Spark of the Everflame

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Chapter 9

Chapters 10-19

Chapters 20-25

Chapter 26-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Themes

Balancing Love, Duty, and Personal Desire

Diem’s experiences teach her to balance her love for others with her duty to her family and country and her personal desires. At the novel’s start, Diem lives with her family and works as a healer, believing that these facets of her life will always be fixed and guaranteed. However, as she ventures out into the world beyond her home, her village, and the healing center, she begins to experience a barrage of internal conflicts. Her relationships with Henri Albanon, Prince Luther, and her family change drastically after Auralie’s disappearance, and she begins to wonder what she truly wants. Over time, she starts “to feel […] distrustful of [her] own heart” because her desires feel antithetical to her palace duties and relational obligations (341).

Diem’s developing affection for Prince Luther changes how she sees her family, her country, her people, and herself. After the two kiss, Diem realizes that Luther is not the cold, removed person she thought him to be, and his passion ignites something vital in her. As she reflects,

Looking at him now was like staring in a mirror in the worst kind of way. I hid behind false bravado […] while Luther’s shield was forged with brooding stares and clenched jaws—but inside, we were one and the same. Inside, we rattled the bars keeping us trapped in lives we didn’t choose. […] Inside, we paced and we planned, and we awaited. Inside, we burned (351).

Being intimate with Luther makes Diem realize that she has been suppressing her desires in order to fulfill her prescribed duties. In this scene, her references to cages, roaring, and pacing conjure images of a powerful yet trapped predator, at once conveying her sense of helplessness and her innate inner strength. She realizes that she must honor her own desires—physically, romantically, and ideologically—in order to free herself and acknowledge her wants and needs.

Diem’s understanding of what it means to show love, respect others, and honor herself changes significantly over the course of the novel, and she eventually takes key risks to develop a new balance between these seemingly antithetical parts of her experience. Her interactions at the palace and with the healers have shown her that there is no need to prioritize obligations over love and desire, and when she is true to her emotions, she finally finds liberation.

Quest for Self-Discovery

In essence, Spark of the Everflame is a coming-of-age story that features Diem’s evolving quest for self-discovery. At the novel’s beginning, Diem finds herself at a personal crossroads. Her mother’s disappearance has compelled her to explore the world beyond her insular village and to take risks that inspire her to change her life entirely. By challenging herself and testing her own limits, she realizes that she needs the freedom to follow her own desires in order to understand her true identity. As she states, “My whole life, I’d tried to convince myself I didn’t care what others thought or did, but with the lifting of the fog, I was beginning to realize that I very much did care. And I was sick of pretending otherwise” (29). Within this context, the flameroot powder becomes a metaphor for her childhood innocence and ignorance, as its effects suppress the magic of her Descended heritage. Once Diem chooses to stop taking the powder, she experiences an adult awakening that ushers her out into the unknown. When she references a “lifting of the fog,” she describes an inner awakening and begins taking control of her life.

Armed with this potent realization, Diem makes bold decisions that capture her longing for freedom, and as she comes of age, she starts to seize control of her life. Her decision to throw the flameroot vials into the sea is emblematic of this broader philosophical choice, and she therefore says “a prayer to the Old Gods to make [her] ready for whatever l[ies] beyond” (74). She is thus initiating her own journey of self-discovery and making decisions on her own terms. In the following weeks and months, she challenges many aspects of the status quo and engages in a series of rebellions by assuming Auralie’s palace duties, standing up to the prince, joining the Guardians of the Everflame, saving children and guards at the palace and armory, quitting her job, and challenging Andrei. These actions exhibit the results of Diem’s inner work to remake herself, and as a person who has “always been a spitfire, and proud of it” (126), Diem feels the most authentic when she is being impulsive, brave, and adventurous. Whenever she takes risks and speaks her mind, she honors the complexities of her internal world and discovers herself on her own terms. By the novel’s end, Diem finally gives in to the inner voice that is symbolic of her true self, thereby fully inhabiting her authentic identity.

The Tension Between Good and Evil

Diem’s coming-of-age journey teaches her many difficult lessons about the good and evil forces that define her world. Before Diem’s mother disappears, Diem is limited by an insular reality that is defined by routine, order, and obedience, and she is rarely allowed to venture beyond her home and village. She therefore sees the world as generally good and safe. However, once she decides to solve the mystery of Auralie’s disappearance, she ventures out into the wider Emarion world and realizes that “[w]ar is death and misery and sacrifice. War is making choices that will haunt you for the rest of your days” (309). Indeed, Diem’s involvement with both the Guardians and the Crown submerges her in a political and ideological conflict that she previously didn’t understand. In turn, her unwitting participation in this burgeoning war complicates her understanding of right and wrong, good and evil. The more risks she takes, the more she questions her beliefs and realizes that she wants to dedicate her efforts to helping others rather than causing harm.

Diem’s involvement with the Guardians conveys her desire to pursue good on behalf of the collective but also reveals her naivete, as she is so eager to join the group and “do whatever it [takes] to protect [her] people” that she fails to consider the complex ethical implications of rebellion (309). When she realizes that the Guardians are causing the same types of harm that they have accused the Descended of causing, Diem realizes that the concepts of good and evil are not as clear-cut as she once believed. After she rescues the innocent guards from the armory, she decides that if “this [is] the kind of killing that war require[s]” (309), then she doesn’t want to participate in it at all. The novel therefore uses the incident in the armory to lead Diem to an internal crossroads, demonstrating that good and evil are not necessarily binary opposites and that issues of morality are inevitably mired in ambiguity. When she temporarily succumbs to despair in the midst of the burning armory, this moment captures her desire to pursue peace and her confusion over the true definition of “good.” When she “remember[s] how much blood [is] on [her] hands” (310), she collapses on the floor in the smoky room and cannot regain her footing. This imagery symbolizes Diem’s personal fight against violence and captures the volatile boundary between good and evil. When she finally gathers the will to drag the guards to safety, she is actively pursuing peace and goodness and refusing to use or condone violence. Thus, the novel therefore shows how Diem develops a personal moral code as part of her coming-of-age journey, using her most intense experiences to redefine her ethical understanding.