visuals + notes.

[unsea]

( a measure of eternity. )

NOVEL EXCERPTS: THE DEMON IN THE WOOD | SHADOW & BONE | SIEGE & STORM | RUIN & RISING | THE TAILOR
INFORMATION: THE GRISHA ORDERS | WORLD MAP

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THE DEMON IN THE WOOD.

[unsea]

( i. ) ... strangers always asked: Where is your father? Of course, that one was easy because the answer never changed. He’s dead. He’d once asked his mother if that was the truth, if his father was really dead. He will be, she’d said. Before you can blink your eye. You’ll outlive him by a hundred years, maybe a thousand, maybe more. He’s only dust to you.

[ NOTE: Baghra's words make the reader think that the Darkling's father was an otkazat'sya man. In R&R, she says he was a powerful Heartrender. How much of her own life has Baghra written and rewritten, and how much was for her son? ]

( ii. ) Arkady. Eryk. ... he said his new name again and again, out loud, then inside his head, repeating it with every footfall until the name stopped being a second thought, until there was no echo and he was only Eryk... a boy who would disappear in a week or a month, who would vanish beneath a new name and a new story. His mother would cut his hair or dye it or shave his head. That was how they lived, traveling from place to place. They learned what they could, then moved on and did their best to hide their tracks. The world wasn’t safe for Grisha, but it was particularly dangerous for the two of them.

( iia.) He was thirteen, but he’d had a hundred names, a new one for every town, camp, and city — Iosef, Anton, Stasik, Kirill. He spoke fluent Shu and Kerch, and could pass as either. But his Fjerdan was still poor and the Grisha communities this far north knew each other well, so he’d be Arkady, and the northerners would call him Eryk.

( iii. ) When other Grisha saw the power that he and his mother possessed, they had only one of two responses: fear or greed. Either they ran from it or they wanted it for themselves. It’s a balance, his mother always said. Fear is a powerful ally, but feed it too often, make it too strong, and it will turn on you.

( iv. ) He and his mother followed legends, whispers, tales of sorcerers and witches, of demons in the forests. Stories like that had led them to a tribe of Squallers camped along the western shore, to Baba Anezka and her cave of mirrors, to Petyr of Brevno and Magda of the black woods.

[ NOTE: Baba Anezka was featured in the short story "Little Knife" and Magda was in "The Witch of Duva". Petyr of Brevno was in the Istorii Sankt'ya as a Saint, known for his "still burning arrows". He may have been a Grisha saint (Inferni?), like Illya Morozova. ]

( v. ) “Eryk,” he said. “I know. It’s my own name I’m afraid of forgetting.”
“Your true name is written here,” she said tapping his chest. “Tattooed on your heart. You don’t let just anyone read it.”

( vi. ) "What’s your favorite color?” asked Sylvi.
“I don’t have one.”
“How can you not have one?”
Deep blue like the True Sea. Red like the roofs of the Shu temples. The pure, buttery color of sunlight—not really yellow or gold, what would you call it? All the colors you couldn’t see in the dark.
“I never really thought about it.”

( vii. ) ... his power would belong to whomever made the kill. That was the way amplifiers worked. Never let them touch you. Because one touch was enough to reveal it, this gift lurking inside him. It was enough to make him less a boy than a prize...

( viia. ) Annika was on top of him, using her weight to hold him down. He screamed, thrashing in her arms. Then Lev was there, shoving her aside, grabbing a handful of Eryk’s shirt, lifting the knife. Everyone was shouting. Eryk wasn’t sure who had hold of him. A knee pressed into his chest. Someone shoved his head beneath the surface again. Water flooded up his nose and into his lungs. I’m going to die here. They’ll wear my bones.

( viib.) ... With the last bit of his strength, he tore his arm free and lashed out blindly, furiously, with all his terror and rage, with all the hope that had been born and died this day. Let me make a mark on this world before I leave it.

( viii. ) ... the barest shake, forcing him to look at her. “I’m not. Do you understand me? I would burn a thousand villages, sacrifice a thousand lives to keep you safe. It would be us on that pyre if you hadn’t thought quickly.” Then her shoulders slumped. “But I cannot hate that boy and girl for what they tried to do. The way we live, the way we’re forced to live—it makes us desperate.”

( viiia. ) ... “There is no safe place. There is no haven. Not for us.” He understood then. The Grisha lived as shadows did, passing over the surface of the world, touching nothing, forced to change their shapes and hide in corners, driven by fear as shadows were driven by the sun. No safe place. No haven. There will be, he promised in the darkness, new words written upon his heart. I will make one.