From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout

alwayswandering
Sep 6, 2024
6 min read

Updated: Dec 24, 2024

Penelope Belford (Poppy), is the maiden, a figurehead for a group of ascended people that can attain immortality (although they still can die). This group of ascended people are almost like gods to some mortals. Poppy lives with the duke and duchess (who are also ascended). Life isn’t the best for Poppy, she is extremely sheltered, she is to be kept hidden, no one is allowed to see her face, and she is to be saved for when she ascends. The duke, along with another Lord (Mazeen), has continually abused her throughout her life. Only two people know about this, her friend Tawny, and her trainer Victor - both are very protective of her. The city (and many communities nearby) are infected by a species called craven, essentially like vampires. This is also another reason why Poppy is to stay hidden because they do not want her to get infected by the craven.
Poppy still likes to break the rules. As she gets closer to her ascension, she realizes that she has not lived like she wanted to. So she sneaks out to a tavern called the Red Pearl. But, her trainer Viktor is there, and a woman in the tavern instructs Poppy to go hide in one of the rooms. But the room is occupied by one of the new guards in the city, Hawke Flynn. The two end up issuing, and Poppy assumes she is fine, as she was masked during this encounter.
One day, while Poppy is out exploring the grounds, a man shows up to try and take Poppy, in the process, she is hurt, and her beloved guard Rylan is killed. This devastates Poppy, and she even breaks protocol to make sure she can go to his funeral. Poppy is also in need of a new guard, and Hawke is the man for the job.
Hawke is allowed to see Poppy without her mask, and he finds out that as a child, she was attacked by the craven, and has some nasty scars on her face and body to prove it. All her life, the ascended have told Poppy that she is ugly because of those scares, but when Hawke sees her with them, he is in awe and says she is beautiful. Hawke and Poppy grow closer and closer each day. One day there is a craven attack, and Poppy goes out to fight. She is discovered by Hawke, who is surprised that she has a talent for killing the craven. Hawke also explains that he knows it was Poppy that he kissed at the Red Pearl - and he is happy to help her live. Poppy is also practicing her power; which is to sense people’s emotions, along with taking them away.
In the city, there is an event called the rite that takes place. Essentially the mortals have to give up their children to the ascended. One particular couple comes to the rite to plead for help. They had already lost 2 of their kids to a disease, and they were not being forced to give up their 3rd child. The duke doesn’t care and says the child is to be taken. Poppy feels terrible about the situation.
On the actual day of the rite Poppy and Hawke have a conversation, and they finally kiss. Hawke offers Poppy more, but they decide against it and start to head back to Poppy’s room. They are stopped by Viktor, who knows what they have been doing and he starts yelling at Hawke. Hawke leaves in anger, and all hell breaks loose. The Duke’s body has been discovered dead, there is an object thrust through his heart. Fights break out, and Viktor is killed. Poppy is absolutely devastated, Hawke even tries to comfort her, but all she can see is sadness and anger. Lord Mazeen starts to mock her and Viktor and Poppy explodes. She is in such a rage and she basically chops Lord Mazeen to pieces until Hawke has to stop her.
She takes some time to recover, although she doesn’t want to, she would rather succumb to the darkness. But Hawke helps her out. Once she is fully awake, the duchess summons Poppy and she is told that she should go be with the ascended and go live with the Queen Illiana. Hawke secures a team of guards, Poppy says goodbye to Tanwy, and they head out.
During their travels, Poppy and Hawke continue to get close, even sleeping next to each other. Poppy also gets close to the other guards, including Kieran. The group then arrives in a small town, where everyone seems to know Hawke and Kieran. That night, Poppy and Hawke go the next step and sleep together - Poppy is no longer the maiden. That same night, some of her guards come to her room and tell her that she needs to run, that they don’t feel safe with Hawke and Kieran. She doesn’t believe them, but there is a fight that breaks out, all of those guards die, and she sees Kieran shift into a wolf. It is at this moment that she realizes, she has been played, and that this was a plan brought on by Hawke. She figures out that he is an Atlantean - a group of people who go against the ascended. She feels betrayed and starts to fight Hawke.
Poppy leaves some scars on those who attacked her, but she is ultimately imprisoned, chained up, and put in prison. Hawke comes in and tries to tell her his side of the story. The ascended takes the kids so they can feed on them, not save them. The Atlantians were the original vampires, until King Malec, who was an Atlantean, fell in love with a mortal woman named Isabel. He didn’t want to live without her, so he trained her blood and filled it with his own, thus creating the ascended (a different version of vampires, who don’t have emotions). Eventually, the ascended did not like their place in society, and a war broke out, they went and created their own society - they made up their own gods and used the craven to keep the people in fear. Poppy has a hard time believing this or doesn’t want to, because her brother Ian has already ascended, and she doesn’t want him to be an emotionless being.
Hawke leaves Poppy to think about this while in prison. But, some people show up to Poppy’s cell to try and kill her. One of the guys is the one who tried to kidnap her and killed her guard Rylan. Another is the father of the 3rd child who Poppy met during the rite (he somehow managed to flee the city with his wife and child). They try and kill her, they get a few good cuts in, and Poppy does her best fighting; but she also has some help from her guards that shifted into wolves. Hawke shows up and forces Poppy to drink some of his blood to help heal her. At this moment she finds out that Hawke is someone else; Casteel - Prince of the Atlantians, and the Dark One.
She wakes up, healed, but furious at Hawke/Cas. She ends up stabbing him, but not in the heart. She cries and feels a bit of remorse, but she runs away. But because she didn’t stab him in the heart, he chases after, catches her, and then they kiss in the snow. Angered, Poppy is taken back to the city. One evening, she is taken to dinner with everyone in the city. On her way there, all those who tried to kill her in her cell are found dead, or almost dead, and hanging on the walls. She sits next to Cas at dinner, and he makes a speech. He motions that he tasted Poppy’s blood and she is not all mortal, she has some Atlantian blood in her. He plans to now bring her back to Atlantian soil and marry her. Everyone is shocked because the original plan was to abduct her and use her as a bartending chip to get Cas’s brother, Prince Malik, out of the ascended hands.