CONTAINS SPOILERS
The Bone King and the Starling by Elizabeth Stephens is an enthralling book (pun intended1) that only gets better after a little light analysis. For example, noticing the book’s two full-circle moments was the icing on the cake of my reading experience. I explain them below with suggested passages to annotate.
1 of 2 / The Reciprocated Water Rescues
There are two rescue scenes in this novel, one at the beginning and one at the end. The scenes mirror each other in three big ways.
- The main characters, Starling and Calai, rescue each other from the same aggressor, Tori.
- In both rescues, Starling has blood all over her hands (but for different reasons).
- Water is a significant feature in both scenes.
The First Rescue: Calai Saves Starling
In the Prologue, Calai is observing Starling secretly when Tori approaches. The scene takes place at the Winterbren community fountain where Starling is washing blood from her hands. Tori quickly gets violent with Starling, corning her, grabbing her throat, and holding her “over the shallow water.” Calai blows his cover, acting on pure instinct to rescue her.
Quote to Annotate:
I am moving, though I had no intention of doing anything more than watch tonight. Intervening here could jeopardize all of my plans for this village, for these games. But as I move, it is as if I do not have a choice. My bones have begun to sing, telling me to close in, stop this.
Prologue, page 6
The Second Rescue: Starling Saves Calai
When Starling rescues Calai, the circumstances are reversed: Starling is in the shadows this time. She’s hiding from Calai at an inn, when she sees Tori planning to approach Calai’s chambers. Eavesdropping, she finds out he wants to ambush and murder the king during his bath.
Quote to Annotate:
“There you are. What did you find?” Tori says.
Another voice I don’t recognize answers. “It’s time. The king has ordered a bath and the servants have brought his water. He should be bathing now. We should go.”
Chapter 15: The Warrior, page 177
Starling doesn’t allow this attack to happen. She goes as far as to stab Tori. This is how she gets blood on her hands in this scene.2
Let’s Analyze The Water Present in Both Rescue Scenes.
In the rescue scenes, Stephen’s ties her character’s helplessness with water. Starling is next to a fountain and Calai is by a bathtub when they get attacked by Tori.
This vulnerability around water is a nice unexpected touch in a Viking story. It gently disrupts one of the iconic images of Viking culture: that of a seafaring warrior, raiding and taking via oceanic waterways. Ironically, in this Viking romance, shallow artificial bodies of water (a fountain and bath) present a danger to a Viking King and a future Viking Queen.
In general, Elizabeth Stephens is not afraid to be playful and disruptive with the tiny details planted in her stories. This is a technique I enjoyed in her latest release too, All Superheroes Need PR.
Extra Analysis About the Inn Rescue
(Do you think I am reaching too far here?)
The final water-rescue scene at the inn is set up like a Viking raid. I think Stephens sets it up this way symbolically because it becomes the scene where Starling gets to prove herself as a warrior, an identity Calai recognizes in her early an often.3
So, even though the scene is on land, is indoors at an inn, and features a body of water that is nothing more than a hot bath, the elements of a Viking raid are still technically there. Tori storms up the inn’s stairs with a band of men to raid Calai’s room and take his life. Starling thwarts him, saving not only her betrothed, but also her future and her freedom.
Her victory in this raid-like scene is poignant because her past was so deeply affected by an unstoppable raid: “My mother was taken during a raid from a distant land across the sea of sapphire.”4 She can’t change the past, but she protected her future from this raid.
2 of 2 / A Side Character’s Wish Comes True
The Other Full-Circle Moment to Annotate
Starling’s friend Ebanora says some lightly prophetic words. She is a romantic at heart and has dreamed of seeing a temple wedding in the city of Ithanuir. Her dreamy comments in Chapter 1: The Thrall foreshadow Starling’s own wedding at the end of the book:
The temples are beautiful. The temple to Raya and Ghabari’s love is sensational. It would be a true honor to even witness a wedding take place there.”
Chapter 1, page 17
Fast forward: Ebanora attends Calai and Starling’ wedding at the temple in Ithanuir.
Ithanuir is everything Ebanora said it was and even more she didn’t. […] I stand now at the mouth of Ghabari’s temple, surrounded by Ebanora’s family, the female warriors closest to Calai, Moira and her two daughters.”
Chapter 16: My Husband, page 190
There’s a little bit more to this full-circle moment besides this foreshadowing. Stephens also positively resolves Ebanora’s greatest fear of being a financial burden to her family.
At the end of the book, Ebanora is in Ithanuir not only for the wedding but also because she is training to be a midwife for six months. She is starting a new career, one that will benefit her family financially and her community’s broadly.
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- The main character is a thrall at the beginning of the story. After freeing herself, she ensure the other enslaved people in her village are emancipated too. ↩︎
- Recall the blood on her hands in the opening line of the book: “I watch the young thrall wash blood off of her hands in the fountain, enrapt.” ↩︎
- BOOK QUOTE: “This female is very different from my mother, not just in terms of appearance. Delicate, where my mother is a strong, robust woman, yet no less a warrior. I know my mother will respect that. However, I wonder now over my warriors’ words. Have I gone about this all wrong?” – Chapter 3: The Virgin p 82 ↩︎
- Chapter 1: The Thrall, p 14. ↩︎
Annotate With Sara 