In a world where vampires rule and fight for power amongst themselves, humans are the only prey. Oraya, the adopted human daughter of the nightborn vampire king, is ready to fight in the Kejari, a legendary tournament held in honor of Nyaxia, the Goddess of Death and the mother of vampires, to claim more power and finally stop being afraid. Her path to victory won’t be easy not because her opponents are much stronger than her but because Oraya finds herself allies with Raihn a mysterious rival with motivations of his own.
The Serpent and the Wings of Night by Carissa Broadbent is my first ever read from this very talented author. This vampire romantasy, with Hunger Games meets Underworld fanfiction vibes, was a fun read for me, with a plot that didn’t quite add up, but a romance that held the book together. And the last 100 pages were so good, despite not being fully on board with this blood-soaked plot, I’m dying to find out what happens in The Ashes & The Star-Cursed King.
Read on for the full summary, character breakdown, review, and ending of the first book of Crowns of Nyaxia series explained.
The Serpent & The Wings of the Night
Description
An Instant New York Times and USA Today Bestseller
This new hardcover edition of the bestselling The Serpent & the Wings of Night features new case art, and a detailed map!
The Hunger Games meets vampires in this heart-wrenching, epic fantasy romance of dark magic, and bloodthirsty intrigue from bestselling author Carissa Broadbent.
For humans and vampires, the rules of survival are the same: never trust, never yield, and always – always – guard your heart.
The adopted human daughter of the Nightborn vampire king, Oraya carved her place in a world designed to kill her. Her only chance to become something more than prey is entering the Kejari: a legendary tournament held by the goddess of death herself.
But winning won’t be easy amongst the most vicious warriors from all three vampire houses. To survive, Oraya is forced to make an alliance with a mysterious rival.
Everything about Raihn is dangerous. He is a ruthless vampire, an efficient killer, an enemy to her father’s crown… and her greatest competition. Yet, what terrifies Oraya most of all is that she finds herself oddly drawn to him.
But there’s no room for compassion in the Kejari. War brews, shattering everything that Oraya thought she knew about her home. And Raihn may understand her more than anyone – but their blossoming attraction could be her downfall, in a kingdom where nothing is more deadly than love.
The Serpent & the Wings of Night is the first book in the Crowns of Nyaxia series.
Tropes
- Vampires
- Magic
- Forced Proximity
- Reluctant Allies
Synopsis
As always check your trigger warnings before reading! This post contains spoilers.
How Many of the Most Popular Romantasy Books Have You Read? 💘
How Many of the Most Popular Romantasy Books Have You Read? 💘
Oraya’s Adoption and Entry Into the Kejari Tournament
Oraya is a mortal human girl from Salinae, a town destroyed by Rishan rebels. She is found by the ruthless vampire king, a Hiaj nightborn named Vincent, who adopts her as his daughter after seeing a piece of himself in Oraya and gives her the nickname “Little Serpent”.
Oraya grows up in Vincent’s palace, among other vampires as a sole human. As the tension between the vampire houses is always high, Vincent teaches Oraya that she’s never safe and she can trust nobody but himself.
Growing up isolated and away from her own kind, Oraya lives a secluded life. She researches her family and wants to find it, but she can’t set foot in her hometown as it’s Rishan territory and it would be an act of war.
Vincent, however, offers one way Oraya can find her family. If she pledges her life to Nyaxia, the Goddess of Death and the mother of all vampires, by offering her blood to the legendary tournament Kejari, which Vincent won 200 years ago, she can ask to become Vincent’s Coriatae. So, Oraya begins training.
At the age of 16, Oraya meets a vampire, a recently turned one closer to her age. Having met someone her age so close for the first time, she falls in love. The two of them have sex, but her lover gets carried away and bites Oraya, nearly killing her. Crying, Oraya goes to Vincent.
Vincent consoles her, and the next night Oraya finds the boy she loved tied in the throne room, and Vincent forces her to kill him as a punishment for trusting someone other than him.
Haunted, Oraya begins to hunt and kill other vampires who hunt and harm humans in the human districts. Six years later, at the age of 23, she makes her way through the districts of Sivrinaj, the House of Night’s capital.
Then, she offers her blood to Nyaxia and enters the Kejari, pledging herself and her life to the Goddess of Death.
The Kejari Begins: Initial Trials and Oraya’s Alliance with Raihn and Mische
The Kejari begins, and Oraya finds herself stuck in the Moon Palace for the next four months, where the deadly tournament is set to take place. Here, she meets other contestants: Raihn Ashraj, a Rishan vampire; his best friend Mische, another vampire who can wield fire magic; and Angelika, a Bloodborn vampire.
Oraya sets up base in the greenhouse of the Moon Palace. The first trial, the Full Moon Trial, forces contestants to fight demons that were formerly Bloodborn vampires. Oraya is wounded in the battle.
One of the later trials, the Half Moon Trial, requires contestants to form temporary alliances. Raihn visits Oraya and asks to team up. She initially refuses, but after realizing her wounds won’t heal on their own, she reluctantly moves into Raihn and Mische’s quarters and forges an alliance.
Oraya refuses to train with Raihn at first. During a strategy meeting, when Raihn pushes her too hard, her magic lashes out, surprising everyone, since her powers had always been considered weak. Mische begins helping Oraya train her magic, while Oraya reluctantly trains with Raihn, careful not to reveal how talented she truly is.
The second trial, the Waning Moon Trial, is a maze. Oraya realizes there are humans and children inside being used as part of the challenge. She makes it through the trial, but afterwards, furious at the use of humans as entertainment, she begins hunting vampires again in secret. Raihn follows her and is impressed by her work, and the two eventually begin hunting together to practice their teamwork.
The Attack on the Moon Palace and Raihn and Oraya’s Attraction Grows
Oraya and Raihn continue hunting together, their alliance growing. The two of them also begin getting closer, a palpable attraction building between them. Oraya keeps noticing Raihn’s good-natured kindness and his beauty, while Raihn clearly watches her every chance he gets. When they’re out hunting, Oraya is an efficient killer and Raihn, her greatest competition in the Kejari and the best warrior she’s worked with, is always at her side. They grow closer with each step.
One night, while they’re out, an explosion rocks the Moon Palace. Mische is severely injured. Her request to leave the Kejari is denied, but Oraya makes a deal with the Minister to get Mische’s leave granted in exchange for letting him feed on her.
Vincent is convinced that the Rishan are responsible for the attack. To prevent the downfall of the House of Night, he arrests all Rishan vampires in the Kejari. Jesmine, Vincent’s second in command, tortures Raihn, though he refuses to admit to anything.
During this time, Oraya meets a Bloodborn vampire named Septimus, a prince of the House of Blood, who seems mysterious and continuously bets on Oraya. Septimus also tells Oraya she has fans and people love rooting for an underdog.
The Half Moon Trial arrives, and this one tests how deeply allies can connect their minds and bodies. Oraya and Raihn, already growing thoroughly intimate, succeed and work together effortlessly. When Oraya is attacked by one of the creatures in the trial and her life is in danger, her dark magic, a manifestation called Nightfire, erupts and wins them the trial.
The trial ends, and they proceed to the next stage of the Kejari. Despite the survival rules Oraya has always lived by, she stays close to Raihn. Her attraction deepens, their friendship blooms, and the two of them grow closer every day.
The Crescent Trials, Oraya Confronts Vincent, and Raihn and Oraya’s Tension Finally Breaks
The Moon Palace begins starving the vampires after the New Moon Trial. Raihn visibly struggles with the hunger, though Oraya remains with him until the last shreds of his control begin to fade. When Raihn lashes out, Oraya asks him to leave, giving up her only chance of survival in that moment. Raihn is hurt, but moves to a new room.
During the Crescent Trial, the remaining contestants are dropped into a forest filled with poisonous animals. Oraya, after noticing that even the most vicious warriors of the Kejari are succumbing to the poison, finds Raihn. The two of them retreat to a cave, where a weakened Raihn asks Oraya to hunt for him.
Ignoring all of her rules of survival, Oraya chooses to trust Raihn. Overwhelmed by her compassion and feelings for him, she offers herself to Raihn so he can feed. Raihn initially refuses, but eventually he gives in. The moment turns intimate and the feeding turns romantic and sexual.
The next day, Raihn is fully healed, and they realize the arena they’ve been dropped into is actually the ruins of Salinae. Oraya realizes Vincent never intended for her to find her family, he had destroyed the town without a second thought in his war against the Rishan.
After the Crescent Trial, only four contestants remain: Oraya, Raihn, Ibrahim, and Angelika.
Oraya confronts Vincent about his acts of war. He reveals that although she has lived in a gilded cage her entire life, he has always seen humans as nothing more than livestock. The two of them fight. For the first time, Oraya tells her father off and storms out.
When she returns to the Moon Palace, she and Raihn finally give in to their attraction and chemistry and have sex.
Kejari’s Winner and The Serpent and the Wings of Night Ending Explained
In the New Moon Trial, each contestant is trapped in a room with mimicry of three gods. Oraya wins her battle, then finds herself in a room with Ibrahim, whom she ends up killing. Eventually, Angelika and Raihn arrive.
Angelika has eyes only for Oraya, attacking her relentlessly with blood magic and her axe. Raihn realizes Angelika won’t stop until Oraya is dead. He turns his attention to the stands and nods to someone. Angelika notices the silent communication, hesitates, and gives Oraya the window she needs to kill her, which she does.
The Kejari reaches its crescendo as Raihn and Oraya are the final two contestants. As agreed earlier, they don’t hold back. At first, they both hesitate because of their feelings, but eventually fight in full force. Oraya comes out on top, her dagger at Raihn’s chest. She realizes Raihn goaded her into fighting seriously and never intended to win. As she hesitates, Raihn grabs her hand and pushes the dagger into himself, dying.
Oraya wins the Kejari.
Nyaxia appears, congratulates Oraya, and asks what she wants in exchange for victory. Oraya doesn’t hesitate, she asks that Raihn be named the Kejari winner instead. Nyaxia, amused, grants her wish.
Raihn returns to life with full memory of what happened. He realizes what Oraya has done and is devastated. Nyaxia asks what Raihn wants for winning the Kejari. Raihn asks for the line and powers of the Rishan heir to be restored, revealing that he is the true heir of the Rishan clan.
He looks at Oraya apologetically, but she can’t fully process the betrayal. Oraya knows that Raihn was once enslaved by the former Rishan king who turned him, and she knows about the burnt mark on Raihn’s back, but she didn’t know about his role as heir.
There’s no time. Raihn attacks Vincent. The fight is short, now that Raihn is as powerful as Vincent. He kills him.
Vincent collapses in the arena. Oraya rushes to her father’s side, sobbing. Covered in gore with his sword at his side, Vincent apologizes. He tells Oraya that he loves her and he’s sorry. She watches him die, her father’s crown lying beside him in the sand.
At the same time, Oraya’s chest begins to burn. An heir mark appears on her throat and spreads to her collarbones, revealing her as the Hiaj heir and Vincent’s biological daughter.
The Rishan vampires rush toward Oraya, and Raihn has to think fast. He decides, to protect Oraya they need to get married. He also reveals that the nod he gave during the final trial was to Septimus, accepting the House of Blood’s support in exchange for Angelika not killing Oraya, an alliance forged between the Rishan and the House of Blood.
Oraya wakes up in her childhood bedroom.
Jesmine, her father’s general, visits her secretly and tells her the House of Night is ready to fight for its rightful heir. Oraya orders her to hide, saying she’ll stay behind to gather intel.
As the newly crowned heir, trapped in the clutches of her former lover and the rival heir of the Rishan clan, Oraya begins planning her vengeance.
Review
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Overall Impressions 😊
Knowing how many of my friends absolutely adored this book, and being lifelong Carissa Broadbent stans, I really wanted to love this book. Having loved the fantasy romance genre and being an absolute sucker for novels with bloodthirsty intrigue as their plot basis, I was dying to read this. Unfortunately, it landed as an aggressively mid read for me. It felt too much like A Court of Thorns and Roses or any other romantasy book out there. Maybe I’m just tired of the angry, sassy, stabby 19-year-old and cinnamon roll warrior pairings.
The plot just didn’t make sense. I love me a good trials trope, but the rules felt inconsistent, and while the foundation of the worldbuilding was there, it didn’t feel like the rules applied to Oraya most of the time.
That being said, the last 100 pages absolutely romantasied me with end-of-book frenzy and I really liked how it wrapped up, even though it was absolutely predictable and expected. It still made me genuinely excited for book two in the series, The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King.
Please select a book.
Perfect For Fans Of… 🌟
Honestly, this was a pretty decent romantasy. If you like sassy, stabby FMCs and older, cinnamon roll MMCs, if you were a Hunger Games teen turned romantasy-reading adult, or if you enjoyed genre staples like A Court of Thorns and Roses, Fourth Wing, or Quicksilver, this book is probably for you, especially if you like vampires and tension filled feeding scenes.
Characters 👥
This is where I bring you the bad news… Oraya is unfortunately insufferable. The book begins with her as insufferable, and then ends as her being insufferable. She’s stubborn, sassy, stabby, perfectly good at everything she does, and the most unreliable narrator I have seen in a minute. She’s always angry. I understand she’s dropped in a healthy dose of trauma, but her inner turmoil and angst and constant sneering has been so annoying the entire book, I couldn’t stand her. Maybe it’s her immaturity that did it for me, but I just can’t handle twenty-something main characters anymore. I also cannot stop imagining her as Selene from Underworld, which her description almost exactly matches, so you’re welcome.
Raihn was as cookie cutter romantasy MMC as it gets. He’s tall, winged, has scars, a strong jaw, and a smirk that’s almost always on his face. Everything about him went as expected. He began the book with teasing Oraya, then protected her, then fell for her, and inevitably betrayed her. Unfortunately, he does nothing we haven’t seen before. You can replace Oraya/Raihn with Feyre/Rhysand or Saeris/Kingfisher or any other romantasy pairing and they would not feel like strangers.
Vincent was basically Viktor from Underworld, the adoptive father who was secretly warmongering and evil.
Mische was the quirky sidekick friend who humanizes the characters.
Septimus, Angelika, and other characters were all usual antagonists as well.
Some of the side characters ended up overstaying their welcome, like Ibrahim. I’m not really sure why there was so much build-up around him only for him to be killed off so unceremoniously. Characters were unfortunately the weakest part of the plot for me. Actually wait, I think the plot was the weakest part of the plot, but more on that later.
Plot 🗺️
I could not get into the plot. I was so stoked about the Underworld fanfiction meets Hunger Games premise, but how Oraya came to enter the tournament made no sense to me.
My main gripe here is the inconsistency of the rules around her. Oraya makes a huge point about not being able to kill other vampires unless she has the element of surprise. Then a few pages later she hunts vampires effortlessly. The Kejari has no other humans to feed on, and Oraya is right there, always wounded and bleeding. There is no way the vampires, whose bloodlust is made a huge deal over and over again, wouldn’t hunt her. Not to mention this is a battle royale situation and last one alive wins. How is it at all plausible that Oraya is not killed in the first moment a vampire takes advantage?
Then there’s the trial. The rules were super unclear. I love trials and different competitiveness, but it almost felt like we were moving from one Price Is Right minigame to another.
I don’t understand the point of some subplots like Ibrahim. He was so present only to just… die? I don’t get it. I would’ve loved to see them dive a bit more into the vampire houses’ history. I don’t quite follow why Hiaj, Rishan, and House of Blood (do they not have a clan name?)’s histories matter.
I loved the foundation of the world-building, the pantheon of gods, Nyaxia actually showing up, the beef between different clans, but it didn’t go deep enough for me and I wish it did. I am reluctantly excited about the second book though, since we’ve opened the door to plenty of intrigue between the characters and clans, so I’ve got that going. I am very excited to see how the rest of the plot unfolds, especially how the gods come into play.
The ending was fine. Purely expected and predictable, but it was done well. I still can’t decide which one of the two main characters are more at fault at the end and how even they are, and I do love me a marriage of convenience in the next book, so I’ll continue onto the sequel.
My Favorite Quote to Hook You 📣
“Love was a sacrifice at the altar of power.”
Carissa Broadbent, The Serpent and The Wings of the Night
Writing Style and Narration ✍️
I listened to this in Audible format, and if you’ve read A Court of Wings and Ruin on audio, it’s the same narrator. I enjoyed the narrator more as Oraya than Feyre, but I think that’s because Oraya is a lot sassier than Feyre, and the narrator fits her better.
The writing style was good for the genre. It wasn’t high fantasy to the point the prose was confusing, but the imagery was definitely there. I think Broadbent couldn’t decide occasionally how mature she wanted this book to be, though, so the writing style fluctuated.
And some of the banter was repetitive. If I had to read “There she is” one more time or hear that overused princess nickname again, I was gonna throw the book. I’m hoping that kind of dialogue gets a bit more refined in the next book.
I did absolutely adore the interludes with flashback scenes, though. The narration was so soothing (it was the same accent they used for Vincent), and it gave the past scenes an ethereal grace.
Closing Thoughts 🧃
Okay, so that was a lot for The Serpent and the Wings of the Night. I know my overall feeling was mixed, but I still think this was a good time. I enjoyed the world and the narrator, even though the characters and the plot didn’t quite do it for me. You’re going to tell me, “Isn’t that the whole book?” and my answer is: not necessarily. I think there’s enough of a foundation here that I want to see how the next book unravels at least.
I’m about 20% into The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King at the time of writing this review, and I’m already enjoying it way more than the first book.
If you like vampire books and are in the mood for an easy romantasy, or wanting to itch the scratch ACOTAR or Quicksilver left behind, you’re probably going to enjoy this one plenty.
I can sense that the Crowns of Nyaxia universe is going to expand, especially with the gods starting to come into play, so if you’re into stories with a “bigger picture,” you might want to stay tuned.
Spicy Chapters
I gave this book 🌶️🌶️🌶️. You can find our Spice Scale here. Whether you want to get to the heat or want closed-door modifications here’s the list below.
- Chapter 38
- Chapter 44
I hope you enjoyed my recap of the synopsis and review of The Serpent and the Wings of the Night. I’m going to be continuing on with the Crowns of Nyaxia duology and the other books in this universe, so make sure to sign up for our newsletter to be notified when new posts are published!
What did you think of The Serpent and the Wings of the Night? Did Oraya and Raihn’s love story capture you, or are you also a bit burnt out on romantasy? If you are, what are you reading instead? I want to know!
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