54 pages • 1 hour read
Rebecca RossA River Enchanted
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 3, Chapters 23-28Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3: “A Song for Wind”
Part 3, Chapter 23 Summary
Jack wakes in a cave with Adaira beside him. He dreamed of the west while unconscious and thinks that his mind may have traveled there. He and Adaira discuss what Bane said, and Jack asks to speak with his mother privately first, to see if she will tell him the truth. They descend the mountain, Adaira helping Jack. She notices he now has a streak of silver in his hair. They reach the bottom and see that their horses fled during the storm. Jack tells Adaira to leave him behind, but she refuses. They continue on the road until Torin finds them and informs them that Alastair has died.
Torin watches Adaira at Alastair’s funeral and burial. The clan embraces Adaira in her grief, and Torin wants to speak to her, but cannot. After the burial, he sits in silence beside Adaira as she sits in her father’s chair, his signet ring on her hand. The wound that took his voice is almost healed, thanks to the fire spurge salve Sidra applies to it, but he still cannot speak. Adaira asks him if he would support her if she declared war on the Breccans; he hesitates, thinking of the ghosts from his dreams, but still nods. Adaira tells him that Bane confirmed the Breccans have taken the girls.
Sidra tends to Jack with another tonic, and he lies ill in his bed. She worries his magic use is more than his body can take. She asks if he misses the mainland, but he does not. He asks her about Bane, and she tells him about a legend from the period when the fire spirits ruled Cadence. Ash, a beloved fire spirit, used to rule above the other spirits before the division of the clan line and the conflict between the Tamerlaines and Breccans. The spirits were generally in harmony, but Lady Ream hated Ash because he was fire and she was water. When unruly fire spirits set fire to a grove sacred to the earth spirits, Ash beseeched Lady Ream to flood the grove and extinguish the flames. She demanded Ash kneel before her and let her soak him. He agreed, even though the water stole much of his power. Lady Ream, inspired by his resilience, flooded the grove. Ash, with his reduced power, then ruled over the night while his sister ruled over the day. The seas are calm at night because Lady Ream remembers her friend Ash in the reflection of the fire of the stars on the ocean. Jack wonders what an island with restored balance would be like.
Sidra tells Jack to stay in bed and avoid using magic until he heals. She leaves and finds Torin waiting outside the castle to take her home.
Part 3, Chapter 24 Summary
Torin dreams of another Breccan he killed, begging him to provide for his starving family. He wakes in a panic and confesses his love to Sidra, his voice returned. He tells Sidra he wants to turn away from violence and be better for her and Maisie, that he is death and Sidra is life, and he cannot exist without her. He offers Sidra the chance to leave and choose a different life for herself, but she agrees to stay. He kisses her hands where the fire spurge blistered her skin, and they make love.
Jack takes his warped harp and his plaid, which has a hole in it from Bane’s magic, and returns home to speak to Mirin, even though he is still slightly ill. He sees Adaira before he leaves the palace and feels guilty for being too ill to play a lament for her father, and for not visiting her due to his anxiety of arriving to her chambers uninvited.
At home, Jack asks Frae to wait in the yard while he talks to Mirin and promises to practice slingshotting with her afterward. He asks Mirin about his father, and she finally tells him the truth. His father is Breccan, the keeper of the Aithwood forest, and they fell in love. They tried to flee together to the mainland, but the wind and guards thwarted their plans each time. Jack’s father only crossed into the east a few times, and Mirin asserts he did not take the girls. After Jack left for the mainland, Mirin crossed over once to visit Jack’s father, which was when they conceived Frae. She tells Jack that it is not the Oreanna flower that allows for the clandestine crossings, but the river. The first time Jack’s father crossed was by accident; he was bleeding and followed the river downstream until he realized he was in the east. Blood in the river water allows for a secret crossing, connecting to Lady Ream’s warning to Adaira.
While Jack and Mirin talk, Frae screams in the yard. Jack rushes outside to see Moray Breccan kidnapping Frae. Moray, clearly under the influence of the Oreanna flower, flees via the river. Jack plays his warped harp for the spirits of the forest and the spirits of the river, begging them to force Moray to bring his sister back. The magic splits his fingernails, makes his nose bleed, and weakens his body, but he continues. Moray returns, clearly against his will, with Frae. He releases Frae, and Jack knocks him unconscious with his harp and tells Mirin to call for Adaira.
Part 3, Chapter 25 Summary
Sidra hears Mirin call for Adaira on the wind and rushes over. She finds Frae and Mirin dragging Moray’s body and confirms that he is still alive. They tie him to a chair, then Sidra runs to tend to Jack, who lies ill from using magic to strike Moray. At Jack’s insistence, Sidra gives him a tonic that will make him temporarily better but make his healing take longer. They realize it was Moray who attacked Sidra and stole Maisie. Torin and Adaira arrive at Mirin’s croft and take in the scene. Jack debriefs Adaira, and in a fit of rage, Torin kicks the bound Moray in the chest. Adaira stops Torin before he can harm Moray further. Adaira then cuts Moray with Jack’s truth-enchanted dirk. Moray confesses to stealing the girls and keeping them in the keeper of the Aithwood’s cottage. Moray then tells them the story of his birth; his parents had him and his twin sister Cora the same night, but his sister was sickly. They gave her to the keeper of the Aithwood to leave out in the forest for the spirits to take. The official story was that a spirit of the wind took her, but the truth was that the keeper saved her from a wolf and crossed the river into the east with the baby while bleeding. Moray stole the girls to encourage Cora, who he reveals is Adaira, to come home. He promises to release the girls if Cora returns to the west with him. Adaira is shocked and takes Moray to the dungeon with Torin. Sidra takes Frae home with her, while Jack asks his mother if she knew that his father brought Adaira. She confirms it.
Part 3, Chapter 26 Summary
As Adaira and Torin ride into Sloane, they realize the townspeople have discovered Adaira’s Breccan identity and the secret trade, as the news traveled on the wind through the open window in Mirin’s croft. Una, the Elliots, and other townsfolk shout at Adaira and accuse her of treason, but Torin defends her. Even if they aren’t blood-related, he loves her. Adaira drafts a letter to Innes Breccan informing her of Moray’s capture and requesting a meeting, and Torin approves it. She gives Torin her signet ring and appoints him laird, as he is of Tamerlaine blood, and the people will trust him. It breaks both their hearts, but Torin agrees. Innes quickly agrees to Adaira’s terms and proposed meeting. Adaira rips apart the plaid her mother gave her. Mirin wove her secret identity into the fabric, and Adaira wants no more secrets.
Jack visits Adaira in her chambers, and she offers to break their handfasting as Jack did not know he was marrying a Breccan. Jack tells her he wants to be with her and tells her the rest of the story he heard from his mother. The keeper brought Adaira to Mirin to raise, with the help of the healer Senga, Sidra’s grandmother. When Lorna Tamerlaine went into labor, she gave birth to a stillborn baby, so Mirin gave Adaira to her and Alastair, who loved her as their own, regardless of her heritage. Jack then confesses his own Breccan heritage, and he and Adaira embrace and make love.
Part 3, Chapter 27 Summary
Frae wakes from a nightmare of Moray kidnapping her. As she cuddles Mirin, Breccan warriors burst in with Torin and Niall Breccan, Jack and Frae’s father, as hostages. Niall looks at Frae before the other Breccans call him a traitor and force Torin to summon Adaira. He calls for her on the wind, which wakes Jack and Adaira. They try to leave the castle, but the guards refuse to let Adaira pass. Jack leaves without her to get a horse while Adaira sneaks out through a passage she and Torin once discovered as children. They ride together to Mirin’s croft, where the Breccan guards let them pass.
Derek, the Breccan in charge, demands that Adaira return with them and that the Tamerlaines release Moray, or else they will kill Torin. Adaira promises to kill Moray if they kill Torin. Innes arrives and breaks the tension. When Derek tries to kill Torin, Torin stabs him to death. Innes was unaware of Moray’s actions and agrees to Adaira’s terms: The girls will be released, the east will keep Moray prisoner for his crimes, and Adaira will go to the west, as either a prisoner or lost daughter. Torin tells Adaira she doesn’t have to, but she wants to go, to attempt to restore harmony to the isle.
Part 3, Chapter 28 Summary
Sidra works to replant her garden. Torin calls for her and appears with Maisie on his hip. Sidra sobs as she hugs Maisie, and Maisie calls Sidra “mummy” for the first time. Adaira watches as the other girls return home with the East Guard and reunite with their families. Later, Torin, Sidra, and Maisie visit Adaira and give her the half-book of stories about the spirits, hoping she can reunite it with the other half in the west. When the group goes to the hall for an announcement, Adaira remains behind as Jack comes through the passage between their rooms. He tells her that he is going to the west with her. In the hall, Adaira announces the truth of her heritage and the news of her departure. The clan is upset that their bard is leaving with her, but Jack tells them that he plays for Adaira and will follow her wherever she goes. They say an emotional goodbye to Torin and leave.
Jack says a tearful goodbye to his mother and Frae, and then Innes arrives via the river to guide them to the west. When she sees that Jack is a bard, she asks to speak with Adaira. She tells Adaira that music is forbidden in the west, as it upsets the spirits. Adaira tells Jack she cannot ask him to come with her and deny his love of music. Jack still wants to go with her because of his love for her, but when he looks at her she seems distant, and he agrees to stay behind. Adaira rides away with Innes, and Jack sobs in the river. Frae holds him as he cries.
Adaira crosses the line into the west and feels the fingers of the north wind in her hair, welcoming her home.
Part 3, Chapters 23-28 Analysis
The novel’s exploration of The Power of Music and Stories in Shaping Reality culminates when Jack uses his music to force Moray to return Frae. As he sings, “[h]e gave his words to the essence of a red flower with gold-laced petals that grew on dry, heartsick land. He sang to the power that had once invigorated him, when his eyes had been opened to see beyond his world” (400). He harnesses the power of the Oreanna flower to heighten his magic, but the image of the flower alone in a “dry, heartsick land” further demonstrates the divide between the east and the west (400). Plants grow bountifully in the east but struggle in the west. At the same time, the magic that Moray so easily uses hurts Jack, shredding his fingernails as he strums on his warped harp. Even though Jack is half-Breccan, he pays the price for his magic use. However, Jack realizes he would not pay that same price in the west: He “had never considered what it would be like to play for the spirits on the other side of the isle. Not until this moment, when he realized he could strum his music and sing for the west without cost. What power would spill from his hands” (461).
Jack is nearly tempted by the power that could flow from him in the west, which is likely why the west prohibits bards and music. Jack’s clear delineation of the west as the “opposite” of the east demonstrates that, even in the last chapter of the novel, the divide between the Tamerlaines and Breccans remains strong, and unity a distant dream.
Jack’s confession of love to Adaira is rooted in their identities. He says,
From your life came mine. I would not exist if you had been born in the east. I am but a verse inspired by your chorus, and I will follow you until the end, when the isle takes my bones and my name is nothing more than a remembrance on a headstone, next to yours (433).
Jack would not have been born if his father had not brought Adaira across the river; if Adaira were not from the west, Jack could not exist. Though childhood rivals, both have a secret identity, close connections to the island as laird and bard, and dedication to solving the mystery of the missing girls.
Though Jack and Adaira consummate their love in the final chapters of Part 3, the ending tears them apart, complicating the theme of The Dynamics of Homecoming and Belonging in Community. Adaira’s request that Jack stay behind hits him “like a sword. Slowly, his hands fell away from her. Old feelings flared in him, the feelings he had carried as a boy, when he had felt unclaimed and unwanted” (462). Though Adaira and Jack have struggled with their clashing identities as mainlander/isle dweller and Tamerlaine/Breccan, it is Jack’s identity as a bard that ultimately tears them apart. Adaira wants Jack to stay behind in the east, where she feels he belongs; Jack wants to explore the other half of his identity in the west with the Breccans. This ends the development of Adaira and Jack’s relationship and leaves them in turmoil ahead of the second book in Ross’s duology.
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By Rebecca Ross
