Consumed.

I have just finished The Darkangel Trilogy by Meredith Ann Pierce. I read the three books--785 pages in all--in less than 24 hours. I was literally consumed with desire to finish this series, and wanted desperately to know what happened at the end.

Don't read any more of this posting if you want to know nothing of the books.

Basically, I have never experienced such heartbreak in a young adult trilogy. I know that not everything can end in happily-ever-after, and I prefer it to not sometimes, but this series basically tore my heart out. I was so angry at Irrylath for not going to Aeriel and returning her love, and for turning to his cousin for comfort instead. I wanted so desperately for them to find something in one another, but he turned from her again and again in all three books. Then, when he finally goes for her and returns her love it's so damned short-lived that I cried out in anger. I shed a couple tears as well. It was as if my own heart were being turned away again and again.

Everything Aeriel does is because she loves someone--first Eoduin then Irrylath. Irrylath's love is her only true love, even though he doesn't return it. Then to have that taken away by fate... oh how cruel it is. I desperately want the author to continue the series so that I can find out more about Aeriel and her journey to cleanse the planet, and to find out if Irrylath continues to pursue or turns to his cousin out of a change of heart now that he has his own back. I came to dislike the cousin so much that the thought of him ending up with her makes me feel ill, but I know it's only because I saw it through the rage and despair of Aeriel's eyes that I feel this way. I just feel like she didn't have to fight for Irrylath at all; Aeriel did all the work and got none of the returned feelings.

Here are my own recaps of the stories.

The Darkangel

We meet Aeriel, a slave to a high-born girl, Eoduin, who is basically a princess by all rights. While they are gathering up a precious liquid on a high mountain, Eoduin is taken by an icaris--a demon-type that steals women to make them his honored brides. Eoduin makes bride number 13, whose fate is to have her soul taken by the icaris and be changed into a wraith. Aeriel goes down the mountain to alert everyone, but finds out that no one will go to save Eoduin, who is already thought of as dead.

Aeriel goes back to the mountain to kill the icaris, but is captivated by his beauty and rendered unable. He takes her from the mountain, intending to make her a servant to his wives. He tells her that she is to spin clothing for them, because even the lightest cloth keeps them from being able to stand. He has no food to give her, so she must find her own.

She goes to the gardens to forage only to find a gnome-type of man, who gives her the spindle in which she is to make the cloth for the wives, and gives her his own food he keeps deep underground.

When she first meets the wraiths, she is unable to tell which is her beloved mistress Eoduin--all are haggard and ugly, barely able to stand their own body weight. After mastering the spindle--it spins thread from her emotions--she first spins cloth of pity and despair. Slowly, after a few months, she begins to love them, because to her any of them could be Eoduin. She sings to them and keeps them company. She soon begins to spin cloth from love and patience, which is light as air and the wraiths can wear the clothing without being held down. Aeriel even befriends the vicious gargoyles on the rooftop, feeding them and setting them free after they learn her touch.

The icaris--or darkangel--begins to get violent in response to her forming these bonds, however. Aeriel walks the castle and sees bats with broken wings, or lizards without tails or tongues. She pleads with him to stop killing the animals, so he tells her that she must alleviate his boredom--tell him stories.

She tells him many tales, and eventually gets to the last one she knows--one she learned of as a young girl from another slave. A story that was meant to scare her. The slave had killed a 6 year old prince in her care by giving him to a lorelai, drowning him in a lake.

The icaris is troubled by this tale and sends her away. He begins to dream of these stories, and sets out to kill Aeriel. The gnome keeps her safe and sends her on a quest away from the darkangel, both to keep her from being killed as well as to find a way to rid the land of the icaris. Aeriel is so drawn to the icaris's beauty that she knew that if he were to call to her, she would willingly go to him knowing it would be her death.

He pursues her at first, biting into her neck. But a savior keeps her from being slaughtered--Pendarlon, a giant lion-god that bats the icaris into the skies, injuring him. The icaris leaves, and Pendarlon gives Aeriel to some nomads to be kept safe and to heal. On this journey she is shaken free from her bonds created by the icaris, growing taller and stronger, and finds that she is not a captive of the icaris any longer. She learns fighting moves, and finds out more about the White Witch that created the icaris. She finds that Avarclon, the horse-god that is to protect the land she is from, and finds its ghost and bones. She takes its hoof, and goes back to the icaris.

The icaris needs his 14th and final bride so that he might join the White Witch and become a full icaris--soulless and bloodless. At the moment he is still somewhat mortal. Aeriel returns to him and he finds her a changed woman, and decides that she will be his 14th bride. The night he is to wed her, she tricks him into drinking from the Avarclon's hoof, telling him that it is a bridal custom of her land. He drinks the liquid. The wraiths encircle him, and after he passes out, Aeriel steals his brides's souls back from him. Her beloved Eoduin is truly dead, her soul set free after her body crumbles to dust in front of Aeriel. The wraiths disappear into dust, and the 13 souls fly to the skies where they form a constellation.

Aeriel, however, cannot kill the icaris. Though she is no longer under his power, she saw several sparks of good in him, and due to it has fallen in actual love with him. She cries tears of blood, and they fill him with life, but he doesn't wake. The gnome explains that his heart is filled with lead, so Aeriel cuts out her own to replace his. The gnome cleans the former icaris's heart, and places it into a dying Aeriel; they are now bound together.

They learn together that he was the prince drowned for the lorelai, and that the White Witch had turned him into the icaris. He is not the same, though. He believes he is still only 6 years old, though he is clearly 16. He remembers his time as the icaris, and loathes himself for the lives he took, and for the former life he held.

Aeriel cannot heal him; cannot touch him.

They go east to find his mother.

A Gathering of Gargoyles

This book starts off where the first left off, and recounts the several months at the palace the former-icaris-turned-prince--now known as Irrylath--resides to get to know his mother again. He finds out that he has 6 other brothers, who all love Aeriel and call her sister.

Aeriel is in turmoil. Though she had wed Irrylath when he was an icaris, she knows that Irrylath is husband in name only. He spurns her every touch, and refuses to sleep with her. He is tormented by the dreams of the White Witch, and sleeps with lamps lit all around him to chase away the shadows.

Due to her sadness, the souls of the 13 brides come down from the heavens to depart on her a quest to kill the White Witch. Aeriel sets off at once, knowing that either way Irrylath could care less; he does not love her as she loves him. This is heartbreaking.

On her journey, she meets up with all differently colored people, and each land she encounters she finds out that an icaris is blighting the land. She saves a jet-black girl, Erin, from the clutches of an icaris, and saves three of the gargoyles that she had once set free. Erin follows her, and so do the gargoyles.

She comes to the land of Pirs, and falls into the clutches of a nameless man. After several months under his thumb, Aeriel comes free of the spell she has cast over him, and comes to realize that this man's nephew looks remarkably like her--right down to the unnerving emerald green eyes she herself has. The boy claims to be her brother--the royal prince of Pirs--and that she is the rightful lost heir to Pirs. He tells her that the nameless man is her uncle, and that he sold his name to the White Witch to get his heart's desire--their mother. Eryka kills herself instead of being forced to marry this man, and Aeriel--or Erryl, as she had been named as a baby--was whisked away by a heron. Aeriel refuses to believe him, and she once again is captured by the nameless man. Digging her way out of the prison--after some more help from her soul-friend Eoduin--she reunites with Erin and her brother.

This is short-lived, as they run away from the icaris the nameless man sets upon them. A small familiar she had been carrying with her the whole time dies, and leaves her a pearl. Saved by a bright flame of light from a tower they hide in, they part ways so that Aeriel can finish her quest. Aeriel meets up with her old friend the gnome, who is on the run from the White Witch, and finished her quest in Orm.

The slave that had told her the tale--and had killed Irrylath by pushing him into the lake--finds her in Orm, and attempts to kill her for the White Witch. Irrylath comes and saves her, but only begrudgingly. Aeriel feels more heartbreak as she learns that Irrylath can never love her as long as the White Witch lives. He had been her lover, and therefore she still held his heart. However, she is lightened by the idea that he had come searching for her. Perhaps he did feel something for her afterall.

The quest comes to an end when the gargoyles, their hearts salvaged through a form of sorcery, become what they had been before--the animal-gods of the lands.

The Pearl of the Soul of the World

This book's opening is very different from the other two, as we find Aeriel unable to remember who she is and stumbling about underground, a pin secured deep in her skull that burns colder than ice. The pearl her familiar gave her in book two is in the breast of her dress, and is casting a strange light. She comes across some gnomes who keep her fed and warm, and Aeriel finds herself making sure not to remember who she was before because that only hurt.

After a fashion, some of the White Witch's minions find them, and only Aeriel's pearl-light staves them off. They find a path to one of the God-towns, and follow the call that brings them to Ravenna's city--the last of the Ancients who had forsaken the people of this world. Ravenna saves her after she pulls the pin from her skull, and asks for the tale that brought her to this point. Aeriel tells her all, and we finally find out how she managed to get pinned in the head by the White Witch.

Irrylath spurns her still, and refuses to sleep in the same room as Aeriel. He ignores her in public, and talks to her only out of necessity. She is wife only in name to him. Aeriel pines for him, and her heartache is tangible. They go in search of an army to defeat the White Witch, and they come in contact with his cousin, the bandit queen of Avaric. She had apparently nursed him back to health when he went in look for Aeriel back in book two, and had formed clear bonds with Irrylath. He embraces her freely, smiling at her and talking with her as he's never done with Aeriel. He begrudgingly introduces her as his wife after enthusiastically explaining who everyone else is. Aeriel nods, and leaves, only to see Irrylath smile in relief at her absence. She is heartbroken. They get on the road and pick up those willing to fight the White Witch.

Aeriel stumbles upon Irrylath and his cousin talking quietly alone. He told his cousin that he could not love her either, until the White Witch was destroyed; he would not talk of these things to Aeriel willingly, and it hurt her immensely to find out that he turned to his cousin--who clearly had fallen in love with him--with these emotions. His cousin touched his face and tells him that Aeriel was just as wicked as the White Witch because she had replaced his heart with her own, so how could he ever love anyone else? Wasn't that just as bad as the White Witch's sorcery over him? However, after seeing her beloved Irrylath with his cousin--not spurring her touch or speech--she flees out of jealousy and rage. It is then that the White Witch's minion pins her in the head, and she wanders away from the camp, knowing not even herself.

Ravenna listens, and imparts new knowledge and a new task onto Aeriel. She is to restore the White Witch to humanity through the pearl that she has been carrying all of this time. Ravenna imbues it with her essence, and the last of the Ancients dies. Aeriel is horror-struck by this turn of events, but does as Ravenna asks of her.

When leaving the city, Aeriel immediately runs into Erin, who has been looking for her for several months. Aeriel then learns of how Irrylath reacted to her absence. Irrylath had believed for these past months that Aeriel had been taken by an icaris, and that the White Witch had destroyed her already. He despaired and refused to move camp until he found out if it was true or not. He turned to his cousin for comfort, and Aeriel was again full of jealousy and rage. She, however, must finish Ravenna's task given for her, and tells Erin to go back to assemble the troops. Aeriel was to go to the White Witch alone, and needed Erin to back her up on land with the army.

Erin returns, and though a source of magic Aeriel sees Irrylath through Erin's eyes. He has grown gaunt and angry from losing Aeriel, and when Erin returns he believes that she is under the White Witch's spell. He tries to kill her, but through more magic Aeriel saves Erin and allows Irrylath to see that she is, in fact, fine and not under the White Witch's thumb. He sees her like a starved man, and his cousin tries to dissuade him from believing that she is okay. Aeriel tamps down her anger and jealousy, only to feel better when he throws off his cousin and tells her to leave him alone. He wants to see her, but Aeriel tells him of her task and he cries out that she musn't go to the White Witch alone. Through heartbreak--because she's unsure if he's feeling this way towards her now because actually he loves her--she tells Erin to sever their connection so that she can't see Irrylath any longer. He cries out her name, and Aeriel dreams of him for several nights.

She travels to the White Witch. She enters the ice castle. When she finally reaches the White Witch, Irrylath's army has gathered outside. She and the Witch watch, and the Witch shows her the heart she had carved from her own chest to replace with ice. The heart was ashes, and Aeriel felt despair at ever being able to save her.

The battle wages, and the White Witch attempts to get Irrylath to back into her clutches. Irrylath spurns her, however, and calls out that he no longer follows her, that he follows The Aeriel. Aeriel smiles and feels heartened by his proclamation, however it's cut short when the White Witch uses her as bait. Irrylath is enraged when he sees that Aeriel is captive in the ice castle, and uses the horse-god to try and defeat the foes that encumber him--his own icaris brothers from before he became mortal again. His younger half-brothers from his mother's second marriage fight along side him on the other animal-gods that had once been gargoyles.

Aeriel gives the White Witch Ravenna's last gift, the pearl she had imbued with her essence. Irrylath comes to save her at this time, however, he's trapped outside of the window of the tower. He breaks the window and asks Aeriel to take his hand so that she may be saved, but she turns from him so that she may defeat the White Witch. The gift turns the White Witch mortal, and the ice palace begins to crumble and melt. Before turning to dust, however, the White Witch touches both of Aeriel's eyes, freezing her tear ducts; she can never weep again, and is blind.

Irrylath saves Aeriel by diving into the flood the ice palace created in its melting, and weeps over Aeriel; his tears give her sight, but she herself can never cry again. He takes her into his arms and kisses her then, and she rejoices in their love. They consummate their marriage, after two years of being joined only in name.

This joy is shortlived, however, after Aeriel wakes up. Ravenna is not done with Aeriel, and tells her that she is to take up where the Ancient left off, and has to leave Irrylath to save the planet and heal it. Aeriel does not want to--she worked so hard to get Irrylath to love her, and now he does! How could Ravenna ask her to give this up so willingly? Ravenna says the same thing as Irrylath's cousin--her heart in his chest might be giving him false feelings and is tying him to her without him wanting it. Aeriel realizes that this love could be false for him, and switches their hearts back through sorcery. She would cry if not for her frozen tears, and feels utter heartbreak and despair. She is no longer mortal; he should have someone who ages with him.

When he wakes, however, he is the same lover he had been in the night. He still loves her greatly, which pains Aeriel more than she could ever imagine. After dressing, everyone finds them together and rejoices--with the exception of his cousin. Irrylath dotes on Aeriel and asks her to be his queen in Avaric, but she denies him. She denies all who ask her to join them, and Irrylath is confused by her refusal to him.

"We are married. How can you not come with me?"

She tells him that she cannot, and he realizes that Ravenna has tied her to another quest. He declares that Ravenna's hold on Aeriel is just as horrible as the one the White Witch had on him, but Aeriel tells him that she still cannot come with him. He then states that they share hearts, and once stated feels a horrible twinge in his chest, shared by Aeriel. He looks at her in horror and states, "Oh Aeriel, what have you done?"

Aeriel tells him that she must heal the planet if they are to continue living on it. That he should turn to his cousin, who looks so much like him that they could almost be twins; his cousin is as unblemished as he should have been before the White Witch ensnared him. He tells her that he wants no other, and that he will search the ends of the planet to find a way to free her from Ravenna's grasp. She gently states, "We had two years and we spurned them."

Aeriel turns from him then, and the souls-turned-constellations join her from the sky to create a crown of fire around her head. When Aeriel turns back to say goodbye, she finds everyone bowing with the exception of Irrylath--who is openly weeping into his hands--and his cousin--whose hands clutch his shoulders in an attempt to comfort.

She leaves, and goes on her quest to heal the land.