By Ink & Imaginings | Updated October 2026

It has been five years since A Court of Silver Flames came out, and before A Court of Splintered Harmony lands on October 27, I needed a refresher. I honestly couldn't remember half of it. So here is every chapter of Nesta and Cassian's book, in order, from the intervention at the river house to the last scene at her father's grave.

A Court of Silver Flames is 80 chapters in four parts (Novice, Blade, Valkyrie, and Ataraxia), and it alternates mostly between Nesta and Cassian. Read straight through, jump to the chapter you're stuck on, or skip to the loose threads book six has to pick up.

⚠️ MAJOR SPOILER WARNING: Full spoilers for A Court of Silver Flames and the ACOTAR books before it.

A word on content: this book deals with sexual assault (including Gwyn's backstory and the kelpie in the Bog of Oorid), domestic abuse, the death of a parent, alcohol misuse, self-loathing and passive suicidal thoughts, pregnancy and birth complications, and explicit sex. The recap covers all of it, but the spicy scenes are summarized, not described.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you if you make a purchase. Thanks for supporting my book-loving habits!

A Court of Splintered Harmony Book Cover

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Jump to a Chapter

Eighty chapters is a lot of scrolling. Pick yours and go straight there.

Part One, Novice: Chapters 1 to 12:
1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 · 8 · 9 · 10 · 11 · 12

Part One, Novice: Chapters 13 to 24:
13 · 14 · 15 · 16 · 17 · 18 · 19 · 20 · 21 · 22 · 23 · 24

Part Two, Blade: Chapters 25 to 37:
25 · 26 · 27 · 28 · 29 · 30 · 31 · 32 · 33 · 34 · 35 · 36 · 37

Part Two, Blade: Chapters 38 to 50:
38 · 39 · 40 · 41 · 42 · 43 · 44 · 45 · 46 · 47 · 48 · 49 · 50

Part Three, Valkyrie: Chapters 51 to 63:
51 · 52 · 53 · 54 · 55 · 56 · 57 · 58 · 59 · 60 · 61 · 62 · 63

Part Four, Ataraxia: Chapters 64 to 80:
64 · 65 · 66 · 67 · 68 · 69 · 70 · 71 · 72 · 73 · 74 · 75 · 76 · 77 · 78 · 79 · 80

Or skip to: the ending explained | the spicy chapters | the loose threads for ACOTAR 6 | FAQ

A Court of Silver Flames Chapter-by-Chapter Summary

Part One, Novice: Chapters 1 to 12

Chapter 1: Cassian Collects Nesta

Feyre and Rhys have moved into their new river house, and Cassian gets sent to fetch Nesta from the run-down apartment where she has been drinking, gambling, and sleeping her way through the months since the war. She opens the door hungover, too thin, and wearing a stranger's shirt. Nobody has seen her since a fight with Amren at an end-of-summer party.

From Nesta's side, we learn what the drinking is for. It keeps the guilt over her father's death and the dark power she took from the Cauldron quiet. At the river house, Feyre, Rhys, Amren, and Cassian are waiting. Nesta notices Feyre's paintings of everyone she loves on the walls, and none are of Nesta. Then Feyre announces that the old life is over. Nesta is going to train with Cassian.

Chapter 2: The Ultimatum

The terms of the ultimatum are that Nesta moves into the House of Wind, trains with Cassian every morning at Windhaven, the Illyrian camp, and works in the library under the House every afternoon. The alternative is going back to the human lands, where a Fae woman would be an outcast. Her apartment building is being condemned and rebuilt as housing for families displaced by the war.

What set it off was a five hundred gold mark bar tab that landed on Rhys's desk and left Feyre in tears. Nesta finds out Elain already agreed to the plan and is packing her things, which feels like the last betrayal. She tells Feyre she will never speak to her again. Afterwards, Amren admits the legal argument she used to back the order was completely made up.

Chapter 3: Up to the House of Wind

Rhys tells Cassian that his months smoothing things over in the Illyrian camps were a test for bigger responsibilities, then admits something surprising. He's afraid of Nesta, because her power may not be gone, just dormant. He also hands Cassian a second job. Find out whether the human queens are scheming again, and do it openly, as a full diplomat, since Azriel is stretched thin.

Mor, back early and tense from Vallahan, winnows them up to the House, and Cassian flies Nesta the rest of the way. Being back where she stayed right after the Cauldron brings up memories she doesn't want. She refuses dinner, refuses to talk about training, shuts her curtains, and goes to bed in the dark.

Chapter 4: Mor's Report and Nesta's Past

Over coffee in Velaris, Mor tells Cassian that Vallahan refused to sign the new peace treaty. The human queens are stirring, and Vallahan, Montesere, and Rask may be eyeing human land if another war breaks out. Mor suggests Vassa as a source on the queens, but warns that Lucien is too close to Vassa and Jurian to be objective. She also hints that Eris has bought her time before Keir visits Velaris, without saying how.

That night Nesta wakes in the dark and remembers the cottage, the hunger, her mother's plans to marry her well, and Tomas Mandray, the woodcutter's son who tried to assault her after she ended things.

Chapter 5: First Day at Windhaven

Breakfast turns into a standoff when Nesta won't eat and Cassian says starving herself won't bring her father back. She eats out of spite. On the way out the flirting gets sharp, with Nesta swearing she'll never let him into her bed and Cassian promising she'll end up in his.

At Windhaven, Devlon, the camp lord, makes it clear women don't belong there, saying any weapon Nesta touches will have to be buried. Then Nesta finds the loophole. Showing up is the requirement, so she sits on a rock and refuses to train while the whole camp watches Cassian get humiliated. He trains alone.

Chapter 6: Mor's Warning and the Library

Nesta watches Cassian train when he isn't looking. Mor arrives and tells her plainly that she would have shipped her back to the human lands, and that she has known people like Nesta. Cassian doesn't defend her.

In the afternoon Nesta meets Clotho, the silent priestess who runs the library, whose maimed hands remind her of what Hybern did to everyone. Clotho sets her to shelving books for hours, and the simple, repetitive work quiets her mind for the first time in months. At dinner, the House of Wind will feed her but refuses to give her wine. So she decides to go get some herself.

Chapter 7: Eris and the Missing Soldiers

Cassian goes to the human manor where Vassa, Jurian, and Lucien live, and finds Eris already there. Several Autumn Court soldiers have vanished on patrol, and Eris's hounds lost their trail at a strange, almost human scent. Vassa names the only queen bold enough to try it. Briallyn, the queen the Cauldron made immortal but old, who has every reason to hate Nesta.

Then Vassa adds the bigger problem. Briallyn may be working with Koschei, the death-lord who enslaved Vassa and the brother of the Bone Carver and the Weaver. Outside, Eris admits Beron has already pledged his forces to Briallyn, and the missing men were soldiers who went with Beron to see her and came back strange. Cassian realizes he's going to have to work with Eris.

Chapter 8: One Hundred and Eleven Steps

Nesta tries to walk down the ten thousand steps to the city for a drink. She makes it 111 steps before her legs give out and her father's death floods back, and she crawls back up. Cassian is waiting at the top, and he makes sure she knows exactly how few steps that was.

At breakfast the next day she tells Azriel she would rather he trained her, which turns into a round of innuendo, and Azriel warns Cassian he's in dangerous territory before leaving to spy on Briallyn. At Windhaven Nesta still won't step into the ring. Cassian sends her inside to warm up and notices she's staring at the fire with real fear.

Chapter 9: Emerie and Gwyn

Looking for warmer leathers, Nesta wanders into a Windhaven shop and meets Emerie, the owner, whose wings were clipped by her father. Emerie is kind, blunt, and glad Nesta killed the King of Hybern. Nesta realizes she can't pay for the leathers because she has been cut off.

Back in the library she meets Gwyneth Berdara, Gwyn, an acolyte who works for the scholar Merrill. Gwyn refuses to be pitied or bossed around, and the two of them spar verbally until Nesta, almost against her will, starts to like her. That night, starving, Nesta asks the House for soup and says please. It gives her soup, bread, and light.

Chapter 10: The Handprints

The House starts bringing Nesta food wherever she reads, including cake, which Cassian steals. After a nightmare, she tries the stairs again at three in the morning, slips, and catches herself so hard that her fingers sink into the stone and leave glowing, melted handprints. Her power is very much not gone.

The next morning Cassian, who knows about the fall, asks her to train and actually says please. She still can't make herself do it.

Chapter 11: Everyone Hates You

At dinner with Azriel, the fight about training finally boils over. Nesta calls Rhys arrogant and preening and says she hates him, and Cassian snaps that Rhys hates her, everyone hates her, and he's done trying. Then he walks out.

Later Feyre finds Cassian brooding and they talk about the threats piling up, Briallyn, Koschei, Beron, before turning to Nesta. Feyre explains that the distance between the sisters goes back to their mother, who only ever cared about Nesta. When Cassian repeats that Nesta won't train in that miserable village, he realizes what the actual problem is.

Chapter 12: The Bargain

Cassian moves training to the private ring on top of the House of Wind, because Nesta's pride can't stand failing in front of Illyrian males. When she still hesitates, he offers a bargain, train for one hour and he owes her a favor of her choosing. She agrees, and matching eight-pointed star tattoos appear on both their backs.

The first lesson is all balance, posture, and breathing, and it's humbling. She stays a second hour and tells him it was free. During the cooldown he explains that wing clipping is how Illyrian males control females, and that he and Rhys outlawed it. Before she leaves, he apologizes for saying everyone hates her. She tells him she has never hated him.

What this stretch is doing: The first stretch is an intervention, and Maas doesn't soften it. Nesta is cut off, moved, and watched, and for twelve chapters she fights every bit of it by doing the bare minimum. What finally works isn't punishment. It's Cassian figuring out that her problem with Windhaven is pride, moving the lesson somewhere private, and giving her a bargain she can say yes to without losing face.

Remember for book six: Koschei and Vassa's curse (chapter 7), Beron's alliance with Briallyn, Eris hinting that Mor hasn't told the whole truth, and the eight-pointed star tattoo.

Part One, Novice: Chapters 13 to 24

Chapter 13: Volume Seven

Gwyn is panicking because she gave Merrill the wrong volume of a history called The Great War. The House produces the right one for Nesta, who bluffs her way into Merrill's office with a fake errand and swaps the books before Merrill notices.

Gwyn explains that Merrill used to research theories about other worlds (some believe there are 26 of them, with the last being Time itself) and is now writing a history of the Valkyries, an order of female warriors wiped out in the war five hundred years ago. That night Nesta sleeps without nightmares for the first time in a long time.

Chapter 14: Sangravah and the Spring Court

Sore all over, Nesta shows up to keep the bargain. While stretching, she mentions she took dance lessons as a girl and that her sisters were their father's while she was her mother's creature. Then she asks about Sangravah, and Cassian tells her that Hybern attacked Gwyn's temple looking for a piece of the Cauldron, killed many of the priestesses, and assaulted others before Azriel arrived.

Meanwhile Rhys and Cassian meet Eris secretly in the Spring Court. Eris wants the human queens killed now. They refuse, and work out that Beron may want a war among the Fae so he can grab weakened land like Tamlin's neglected court. Eris says Cassian doesn't know the whole truth about what happened with Mor at the border. Back at the House, Nesta gets 150 steps down, and the House rewards her with a bath, a smutty book, and chocolate cake.

Chapter 15: The Darkness Below

On a lower level of the library, the darkness seems to breathe and call Nesta's name. Gwyn pulls her away using an Invoking Stone, a stone that channels the Mother's power for healing and protection, and tells her some priestesses think part of Bryaxis lingers down there. Nesta suspects it noticed her because she was Made.

Cassian tells her about his mother, who was shunned and worked to death after he was taken from her, and later describes the ancient monsters he helped lock in the Prison, Lanthys, Lubia, and Blue Annis. Then he provokes her until her eyes glow silver, and admires it instead of flinching. She pins him to the wall. He tells her he has wanted her since she was human, and walks away without touching her. Nesta doesn't sleep much that night.

Chapter 16: The Blood Rite

Breakfast is extremely awkward. In the ring, Cassian moves on to core work, and Nesta is humbled again. She asks why there are no female Illyrian units, and he explains the Blood Rite. Young Illyrian males are drugged, stripped of magic, and dumped in the mountains for a week to survive and try to reach Ramiel, the sacred mountain. Where you end up sorts you into a rank. Almost no one ever reaches the summit, but Cassian, Rhys, and Azriel did, together.

Thinking of the priestesses, Nesta asks if Cassian would train them privately at the House. He says yes, and suggests a female instructor too.

Chapter 17: Elain's Visit

Clotho approves the training, and Nesta posts a sign-up sheet that stays empty for days. Cassian teaches her to punch, and she gets stronger and goes farther down the stairs every night. She even leaves the House a smutty book as a gift, and it gives her flowers in return.

Then Elain visits, and it goes badly. Nesta throws Elain's own grief back at her and, knowing it's not true, suggests Elain could have saved their father if she had been faster. Elain leaves crying. Rhys is furious, Cassian insists Nesta is making progress and her sisters shouldn't visit without her consent, and then he goes down to have it out with her. The House lights a fire, and Cassian sees how afraid of it she is.

Chapter 18: One Thousand Steps

Nesta takes the stairs to drown out her own head and makes it to step one thousand before climbing back. Cassian is waiting, and this time he's genuinely impressed. She admits no priestesses signed up, and asks what hope she has if they still haven't healed after centuries.

Cassian tells her his own story. When he was old enough, he went back to his birth village and killed everyone who hurt his mother, and Rhys and Azriel helped him find and kill his father. It took him ten years to face it. He tells her to take whatever time she needs, because he can take whatever she throws at him. They fight again, and then she kisses him.

Chapter 19: Quick Off the Mark

The kiss turns into a hallway hookup that ends very fast on Cassian's end. Nesta assumes he regrets it and gets in first with a cutting remark about him being quick off the mark.

The next morning Cassian is mortified and determined to even the score. Azriel, back from watching Briallyn, notices immediately, teases him, and tells them both they're needed at the river house.

Chapter 20: The Dread Trove

Azriel reports that the other human queens have abandoned Briallyn, Beron has pledged his forces to her, and she's truly allied with Koschei. Briallyn wants the Cauldron to get her youth back. Koschei has pointed her at the Dread Trove, three objects the Cauldron Made. The Mask raises and commands the dead. The Harp opens any door, maybe even between worlds. The Crown controls minds at close range.

Because like calls to like, Made beings may be able to sense the Trove. Pressed, Nesta admits she took things from the Cauldron that it didn't want to give up. Rhys refuses to warn the other courts. Then Elain appears in the doorway and says they can use her to find it.

Chapter 21: Feyre's News

Nesta refuses to let Elain search, since the last time Elain was used like this, the Cauldron took her. The sisters fight, and Elain accuses Nesta of making Elain's trauma about herself before leaving.

Then Feyre drops the news that she's two months pregnant, which is why Rhys has kept a shield around her. Nesta agrees to search for the Trove herself so Elain doesn't have to. Afterwards Feyre tells Nesta first that the baby is a boy.

Chapter 22: We're Even Now

Azriel thinks Nesta should scry (to look into a reflective surface like a crystal ball or mirror to see visions of the future, distant places, or hidden truths) for the Trove. Cassian refuses to push her, since the last time she scried, the Cauldron looked back. The two of them talk about becoming uncles, and Cassian realizes how badly he wants a family of his own. Azriel says it doesn't matter what he wants.

Cassian goes to Nesta's room to settle the score. She sets the terms, that this stays separate from training and everything else and is just sex, and he agrees. He focuses entirely on her, then gets dressed and leaves with a parting line. We're even now.

Chapter 23: Azriel Spars

Both of them act like nothing happened, badly. Azriel can tell. Nesta asks to watch Cassian and Azriel spar, and Azriel wins by glancing at Nesta so Cassian looks too.

In the library, Nesta asks Gwyn to secretly research the Dread Trove, which goes against Rhys's orders. She invites Gwyn to training, and Gwyn refuses, but Nesta can see fear underneath it. The sign-up sheet is still blank, but while running the stairs that night, Nesta figures out what to do.

Chapter 24: The Demonstration

Clotho complains to Cassian that Nesta keeps practicing her drills in the library. When he goes down to stop her, he corrects her right hook, asking before he touches her, while priestesses gather at the railings to watch. He realizes she made the mistake on purpose so they could see how he teaches.

Cassian leaves her a military treatise called The Dance of Battle, and she reads it all night. The next day there's a name on the sign-up sheet: Gwyn.

What this stretch is doing: This is where the book's real structure shows up: the stairs, the library, and the training ring. Gwyn and Emerie arrive, the Dread Trove gives the plot a quest, and Feyre's pregnancy plants the ticking clock. The best moment is Nesta staging a mistake in the library so the priestesses can see what safe instruction looks like. It's the first time she uses her cleverness for someone else.

Remember for book six: Merrill's theory of 26 worlds (the Harp has 26 strings), the Valkyries, Lanthys and the other monsters in the Prison, and Elain offering to use her power to find the Trove.

A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas Book Cover

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Part Two, Blade: Chapters 25 to 37

Chapter 25: Gwyn's First Lesson and Emerie's Cousin

Gwyn's first lesson is also the first time she has been outside in years. She tells Nesta she signed up because she never wants to feel powerless again, and Nesta admits she feels the same.

At Windhaven, Nesta walks into Emerie's shop while her drunk cousin Bellius is pressuring her to hand the store over to her uncle. Nesta stares him down until he leaves. Emerie invites her to lunch, and they talk about not wanting husbands, about family, and about Emerie's dead father's relatives trying to take everything she owns. Nesta invites her to train, and Emerie says no, for now. Meanwhile Cassian meets Eris, who warns that a sentient Trove might be calling to others too, and that Briallyn is hiding her plans from Beron. Eris also calls Cassian a bastard, and it lands.

Chapter 26: Cassian's Bad Mood

Nesta finds Cassian brooding in the dining room. It isn't the queens bothering him, it's Eris. Next to Eris's polish and politics, Cassian feels like a stupid brute, and he admits that Eris, as much as he hates him, would still be a better High Lord than Beron.

Nesta decides to cheer him up in the most direct way possible. It works, right up until Azriel's footsteps interrupt them, and Azriel teases Cassian mercilessly once Nesta leaves.

Chapter 27: A Gift for Emerie

Gwyn still hasn't found anything on the Trove. Nesta sends Cassian to Windhaven with a package for Emerie, tea and spices that are hard to get in the camp, and an invitation to train.

Emerie says it isn't the right time. The next morning, she's at the ring.

Chapter 28: Emerie Joins

Emerie struggles with balance because her father clipped her wings himself, badly, and she fought him while he did it. She turns down Cassian's offer of a healer. She and Gwyn bond over romance novels, which delights Nesta.

When Rhys comes to take Emerie home, he speaks into Nesta's mind and tells her to be kind to Gwyn. Nesta tells him to mind his own business, and Cassian gives Rhys a piece of his mind for always assuming the worst of her. Rhys apologizes.

Chapter 29: Merrill, the Nightmare, and Pure Death

Nesta makes it to step three thousand. Amren gives her a week to find the Trove before they ask Elain, and Azriel says the Trove has a darkness he doesn't want near Elain, which makes Cassian furious that nobody minds exposing Nesta to it. Merrill finds out about the book swap and storms in calling Gwyn a nymph, and Nesta stands her ground. Gwyn reveals she's part river-nymph and was raised at Sangravah.

Three more priestesses show up to train, Roslin, Deirdre, and Ananke. Nesta decides that if they can face their fears, she has to face hers, and tries to scry. Nothing happens. That night she has a nightmare about the Cauldron and erupts in silver fire in her sleep, and Rhys can only reach her mind once Cassian calls her name. Afterwards, Rhys tells Cassian what he saw. Her power is pure death.

Chapter 30: The Baby Has Wings

Nesta wakes to find Cassian asleep in a chair beside her bed, and later tells Gwyn and Emerie about the nightmare.

Rhys tells Cassian that the healer Madja found that the baby has wings, because Feyre was in her Illyrian form when they conceived. High Fae bodies aren't built to deliver winged babies, and the birth will very likely kill Feyre and the baby. Rhys forbids them from telling Feyre the full risk. Azriel raises another problem, Tamlin's reaction to the pregnancy, and suggests sending Lucien to keep an eye on the Spring Court.

Chapter 31: Scrying for the Mask

Cassian shows up with a black eye from sparring Rhys and tells Nesta about the danger to Feyre. They also finally address the fact that neither of them has sought the other out since the dining room. She tells him that once his face heals, they will sleep together.

Nesta tries scrying again at the river house, holding Cassian's hand to stay grounded. The room goes ice cold, nobody can reach her mind, and Cassian finally kisses her to bring her back. She has found the Mask, it's in the Bog of Oorid, once a sacred burial ground in the Middle and now a place nobody goes.

Chapter 32: The Bog of Oorid

Rhys and Feyre think Nesta isn't ready. She goes anyway, with Cassian and Azriel. The bog is black water and dead trees, and the warnings pile up. Kelpies, ancient shape-shifters that drown their victims, though nobody has seen one in centuries.

In the mist, Nesta senses something watching. When they look back, Azriel is gone.

Chapter 33: Ambush

Cassian finds Azriel by the glow of his Siphons, surrounded by Autumn Court soldiers and with an ash arrow through his wing. He stashes Nesta in a dead tree, tells her to stay put, and dives in.

Nesta waits as long as she can, then climbs down to go after him. A calm female voice in her head tells her to run. Something in the water is watching her.

Chapter 34: The Kelpie

A kelpie rises out of the bog, bone-white with black eyes and impossibly long fingers. It speaks to her in a language she doesn't understand, and despite the voice telling her to run, she freezes. It drags her under.

Cassian and Azriel kill all but two of the soldiers, who are blank and fearless and wearing Eris's colors. When Cassian gets back to the tree, Nesta is gone.

Chapter 35: Under the Water

Nesta slashes free with a dagger but can't find the surface, and the kelpie catches her again and keeps her alive on purpose. It assaults her and strips her of her weapons, and the memory of Tomas comes rushing back.

Then she sees something golden drifting toward her through the dark water. It's the Mask, called to her because she and it are the same kind of thing. She puts it on.

Chapter 36: The Legion of the Dead

With the Mask on, Nesta no longer needs air and can feel the dead all around her. She raises them, and they tear the kelpie apart.

On the shore, Cassian and Azriel see gold light under the water. Then an army of armored dead warriors rises out of the bog and kneels, and Nesta walks out after them holding the kelpie's head. When she takes the Mask off, the dead collapse, and so does she.

Chapter 37: The Mask in the Hewn City

The two captured soldiers are questioned in the Hewn City, and Amren says their minds have been hollowed out. They will ask Helion, High Lord of the Day Court, to look at them. Nesta wakes and walks right through the wards to where the Mask is being kept, because it let her in. Amren says she's lucky. Almost nobody who has worn the Mask has been able to take it off without being beheaded.

Rhys translates what the kelpie said in a language that has been dead for 15,000 years. It was going to make Nesta its bride before it ate her. That night, Cassian brings her food in her room at the palace, and they finally sleep together, under the same just-sex rule.

What this stretch is doing: Part Two builds the found family. Emerie joins, priestesses start showing up, and Nesta gets defensive on behalf of other women before she can do it for herself. Then the Bog of Oorid shows us what her power actually is. The Mask comes to her because they're the same kind of thing, and Rhys finally says the quiet part: her power is death.

Remember for book six: Gwyn's river-nymph heritage and unnamed father, Rhys realizing Nesta's power is death, the plan to station Lucien near the Spring Court, and the kelpie's language, dead for 15,000 years.

Part Two, Blade: Chapters 38 to 50

Chapter 38: Mind-Stilling and Swords

Emerie and Gwyn know immediately. Gwyn has found a Valkyrie practice called Mind-Stilling, a kind of breathing and body-awareness meditation, and makes copies for all of them.

Nesta demands to know when she gets a sword, and Cassian starts them on wooden ones. She pours every bad memory, Hybern, the Cauldron, the kelpie, Tomas, into the forms and vows never to be helpless again.

Chapter 39: Six Thousand Steps

Nesta reaches step six thousand. More priestesses join, and Cassian brings Azriel in to help teach. Gwyn keeps watching Azriel, the one who found her at Sangravah.

That afternoon, Gwyn guides Nesta through Mind-Stilling in the library, and for the first time in her life, Nesta feels completely settled in her own skin.

Chapter 40: The Forge

Cassian takes Nesta to a blacksmith in Velaris so she can see how a sword is made, and she ends up hammering three blades herself, a dagger, a sword, and a greatsword. She falls into a near trance doing it.

The next day Lucien comes by and watches her pound the punching block, and warns that some things shouldn't be woken. She splinters the block with silver fire in her eyes. When Cassian touches the burn mark, it's ice cold, and the whole thing crumbles into cinders.

Chapter 41: Helion and the Wards

Helion arrives on his pegasus, and Rhys and Feyre tell him about the pregnancy as a sign of trust. Helion says the soldiers aren't enchanted exactly, their bodies just aren't their own anymore, which points to the Crown. That means the Harp is the only Trove object left to find.

Helion builds wards around the Mask keyed to Nesta's blood, and she asks not to be told how to unlock them, in case Briallyn ever gets hold of her. That night she asks Cassian why he keeps leaving right after they sleep together. They clear up the misunderstanding in the most SJM way possible.

Chapter 42: Cursed Blades and a High King

The blacksmith shows up at Rhys's house with Nesta's three blades, insisting they're cursed. Amren explains that Nesta poured Cauldron power into them, which makes them the first magic swords made in 10,000 years. The greatsword should be treated as a new Trove object. They argue about whether to tell Nesta and leave it to Feyre's vote.

Rhys admits nobody, not Drakon and Miryam, not Thesan, not the healers, has found a way to save Feyre, and he still hasn't told her. Amren brings up Narben, a sword Amarantha threw into the sea, and then suggests Rhys use the blades to make himself High King. He refuses.

Chapter 43: Tamlin

Rhys takes Nesta and Cassian to the Spring Court to meet Eris. Cassian tells him most of his missing soldiers are dead, and Eris accuses them of slaughter until Nesta points out those soldiers shot Azriel with forbidden ash arrows. Cassian offers help to the soldiers' families. Eris flirts with Nesta.

Then Tamlin finds them, in his beast form. Nesta tears into him, about Feyre, about Hybern, and about the fact that she and Elain went into the Cauldron because of him, and the ground shakes. She warns him to keep his mouth shut about seeing them.

Chapter 44: The Valkyries and the Duke

The chapter opens with Nesta thinking back, in detail, on a night with Cassian. At training, Cassian notices the women using Mind-Stilling and reveals he fought beside the Valkyries for five battles. At the Battle of Meinir Pass, most of them died on a suicide mission, and his Illyrian superiors chained him to a supply wagon so he couldn't help. He asks Gwyn for everything Merrill has on how they fought.

At dinner Elain tells a story about Nesta at fourteen. A cruel heiress was nasty to Elain, so Nesta made sure the duke the heiress wanted asked Nesta to dance instead. He proposed the next morning. Their father said she was too young.

Chapter 45: What Nesta Made

Cassian starts teaching Valkyrie techniques and asks Nesta what she would name a sword, which makes her suspicious. She pushes until he tells her the truth about the three blades, and that the Inner Circle voted on whether she should even be told. Amren voted no, and that's the one that hurts.

Nesta is so angry that she goes down all ten thousand steps without counting, and the House opens the door at the bottom into Velaris.

Chapter 46: Nesta Tells Feyre

Nesta smashes through the wards on Amren's door. Amren tells her she hasn't earned that kind of power and doesn't understand friendship. Then Feyre arrives and orders Nesta to leave, and Nesta throws it back at her. Feyre lets Amren do anything, and none of them, not even Amren, has told Feyre that the baby she's carrying will probably kill her.

Feyre breaks down. Nesta runs. Rhys, enraged, orders Cassian to get Nesta out of the city before he kills her.

Chapter 47: Out of the City

Cassian finds Nesta near a tavern and flies her out of Velaris, and Azriel hands him a pack on the way. They camp in the mountains.

Feyre speaks to Cassian mind to mind. She's angry at all of them for keeping it from her, not at Nesta, who was the only one who told her. Rhys has apologized for what he said. Cassian decides they're staying out here for a few days, and Nesta is going to hike.

Chapter 48: The Hike

They start at dawn, Nesta carrying the pack. At one point Cassian jokes that if she doesn't drink she could faint and fall off the mountain, and he sees in her eyes that she wouldn't care. Maybe she would even want it.

He realizes how deep her self-hatred goes, and hopes these old lands can do something for her.

Chapter 49: The Lake

Two more days of silent hiking. Nesta refuses to ask for water, faints, and falls on the rocks, and Cassian has to force her to drink and carry her. Her head is a loop of everything she has done wrong.

When they finally reach a turquoise mountain lake, she breaks down and sobs.

Chapter 50: Her Father

Nesta finally says it out loud. She believes she let her father die, and that he died while she still hated him, and that he loved her anyway. She also explains the fear of fire, the crack of burning wood sounds like her father's neck breaking.

Cassian holds her and tells her it wasn't her fault and she isn't broken beyond repair. Then he hands her a sword, and she moves through the eight-pointed star sequence perfectly, and smiles.

What this stretch is doing: The back half of Part Two runs on secrets. The Inner Circle votes on whether Nesta should know what she made, and everyone hides the birth risk from Feyre. When Nesta blows both secrets open, she's cast as the villain, but she's the only one who tells Feyre the truth. The lake chapter is the emotional center of the book: the fire, her father's neck, and the first time she lets herself be held.

Remember for book six: Narben and Gwydion, Amren's push for Rhys to become High King, Tamlin's reaction to the pregnancy, and the Valkyries who died at Meinir Pass.

A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas Book Cover

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Part Three, Valkyrie: Chapters 51 to 63

Chapter 51: The Ribbon

They spend two more days at the lake, training and sleeping together. Back at the House, Gwyn introduces a Valkyrie test, a white ribbon hung from a beam. Your training isn't finished until you can cut it cleanly in one stroke. Nobody can yet.

Nesta and Cassian are sleeping together regularly now, but he never stays the night. She still hasn't faced Feyre or Amren. She asks to come to the priestesses' evening service, because she misses music, and Gwyn admits she dreads Nesta and Emerie finding out her full history.

Chapter 52: The Harp

At the service, Gwyn sings with six other priestesses, and the music sends Nesta into a spontaneous scrying. She sees a mountain in the sea, a carved gate, a dark path, and a hidden cavern where a small golden Harp waits. It whispers promises about opening doors through space and time, and asks her to play.

She has used her own bones and the mountain as the scrying tools. The Harp is under the Prison. Rhys gives Cassian the greatsword Nesta forged to take with them, because he wants to see what happens when she uses it.

Chapter 53: Ataraxia

Cassian walks Nesta through the Prison past Lanthys's and Blue Annis's cells. The chamber's wards keep him out but not her. When she touches the Harp, she sees a memory of Fae being sealed alive in stone, and then Briallyn on her throne wearing the Crown. Touching the Harp opened a door between their minds, and Briallyn now knows where Nesta is and that Gwyn and Emerie are her friends.

The Harp calls her sister, and plucking its first string frees her. Back with Cassian, she names her sword Ataraxia and tells him she thinks he's her friend. He says he always has been. Then they realize Lanthys's cell is open.

Chapter 54: Lanthys

The Harp's power opened Lanthys's door. He calls Cassian the Lord of Bastards and starts to say something about their scents before Cassian attacks him. Cassian throws Nesta a Siphon and tells her to run, but Briallyn's soldiers are coming through the Prison, so she plucks the Harp and asks it to take her to Cassian instead.

Ataraxia forces Lanthys into a solid body, and he's afraid of it. He recognizes what Nesta took from the Cauldron and offers to make her his queen, showing her visions of a fourth Trove object veiled in shadow and of the Wild Hunt reborn. She refuses. Cassian puts a dagger in his chest, Nesta beheads him, and the Harp carries them both back to Velaris.

Chapter 55: The Daglan and the Old Cottage

Nesta silently apologizes to Feyre, and Feyre forgives her. Rhys explains the old legends, the Daglan, near-gods who once ruled and tormented both Fae and humans and used the Wild Hunt to keep them in line, and Fionn, the High King who overthrew them with the sword Gwydion before his queen and general betrayed him. Narben, Rhys confirms, was a death-sword. Nesta tells them about the hidden fourth object.

The plan is to secure alliances instead of going after the Crown. Eris is coming to the Winter Solstice ball, and Rhys asks Nesta to charm him, not take him to bed, just show him what an alliance could get him. She agrees. Then she gives Ataraxia to Rhys, and Azriel winnows her and Cassian to the Archerons' old cottage, where she talks about her father and takes the carved rose he made.

Chapter 56: Solstice Prep and the Pit

A month passes. Mor teaches Nesta to dance for the ball, and the two of them actually warm to each other. Gwyn's Solstice gift is pages from Merrill's history recording the rebirth of the Valkyries, with all three of them named.

Nesta lights a fire and sits with it, using Mind-Stilling, until it burns out. Then the House leads her down to the pit at the bottom of the library, and she realizes the darkness there's the House's own wound. It has been calling to the priestesses because they're like it.

Chapter 57: The Solstice Ball

At the Court of Nightmares, Feyre's pregnancy goes public, and Rhys gives Eris the dagger Nesta made, passing it off as a family heirloom. Nesta dances with Eris and dazzles the whole court. He tells her not to believe the stories about him, and that Mor knows the truth but is afraid of it.

Then Cassian cuts in. He has been taking dance lessons from Mor for weeks. Later Eris tells Rhys he will give him almost anything to marry Nesta, and Rhys says it's her decision.

Chapter 58: The Symphonia

At the river house Solstice, Cassian finally reveals what he threw in the river last year, a tiny illuminated manuscript, one of the first books ever printed. Azriel gives Nesta a reading light.

That night Cassian gives her a Symphonia, a silver orb from Helion's court that plays back recorded music, filled with the songs from the ball and from her favorite taverns. She tries to refuse it, and it turns into a fight about Eris. Nesta finally admits she has wanted Cassian since they met, thinks she doesn't deserve him, and is terrified he'll be taken from her. He tells her there will be no one else for either of them. This time, he stays the night.

Chapter 59: The Sleepover

Cassian leaves for the annual snowball fight and then a legion inspection. Nesta misses him more than she expected.

She invites Gwyn and Emerie for a sleepover, and the House goes all out with bubbles and silent fireworks. They make wish bracelets, wishing for courage and that they will always find their way back to each other.

Chapter 60: The Qualifier

Gwyn cuts the ribbon first, and Nesta ties it around her brow and calls her a Valkyrie. Emerie cuts it next, then Nesta.

Cassian turns the ring into an obstacle course for teams of three that changes every night. It takes two months to finish. When they finally do, he tells them it was a Blood Rite qualifier, and Devlon was watching. They are now eligible for the Rite, if they want it.

Chapter 61: Ten Thousand Steps

Nesta's last test is private, all ten thousand steps down. At the bottom she could go back to the taverns. She turns around and climbs back up, and Cassian meets her halfway and carries her when her legs give out.

At her first sober Starfall, she kneels and apologizes to Amren, who accepts. Amren also tells her something huge. Nesta Made the House sentient, because she arrived lonely and wished for a friend.

Chapter 62: Mates

A rare red star crosses the sky, an ill omen, with the Blood Rite days away. Eris summons them to a meeting near the mountain where Rhys was once trapped, warns them that Beron has visited the continent, and figures out they already have the Harp. He also warns them not to go after the Crown.

Walking through Velaris afterwards, Cassian asks why she won't admit they're mates. Nesta says the word would take the last piece of her humanity. He snaps that he didn't choose to be shackled to her either. She calls in her bargain favor, he has to leave and not speak to her for a week unless she comes to him first. She spends the night at Emerie's with Gwyn, and wakes to someone pressing a drugged cloth over her mouth.

Chapter 63: Taken into the Rite

Cassian waits out the night, then gets Rhys to winnow him to Windhaven. Emerie's home is wrecked, with traces of a sleeping ointment and scents of males who appeared out of nowhere, something Illyrians can only do on one night a year.

Devlon confirms it. The Blood Rite started at midnight, and Nesta, Gwyn, and Emerie are in it.

What this stretch is doing: Part Three is Nesta getting better in visible ways. She cuts the ribbon, finishes the qualifier, walks down all ten thousand steps and chooses to climb back up, sits with a fire until it burns out, and apologizes to Amren. Then the book reveals she Made the House alive out of loneliness, which recasts the whole first half. The mate reveal and the favor she calls in are the one place she backslides, and Maas uses it to launch the finale.

Remember for book six: The possible fourth Trove object, the Daglan and the Wild Hunt, Eris's marriage offer and his warning that Beron visited the continent, and whatever is under Ramiel.

Part Four, Ataraxia: Chapters 64 to 80

Chapter 64: The Rules of the Rite

Nesta wakes up drugged among unconscious Illyrian warriors, barefoot and in her nightgown, with her magic gone. Back home, Rhys explains the law. Anyone pulled out of the Rite, and whoever pulls them out, is executed, and not even he can override it. On top of that, Briallyn has captured Eris, who knows far too much.

Rhys can't go because of a bargain he and Feyre made to die together. If Feyre dies in childbirth, he dies too, which is news to everyone, and Amren tells them exactly how stupid that is. Cassian would honestly let Eris die, but Feyre argues he's too dangerous in Briallyn's hands, so Cassian and Azriel go. In the Rite, Nesta races a male for a knife stuck in a tree and kills him. She takes his clothes.

Chapter 65: The Bracelets

Nesta is far from Ramiel. Her magic is gone, but Made things still work, and the wish bracelet she made glows and points her toward a friend in danger. Someone shoots an arrow at her, which means somebody planted weapons in the Rite, where they're banned. Then an armed warrior catches her.

Cassian and Azriel circle Briallyn's castle looking for Eris.

Chapter 66: Emerie and Balthazar

The warrior admits he saw another female and left her to the others. Nesta takes him down and steals his bow, then follows the river and finds Emerie unconscious, caught against a fallen tree above a waterfall.

She gets Emerie out and warm. An injured Illyrian named Balthazar shows them a cave and swears an oath not to harm them, and in the morning there are mutilated bodies outside from whatever hunts in these mountains. Cassian learns Eris will be moved from the castle soon. Nesta and Emerie arm themselves from the dead and head south toward Gwyn.

Chapter 67: Bellius's Camp

The bracelets lead them to a camp where they spot Gwyn's nightgown. It's a trap, and they're captured. The leader is Bellius, Emerie's cousin, and his eyes are glassy just like Eris's soldiers. He mentions a she who put the weapons in the Rite.

Then a beast, part cat and part serpent, tears into the camp. Gwyn led it there. The three of them escape in the chaos. Gwyn woke early, found a weapons cache, and tracked them with her bracelet. That's what sisters do.

Chapter 68: The Bridge and Their Stories

Emerie explains the routes up Ramiel. The hardest is through the Pass of Enalius, called the Breaking, named for a young warrior who held a stone arch alone against an ancient enemy long enough for help to arrive. It's the route Rhys, Cassian, and Azriel took. At a ravine bridge the trio fights six males as a unit and wins. Gwyn takes an arrow in the thigh, and Nesta and Emerie get her across with a rope arrow before cutting the bridge.

That night, Gwyn tells her story, at Sangravah she hid the children, refused to give them up, watched a Hybern commander behead her twin sister Catrin, and was raped before Azriel arrived. Emerie tells them her father beat her mother to death and made Emerie dig the grave. Nesta tells them everything too. Meanwhile Cassian and Azriel watch Eris ride out beside Briallyn, still carrying Nesta's dagger, and assume he has betrayed them.

Chapter 69: The Pass of Enalius

Cassian and Azriel follow the caravan to a lake in an ancient forest, where Eris presses the Made dagger to Cassian's ribs. When Eris calls Mor "the Morrigan," Cassian knows he's under Briallyn's control. The cloaked Briallyn turns out to be an empty shell of magic, and a shadow on the lake introduces itself: Koschei.

On Ramiel, Bellius and six males are gaining on the trio. Nesta decides to hold the pass alone. When Gwyn refuses to leave her, Nesta knocks her out with the pressure point Cassian taught her, and Emerie carries Gwyn up the mountain. Nesta draws a line in the dirt and waits.

Chapter 70: Holding the Line

Bellius sends his men through the pass in waves to wear her down, and Nesta kills them one by one. The noise in her head is gone. She fights calm, precise, and smiling.

She thinks about naming her sword in the Old Language, and we finally learn what it means. Ataraxia means inner peace.

Chapter 71: Valkyries Win the Rite

Koschei confirms the whole thing was a trap. Azriel grabs Eris and flies off, but Cassian can't move, and Briallyn steps out wearing the Crown and claims him. Koschei winnows them away.

On Ramiel, light flares at the summit. Gwyn and Emerie have touched the stone and won the Blood Rite. Only Bellius is left at the pass, and he attacks.

Chapter 72: My Mate Taught Me Well

Nesta just has to survive until dawn, when the Rite ends and her power returns. Bellius disarms her, cuts her, throws her into a boulder, and then drops his weapons to kill her with his bare hands.

She chooses to live. She blocks his punch and breaks his nose, because her mate taught her well.

Chapter 73: Cassian Under the Crown

Bellius drives her back across her line, and just as he raises a knife, Cassian appears with a crack of thunder and cuts his throat. Cassian holds her, and then whispers that he's going to cut her throat.

From inside his own head, Cassian is screaming at her to run, or to kill him. The Crown has him. Briallyn appears.

Chapter 74: Briallyn Unmade

Briallyn explains everything. She rigged the Rite to exhaust Nesta, controlled Bellius, used Eris as bait to pull Cassian within range of the Crown, and steered Nesta into gathering the Trove so she could take it. Cassian is her leverage to make Nesta summon all three objects.

Nesta refuses. Briallyn orders Cassian to kill her. He fights the Crown just enough to turn the knife on himself instead. At sunrise, Nesta's power comes roaring back, and she unmakes Briallyn completely. Only the Crown is left.

Chapter 75: Mates, Out Loud

Cassian is unhurt. He faked the stab. Nesta finally says it, he's her mate. He claims her right back, and they kiss.

Mor and Azriel arrive. Eris is safe in the Hewn City. But something is wrong with Feyre.

Chapter 76: The Birth

Feyre has been bleeding for hours, months early, and the baby is stuck. A cesarean has never been survived, but Feyre, as High Lady, orders it anyway, knowing it will kill her and Rhys too. The baby is born small and silent, and Feyre is slipping away.

Nesta feels Death gathering in the room. She summons the Mask, the Crown, and the Harp all at once, something no one has ever survived, and plucks the Harp's twenty-sixth string as Feyre takes her last breath.

Chapter 77: I Give It All Back

The twenty-sixth string is Time itself, and Nesta stops it. A female voice, the Mother, speaks to her. Nesta lies over Feyre and tells her she loves her, then makes a bargain, show her how to save them, and the Cauldron can have back everything she took.

Time restarts with Nesta whispering "I give it all back." Light pours from her into Feyre and into the baby, and a new bargain mark spreads across her back. Cassian could swear a glowing hand stopped some of the light from leaving her. Feyre wakes and says she loves Nesta too. The baby wails, alive and full-term, with wings, and Feyre's body now has Illyrian anatomy so this can never happen again. Rhys falls to his knees to thank Nesta, and she hugs him.

Chapter 78: Nyx

Gwyn and Emerie are waiting, healed by the stone the moment it pulled them out of the Rite. Feyre and Rhys name their son Nyx.

Nesta tells Cassian most of her power is gone, but something stopped the Cauldron from taking all of it, and she changed her own body too so pregnancy won't threaten her the same way. All she wants is him. She asks for a lavish mating ceremony, or, offering him a biscuit from her pocket, the traditional mating ritual of giving him food. He picks the ceremony. She tells him she loves him.

Chapter 79: Eris

Cassian visits Eris, recovering in the Hewn City. Beron tortured Eris when he got home, and Eris says he told him nothing. Cassian asks why Eris really left Mor in the woods all those years ago, and Eris says Mor is the one he owes that explanation to, not Cassian.

Eris warns that Koschei is still out there and Beron may try to ally with him. Cassian tells him he might be a decent male deep down, but is too much of a coward to act like it.

Chapter 80: Their Father's Grave

Nesta and Cassian's mating ceremony is in three days, and Rhys insists on paying for all of it. He also gives them the House of Wind. Feyre gives Nesta a portrait of her at the Pass of Enalius.

The three sisters and baby Nyx visit their father's grave, Nesta's first time. She leaves the carved rose, thanks him, and runs back down to her sisters.

What this stretch is doing: The finale is two parallel rescues. Nesta, Gwyn, and Emerie survive a Rite that was never meant to be survivable for women, and Gwyn and Emerie win it outright. Cassian and Azriel walk into Koschei's trap. Everything converges on Ramiel and then the birth. Whatever you think of the convenience (and I have thoughts), the ending lands because Nesta gives back the power the whole book has been teaching her to control, in order to save the sister she hurt the most.

Remember for book six: Koschei is still out there and Beron may ally with him, Eris still owes Mor an explanation, Nesta kept some of her power, and the Night Court now holds the Mask, the Harp, and the Crown.

A Court of Silver Flames Ending Explained

The Blood Rite. Briallyn rigged the Rite to exhaust Nesta, using Bellius (controlled by the Crown) to hunt her and Eris as bait to pull Cassian into the Crown's range. Gwyn and Emerie touch the stone at the top of Ramiel and win the Rite, while Nesta holds the Pass of Enalius alone. Cassian, under the Crown, kills Bellius and is ordered to kill Nesta. He fights it just enough to fake stabbing himself instead.

Briallyn and the Crown. At sunrise the Rite ends and Nesta's power comes back. She unmakes Briallyn completely, leaving only the Crown, so the Night Court now holds all three Trove objects.

Feyre, Rhys, and Nyx. Feyre goes into labor months early and the winged baby gets stuck. Because of their bargain, if Feyre dies, Rhys dies too. Nesta summons the Mask, the Crown, and the Harp at once, plucks the Harp's twenty-sixth string (Time itself), and stops time as Feyre takes her last breath. She bargains with the Mother and the Cauldron: she gives back everything she took from the Cauldron in exchange for the knowledge to save them.

Feyre, Rhys, and the baby all live, and Feyre's body is changed so this can never happen again. Something keeps part of Nesta's power from leaving, and a new bargain mark appears on her back.

Nesta and Cassian. She finally accepts the mating bond out loud, their mating ceremony is set for three days after the final chapter, and Rhys gives them the House of Wind.

What's still open. Koschei is alive and still bound to his lake, Eris was under the Crown and won't tell Cassian the truth about Mor, and Beron is furious. The last scene, the three sisters at their father's grave, is the real ending: Nesta forgives herself and leaves him the carved rose.

Why Do So Many Readers Hate Nesta?

Nesta is the most divisive character in the series, and I think it's because she holds up a mirror to the traits we don't want to see in ourselves. The bitterness, the pushing away the people who love her, the cruelty that comes out when she's hurting. It's uncomfortable to read, because most of us recognize at least a little of it.

It doesn't help that in the first books she is written as the evil sister, without the nuance a redemption arc this big really needed. My guess is that her arc wasn't fully planned out from the start. Maas has described herself as "a total pantser" (a writer who figures out the story as she goes rather than plotting it in advance) in a 2012 interview, and as the series goes on, it shows. (Not that it will stop me from reading every single one of them.)

A Court of Silver Flames Spicy Chapters

If you're looking for (or looking to skip) the spicy scenes, these are the chapters. The recap above summarizes them without the details.

  • Chapter 19: Their first hookup, in the hallway, ends fast on Cassian's side.
  • Chapter 22: Cassian comes to Nesta's room to even the score.
  • Chapter 26: Nesta cheers Cassian up in the dining room, until Azriel walks in.
  • Chapter 37: The first time they sleep together, at the palace above the Hewn City.
  • Chapter 41: They clear up a misunderstanding about why he keeps leaving.
  • Chapter 44: The chapter opens with Nesta replaying a night with Cassian in detail.
  • Chapter 51: Back from the lake, they're sleeping together regularly.
  • Chapter 58: Solstice night, after the Symphonia, and this time he stays.

Milder moments: chapter 15 ends with a brief solo scene, and chapter 59 has a short morning-after moment before Cassian leaves.

What About the Bonus Chapter?

Some special editions of A Court of Silver Flames include an extra chapter from Azriel's point of view, set on Winter Solstice night at the river house, that a lot of readers never saw. It matters going into book six, because it involves Azriel, Elain, and a necklace. I break it down in the Azriel bonus chapter explained.

Loose Threads for A Court of Splintered Harmony

A Court of Silver Flames wraps up Nesta's arc, but it leaves a lot open for book six. Here is what to keep in mind before October 27.

  • Koschei is still out there. He's bound to his lake but clearly able to act, and Eris warns that Beron may try to ally with him.
  • The Night Court holds the whole Dread Trove. The Mask, the Harp, and the Crown are all in their hands now, warded and kept apart.
  • A possible fourth Trove object. Lanthys showed Nesta something veiled in shadow on the altar, with a gleam of age-worn bone.
  • Eris and Mor. Eris keeps insisting Mor knows the real reason he left her at the border. Mor hasn't said.
  • Nesta's remaining power and her blades. She gave most of her power back, but not all of it. Ataraxia, the sword and dagger she forged, and the idea of Rhys as High King are all still on the table. So is Narben, the lost death-sword.
  • Gwyn. She glows when she sings, she's part river-nymph, and she and Azriel keep having moments.
  • Elain, Lucien, and Azriel. Elain is still a Seer who hasn't accepted her mating bond with Lucien, and Lucien is being sent to keep watch over the Spring Court. My Elain guide covers the whole debate.
  • Tamlin and the Spring Court. He took the pregnancy news badly, and his court is barely being ruled.
  • Beron and the continent. Beron visited the continent again, and Vallahan still hasn't signed the treaty.
  • Whatever is under Ramiel. Two of the three sister peaks have something carved beneath them, and nobody has ever checked the third.

For where every character stands going into book six, read my ACOTAR recap before A Court of Splintered Harmony, and for every confirmed detail about the new book, see ACOTAR 6 and 7: titles, release dates, and blurbs.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many chapters are in A Court of Silver Flames? Eighty, split into four parts: Novice, Blade, Valkyrie, and Ataraxia. The chapters alternate mostly between Nesta's and Cassian's points of view.

What does Ataraxia mean in A Court of Silver Flames? Ataraxia is the name Nesta gives the greatsword she forged. It comes from the Old Language and means inner peace, which is revealed in chapter 70 while she holds the Pass of Enalius.

When do Nesta and Cassian become mates? Cassian tells Nesta they're mates in chapter 62, and she pushes him away. She claims the bond while fighting Bellius in chapter 72 and says it out loud to Cassian in chapter 75. Their mating ceremony is three days away in the final chapter.

What is the Dread Trove? Three objects Made by the Cauldron. The Mask raises and commands the dead, the Harp opens any door (even through time), and the Crown controls minds. Lanthys hints there may be a fourth.

Does Feyre die giving birth in A Court of Silver Flames? Very nearly. In chapters 76 and 77, Nesta wields all three Trove objects, stops time with the Harp's twenty-sixth string, and gives her power back to the Cauldron to save Feyre, Rhys, and the baby, Nyx.

Who wins the Blood Rite in A Court of Silver Flames? Gwyn and Emerie. They reach the summit of Ramiel and touch the stone in chapter 71 while Nesta holds the Pass of Enalius alone.

What happens to Briallyn? In chapter 74, at sunrise, Nesta's power returns and she unmakes Briallyn completely. Only the Crown is left behind.

What chapters are spicy in A Court of Silver Flames? The spicy chapters in A Court of Silver Flames are 19, 22, 26, 37, 41, 44, 51, and 58. Chapter 44 opens with Nesta remembering a night with Cassian rather than a new scene.

Is there a bonus chapter for A Court of Silver Flames? Yes. Some special editions include an Azriel bonus chapter set on Winter Solstice night, which is important going into A Court of Splintered Harmony. Several outlets report that the bonus chapters will be included in every copy of book six.

More ACOTAR Content

Are you rereading before book six, or winging it? Tell me in the comments which part of Silver Flames you remembered least.