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Web of Vows and Vengeance Chapters 68–75 Summary
This Aria Ashbrook Web of Vows and Vengeance chapter summary contains full spoilers.
Web of Vows and Vengeance Chapter 68
Rose confronts Jonas in the library after Jonas threatens to expose her forbidden magic. He demands she marry him, insisting it’s the only way to keep her safe, but Rose refuses and tells him she’s in love with Kyor.
When Rose makes it clear she plans to win the Retterheld instead, Jonas warns her he can only protect her as a husband, not as a friend. Rose calls it blackmail and walks away.
Rose finds Benny and arranges to meet him later that night. When they do, she tells him everything about her powers, how Oke died, Jonas’s proposal, and the threat behind it. Benny is furious on her behalf and offers her his full support. He also looks through the library book for Rose but finds nothing useful about her abilities.
At breakfast the next morning, Jonas joins Rose and Benny uninvited. Benny confronts Jonas about the blackmail, and Rose appeals to their history as a team. Jonas refuses to budge and announces he’s done cooperating with them before he leaves.
Rose skips training to rest, still worn out from the fourth trial. In the kitchens, Leilah slips Rose a note hidden under a plate of pastries. The note is from Kyor, telling Rose he believes in her and will be waiting when she wins. Rose holds onto that promise.
Web of Vows and Vengeance Chapter 69
The remaining Rettlings have been carrying their weapons constantly, refusing to be caught unprepared for the next trial. When the chimes finally sound at midday, around two hundred priestesses arrive and transport all seven competitors to the next trial’s location.
The Rettlings land on a foggy plateau halfway up a mountain. Del clears the mist with his wind-weaving, revealing a glowing peak far above that the Rettlings need to reach.
Zara suddenly moves and kills Grenda from behind to eliminate Grenda’s freezing powers. Zara then turns on Moryal and forces him to relive an old leg injury. Moryal’s ally Del abandons him the moment Zara offers a deal. Moryal retaliates with a wind blast that sends Del flying across the plateau.
Benny spots a cave and leads Rose toward it, but Jonas is struggling outside and can’t fight back. Jonas then admits to Rose that he hasn’t been able to use his powers since he blinded Kestria. He’s too afraid to try. Benny turns around and comes back so the three of them can face Zara together.
Del suddenly knocks Rose off her feet, and Zara puts her sword through Benny’s thigh. Rose raises an ice wall that cuts Zara and Del off from Rose, Benny, and Jonas. Then Jonas runs into the cave without Rose and Benny.
Benny talks Rose into following, arguing that Zara will chase the people ahead and leave him alone. Rose binds Benny’s wound and runs into the cave.
Web of Vows and Vengeance Chapter 70
Rose enters the cave alone, leaving Benny behind. She finds three staircases and takes the left one, guided by something Kyor once told her. The cave is a maze. Rose moves through it by feel, favoring the left path at each horizontal fork and hauling herself up vertical shafts between floors.
The shafts are punishing. Most lead nowhere, and some are fitted with lamps that trick Rose into thinking she’s found the way up, so she backtracks repeatedly. At one point, she hears a scream echoing through the dark but can’t tell where it came from. The higher Rose gets, the narrower the passages become, and she takes that as a sign she’s closing in on the top.
Rose reaches a wider chamber and spots a shaft above her glowing with the same blue light she saw at the mountain’s peak. She climbs toward it despite her exhaustion, slips, and breaks at least one toe when she catches herself. Rose pushes through the pain and makes it to the top.
Pulling herself over the edge, Rose comes face to face with someone who looks like Dinah. She quickly realizes the woman isn’t Dinah but the Goddess herself and drops to her knees. Before Rose can speak, Zara’s voice cuts through the moment. Zara got there first. The gifting is hers, and she wastes no time threatening to kill Rose.
Web of Vows and Vengeance Chapter 71
Rose arrives at the Goddess’s chamber to find Zara already there, convinced she’s won. The Goddess appears, speaking through the body of Dinah, and immediately makes it clear that the trial isn’t over. The Goddess alone decides who receives the gifting, and she isn’t ready to make that decision yet.
Before anything else can happen, the Goddess asks both women to give up their powers. They agree, and the process is brutal and painful for both women.
Then Rose and Zara wait. Eventually Jonas pulls himself up through one of the tunnels, and the Goddess announces the final challenge. One of the women must kill him. Whoever does it wins the gifting.
Zara goes for Jonas immediately. Jonas urges Rose to be the one to kill him so Zara can’t win, but Rose refuses. Rose decides that the Goddess of Life cannot genuinely want her to take a life and that refusing is actually the real test.
So instead of killing Jonas, Rose steps in to protect him. She and Zara fight, and Rose uses a special dagger to slash Zara’s arm. The wound opens far worse than Rose expects, and Zara bleeds out and dies.
Jonas tells Rose she still needs to kill him to claim the prize, but Rose is already sure that isn’t true. The Goddess confirms Rose is right and awards her the gifting.
Web of Vows and Vengeance Chapter 72
Rose has won the Retterheld but feels numb and uneasy. Zara reached the Goddess first and now lies dead. When Rose asks why she was chosen, the Goddess, speaking through Dinah, explains that arriving first doesn’t make someone the winner. Zara had no respect for life and rejected every chance at friendship, so the Goddess judged her unworthy. Jonas kneels behind Rose in tears.
Wanting reassurance, Rose asks whether Benny made it out. The Goddess teases Rose, asking whether Benny’s survival is really her wish. Rose backpedals and realizes the Goddess has been reading her thoughts. The Goddess admits it’s a habit and promises to stop.
Next, the Goddess asks whether Rose still wants everything that was taken from her family returned. Rose says yes and names the magic, titles, and home that belonged to her family. The Goddess offers Rose a different choice. She could dethrone King Korvane instead, but she can’t have both. Rose refuses. She doubts anyone who’d replace him would be any better and believes Kyor could be a good king someday.
The Goddess agrees and promises to restore Rose’s magic first, then her home and wealth, and perhaps a little extra. She takes Rose’s hands, and a surge of magic fills Rose, far more than Rose had before. The Goddess adds that she’ll give back Rose’s home and wealth and that the most important thing Rose lost will return in time. Then the world vanishes around Rose.
Web of Vows and Vengeance Chapter 73
Rose wins the gifting competition and is brought to a lavish room called the Spire at the top of the High Hold. Her magic has returned, and the reality of her victory begins to sink in. Kyor finds her there shortly afterward, having followed the priestesses to the room. They celebrate together, and Kyor tells Rose he always knew she’d win.
Afterward, Rose bathes and falls asleep in the tub. When she wakes, the maids have been waiting for her, and she quickly chooses an emerald ballgown. One maid stays behind to style Rose’s hair.
The maid speaks with a strange familiarity, repeatedly steering the conversation toward Kyor and how much he must love Rose. The dynamic feels off. The maid then drops a piece of paper that turns out to be one of Kyor’s charcoal drawings, showing a woman lying in the bed in the barracks kitchen, the same space he had shared with Rose as his private sanctuary.
Rose looks up and recognizes the maid as Thea, Estel’s sister, who was stripped of her magic and cast out after falling pregnant with Kyor’s child. Thea tells Rose that Kyor said he loved Thea too and warns Rose that he’ll never choose her over his father and the crown. Thea takes the drawing and walks out, leaving Rose alone and shaken.
Web of Vows and Vengeance Chapter 74
Rose is still reeling from what Thea told her about Kyor, but she forces herself to push it aside and get through the night. She fixes her hair, pulls herself together, and lets a maid lead her to the ballroom. Just before Rose walks in, the maid quietly tells her she’s one of them, and that small moment gives Rose the steadiness she needs.
When Rose’s name is announced to the court, the applause catches her off guard. She stalls when greeting the king and Kyor at the throne, unsure she can face either man right now. Benny breaks the tension by raising a toast to Rose, and after a beat of hesitation, the whole room follows Benny’s lead. When Kyor approaches her, Rose is cold and distant, deflecting by saying she needs to find Kay.
Kay finds Rose first. Rose pulls her into a nearby room to talk, and Kay tells Rose she’s happy at court and that she feels she truly belongs there. Then Kay tells Rose she’s pregnant with Hew’s baby, but Hew has admitted he’s already engaged to a duchess elsewhere and has no plans to marry Kay. When Rose suggests ending the pregnancy, Kay is furious and accuses Rose of being heartless. Kay then reveals she’s already arranged to marry Lord Artur Lorathin, who’s Jonas’s father.
Web of Vows and Vengeance Chapter 75
Rose is shaken to discover that Kay is pregnant and intends to marry the elderly Lord Lorathin purely for security. The two get into a heated argument, and Kay accuses Rose of being controlling and never letting Kay make her own choices, but Kay refuses to back down. Rose leaves furious, determined to find another way out for her sister.
Hew refuses outright when Rose tracks him down and tries to pressure him into marrying Kay instead, saying his marriage was already arranged by the king and there’s nothing to be done about it. Hew also makes a throwaway comment comparing himself to Kyor, which unsettles Rose and makes her wonder whether Kyor has a pattern of letting women bear the consequences of his choices.
Rose pushes the thought aside and finds a moment alone with Kyor, but King Korvane catches them together. Rose urges Kyor to tell his father the truth about Rose’s mother’s past, which would change everything, but Kyor says nothing. Faced with the threat of losing his title and the people who depend on him, Kyor walks away without looking back. Rose is left with her world in pieces, but she refuses to fall apart.
Disclaimer: This is a Web of Vows and Vengeance summary. The original work is the property of Aria Ashbrook and Hellhound Press Limited.
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