Fifteen Days to Starvation

Aymar Castle is besieged, its population swollen with refugees, and its food stores nearly gone. Phosyne, a former nun and alchemist, calculates that in fifteen days, everyone will starve. The king, Cardimir, and his council are desperate, and the castle is a pressure cooker of fear, hunger, and unrest. Phosyne, isolated in her tower with her strange, fire-breathing companions, is tasked with a miracle: to conjure food from nothing, as she once did with water. The air is thick with tension, and the knowledge that time is running out gnaws at every soul. The siege is not just physical but existential, as hope and order begin to unravel.

Riot in the Garden

As rations dwindle, the castle's fragile order shatters. A riot breaks out in the garden, with starving people attacking the quartermaster. Ser Voyne, a war hero now reduced to the king's enforcer, quells the violence with her blade and presence, but the event marks a turning point. The council debates brutal measures—execution, cannibalism, or sending more messengers to certain death. The king's authority is questioned, and the Priory's faith in order is tested. The riot exposes the thin veneer of civilization and the raw, animal hunger lurking beneath, setting the stage for the castle's moral and social collapse.

The Madwoman's Miracle

Phosyne, haunted by her failures and the king's demands, experiments with alchemy and magic, seeking to create food. Her methods are unorthodox, blending science, intuition, and the supernatural. She is assigned Ser Voyne as a minder, a relationship fraught with suspicion and tension. Phosyne's only success so far is purifying water, a feat that earned her both suspicion and protection. As the siege drags on, her desperation grows, and her experiments become more dangerous. The castle's hope rests on her shoulders, but she is as close to madness as to genius, and the line between miracle and disaster blurs.

The King's Desperation

King Cardimir, once confident, is now haunted and desperate. He clings to the hope of another miracle, pressuring Phosyne and the Priory for solutions. The council fractures, with some advocating for ruthless pragmatism and others for faith or loyalty. The Priory's Prioress Jacynde is both rival and ally to Phosyne, representing the old order's rationality and discipline. The king's willingness to sacrifice his people, and even his own humanity, becomes clear. The castle's leadership is paralyzed by fear, pride, and the weight of impossible choices, as the siege becomes a crucible for every character's deepest flaws.

Siege Without End

The siege drags on with no relief in sight. The castle's inhabitants are forced to slaughter animals, then each other, to survive. The Priory's inventions buy time but not salvation. Treila, a resourceful servant with a hidden past, hoards food and plots escape, embodying the will to survive at any cost. The social order collapses further, as rumors, betrayals, and violence spread. The castle becomes a microcosm of a world where the old rules no longer apply, and every relationship is tested by hunger and fear. The sense of doom is inescapable, and the boundaries between right and wrong dissolve.

The Hungry Shadows

As starvation deepens, strange phenomena begin to manifest. Phosyne's experiments attract otherworldly attention, and her companions, Ornuo and Pneio, are revealed as supernatural creatures. The castle is haunted by shadows—beings that feed on suffering and chaos. The Priory's bees, once symbols of order and industry, become vectors for something wild and uncontrollable. The boundaries between the natural and supernatural blur, and the castle's inhabitants are stalked by forces they cannot understand or fight. The siege is no longer just a human conflict but a spiritual and metaphysical one, as hunger becomes a force of its own.

The Candle That Burns

Phosyne creates a candle that burns without consuming itself, a symbol of impossible hope. She bargains with Treila, trading knowledge and magic for food and information. The candle becomes a key to the hidden tunnels beneath the castle, where Treila discovers a way out—but at a price. The act of lighting the candle, and the blood it requires, foreshadows the deeper bargains to come. Every miracle in Aymar is transactional, and every act of survival demands a sacrifice. The castle's fate is increasingly tied to the supernatural, and the cost of hope grows ever steeper.

The Summoning of Saints

In the castle's darkest hour, four strangers appear: the Constant Lady and Her saints, embodiments of the faith's icons. They bring food, miracles, and hope, but their arrival is unnatural and terrifying. The gates open without explanation, and the saints' feast is both salvation and seduction. The Priory's Prioress Jacynde is the only one to question their nature, but her doubts are silenced. The saints' power is overwhelming, and the castle's inhabitants fall under their spell. The line between worship and consumption blurs, as the saints feed on the people's devotion and hunger, and the true nature of miracles is revealed.

Feast of Flesh and Honey

The saints' feast is a grotesque inversion of communion. Food appears from nowhere, but it is tainted with magic and control. The people gorge themselves, losing their will and memory. The saints and the Lady feed on the castle's suffering, turning hunger into ecstasy and submission. Cannibalism, once unthinkable, becomes ritual. Phosyne, Voyne, and Treila struggle to resist, each clinging to their own form of agency. The feast is both a climax of horror and a revelation: the castle's salvation is also its damnation, and the price of survival is the loss of self.

The Bargain of Names

Phosyne learns that names hold power, and that to give her name to the Lady is to surrender herself. The Lady offers bargains: knowledge, freedom, resurrection, but always at the cost of agency. Phosyne, Treila, and Voyne each face choices that test their identities and loyalties. The Lady's dominion is total, but fragile—dependent on consent, bargains, and the structures of faith and fealty. The struggle becomes one of language and will, as the characters fight to define themselves against the consuming hunger of the saints. The true miracle is not survival, but the reclamation of self.

The Tunnel's Price

Treila discovers that the tunnel beneath the castle is guarded by a hungry darkness, a being that demands a price for passage: a finger, an ear, a piece of self. Escape is possible, but never free. The bargains made in the dark mirror those made with the saints above. Voyne, resurrected by Treila's hand, learns that iron and memory are weapons against the supernatural. The tunnel becomes a liminal space, a place of transformation and reckoning. The cost of freedom is always personal, and the wounds left by survival are as real as any physical scar.

The Fall of the Lady

Phosyne, Voyne, and Treila unite to challenge the Lady's dominion. Armed with iron, memory, and the power of names, they confront the Lady in a final, desperate struggle. The Lady is revealed as a being of hunger and control, vulnerable to the same bargains she imposes. The battle is as much psychological as physical, with each woman forced to confront her own desires, fears, and capacity for violence. In the end, it is not brute force but the refusal to submit, the reclamation of agency, and the willingness to sacrifice that break the Lady's hold and restore the world.

Dominion and Sacrifice

With the Lady defeated, Phosyne inherits dominion over the castle and its people. The burden is immense, threatening to consume her as it did the Lady. Voyne and Treila anchor her, offering protection and love, but the temptation to wield absolute power is ever-present. The castle is restored, but the scars remain. The survivors must choose what to remember and what to forget, what to rebuild and what to abandon. The final miracle is not the restoration of order, but the acceptance of imperfection, loss, and the ongoing struggle to be human in the face of hunger.

The Return of Iron

The last of the saints bargains for release, offering the return of the iron knife that broke the Lady's power. With iron restored, the supernatural is banished, and the castle's boundaries are reestablished. The survivors are granted forgetfulness, spared the memory of their ordeal. Voyne, Treila, and Phosyne are left to reckon with what they have done and what they have become. The world outside is changed, but endures. The return of iron is both a restoration of order and a reminder of the cost of safety: the exclusion of the wild, the unknown, and the miraculous.

The Last Miracle

Voyne, now the true protector of Aymar, receives Phosyne's fealty and the power to set things right. The castle is restored, the people freed from enchantment, and the world resumes its course. The three women, bound by love, trauma, and shared struggle, step into the future together. The last miracle is not supernatural, but human: the ability to choose, to forgive, and to hope. The siege is over, but the work of rebuilding—of self, of community, of meaning—has only begun. The story ends not with triumph, but with the quiet, stubborn persistence of life.

The World Set Right

As autumn dawns, the survivors of Aymar emerge into a changed world. The horrors of the siege are forgotten by most, but not by Voyne, Treila, and Phosyne. They carry the memory of what was lost and what was gained, the knowledge that miracles are never free, and that hunger—literal and metaphorical—can never be fully banished. The world is set right, but imperfectly. The bonds of love, loyalty, and sacrifice endure, offering a fragile hope against the darkness. The story closes with the three women stepping into the unknown, together, remade by what they have survived.

Characters

Phosyne

Phosyne is the castle's outcast genius, a former nun whose heretical experiments blur the line between science and magic. Isolated in her tower, she is both feared and needed, tasked with impossible miracles. Her psyche is a tangle of trauma, intuition, and longing for connection. Phosyne's relationship with power is fraught: she is both victim and wielder, terrified of her own capacity to change the world. Her bond with Voyne is complex—part antagonism, part desire, part mutual salvation. As the story unfolds, Phosyne becomes the vessel for the castle's collective hunger and hope, ultimately forced to choose between dominion and self-sacrifice. Her arc is one of transformation: from isolated madwoman to the architect of a new, uncertain order.

Ser Voyne

Ser Voyne is a war hero reduced to the king's enforcer, her strength both a shield and a prison. She is defined by duty, loyalty, and a deep-seated need to protect, even as the world she serves crumbles. Voyne's relationship with power is shaped by trauma—her role in past atrocities, her complicity in the king's failures, and her longing for redemption. Her bond with Phosyne is fraught with suspicion, attraction, and a shared sense of being outcasts. Voyne's arc is one of reclamation: she moves from obedience to agency, from being a tool of others' will to the true guardian of Aymar. Her final act is not violence, but mercy—the refusal to kill Phosyne, and the acceptance of a new, negotiated order.

Treila

Treila is a servant with a hidden past, driven by rage, cunning, and the will to survive. Once the daughter of a noble house destroyed by the king and Voyne, she has remade herself as a rat-catcher, hoarder, and schemer. Treila's psyche is shaped by betrayal and hunger—literal and emotional. She is both predator and prey, capable of violence and tenderness. Her relationship with Voyne is a knot of love, hate, and longing for justice. Treila's arc is one of self-assertion: she refuses to be a victim, learns to wield power on her own terms, and ultimately chooses solidarity over vengeance. She is the story's conscience and its wild hope.

King Cardimir

Cardimir is the king besieged, a man whose authority is eroded by fear, pride, and the weight of impossible choices. He is both victim and perpetrator, willing to sacrifice his people for survival, yet unable to save them. Cardimir's psyche is haunted by guilt, denial, and the need to appear strong. His relationship with Voyne and Phosyne is transactional—he uses them as tools, then discards them. Cardimir's arc is one of decline: he is ultimately consumed by the very forces he unleashes, his death a grotesque inversion of kingship. He embodies the failure of old power to adapt to a changing world.

Prioress Jacynde

Jacynde is the head of the Priory, representing order, discipline, and the old faith. She is both mentor and antagonist to Phosyne, embodying the tension between reason and magic, tradition and innovation. Jacynde's psyche is rigid, proud, and ultimately brittle—unable to adapt to the chaos unleashed by the siege and the saints. Her fate is a cautionary tale: she is silenced, mutilated, and ultimately sacrifices herself, her death marking the end of the old order. Jacynde's arc is one of tragic resistance, her inability to compromise sealing her doom.

The Constant Lady

The Lady is the supernatural force that invades Aymar, taking the form of the faith's icon but embodying something older and wilder. She is both seducer and devourer, offering miracles that are bargains, salvation that is submission. The Lady's psyche is alien, defined by hunger, power, and the need for worship. Her relationship with Phosyne is a battle of wills, a dance of seduction and resistance. The Lady's arc is one of conquest and defeat: she is ultimately undone by the very bargains she imposes, her power turned against her by those who refuse to be consumed.

The Saints (Warding, Absolving, Loving)

The saints are the Lady's attendants, each embodying a different aspect of hunger and temptation. They are both beautiful and monstrous, offering comfort and destruction in equal measure. Their psyches are defined by appetite, envy, and the need to be seen. Their relationships with the main characters are transactional and predatory, but also reveal the vulnerabilities of both predator and prey. The saints' arcs are variations on the theme of consumption: some are destroyed, some bargain for release, all are ultimately subject to the same laws they exploit.

Ornuo and Pneio

Ornuo and Pneio are supernatural creatures, part cat, part dragon, part elemental. They are both pets and omens, embodying the wild, unpredictable forces Phosyne has unleashed. Their psyches are animalistic, affectionate, and dangerous. Their relationship with Phosyne is one of mutual need and mistrust. They are both protectors and threats, their presence a constant reminder of the cost of miracles. Their arc is one of loyalty: in the end, they help Phosyne turn the tide against the Lady, but their true nature remains ambiguous.

Ser Leodegardis

Leodegardis is the castle's castellan, a man of duty, sacrifice, and quiet strength. He is both mentor and foil to Voyne, embodying the burdens of leadership and the cost of survival. His psyche is marked by guilt, pragmatism, and a deep sense of responsibility. Leodegardis's arc is one of martyrdom: he gives of himself, literally and figuratively, to buy time for his people. His fate is a testament to the limits of heroism in a world where every choice is a loss.

Plot Devices

Siege as Crucible

The siege of Aymar is both literal and metaphorical, a crucible that strips away the characters' illusions and forces them to confront their deepest fears and desires. The physical hunger mirrors spiritual and emotional hunger, and the breakdown of order exposes the fragility of civilization. The siege structure allows for escalating tension, claustrophobia, and the slow erosion of hope, setting the stage for supernatural intervention and moral collapse.

Miracles as Bargains

Miracles in Aymar are never free—they are bargains, exchanges, or acts of consumption. Whether it is Phosyne's water purification, the saints' feast, or the tunnel's passage, every act of magic requires a sacrifice. This device underscores the novel's central theme: survival is transactional, and the cost of hope is always personal. The bargains also serve as a critique of faith, power, and the human tendency to seek easy answers.

Names and Dominion

The giving and withholding of names is a recurring motif, symbolizing agency, submission, and the boundaries of self. To give one's name is to surrender power; to withhold it is to resist. Dominion—over people, places, or supernatural forces—is always negotiated, never absolute. This device structures the novel's climactic confrontations, as characters fight to define themselves against forces that would consume or erase them.

Iron as Boundary

Iron is both a literal and symbolic barrier, keeping the saints and the Lady at bay. Its removal allows the supernatural to invade; its return restores order. Iron represents the mundane, the rational, and the limits of magic. Its presence or absence structures the novel's phases, marking the transition from the natural to the supernatural and back again.

Liminal Spaces and Tunnels

The tunnels beneath Aymar, the cisterns, and the cracks in the stone are liminal spaces—places of escape, negotiation, and transformation. They are both refuge and danger, offering the possibility of freedom at a price. These spaces allow characters to move between worlds, to bargain with monsters, and to remake themselves. They are the novel's engine of change, both literal and metaphorical.

Foreshadowing and Narrative Structure

The novel's structure is circular, with repeated motifs, mirrored events, and a sense of inevitability. Early foreshadowing—the cost of miracles, the hunger of the saints, the power of names—pays off in the climax. The narrative's layering of past and present, memory and action, creates a sense of fate, but also of the possibility of change. The ending is both a return and a new beginning, echoing the novel's central question: what are we willing to pay to survive?

Analysis

The Starving Saints is a dark, hallucinatory exploration of what happens when the structures that sustain us—faith, authority, community—collapse under the weight of crisis. At its core, the novel is about hunger: not just for food, but for meaning, connection, and agency. Every character is defined by what they lack and what they are willing to do to fill the void. The supernatural elements—saints, miracles, bargains—are not escapes from reality, but amplifications of its harshest truths: that survival is transactional, that power is always negotiated, and that miracles are never free. The novel interrogates the nature of leadership, the dangers of unchecked authority, and the seductions of both submission and rebellion. Its women are not passive victims, but agents of change, forced to navigate a world where every choice is a loss and every victory is compromised. In the end, The Starving Saints offers no easy answers—only the hard-won knowledge that to be human is to hunger, to hope, and to choose, again and again, in the face of darkness.

Last updated: September 24, 2025