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Vows of Blood and Deception Chapters 21–30 Summary
This Aria Ashbrook Vows of Blood and Deception chapter summary contains full spoilers.
Vows of Blood and Deception Chapter 21
The group rounds up the horses and makes camp for the night. After eating, Kyor puts Rose through an hour of footwork drills while Benny and Caz train nearby. He then turns his attention to Ruben, spending another hour working through sword techniques with him. Despite the friction between Kyor and Ruben, Ruben picks it up fast.
Once training wraps up, Rose and Kyor end up sitting alone together. He tells her she’s the only one he’s ever wanted and tries to take her hand, pushing for reconciliation. She shuts him down. They argue about Kyor’s refusal to contradict his father’s lies about her mother and about the secrets Kyor claims he’s bound to keep. She walks away.
Back with the others, Ruben raises the idea of taking a faster route through Rowell rather than Galreck, pointing out that shaving a day off the journey matters given William’s worsening condition. Kyor overhears and insists they’re going to Galreck. He and Ruben square off, and in the heat of the argument, Kyor blurts out that he was the one who ended things with Rose, not the other way around. He immediately regrets it.
Stung, Rose closes her eyes and takes flight, leaving the camp behind.
Vows of Blood and Deception Chapter 22
Rose finds herself in a vision, standing in a forest where she spots her mother’s ring on the ground. The moment Rose reaches for it, she jolts awake. The same quarter moon from the vision hangs directly above her, and she decides what she saw was real. Rose tells the group they’re going through Afaven Forest, and no one else objects.
The next morning, Rose explains the ring to the group. It belonged to her mother and later to her sister, who lost it in the forest during a trial. The group is skeptical, but they follow Rose’s lead and head out.
The group rides hard all day, and by evening, the forest is visible but still a few hours off. Rose wants to keep going, but the horses need rest, so they make camp by the Festroin lakes. While they eat around the fire, Ruben offers to help with Rose’s sore muscles. Kyor takes it badly and pulls Ruben aside to warn him off privately.
Rose confronts Kyor about it. He admits he’s been tormented by jealousy over her history with Ruben and asks her to confirm whether they were lovers. She does, but she refuses to let it end there and demands he answer for his own past with other women. He doesn’t answer and rides off into the dark without a word.
Vows of Blood and Deception Chapter 23
The group leaves camp earlier than Rose would like, with Kyor clearly unsettled by something in the direction of the mountains they came through. When Ruben wraps his arms around Rose to warm her up, he pushes it further than necessary, and Kyor responds by sending lightning into a nearby tree with a warning that next time it won’t be the tree. Everyone moves out quickly after that.
Rather than ride with Ruben and make things worse, Rose joins Caz instead.
An hour into the ride, Rose slips into the treeline for a moment and catches Ruben and Benny mid-argument. Ruben wants to scrap their planned meeting with a rebel named Arle, arguing it’s far too risky with Kyor in the group, since Kyor would know exactly who Arle is. Benny won’t hear it. Benny made a promise to Arle and intends to keep it.
Rose pieces together that Benny has been funding the rebel movement, the same one responsible for the attack on the palace where Zelle was killed. Rose understands that Kyor finding out would be a death sentence for Benny.
When Rose walks back out to the others, she tells Caz the boys were just having an awkward conversation about themselves, covering for them without giving anything away.
Vows of Blood and Deception Chapter 24
The group rides in tense silence. Rose is carrying a secret she isn’t ready to share. She overheard that Benny has been funding the rebel movement, and she knows Kyor’s reaction would be dangerous if he found out.
When the group reaches a dense stretch of forest, Rose notices Kyor is rattled in a way she’s never seen before. She insists on riding with him and pushes until he tells her the truth. He says that they’re being followed by a Myrkr, a being from legend said to strip magic from its victims entirely. Even Kyor would be powerless against it. The forest seems to have broken its trail, but the threat is real.
At camp, Caz finally demands answers. Benny confesses he’s been secretly financing the rebels who attacked the palace, and Rose knows. He also reveals that the Eastern Isles delegation had truly wanted full independence from Morathka. Ruben then admits his part. He helped hide the rebels inside the carriages Rose arranged to collect food for the slums. That food never reached the people who needed it.
Rose decides to share what Kyor told her about the Myrkr. Benny and Caz have their own accounts, and the picture is grim. Only thirty survived out of an entire battalion that once encountered one.
Kyor returns from scouting with no sign of it. The group agrees to split the night watch. Rose is left with a certainty that not everyone will make it through.
Vows of Blood and Deception Chapter 25
Kyor and Elska return from scouting with cautiously good news. The creature seems unwilling to follow the group into the forest, though everyone needs to stay on guard. Kyor then asks Rose for a hug. Rose gives him one, and before she walks away, she kisses him on the cheek.
The next day on the road, Rose tells Caz about her recent vision involving her mother’s ring. She suspects she may be shifting into another body when it happens, but she keeps the stranger details to herself and changes the subject.
Ruben and Benny ride over to make small talk, but Rose slips away and pushes her horse up to join Kyor at the front. Their conversation barely gets started before a scream tears through the back of the group.
Lightning splits the sky, Kyor draws his sword, and a hunched, muttering figure stumbles out of nowhere toward them. Rose raises her hands to unleash her ice magic, but Benny barrels into her from the side to stop her. He throws his arms wide toward the figure and shouts that the man is Loch.
Vows of Blood and Deception Chapter 26
The group stumbles upon a gaunt, barely human figure who turns out to be Loch, a Rettling they thought was dead. Benny talks him down, and the group agrees to make camp early so Loch can rest. Rose treats Loch’s infection with what medicine she has.
With the extra time, Kyor pushes Rose to practice her ice powers. Nothing works until Kyor and Ruben stage an argument to provoke her, and the anger does what focused effort couldn’t. Rose catches on, and neither Kyor nor Ruben denies it.
Later, Rose touches Ruben’s shoulder and privately wishes she could hand some of her magic to him. Moments later, Ruben produces fire from his bare hands. The fire gets away from him fast, and Rose has to douse the flames with ice before the trees catch fire.
Once things settle, Ruben tells Rose he’s loved her from the beginning and wants to know if she’ll ever feel the same. Rose is honest with Ruben. She loves him, but not the way he deserves. Ruben tells her he kept quiet for years because he knew pushing her would mean losing her. Then he walks away and leaves her standing there alone.
Vows of Blood and Deception Chapter 27
Rose returns to camp after a private moment with Ruben. He tells the group something happened with her magic, then holds out his palm and produces fire, a thing he’s never managed before. Rose explains that she believes she pulled Issen magic she’d already used before it fully dissipated and pushed that magic into Ruben, amplifying what was already there rather than granting him something new.
Kyor reacts with real alarm. He warns everyone to keep the secret, explaining that the ability to transfer magic makes Rose extraordinarily valuable and therefore extraordinarily vulnerable. He says his father wouldn’t simply kill Rose. He would lock her away and use the people she loves to force her compliance.
The group then turns to Loch. Caz suggests leaving him with priestesses in Galreck so he can receive proper care, but Benny objects. It was Etta’s priestesses who left Loch in the forest in the first place. The group lands on the uncomfortable conclusion that the priestesses almost certainly knew Loch was still alive when they walked away.
Everyone then agrees on a watch rotation, still wary of the Myrkr somewhere out in the dark.
Vows of Blood and Deception Chapter 28
The group sets off with Loch doubled up on Benny’s horse, since Loch’s mental state makes it unclear whether he can ride alone. Rose rides with Kyor, and the two travel north through Afaven Forest in a tension that builds the longer they spend pressed together on Elska’s back.
At one point, Ruben rides up to suggest that Rose’s vision was never about the ring and that finding Loch was the point all along. Rose promises to reassess if they haven’t found the ring by nightfall, but privately, she has no intention of giving up the search.
Ruben then shows Rose that his fire ability is holding, and she’s genuinely pleased. Kyor dismisses Ruben’s new ability. Ruben retaliates with a dig at Kyor over Rose, and the two trade petty barbs until Rose tells them to stop. The first intelligible thing Loch says during the whole journey is a crude joke at Ruben’s expense, which gets a laugh out of Benny and Caz.
That night, Loch grows agitated and warns the group about something he calls the Quiet Ones, insisting fire won’t stop them. Kyor talks Rose down by noting that Elska has already scouted the perimeter and found nothing. In a quieter moment away from the others, Kyor tells Rose he misses her, and the two nearly kiss before Caz interrupts.
Rose looks over at Caz and screams.
Vows of Blood and Deception Chapter 29
Caz is being pulled underground by a supernatural entity called the Sannthrall. Rose tries to command the creature with her plant magic but gets violently repelled. Ruben’s fire attack fails to stop it, and Kyor’s lightning strike only causes the Sannthrall to tighten its grip on Caz in retaliation. Kyor brings rain to kill the flames, which slows the roots but doesn’t free Caz.
Two hooded figures called the Quiet Ones step out of the dark wearing fox-skull masks. The Quiet Ones tell Rose the only way to save Caz is to hand over her magical dagger. Rose gives up the dagger, and the Quiet Ones drive it into the Sannthrall’s roots, briefly stunning the creature.
Rose seizes on that moment of weakness and forces her will into the Sannthrall, overpowering it and wrenching the roots apart. The Sannthrall throws Caz free of the ground, and Benny catches her. After a terrifying silence, Caz starts breathing again.
Then Rose collapses. A fragment of the Sannthrall’s magic has taken root inside her, and dark markings begin crawling up her arms as the fragment tries to drag her under. She thinks of her family and the people she cannot bear to leave behind, and uses those thoughts to push the darkness out of herself. She manages to expel the darkness, but the effort takes everything she has, and she loses consciousness.
Vows of Blood and Deception Chapter 30
Rose wakes curled against Elska. Kyor, visibly exhausted, tells her she’s been out for an entire day. She scans the group and finds everyone accounted for, including Caz by the fire with Benny and two strangers, Thessa and Stide, who call themselves the Quiet Ones.
As her gaze settles on the newcomers, Rose spots her mother’s dagger at Thessa’s hip and uses her plant magic to pin both women and reclaim it. When Caz touches the blade, she burns her hand, but Rose feels nothing, reinforcing that it’s hers by right.
Stide claims backup is coming, but Caz calls it a lie. Loch reveals that the Quiet Ones are few in number and barely have any magic left. Caz then identifies them from writings she once did for Rohan. They’re Sannings, a fourth people of the Gods, hidden from history after their magic was taken long ago.
Suddenly, cries echo through the forest. Loch warns that the Rotting Ones are stirring, and Thessa tells the group these creatures are what Caz would’ve become without their intervention.
Thessa and Stide offer to guide the group to safety. Rose refuses to give up the dagger but promises to reveal the location of a matching blade once they reach the Hirathean Pass. Both sides agree, and the group moves out as the sounds in the dark grow closer.