56 pages • 1 hour read
Victoria AveyardGlass Sword
Victoria AveyardFiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
On the underground train Mare Barrow and Cal boarded at the end of Red Queen, Mare waits, tense, as they speed toward the city of Naercey, which they’ve learned is not surrounded by deadly radiation and is actually a former safe haven for the Scarlet Guard. Now, they likely travel toward an ambush of Silvers sent by Maven, but despite Cal’s warnings, the Scarlet Guard doesn’t change their plans. Diana Farley, the guard’s leader, puts Mare’s brother Shade Barrow in charge of keeping Mare safe, and Cal reminds her to trust her lightning ability, and Mare thinks, “[T]he electricity in my veins might be the only thing I trust in this world” (6).
As Cal predicted, fighter jets approach shortly after they arrive in Naercey. The group scatters, with Mare, Shade, and Kilorn Warren taking a path through the forest toward the river. Mare refuses to leave without Cal. Shade promises they won’t leave without him, and Mare fires back that she doesn’t trust his promise, thinking she’ll apologize later “if later ever comes” (13).
Chapter 2 Summary Summary
An army of foot soldiers with chained, enslaved Reds at its front charges from the mist, and gunfire from Silvers rains down, wounding Shade. Mare sends Shade and Kilorn ahead and faces the army, from which Maven emerges. With her lightning, Mare brings one of the fighter jets down into the Silver army and uses the distraction to run. The Silvers give chase, their various abilities almost destroying her until Cal arrives to stop them behind a wall of fire. Alternating Cal’s fire and Mare’s electricity, they back up to the river’s edge and jump. Maven tells them to run as far as possible because “there is nowhere I won’t find you” (27). At Farley’s urging, they board a submarine that sinks and speeds away.
Chapter 3 Summary
Mare sleeps for five hours and wakes to learn Shade is wounded but recovering. Kilorn escorts her to the makeshift infirmary, the air between them awkward in a way it hasn’t been before. The ship is headed to a remote island base, where they will set to work finding the newbloods (Reds with Silver abilities) on the list Julian gave Mare in Red Queen. The Scarlet Guard is no match for the Silvers, but with the newbloods, they have a chance to build “the greatest army this world has ever seen” (40).
Chapter 4 Summary
Mare visits Cal, who’s been put in a closet-sized room far from most of the other bunks. Their interaction is comfortable yet awkward because of what they’ve been through together in the last few days—the battle in the arena for their lives and the very different treatment they’ve received from the Scarlet Guard. The submarine surfaces, tilting at a strange angle, and Mare flees Cal’s cramped quarters, only to run into Kilorn. He and Cal ignore one another, and Mare resolves not to be “a piece in whatever game they’re playing” (50). Mare and Cal exit the submarine into a howling storm, and an army of soldiers forces Cal to surrender his freedom.
Chapter 5 Summary
Though she wants to fight for Cal, Mare holds back and pretends to believe the excuses Kilorn gives her about Cal’s captivity being better for everyone. Mare feels her lightning makes her just as much of a prisoner, and though she isn’t locked in a cage, she “can feel the key in the lock, threatening to turn” (58).
The island is bigger than Mare thought and contains a military base for the Scarlet Guard. She is reunited with her family, who’ve been relocated for their protection, but like with Cal and Kilorn, the relationship feels fundamentally different. She’s too tired to talk about what’s happened and curls up in a bunk to sleep. Sometime in the night, she partially wakes to hear her father telling her he understands how she’s changed, which is comforting.
The next morning, she follows her sister to breakfast, learning that the Colonel, a man with a missing eye, has come to take over after Farley failed her previous mission. His first task is to extract information from Cal, and frantic at what that might entail, Mare asks her sister where Cal is being kept. Her sister says Cal is in Barracks 1, and as Mare searches, a chill overtakes her because “there is no Barracks 1” (69).
Chapters 1-5 Analysis
These opening chapters set up the new challenges Mare’s group will face and provide a link to the previous book’s events. At the end of Red Queen, Maven betrayed Cal and Mare, forcing Cal to kill the king (his father) and then pinning the blame on him and Mare. After fighting for their lives in what should have been a public execution, Cal and Mare escaped with the Scarlet Guard, and at the beginning of Glass Sword, they start the next stage in their journey as the face of the rebellion and the exiled prince. Both are hesitant to trust after how Maven tricked them, and they are willing to do whatever it takes to get revenge. For Cal, this involves throwing his lot in with Reds, something that’s entirely new to him. He offers tactical advice based on his knowledge of the Silver forces in these chapters, the first of many ways he changes throughout the book. Mare, too, must learn how to exist in a different world. Though she returns to Reds and her family, it is not the same as before she lived with Silvers, as shown by the awkwardness with her family in Chapter 5. For Cal and Mare, these changes speak to the theme of The Different People We Become. After the events of the last novel, Mare and Cal begin this novel as different people, and their relationships and interactions with others illuminate their ongoing changes.
Naercey is a reminder of how the Silvers use power and influence to weave a truth for Reds to believe. In Red Queen, Mare was surprised to learn Naercey wasn’t a hotbed of radiation from a past war. Rather, the radiation was a lie the Silvers spread so Reds wouldn’t try to seek sanctuary with the Scarlet Guard there. Entering Glass Sword, Farley has sent an order to evacuate Naercey, suggesting she believes the city will be destroyed as the group flees across it. Maven’s arrival in the city represents how there is nowhere that he can’t reach. His final words to Cal and Mare foreshadow how he later finds them and eventually captures Mare.
The animosity between Cal and Kilorn is a standard part of the love triangle trope in young adult literature. In Red Queen, Kilorn represented the life Mare knew while Cal symbolized the world she could have—one where Reds and Silvers lived as equals. While the boys still somewhat symbolize these things in Glass Sword, the events of the first book and the changes in Mare alter what Cal and Kilorn mean to her. Kilorn is still the boy from Mare’s childhood who could have offered a stable life, but with everything that’s happened, that life is a dream rather than a possibility. Rather than a simple life as Reds who never question their status, Kilorn has become a symbol of the rebellion and who he and Mare could be in a new world where Reds and Silvers are equal. In Book 1, Mare only thought of Kilorn as her future because it would mean a level of safety, but after what she’s experienced, she no longer envisions a future with Kilorn because she feels there is no such thing as the safety he could promise. Her emotions indicate that Kilorn will not be her final romantic partner. Her changed outlook toward Kilorn and the shifting of the future she imagined with him exemplify the theme of The Different People We Become.
Cal’s role in Mare’s life has also changed. In Red Queen, he was a new possibility and something forbidden because Mare’s red blood could rip her away from him at any moment. After what Cal and Mare survived together, Cal has become Mare’s constant. He is the only person who understands her loss and the effect of Maven’s betrayal, and as the story progresses, he becomes her hope for the future, both because he fits in with Reds and because he understands what changes must be made for the world to be equal. Cal is also a foil for Mare’s character arc in Red Queen. Instead of Mare being lost in a world of Silvers, Cal struggles to find who he is now that his status is gone. This struggle is yet another way he and Mare complement one another, and it suggests she and Cal will end up together by the end of the series.
Chapter 5 introduces Mare’s internal conflict—mainly being a newblood among Reds. In Red Queen, she hid her red blood to survive among Silvers. Now that her lightning has been revealed to the world, she can no longer hide, but being in the open does not mean she is accepted. Cal is imprisoned at the beginning of Chapter 5, and Mare believes the only thing that keeps her out of a cell is the hope she offers Reds across the country. The Colonel’s behavior toward her and Cal shows how people lump similar things together based on generalizations, even if they are very different. Cal has been the face of Red suffering for years, and though it’s wrong to imprison him for a system of oppression he didn’t create, it is understandable why the Colonel and Scarlet Guard want to lock him away. The Colonel views Mare with a similar level of suspicion and hostility due to her lightning, even though Mare is not a Silver or oppressor. He is willing to use her as the face of the rebellion until she proves problematic. Then, she becomes little different from Cal.
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