Spark of the Everflame

Written by Penn Cole and published in 2024, Spark of the Everflame is the first installment in a romantasy series called The Kindred’s Curse Saga. The novel introduces the fantastical Emarion universe and follows the story of 20-year-old Diem Bellator, who lives in a remote village with her mother, father, and younger brother. Diem’s life is predictable and safe because her parents have shielded her from the dangerous world beyond their mortal community. However, when Diem’s mother disappears, Diem is thrust out into a series of adventures that force her to question who she is, what her parents have been hiding, and how she is meant to participate in her country’s increasingly volatile political climate. 

Spark of the Everflame is a New York Times and USA Today bestseller that combines fantasy, romance, and adventure into a unique coming-of-age tale and delves into explorations of Balancing Love, Duty, and Personal Desire, the Quest for Self-Discovery, and The Tension Between Good and Evil. 

This guide refers to the 2024 Atria Books hardback edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of death, child death, graphic violence, sexual content.

Plot Summary

Diem Bellator lives in the Emarion world, just outside of Mortal City. One day, she is on her way home when she gets into a scuffle with a group of drunk men. To save herself, she steals their weapons and flees. She ends up in Paradise Row, where she is shocked to see her mother, Auralie Bellator, talking to a Descended man in an alley. (The Descended are an elite class of people who are descended from gods; they run the country’s nine Realms and can be identified by their silvery hair and bluish eyes.) Worried that Auralie is in danger, Diem tries eavesdropping on the conversation, knowing that intimate communication between mortals and the Descended is both uncommon and risky. However, a strange woman suddenly addresses Diem, interrupting her spying and unnerving her. Diem races home, expecting her mother to follow any minute. However, Auralie fails to return home for the next six months.

Six months later, Diem’s father, Andrei Bellator, confronts Diem for failing to take her usual dose of flameroot powder. Diem’s parents have given her this powder since she was a child to cure her alleged illness—an affliction that manifests as hallucinations and visions. Diem secretly stopped taking the powder in recent months because she doesn’t like how it makes her feel. She knows that she is an uncommon mortal; she has white hair and gray eyes and often sees strange things. However, she is tired of living under the dulling effects of the flameroot, so she lies to Andrei when she promises to resume taking the powder. Later, as she and her brother, Teller, head to the Descended school, he reveals the news that he heard from several Descended classmates: King Ulther is ill, and Auralie had been treating him.

Diem goes out to see her childhood friend, Henri Albanon, who invites her to take a trip to the Fortos Realm. Diem is reluctant to take time off from the healing center where she works as a healer, but her boss, Maura, encourages her to go with Henri and enjoy herself. Before the trip, Diem and Maura are suddenly called to the palace to nurse several injured children. While there, Diem is shocked to encounter the same Descended man whom she saw speaking with her mother in the alley. She is even more stunned to learn that he is King Ulther’s nephew, Prince Luther. Blaming him for Auralie’s disappearance, Diem struggles to control her rage while she tends to Luther’s sister, Princess Lilian.

During Diem and Henri’s trip, Diem is preoccupied with thoughts of Luther, the palace, and the Descended. One night, she and Henri rekindle their sexual relationship. Diem hopes that this encounter will ease her distress, but her anger remains, so she gets up and sits by the fire. A wolf appears, but when she holds out her hands, it turns to ash. Terrified that she is hallucinating, she digs in her bag to find her flameroot but suddenly remembers that she threw the last of it into the sea. She tries to buy some more in Fortos but discovers that it is a forbidden substance that only the king can access.

Diem and Henri spend a night at a tavern, where they meet Henri’s friend Brecke Holdern. Afterward, Henri explains that he and Brecke are part of a rebel group called the Guardians of the Everflame. They are planning several attacks against the Descended because they are determined to win back their rights and seize control of the Realms. Henri invites Diem to join, but she is unsure. Then, Henri proposes to her. Diem loves Henri but doesn’t give him an answer.

Back at home, Diem takes a healing call in Paradise Row. After tending to her patient, she encounters a Descended man who is trying to kill his half-mortal child and the child’s mother. Diem tries to intercede, but the Descended kills the woman and child. Diem races to find Henri and tells him that she wants to join the Guardians of the Everflame.

When the Guardians accept Diem into their group, her first mission is to use her healer’s access to the palace to obtain intel on the king’s boat. Diem does her best, but the mission goes awry. However, when she reports back to the Guardians, she informs them of a secret entryway that she noticed in the palace. The Guardians thank her for this information.

Soon afterward, Diem is eating dinner with her family when she hears an explosion. Convinced that her intel allowed the Guardians to blow up the palace and kill innocent people, she races out of the house, desperate to help anyone who was injured by the attack. On the way, Henri and several other Guardians try to keep her from going toward the explosion and compromising their attack on the Descended. Diem ignores them and races toward the smoke, discovering that the Guardians have blown up the armory. She finds Luther and convinces him to let her help with the wounded. While in the armory, Diem is overwhelmed by the violence and death that she witnesses. Ashamed of her involvement in the incident, she drags two guards to safety through the smoke and flames, and Luther finds her just as the roof begins to collapse.

Diem wakes up in Luther’s chambers. She and Luther chat in a friendly way until Luther suggests that she look in on the ailing King Ulther in her capacity as a healer. Luther leaves Diem and the king alone together. Suddenly, the dying man’s eyes pop open in horror, and he begins to convulse. A female voice comes out of him and addresses Diem as the heir to the throne. Ulther continues to convulse and then collapses in death. When a guard sees Diem with the dead king, he assumes that Diem killed Ulther. Luther intervenes and discovers what happened, and when he insists that Diem is a Descended, the two argue. Luther grabs Diem’s arm, and she holds her blade to his throat. He says that she is welcome to kill him, but he asks to kiss her first. They share a passionate embrace, and Diem heads home.

Having realized that she is destined for a higher purpose, Diem goes to the healing center and quits her job. Afterward, she confronts Henri about fighting violence with violence. He reiterates his proposal but rejects the idea of eloping because he is dedicated to the Guardians. He also tells her that Andrei plans to fight the mortals and defend the Descended. She runs home and confronts Andrei about this. Andrei scolds her and demands that she marry Henri. The same intrusive inner voice that Diem has recently been hearing in moments of conflict now tells her to fight, so she argues with Andrei, insisting that he cannot control her. Then, she races out of the house as a fiery sensation takes over her body. She reaches her arms to the sky, and when light shoots from her body, she feels instantly relieved. She realizes that she has a crown of light on her head; this means that she has inherited the throne.

The narrative shifts to an undisclosed location in Emarion, where Auralie has been in hiding for six months. She sees the beam of light in the sky and realizes that Ulther is dead and that Diem is the queen.