What happened in The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King?

The basics

Title: The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

Author: Carissa Broadbent

Series: Crowns of Nyaxia #2

- The Serpent and the Wings of Night (2022)
- The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King (2023)
- The Songbird and the Heart of Stone (2024)

Add it: Goodreads

Goodreads Summary:

In the wake of the Kejari, everything Oraya once thought to be true has been destroyed. A prisoner in her own kingdom, grieving the only family she ever had, and reeling from a gutting betrayal, she no longer even knows the truth of her own blood. She’s left only with one certainty: she cannot trust anyone, least of all Raihn.

The House of Night, too, is surrounded by enemies. Raihn’s own nobles are none too eager to accept a Turned king, especially one who was once a slave. And the House of Blood digs their claws into the kingdom, threatening to tear it apart from the inside.

When Raihn offers Oraya a secret alliance, taking the deal is her only chance at reclaiming her kingdom–and gaining her vengeance against the lover who betrayed her. But to do so, she’ll need to harness a devastating ancient power, intertwined with her father’s greatest secrets.

But with enemies closing in on all sides, nothing is as it seems. As she unravels her past and faces her future, Oraya finds herself forced to choose between the bloody reality of seizing power – and the devastating love that could be her downfall.

Here is a spoiler summary of what happened in The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King by Carissa Broadbent to help refresh your memory before you read the sequel. If you need help remembering what happened in The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King then you’re in the right place.

What happened in The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King?

• In the prologue, Raihn washes up on the coast after being shipwrecked. He’s severely injured. He is approached by Neculai, the Nightborn King, and begs for his life. Neculai turns Raihn into a vampire and Raihn is enslaved for seventy years.
• In the present day, Raihn is now ruling the House of Night and struggling to win over the nobles – and Oraya.
• Raihn has promoted Cairis and Ketura to the role of advisor. Vale is the Head of War, although he has yet to make an entrance.
• Raihn is also allied to Septimus of the House of Blood because he needs the extra soldiers.
• Oraya is locked in her room most of the time, which is really sad. Raihn doesn’t really know what to do with her.
• Raihn meets a bunch of nobles and kills one of them. Vale finally returns and bows to Raihn, encouraging everyone else to kneel too.
• Oraya overhears Septimus speaking to his guards about attacking Misrada.
• Oraya escapes her room and heads to Vincent’s office. She finds an enchanted bowl that allows her to communicate with Jesmine. She tells Jesmine to attack the Armory while the soldiers are fighting in Misrada.
• Just before everything is about to go down, Septimus cancels teh entire plan and pulls his forces. They all leave Sivrinaj.
• Raihn notices and puts more guards around the Armory.
• There’s an explosion, and Oraya escapes her room. She heads to the Armory to find Jesmine, but is interecepted by Raihn. They briefly fight but they don’t want to kill each other. One of Raihn’s soldiers shoots Oraya in the shoulder with an arrow.
• Oraya tells Jesmine to flee.
• Raihn and his crew find the bowl, and Septimus is very impressed that Oraya can use it. Septimus wants Oraya’s help to find the God of Death’s remains so he can use them to gain power. Septimus says he already has Alarus’ teeth (ew) but Vincent hid his blood away somewhere.
• Raihn takes Oraya to his apartment in the human district, where she should be safe from Septimus and everyone else who wants to kill her. Raihn gives Oraya Vincent’s powerful sword, which she should be able to use since she could use the bowl.
• Raihn wants to betray Septimus because he’s a knobhead. Raihn wants Oraya to help him find Alarus’ blood to keep it from Septimus.
• Mische arrives at the castle and is assigned as Oraya’s bodyguard. Not the worst situation to be in.
• Raihn thinks they might be able to find out more about Vincent in his homeland, Lahor. Raihn and Oraya travel over there and are greeted by Vincent’s cousin (or niece, it’s unclear), Evelaena.
• Evelaena survived Vincent’s brutal attack on his family line and believes this was for a reason. (It was actually an accident.) Evelaena has been gathering a small army of child vampire slaves and they’re super creepy.
• Raihn and Oraya go and look around the city but they don’t really find anything, apart from Oraya’s wings. You read that right, Oraya can summon wings and can fly. She discovers this when Raihn pushes her off a tower (out of love, I guess).
• The sun rises so Raihn heads back to the castle to hide from it and/or sleep. Oraya obviously doesn’t need to, so she continues the search. She finds some wings on a wall, and she bleeds on them to open up a hole and discovers a crescent moon pendant. Unfortunately, Evelaena has been keeping an eye on her and she tries to steal the pendant from Oraya. Oraya kills Evelaena with the super strong sword.
• Raihn and Oraya return to Sivrinaj.
• Cairis thinks it would be wise to hold a wedding reception for Vale and Lilith to gather the nobles together in an attempt to cheer everyone up with booze. Hopefully this will help win the nobles over.
• Raihn decides to invite the House of Shadow, which turns out to be a bad idea, but he wants their alliance instead of the House of Blood’s.
• During the reception, Raihn starts acting weirdly and it turns out he has been drugged. He is captured by Septimus’ men, because Septimus is now working with Simon Vasarus to usurp the throne. (Simon is Neculai’s cousin and thinks he deserves the throne more than Raihn.) Raihn is tied up and his allies are imprisoned.
• Oraya goes after Raihn when she realises something is wrong. She frees Raihn before he can be burnt to death by the sun.
• Oraya takes Raihn to his secret apartment so he can heal in peace.
• Raihn shows Oraya a letter that he found in the castle. It was written by Oraya’s mother, Alana, to her sister Alya. Raihn also found an onyx necklace.
• Oraya and Raihn come up with a plan and head back to the castle to free the others. They go through the sewers and it’s super gross.
• Oraya finds Mische locked in her room. She frees her, and then Mische slaughters the Shadow prince because he’s the guy who turned her into a vampire against her will.
• Raihn heads to the dungeons and frees Vale, Lilith, and Ketura. They find that Cairis is the traitor and he has been working with Simon and Septimus this whole time.
• The group travel to the desert to meet up with Jesmine and her army. They plan to work together to take the throne back. The plan is for the Hiaj and Rishan forces to combine, along with a bunch of humans, to take down the baddies.
• There’s a short battle. Simon has somehow become super powerful, and it turns out that Septimus has EMBEDDED THE GOD’S TEETH INTO SIMON’S CHEST and oh my god, it’s gross. Simon can now use Alarus’ powers.
• Simon fights Raihn and Oraya and nearly kills them, but they do manage to escape. They tell the army to retreat.
• Raihn and Oraya go to find Alya in Vartana. Alya tells Oraya about how Alana met Vincent when he was looking for powerful seers to try to harness Alarus’ powers. Vincent quickly fell in love with Alana, and she fell pregnant with Oraya. Vincent sent her away to live in Salinae. Eventually Vincent returned and stole Oraya away.
• Alya gives Oraya a matching onyx bracelet that matches the ring and necklace. This was Alana’s jewellery set, which forms a map to the god blood.
• Raihn, Oraya, and the army fly to where the map leads. While Raihn and the others fight off Simon, Oraya goes into the temple where Vincent hid the god blood. Oraya sees Vincent’s memories of his mistakes. He realised that he shouldn’t have pursued power over everything else.
• Oraya makes it through the wards and says goodbye to the memory of her father. She gets the god blood.
• Oraya makes it out of the temple and sees Simon about to kill Raihn.
• Oraya thinks outside the box and calls Nyaxia down for a chat. She offers Nyaxia her husband’s blood in exchange for a Coriatis bond between her and Raihn. This will link their souls and stop him from dying.
• Nyaxia refuses this idea because she doesn’t like Oraya much, but she realises that Simon has her husband’s teeth in his chest and Nyaxia takes offense. She kills Simon.
• Nyaxia isn’t keen on Oraya’s idea because she quite likes the two Night houses fighting all the time, and she doesn’t want Oraya and Raihn’s bond to ruin that.
• Oraya calls upon Acaeja, the goddess that her mother worshipped, and asks for the same bond. Acaeja agrees to this, but warns Oraya that Nyaxia won’t be happy.
• Oraya and Raihn are linked and are able to continue fighting in this battle. Most of the soldiers including Septimus flee.
• Cairis is captured and sent to Tazrak Prison for being a traitorous knobhead.
• With the bond, Hiaj and Rishan are finally united after centuries of fighting. The humans are also in on the deal and are now going to be protected.
• There’s a festival for the new year, and Nyaxia begrudgingly blesses the bond, and so Raihn and Oraya become King and Queen of the realm.
• Mische tells Raihn that she intends to leave the territory for a little while to sort her head out. And that’ll be the story of the third book, The Songbird and the Heart of Stone.

That’s what happened in The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King! Check out our recap list for more recaps. If you can’t find what you need, you can request a recap from us!

Other recaps for this series:

• The Serpent and the Wings of Night (Crowns of Nyaxia #1)