not create an obligation. I also loved watching Nesta learn to show emotion instead of immediately turning pain into a weapon. Earlier in the book, when Cassian hurts her feelings, the old Nesta would have found the cruelest possible thing she could say and thrown it straight at him.

This time she stops herself. Then she goes to Emerie and cries. That may sound small compared with fighting monsters and shaking mountains, but emotionally it is enormous for her. By the end of the book, Nesta is openly crying with her friends, telling Feyre she loves her, accepting Cassian as her mate, and admitting that she wants to live. Not survive. Live. That distinction matters.

Cassian: He was already one of my favorites, and this book did absolutely nothing to change that. First, he is smarter than people give him credit for. Yes, he is a warrior. Yes, he likes fighting. Yes, sometimes the solution really is to hit something harder. He is also strategic, observant, and clever enough to find loopholes when rules get in his way.

The mating bond was also handled in a way I really liked. Cassian knew Nesta was his mate when she was still human. The bond never frightened him. His fear was always rejection. He could handle Nesta being powerful. He could handle her being difficult. He could handle the bond itself. What terrified him was the possibility that Nesta would look at him and say she did not want him.

That makes their argument about being mates hurt even more. Nesta is frightened by the word because it represents another thing she did not choose. Cassian hears her rejection as rejection of him. Eventually, though, Nesta finally uses the words my mate when Cassian is not even there to hear them.

That matters. She is not saying it to reassure him. She is not saying it because anyone pressured her. She claims it herself. Later we learn that Nesta has loved Cassian since she first saw him. That might be my favorite part of their relationship. The mating bond did not create the love. The love was already there.

Gwyn: Okay, she  surprised me. When we first meet her, she has spent two years inside the library after surviving something absolutely horrific during the war. Then Nesta enters her life. Eventually Gwyn starts training. Then she goes upstairs into the House. Then she actually leaves the library to go to Emerie’s shop because Nesta needs her. She is so nervous that she thinks she might vomit. But she goes. That is courage.

By the time they are thrown into the Blood Rite, Gwyn is thriving in a way I did not expect. She uses everything she knows. She watches the environment. She studies the creatures. She thinks through problems.

I related to that so much because I have always felt like I would probably be the person everyone assumes will fall apart during some disaster, only to suddenly discover that all the random things I have read over the years are useful.

Gwyn also has one of the most powerful moments in the book when she says she has already been broken once and survived it, and she refuses to let the mountain break her again. Then we learn exactly what happened to her. She was assaulted during Hybern’s attack. Her sister and other priestesses were murdered. She tried to protect children. Azriel arrived, slaughtered the soldiers, and gave Gwyn his cloak to cover herself.

That history gives so much more meaning to where Gwyn is now. She is not suddenly fearless. She is choosing to live outside her fear.

Emerie: Is another character who quietly became very important to me. She has survived her own terrible abuse. Her father beat her so badly that he once broke her back and then told everyone she was ill while she recovered. She watched him hurt her mother too. Her strength makes much more sense once we know that.

I love that Nesta, Gwyn, and Emerie never turn their trauma into some competition over who suffered more. They suffered differently. They understand one another anyway. Emerie is also practical in a way that balances Nesta and Gwyn beautifully. During the Blood Rite, she understands what Nesta is trying to do at the Pass of Enalius even when Gwyn cannot emotionally accept leaving Nesta behind.

The three of them just work together. The Valkyries. Honestly, these three women impressed me. They are kidnapped separately and thrown into the Blood Rite against their will. They survive apart. Then they find one another. That symmetry with Rhys, Cassian, and Azriel during their own Blood Rite feels important. The Bat Boys went through the Rite together and came out of it with a bond that helped define their family.

Nesta, Gwyn, and Emerie are doing something similar without simply becoming female copies of them. Their friendship is their own. They fight well together too. When Emerie calls them Valkyries after one of their fights, it finally feels like something they have earned rather than simply a name they are trying to revive.

Even after the Rite, Cassian and Azriel go through everything that happened and make a list of mistakes the women made so they can correct them in training. I loved that. Nobody is saying they survived, therefore they are finished. They survived. Now they keep learning.

Feyre: She is not the main character anymore, but her relationship with Nesta becomes one of the most emotional parts of the ending. Their relationship has been complicated since the very beginning. Nesta carries enormous guilt about everything Feyre had to do when they were human. Feyre keeps loving her anyway.

At the end, when Feyre is dying, Nesta finally says the words she has apparently never said aloud to anyone before. She tells Feyre she loves her. That got me. Nesta finally acknowledges that Feyre loved her when no one else would, even when Nesta herself believed she did not deserve it. Then Nesta is willing to give everything back to the Cauldron if it will save Feyre. That entire scene wrecked me.

Rhys: He and Nesta have spent most of this book barely tolerating one another. Then she saves Feyre and baby Nyx. Afterward, Rhys falls to his knees, takes Nesta’s hands, kisses her fingers, and thanks her. 

Cassian realizes Rhys is not thanking Nesta for saving his own life. He is thanking her for saving Feyre and the baby. That changes something between them. By the end, Rhys apparently cannot stop buying Nesta presents because he is so grateful for what she did. That is probably the beginning of the funniest sibling relationship in this entire family.

Azriel: I still need more Azriel. I like him. I trust him. I also think that man has approximately nine hundred secrets. There is a lot of discussion about whether he will eventually be paired with Elain or Gwyn. I am not convinced those are the only possibilities. He could end up with one of them. He could also end up with someone we have not met yet.

What I keep noticing about Azriel is that he has formed deep connections with women he has helped during traumatic moments. He rescued Mor. He was there for Gwyn during the attack on the temple. He helped rescue Elain. Those experiences can create powerful bonds without automatically making every bond romantic.

I also do not buy the theory that Azriel is going to betray the Inner Circle. Could he keep secrets? Absolutely. Could he make a choice everyone else hates? Definitely. Could Sarah J. Maas make it look like he betrayed everyone for a while? I would not put that past her.

But an actual betrayal of Rhys, Cassian, and the core family would change something fundamental about who Azriel has been throughout this series. These people are not simply coworkers. They built themselves alongside one another. A genuine betrayal would break the foundation of the character as we currently know him to be.

Eris: Every book makes me more convinced that there is much more to Eris. I have questioned his story about Mor for a while now. I still wonder whether some of what looked like cruelty was actually the only form of mercy he could safely offer under his father’s rule. This book keeps adding little pieces.

He warns Nesta that staying with the Night Court could ruin her. He appears to betray them, only for us to discover that he was actually captured by Briallyn. Then Cassian starts seeing him differently. There is a moment where Cassian realizes Eris was born into wealth but has been poor in every way that truly matters, while Cassian started with almost nothing and ended up surrounded by love.

Then Cassian tells Eris that he has spent his life around monsters and does not believe Eris is one of them. He even says Eris might be a good male. I think Cassian may be right. There is also a conversation that reveals something sad about Eris. Cassian explains that Mor matters because she is his sister and he loves her.

Eris does not seem to understand why that alone is enough. I think characters like Eris and even Tamlin struggle with this idea because family in their worlds is so tied to power, hierarchy, obligation, reputation, and obedience. The Night Court family is different. They choose each other. They have built their family where they are family first and everything else second. They fight, they argue, but in the end they stand shoulder to shoulder together because they love one another. 

The House

I cannot leave out the House of Wind. I love the House. Nesta needed somewhere that could care for her without judging her, demanding anything from her, or being frightened of her. Somehow the magical house became one of the safest relationships she had. It saw her as a person. That mattered.

There is a moment during the Blood Rite where magic recognizes Nesta as a person rather than a thing, and she realizes how badly she needed that distinction. That is one of those little lines that explains so much about her. So much had been done to Nesta. Made. Changed. Feared. Used. Watched.

For once, something simply saw her.  I adore that Feyre says she needed a friend so she made one out of the house. It is simply great. Also I love that Rhys gives her the house in the end. The house loves Nesta and that relationship needs to continue.

The Blood Rite

The Blood Rite may be my favorite section of this entire book. Nesta, Gwyn, and Emerie are kidnapped and dumped into it, and my first thought when Cassian and Rhys found out was that heads were going to roll. Then we are reminded they cannot interfere because of the laws surrounding the Rite.

I was not happy about that. The women have to survive on their own. And they do. There is also Balthazar, who helps Nesta and Emerie, and I still want to know more about him. He felt too specifically introduced to be completely meaningless. Then there are the creatures around Ramiel. At one point I was convinced one of them might somehow be Bryaxis because Bryaxis has been missing since the war. I am still not ruling out some connection between all these strange ancient places.

We also have the three mountains, the three stars, and the three Archeron sisters. Three Valkyries. Three Bat Boys. Three seems like an important number. Two of those mountains have underground spaces carved into them. There is something there but I just do not know what yet.

During the Rite, Gwyn, Emerie, and Nesta prove how strong they are individually and together. Then Nesta reaches the Pass of Enalius. She realizes she can use the bottleneck the same way Enalius once did and hold off the others long enough for Gwyn and Emerie to reach the summit.

Gwyn refuses to leave her. Nesta cries with her, promises her, then knocks her unconscious using the pressure point Cassian taught her so Emerie can carry her away. That is such a Nesta thing to do. You may hate me later, but you are going to be alive to do it.

Cassian, Nesta and Choice

The mating bond becomes one of the biggest themes in this book for me because Nesta keeps coming back to the fact that she did not choose it. So much has already been decided for her. Then she gets told there is this magical person she is destined to belong with too. Of course that frightens her. 

What I liked is that the story eventually separates the bond from the love. Cassian knew she was his mate even when she was human. Nesta loved him from the moment she saw him.

Neither one needed the bond to create those feelings. Then Briallyn controls Cassian with the Crown and forces him to hold a knife to Nesta’s throat. Nesta knows immediately that it is not him. She sees pleading, fear, and love in his eyes. Cassian is silently begging Nesta to kill him before he can hurt her.

Then Briallyn orders him to kill. However, she does not specify whom, so Cassian finds the loophole and turns the knife toward his own heart. Of his own free will. That is the point for me. The bond may be magical but the love is a choice. They choose one another. 

Nesta Shook the World

Then dawn breaks and The Blood Rite’s restrictions on magic end. Nesta gets her power back. Briallyn could not have picked a worse morning. Nesta unleashes the power she took from the Cauldron and literally shakes the world. Avalanches fall. Trees bend and break. Seas pull away from the shore. Things shake in Velaris. Books fall from shelves in Helion’s libraries.

That is how powerful Nesta is. Then she Unmakes Briallyn. Cassian tells her what she did. Nesta’s response? She had it coming. Peak Nesta.

Saving Feyre, Rhys and Nyx

Then the book decides I have not suffered enough and Feyre is dying during childbirth. Because of the bargain Feyre and Rhys made to leave the world together, Rhys will die too if Feyre dies. While I understand the romance behind that bargain, I also agree with Amren that it was idiotic.

Nesta takes the Mask, the Crown, and the Harp together even though no one has ever wielded all three and survived. She stops Time itself. Then she bargains with the Cauldron. She will give back what she took if it will show her how to save Feyre. Then she corrects herself. Not just Feyre. Rhys and the baby too. She realizes that Rhys is her brother. That word matters. Nesta eventually says she will give it all back. Everything. This is the same woman who spent so much of this story feeling like everything had been taken from her.  Now she is choosing what to give.

There is an enormous difference between those two things. And somewhere in all of that, Nesta says she wants to experience life. Even the difficult days. The answer she receives is simple. Live. That is Nesta’s story. Not becoming nicer. Not becoming easier. Not becoming someone else. Learning how to live.

On to Something Else… For Now

I cried at the end of this book. I think A Court of Silver Flames may actually be my favorite of the series so far, which I absolutely would not have predicted when I first met Nesta. There is still so much I want to know.

• What exactly is Eris hiding?
• What really happened with Mor?
• Where is Bryaxis?
• What is going on with the three mountains?
• Who is Balthazar?
• What is Azriel keeping to himself?
• Who will Azriel eventually love, if anyone we already know?
• What happens with the Valkyries now?

I also know there is more coming in this world, and Sarah J. Maas has other interconnected series I still need to read. I will get there. For now, though, I think I need to read something completely different before diving back into all of this. Nesta, Cassian, Gwyn, Emerie, and the rest of them have put me through enough emotional turmoil for one week. I am absolutely coming back.