The Serpent and the Wings of Night

What's inside (8 sections)

1. A human girl in the House of Night
2. The Kejari begins
3. An alliance with Raihn
4. Trials, blood and politics
5. What Vincent wanted
6. The ending and who should read it
7. Key takeaways
8. FAQ

I picked this one up because a friend would not stop talking about it, and I was in the mood for something big and bloody and romantic without having to learn a twelve-book magic system first. The Serpent and the Wings of Night by Carissa Broadbent fit that exactly. It was first published in 2022 by Nasyra Publishing, the opening book in the Crowns of Nyaxia series, and the edition cited here runs about 502 pages. I read it in three sittings, mostly late at night, which felt right because almost everything important in this book happens after dark.

The setup grabbed me fast. Oraya is human, which in this world is roughly equivalent to walking around with a target painted on your back. She was taken in as a small child by Vincent, the vampire king of the House of Night, after her family was killed. He raised her as his own daughter, trained her to fight, and taught her how to survive among predators who see humans as food. That father-daughter bond is the emotional center of the early chapters, more than any romance. Oraya loves Vincent fiercely. She also knows he is a killer who rules by fear, and she has spent her whole life trying to earn a place beside him.

What surprised me was how quickly the book stops being a quiet character study and turns into a tournament story. Every hundred years or so, the goddess Nyaxia holds the Kejari, a series of deadly trials for vampires from the different Houses. The winner is granted a wish by the goddess herself. Oraya, human and fragile by vampire standards, decides to enter. Vincent does not stop her. That choice tells you a lot about both of them.

A human girl in the House of Night

Oraya's daily life is strange and specific in a way I liked. She lives in a castle full of Nightborn vampires who could kill her in seconds. She wears silver-tipped weapons, keeps her neck covered, and never walks alone in certain corridors. Her blood smells different, sweeter to them, and the book never lets you forget that hunger is always in the room.

Vincent is a complicated father figure. He saved Oraya when she was about seven, during a raid where humans were slaughtered. He brought her home, gave her a room, gave her trainers, and gave her rules. Stay inside at night during certain moons. Never trust a vampire outside the House. Never show weakness. He is tender with her in private scenes, brushing her hair back, asking about her training, remembering small details. In public he is cold and political, the Night king who burned cities to keep his throne.

I found the early training scenes with Vincent's guards convincing. Oraya fights with speed and planning because she cannot match vampire strength. She learns to aim for tendons, eyes, and joints. She practices with a bow and with blades coated to hurt vampires longer. One detail stuck with me: she sharpens her stakes differently depending on which House she might face, because Bloodborn heal differently than Shadowborn.

The other thing the book does well here is show loneliness. Oraya has no human friends. The servants are afraid of her position. The vampires tolerate her because Vincent demands it. She eats alone often. She reads war histories. She watches the court from corners. That isolation explains why the Kejari appeals to her. It is not only about proving herself. It is about asking Nyaxia for a change she cannot get any other way, to become something other than prey.

If I have a complaint about this opening, it is that some of the court politics arrive in large chunks. Names of Houses, old wars, and past kings come quickly. I had to flip back a few times to keep the Rishan separate from the Bloodborn and the Shadowborn. It settles down once the tournament starts.

The Kejari begins

The Kejari is the engine of the book. Nyaxia, the goddess of night and death and mother of all vampires, calls champions from each House to compete. The prize is a single wish, granted by the goddess, with almost no stated limits. People enter for power, for lost loved ones, for territory, for revenge.

The opening ceremony is held in a massive arena cut into stone, lit by blue flame. Each House arrives with banners and armor. The House of Blood arrives loud and brutal. The House of Shadow arrives quiet. Oraya walks in as the only human contestant, wearing black leathers from the House of Night, with Vincent watching from his throne box above. The crowd laughs. Then she wins her first bout, and the laughing stops.

The structure is simple: a series of trials that mix fighting, survival, and cunning. Some are duels. Some are hunts through trapped parts of the city. Some involve puzzles or alliances that fall apart. Contestants die. That is expected. Healers stand by but often cannot reach fighters in time.

Broadbent keeps the rules loose on purpose. There are referees of a sort, priests of Nyaxia, but interference happens. Bribes happen. Ambushes outside the official rounds happen. That looseness frustrated me at one point because I wanted a clean bracket to follow. But it fits the theme. The Kejari is not a sport. It is worship through violence, and the goddess likes surprises.

Oraya's first kill in the tournament matters because it changes how others see her. She does not win by luck. She studies her opponent, a younger Bloodborn who relies on strength, and lets him tire himself out before she puts a blade through his throat. The crowd goes silent. Vincent smiles, just slightly. That small reaction tells you everything about their relationship. He is proud and he is also measuring her usefulness.

An alliance with Raihn

Raihn is the other center of the book. He is tall, scarred, funny in a dry way, and dangerous. He comes from the Rishan, vampires who were once enslaved and who still carry the marks of that history. Many highborn vampires look down on him. He enters the Kejari with little backing and a lot of anger.

Oraya first notices him because he does not treat her like food or like a joke. He watches her fight with real attention. He offers information. He jokes during meals in the contestants' hall when everyone else is trying to intimidate each other. Their early conversations are prickly. She points a blade at him more than once. He laughs and backs off, but not too far.

They form an alliance because it makes sense. Two outsiders have better odds together. They agree to watch each other's backs until the field narrows, knowing full well they may have to fight each other at the end. They train together in a side courtyard. He shows her how Rishan fight low and fast, using momentum. She shows him how she compensates for being human, setting traps and using the arena walls.

The romance builds slowly, which I appreciated. There is attraction early, physical and obvious, but trust comes later. A scene I remember clearly: after a trial in the tunnels where Oraya is hurt and bleeding, Raihn stands guard at the door of a small storeroom while she bandages her leg, turning his face away because the smell of her blood is pulling at him. He does not feed. He talks to keep her awake, telling her about growing up hungry in the Rishan districts, about his friend Mische, about learning to read war maps by candlelight. It is intimate without being explicit, and it sold me on them more than the later kissing scenes.

Mische deserves a mention here. She is Raihn's friend, bright and loyal, and she brings warmth into a book that can get grim. Jesmine, a princess of the House of Blood, is the opposite pole: proud, skilled, cruel when she wants to be, and a serious threat in the arena. The book gives both women clear motives rather than making them simple helpers or obstacles.

My criticism of this middle stretch is that Oraya and Raihn separate and reunite a few times in ways that felt staged to raise tension. One argument especially seemed to turn on a misunderstanding that could have been solved with a single honest sentence. Romance readers may not mind. I noticed it, shrugged, and kept reading because the tournament scenes carried me through.

Trials, blood and politics

The middle trials are where the book is most vivid. One takes place in a flooded lower city, where contestants have to retrieve tokens while avoiding drowned traps and each other. Oraya nearly drowns. Raihn pulls her out. Another takes place at night in a maze of old temples, where Shadowborn have the advantage because they can blend into dark stone. Oraya survives by marking her path with chalk and oil, thinking like a human hunter rather than a vampire brawler.

Broadbent writes action clearly. You always know where people are standing, what weapon they hold, and what injury they just took. A fight between Oraya and a Bloodborn second called Septimus stood out to me: he breaks two of her ribs with a shield bash, she blinds him temporarily with powdered silver, and finishes the bout gasping on her knees. It is not elegant. It hurts to read.

Between fights, politics press in. Vincent meets with other kings. Raihn is approached by Rishan elders who want him to use the wish for their people if he wins. Jesmine tries to recruit Oraya, then threatens her. Priests of Nyaxia watch everything and say little. Oraya starts to realize the Kejari is also a census of power. Who is strong, who is weak, who can be bought. Vincent is using her presence to send a message: the House of Night is so strong it can field a human and still win.

Feeding and blood play a constant role. Vampires need blood to heal. Oraya has to be careful whose blood is spilled near her, and who smells hers. There is a tense dinner scene where a Bloodborn lord cuts his own palm to test her composure. She holds still, meets his eyes, and asks for salt for her meal. Small victories like that define her.

The pace sags slightly around the two-thirds mark. There are several chapters of preparation, armor fitting, and strategy talk that slow the momentum. I skimmed a little during a long council debate about House borders. Then the next trial starts and the tension snaps back.

What Vincent wanted

The father-daughter story pays off in the last third, and it is darker than I expected.

Vincent has always told Oraya that he saved her out of love, that she is his daughter in every way that counts. Slow pieces of evidence suggest something more calculated. Old letters. A remark from a priest. A look Raihn gives her when Vincent's name comes up. Without spoiling the exact reveal, Oraya learns that Vincent's rescue was tied to his own plans for the Kejari and for his grip on the House of Night. He loves her, I think the book wants us to believe that love is real, but he also shaped her into a weapon and a symbol.

This is the strongest writing in the novel for me. Oraya's confusion feels honest. She remembers being carried through snow as a child, his cloak around her. She remembers him teaching her to hold a sword correctly, his hands steadying hers. She also remembers the villages he ordered burned. Both memories are true. She has to hold them at once.

Raihn's own past mirrors hers in useful ways. He was used by powerful people too. The Rishan were treated as lesser, turned into soldiers and servants, and Raihn grew up being told his life belonged to others. His bond with Mische comes from that shared history. When he tells Oraya that Vincent will never let her be free, it does not sound like jealousy. It sounds like recognition.

The book also deepens Nyaxia here. She is not a kind goddess. She appears in visions and in the temple, beautiful and terrible, amused by suffering. Her priests teach that death is a gift and night is truth. Oraya prays to her and gets silence or laughter. That religious coldness makes the wish feel risky. What would this goddess actually grant, and at what cost?

I wish one subplot had more room. Jesmine's reasons for fighting go beyond pride, tied to Blood House succession and her father's expectations, but we only get flashes of it. She reads as a strong fighter who could have been a fuller rival. Hopefully the later books in Crowns of Nyaxia give her more space.

The ending and who should read it

The final trials and the closing duel are brutal and fast. I will not detail every turn because the book earns its surprises, but the shape is this: Oraya and Raihn, allies and lovers, end up on opposite sides of what the Kejari demands. Vincent's plans collide with Raihn's ambitions for the Rishan and for himself. People Oraya trusted make choices that reframe earlier kindness. The wish is claimed, and the cost is immediate and bloody.

The last fifty pages move quickly. A king falls. A new power rises in the House of Night. Oraya has to decide in minutes what kind of person she will be when the person who defined her is gone. Raihn has to decide whether winning means becoming what he hated. Their romance does not resolve neatly. It breaks and holds at the same time, which felt true to two people who met while trying to kill other people for a goddess.

As romance, this is open-door and intense, with consent and care written into the scenes between Oraya and Raihn. As fantasy, it is blood-soaked tournament fiction with court intrigue behind it. The combination works if you like both. If you dislike love stories inside war plots, this will test your patience, because the middle of the book pauses the killing for long conversations about trust, fear, and past wounds.

Who should pick it up? Readers who liked the deadly competition in The Hunger Games but wanted it adult, vampire-centered, and romantic will find a lot here. Readers who like Sarah J. Maas or Jennifer L. Armentrout and want another long series with a fierce heroine should start here with Crowns of Nyaxia book one. Readers who want tidy morals or low violence should skip it. This is a book where throats are cut on the page and gods smile while it happens.

I closed it thinking about Oraya standing alone in that arena, human among monsters, refusing to kneel. The prose is not spare. It is lush and heated and sometimes repetitive about hunger and heartbeats. But the core held for me: a girl raised by a monster trying to decide if she was saved or stolen, and a boy from a despised people trying to win freedom without losing himself. I am continuing to book two, mostly for Raihn and Mische, but also because I want to see what Oraya does now that Vincent's shadow is gone.

FAQ

Is The Serpent and the Wings of Night the first Crowns of Nyaxia book?

It is the first book in the Crowns of Nyaxia series, published in 2022. It sets up Oraya, Raihn, and the Kejari before the later books continue their story.

Is this book spicy or violent?

Yes, it is written for adults with open-door romance scenes and frequent bloody violence. Readers who prefer closed-door romance or low violence may want to skip it.

How can Oraya compete against vampires in the Kejari?

Oraya is human and Raihn is a Rishan vampire. She survives by speed, planning, and traps, while he relies on vampire strength and training.