To Kill a Kingdom

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2018

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Chapters 27-29Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 27 Summary

Lira and Elian are tied up on the Xaprár, across the room from each other. Elian is unconscious and bleeding, and Lira admires his courage, having never seen courage from a human before. She also marvels at his mercy, and how he only kills for necessity.

When Elian wakes, he asks her if she’s hurt, but she’s merely covered in his blood and is fine. Elian dislocates his thumb and tries to pull his hand free from the rope that is binding him. Lira scolds him for walking right into Rycroft’s trap, but Elian says that he had to come because Rycroft has the necklace. He reveals that he promised to marry Princess Yukiko in exchange for the map, and that he can’t give up because he sacrificed his kingdom to her in order to get the Crystal. Lira is shocked, but she suggests that they should have killed Rycroft for the necklace. Elian disagrees.

Cannon fire starts to hit the ship, and Elian realizes that he can’t pull his hands free in order to escape. He recognizes the cannons as the Saad coming to rescue him. A cannonball tears through the walls of the room and breaks the beam that Elian is tied to. He stands and slips his hands over the broken beam, now free to move around. However, his hands are still bound, and he can’t find anything to cut the rope. He realizes he can’t save Lira. She tells him to go without her, and he hesitates but ultimately does.

Chapter 28 Summary

Lira, still tied to a beam in a now sinking ship, waits for death to come. Rycroft comes into the room looking for Elian and is angry to find him gone. He grabs Lira by the neck and demands that she tell him where Elian went. He threatens to go after the crew for destroying his ship, but Lira reminds him that he committed treason by attacking the Midasan prince and that the punishment for his crime would be drowning. Rycroft reminds her that Elian left her there, and he cuts her free, planning to assault her. She attacks him before he can do anything, biting and scratching until she rips a piece of his flesh off with her teeth. Angrily, he slams her face against the wall, scraping her cheek against a rusty nail. He threatens her, but she pulls his knife from his cloak and stabs him through the gut. He falls away from her and crashes to the ground, bleeding out.

Lira trembles, disturbed by her own actions: “As a human I could pretend I had some kind of clean slate if I wanted to. At least for a little while. But not now. Not anymore. I’m a killer in every life” (230). Lira removes the Págese necklace from Rycroft just before Elian, Kye, Madrid, and Torik rush into the room. Elian, having retrieved his magic knife, comes to Lira and embraces her. He pretends he came back only for his knife, but Lira is touched that he came to rescue her. Before they realize that Rycroft is still alive, he pulls out his pistol and aims at Elian. He pulls the trigger, and Lira jumps in the bullet’s path and is shot in the side.

Chapter 29 Summary

Elian recalls the time he nearly drowned when he was 13 and swimming from the shore to a lighthouse . He notes that he hasn’t seemed to be able to die since. Lira has now been shot on his behalf, and he catches her in his arms, watching her bleed. Madrid kicks Rycroft in retaliation, knocking out several teeth, and tries to kill the pirate, but Kye holds her back. Elian clasps a hand over Lira’s wound, trying to stop the bleeding, and notices that the blood is ice-cold. They bring Lira and the dying Rycroft back to the Saad, calling for their medic, who quickly gets to work on Lira. Elian imprisons Rycroft, though he wants to throw him into shark-infested waters. Madrid asks if Lira is going to be okay, and Elian suggests that she will be, though he isn’t sure of that himself.

Chapters 27-29 Analysis

Faced with the choice to save Elian or let him die, Lira chooses to save him at her own peril. Taking the bullet for Elian suggests that she now feels a strong bond to him, even if she doesn’t understand how she feels. The same protectiveness earlier motivates her to tell him to leave when the cannons begin to destroy the Xaprár and helps Elian’s crew learn to trust her. This is in and of itself significant to Lira, who has rarely felt that anyone cared for her (and never felt that they did so without also fearing her).

Ironically, Lira’s selfless act is also the moment she reveals herself to be quite literally cold-blooded. In all the chaos, the ramifications of this haven’t yet become clear to Elian, but he makes it clear in the following chapters that his views on sirens haven’t changed. These chapters thus lay the groundwork for conflict in Elian and Lira’s relationship even as Lira’s actions appear to solidify it by demonstrating the depth of her emotions.