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A Court of Silver Flames Chapters 68–80 Summary
This Sarah J. Maas A Court of Silver Flames chapter summary contains full spoilers.
A Court of Silver Flames Chapter 68
Nesta, Emerie, and Gwyn spend the night tied to a tree, taking turns keeping watch. Emerie explains the Blood Rite, the sacred mountain Ramiel, and the most dangerous route to Ramiel’s peak, known as the Breaking.
On the fourth day, Gwyn climbs to the top of their tree and spots a bridge spanning a ravine. The three women race a group of male warriors to reach it first, intercept them, and win the fight.
A second group of warriors closes in on Nesta, Emerie, and Gwyn with bows, and the women make it onto the bridge under fire. Gwyn takes an arrow through the thigh just before she reaches the other side. Nesta shoots a rope-tied arrow across to Gwyn, and once Gwyn grabs it and gets halfway over, Nesta cuts the bridge. Gwyn plunges into the ravine, but the rope stops her fall, and Nesta and Emerie drag her back up to safety.
Two days later, with Gwyn badly wounded and the women’s supplies nearly gone, Nesta, Emerie, and Gwyn reach the base of Ramiel. Faced with the choice between a safe path away from the peak and the brutal climb ahead, the three women open up about their pasts.
Gwyn reveals that a Hybern commander raped her and beheaded her twin sister after Gwyn refused to betray the location of the children she was hiding. Emerie describes years of physical abuse by her father, who killed Emerie’s mother and forced Emerie to bury her in secret. Nesta confesses her worst behavior during and after the war, including watching her father die without intervening.
Rather than turn back, Nesta, Emerie, and Gwyn climb Ramiel and take the Breaking to prove to themselves that they can do it.
A Court of Silver Flames Chapter 69
Cassian and Azriel have spent three days trailing Eris and Briallyn’s caravan eastward into an ancient forest to a remote lake. Before they can act, Eris gets the drop on Cassian and holds Nesta’s dagger against his ribs. When the hooded Briallyn later pulls back her cloak, there’s nobody inside it. Then a shadowy shape on the lake’s surface speaks to Cassian and Azriel, and Cassian recognizes the figure as Koschei.
Elsewhere, Nesta, Gwyn, and Emerie are deep into the Breaking and struggling. They are exhausted, low on water, and both Gwyn and Emerie are injured. When they spot Bellius and a group of males climbing toward them, Nesta hoists Gwyn onto her back to keep the injured priestess moving. They push through the Pass of Enalius but wipe out on a rocky section and tumble back to the archway, where Bellius and the other males are closing in.
With both her friends too hurt to fight and no chance of reaching the summit in time, Nesta tells Gwyn and Emerie to keep climbing while she holds the archway alone. Gwyn refuses, so Nesta hugs her and knocks her unconscious using a pressure point Cassian had taught her. She secures the unconscious priestess onto Emerie’s back, sends the two of them toward the peak, draws a line in the dirt at the archway, and waits for the males to reach her.
A Court of Silver Flames Chapter 70
Bellius had sent his warriors through the bottleneck to tire Nesta out before the real fight began. She meets them head-on, driven by the knowledge that her friends are behind her and that she won’t let them down. Fear has no place in her. She fights with quiet resolve, working through wave after wave of Illyrian soldiers until they start to fall, and she keeps the soldiers at bay.
A Court of Silver Flames Chapter 71
Cassian and Azriel face Koschei at the lake and demand to know Briallyn’s whereabouts. Koschei taunts them, revealing that he set the whole encounter as a trap. When Azriel’s shadows warn him of danger, he grabs Eris and takes to the sky to keep the Made dagger out of Koschei’s reach. Cassian isn’t so lucky. Koschei paralyzes him where he stands, and Briallyn steps out from the trees wearing the Crown. Koschei then winnows Briallyn and Cassian away, and Cassian disappears into darkness.
On the mountain, Nesta has been fighting alone to hold the pass while Gwyn and Emerie climb toward the summit. She’s killed every Illyrian warrior who came through, and now only Bellius is left. He taunts her and shares the story of Enalius, the first Illyrian, who once held the same ground before dying at the sacred stone above.
Before Bellius can make his move, a glow breaks from the summit. Gwyn and Emerie touch the sacred stone and are spirited away by its magic, which means they win the Rite. Bellius admits that he never cared about winning and attacks Nesta anyway.
A Court of Silver Flames Chapter 72
Nesta’s friends have made it through the Breaking, so she just has to stay alive until dawn, when her power will return. Her only job is to hold off Bellius a little longer.
That turns out to be harder than it sounds. Bellius is faster and more relentless than the others, giving Nesta no room to breathe. A storm rolls in around the mountain, and during a blinding lightning flash, Bellius uses Nesta’s momentary blindness to knock her shield loose. When Nesta glances at the fallen shield, Bellius seizes the opening and disarms her sword as well. She has nothing left to fight with.
Bellius tosses his own weapons aside, intending to kill Nesta with his hands, and tells her it’ll be more satisfying that way. He has already cut her up with precise, deliberate strikes to her arms, legs, and face. Another blow sends Nesta into a boulder, and her body refuses to get up.
But Nesta does. She thinks of her friends making it through and realizes she doesn’t want to die. She wants to live and actually live well, so she gets back on her feet.
Bellius mocks Nesta for thinking she can take him in hand-to-hand combat. When he throws his first punch, she blocks it and drives her fist into his nose. Bone crunches. Nesta tells him her mate taught her well.
A Court of Silver Flames Chapter 73
Nesta and Bellius are still fighting, but he’s slowly wearing her down and driving her back toward the boundary line. He lands a punch that sends her flying across it. She crawls back through the arch, destroying the line in the process, but she has nothing left in her. Bellius draws a knife and moves in to finish her off.
Then Cassian appears and cuts Bellius’s throat. He steps over Bellius’s body and helps Nesta to her feet, then pulls her into his chest. But something is wrong. Cassian whispers that he’s going to slit Nesta’s throat.
Cassian isn’t in control of himself. He’s silently screaming at Nesta to run or fight back, but he can’t stop what his body is doing. He holds her tighter as she struggles against him. Then a rasping voice speaks from behind Nesta, telling her that Cassian belongs to someone else now. His grip loosens enough for Nesta to turn, and she comes face to face with Briallyn wearing the Crown.
A Court of Silver Flames Chapter 74
Briallyn reveals that she engineered the entire situation to drain Nesta’s magic. She used the Rite as a weapon against Nesta, then spent days waiting for Cassian to get close enough for the Crown to take hold. With Nesta powerless and Cassian under her control, Briallyn demands the Trove in exchange for his life. Nesta refuses.
Under Briallyn’s command, Cassian attacks Nesta and holds a knife to her throat. He fights it with everything he has, but the Crown is stronger. Rather than kill his mate, he breaks just enough free to turn the blade on himself. The moment he does, Nesta’s power explodes outward, and she hurls herself at Briallyn, pouring every last bit of her magic into destroying her. When it’s over, only the Crown remains on the ground.
A Court of Silver Flames Chapter 75
Nesta finds Cassian collapsed on the ground and fears the worst, but when she turns him over, she realizes the knife beneath him is clean. He’d played dead while she dealt with Briallyn. The relief hits her hard, and she breaks down crying. Cassian pulls her close, and she tells him he’s her mate. He says she’s his mate too, and they kiss.
Suddenly, Mor and Azriel land nearby with urgent expressions. Azriel says Eris is safe and they’ve recovered the Made dagger, but before he can finish, Mor cuts him off. The real problem is Feyre.
A Court of Silver Flames Chapter 76
Feyre goes into premature labor at the river house. The healer Madja determines that the baby can’t descend on its own, and a surgical delivery could kill both mother and child. Feyre insists anyway. Madja delivers the baby, but the child shows no signs of life, and Feyre keeps bleeding out on the bed. Rhysand breaks down completely, and Cassian and Azriel have to physically hold him back.
With no other option in sight, Nesta steps away from the bedside and puts on all three Dread Trove relics at once, something no one has ever survived. While wearing the Mask, she uses the Crown to freeze Rhysand where he stands, then walks toward the bed. Just as Feyre seems to be on the verge of death, Nesta reaches for the Harp and plucks its twenty-sixth string.
A Court of Silver Flames Chapter 77
The Harp’s twenty-sixth string controls Time itself. Plucking it freezes the room and holds death at bay for Feyre, Rhysand, and their newborn child. Nesta moves through the still figures to reach her dying sister and says out loud, for the first time in her life, that she loves her. As Time starts slipping away, Nesta makes a desperate bargain with the Cauldron, promising to return every bit of power she stole from it if it will show her how to save all three of them.
The Cauldron responds. A warm, glowing light flows out of Nesta and into Feyre, then reaches across the room to the baby in Mor’s arms. Nesta keeps whispering, “I give it back,” until the Mask and Crown fall from her head and the light finally fades. A bargain mark blooms across Nesta’s back, the seal of her deal with the Cauldron.
Feyre wakes up fully healed, and the baby, who’d been small and silent, is now a healthy winged boy. Feyre and Rhysand hold their son together, laughing and crying at the same time. Rhysand then crosses the room to Nesta, drops to his knees, and kisses her hands. Nesta kneels with him and pulls him into an embrace.
A Court of Silver Flames Chapter 78
Nesta finds Gwyn and Emerie waiting for her, shaken but physically unharmed. The stone that carried Gwyn and Emerie out of the Rite healed their injuries. When Nesta worries about what Emerie’s family might do over Bellius’s death, Emerie is unbothered, confident that the truth of what happened on that mountain will stay between the three of them.
Afterward, as Cassian holds the boy Feyre and Rhysand named Nyx, Nesta appears, and she and Cassian slip outside.
Standing by the river, Nesta tells Cassian what she gave up. She returned her power to the Cauldron in exchange for the knowledge she needed to save Feyre, Rhysand, and Nyx, though a small amount remained with her. Nesta also used what remained to change herself, mirroring the modification the Cauldron made to Feyre, so that she and Cassian can one day have children without facing the same dangers Feyre did.
Cassian reminds Nesta of everything she sacrificed by letting that power go, and Nesta makes clear that she has no interest in what that power could’ve given her. Having Cassian is enough. She gives him a biscuit as a stand-in for the traditional fae mating ritual, and the two acknowledge each other as mates. Nesta then tells him she loves him.
A Court of Silver Flames Chapter 79
Two days after Nyx is born, Cassian heads to the Hewn City to check on Eris after everything that happened with Briallyn and Koschei. Cassian lets Eris know that Rhysand already looked through his memories and confirmed that Eris hadn’t given Briallyn much to work with. The more pressing question is what Eris told Beron, and it turns out Beron tortured his own son for answers. Eris held firm and fed Beron a believable half-truth that kept the Night Court’s role ambiguous.
Cassian then brings up the question that has never really gone away, which is why Eris left Mor in the woods all those years ago. Eris deflects and refuses to discuss it, but he does warn Cassian that Beron is furious over losing his ally and could move toward making a deal with Koschei next.
Cassian then tells Eris plainly that he sees through the act. Cassian grew up around real monsters, and Eris isn’t one of them, but Eris is too much of a coward to actually live up to that.
A Court of Silver Flames Chapter 80
Spring has settled over Velaris, and Feyre and her newborn son are well enough to take regular walks through the city. A few weeks later, Nesta joins Feyre and Elain for a walk outside the city walls.
Nesta’s thoughts drift to her upcoming mating ceremony with Cassian, now just three days away. It will be held in a small temple on the River House grounds, and Rhysand has gone all out with the decorations. Rhysand has also gifted them the House of Wind, and Feyre commissioned a portrait of Nesta from the Blood Rite that now hangs in the River House alongside portraits of her two sisters.
The three sisters then visit their father’s grave. Feyre kneels to introduce Nyx to the gravestone, and Elain follows with a few quiet words. When Nesta approaches alone, she finds she has no apology to offer and no longer feels she needs one. Nesta leaves a small carved rose on the stone, presses her fingers to her lips, and simply says thank you. Then she walks back down the hill to her sisters.
Disclaimer: This is A Court of Silver Flames summary. The original work is the property of Sarah J. Maas and Bloomsbury Publishing.
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