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

Comments

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.

SHADOW AND BONE.

[unsea]

( i. ) He’s too young, I thought. This Darkling had been commanding the Grisha since before I was born, but the man seated above me on the dais didn’t look much older than I did. He had a sharp, beautiful face, a shock of thick black hair, and clear gray eyes that glimmered like quartz. I knew that the more powerful Grisha were said to live long lives, and Darklings were the most powerful of them all. But I felt the wrongness of it and I remembered Eva’s words: He’s not natural. None of them are.

( ii. ) The Darkling slid from his mount and threw his hands wide, then brought them together with a resounding boom. Skeins of darkness shot from his clasped hands, snaking through the glen, finding the Fjerdan assassins, then slithering up their bodies to swathe their faces in seething shadow. They screamed. Some dropped their swords; others waved them blindly.
I watched in mingled awe and horror as the Ravkan fighters seized the advantage, cutting down the blinded, helpless men with ease.

( iia. ) ... I glimpsed the Darkling, his arm slashing through the air in front of him. I heard another crack like thunder and then … nothing... the man on top of me had been cut in two. His head, his right shoulder, and his arm lay on the forest floor, his white hand still clasping the knife. The rest of him swayed for a moment above me, a dark wisp of smoke fading in the air beside the wound that ran the length of his severed torso. Then what remained of him fell forward.

( iib. ) ALINA ; I’m not used to people trying to kill me.
THE DARKLING ; Really? I hardly notice anymore.

( iii. ) ALINA ; “How old are you?”
THE DARKLING ; “One hundred and twenty. Give or take.”

( iiia. ) THE DARKLING ; “When a fire burns, it uses up the wood. It devours it, leaving only ash. Grisha power doesn’t work that way... The length of a Grisha’s life is proportional to his or her power. The greater the power, the longer the life. And when that power is amplified …”
ALINA ; “And you’re a living amplifier. Like Ivan’s bear.”
THE DARKLING ; “Like Ivan’s bear.”
ALINA ; “But that means—”
THE DARKLING ; “That my bones or a few of my teeth would make another Grisha very powerful.”
ALINA ; “Well, that’s completely creepy. Doesn’t that worry you a little bit?”
THE DARKLING ; “No.”

( vi. ) THE DARKLING ; “Now you answer my question. What kind of stories were you told about me?”
ALINA ; "… our teachers told us that you strengthened the Second Army by gathering Grisha from outside of Ravka.”
THE DARKLING ; “I didn’t have to gather them. They came to me. Other countries don’t treat their Grisha so well as Ravka,” he said grimly. “The Fjerdans burn us as witches, and the Kerch sell us as slaves. The Shu Han carve us up seeking the source of our power."

( via. ) ALINA ; “[An old serf] said that Darklings are born without souls. That only something truly evil could have created the Shadow Fold.”
THE DARKLING ; “My great-great-great-grandfather was the Black Heretic, the Darkling who created the Shadow Fold. It was a mistake, an experiment born of his greed, maybe his evil. I don’t know. But every Darkling since then has tried to undo the damage he did to our country, and I’m no different... I’ve spent my life searching for a way to make things right. You’re the first glimmer of hope I’ve had in a long time.”

( vib. ) THE DARKLING ; “The world is changing, Alina. Muskets and rifles are just the beginning. I’ve seen the weapons they’re developing in Kerch and Fjerda. The age of Grisha power is coming to an end.”
ALINA ; “But … but what about the First Army? They have rifles. They have weapons.”
THE DARKLING ; “Where do you think their rifles come from? Their ammunition? Every time we cross the Fold, we lose lives. A divided Ravka won’t survive the new age. We need our ports. We need our harbors. And only you can give them back to us.”

( v. ) "The Grisha claims the amplifier, but the amplifier claims the Grisha, as well. Once it is done, there can be no other. Like calls to like, and the bond is made... The horse has speed. The bear has strength. The bird has wings. No creature has all of these gifts, and so the world is held in balance. Amplifiers are part of this balance, not a means of subverting it, and each Grisha would do well to remember this or risk the consequences.'

Another philosopher wrote, “Why can a Grisha possess but one amplifier? I will answer this question instead: What is infinite? The universe and the greed of men.”

( vi. ) ALINA ; “How could anyone use the Shadow Fold as a weapon?”
BAGHRA ; “By expanding it. The land that the Unsea covers was once green and good, fertile and rich. Now it is dead and barren, crawling with abominations. The Darkling will push its boundaries north into Fjerda, south to the Shu Han. Those who do not bow to him will see their kingdoms turned to desolate wasteland and their people devoured by ravening volcra.”

( via. ) ALINA ; “Finding the stag is a good thing. It means I can help the Darkling destroy the Fold.”
BAGHRA ; “No! He never intended to destroy it. The Fold is his creation. He is the Black Heretic.”

( vib. ) Darkness was pooling in Baghra’s palms, the skeins of inky blackness floating into the air... I saw the ghost of what must have once been a beautiful woman, a beautiful woman who gave birth to a beautiful son.
ALINA ; “You’re his mother.”
BAGHRA ; "... I am the only person who knows what he truly is, what he truly intends. And I am telling you that you must run.”
ALINA ; “It’s not possible,” I said. “The Black Heretic lived hundreds of years ago.”
BAGHRA ; "He has served countless kings, faked countless deaths, bided his time, waiting for you. Once he takes control of the Fold, no one will be able to stand against him.”
ALINA ; “He told me the Fold was a mistake. He called the Black Heretic evil.”
BAGHRA ; “The Fold was no mistake. The only mistake was the volcra. He did not anticipate them, did not think to wonder what power of that magnitude might do to mere men.”
ALINA ; “The volcra were men?”
BAGHRA ; “Oh yes. Generations ago. Farmers and their wives, their children. I warned him that there would be a price, but he didn’t listen. He was blinded by his hunger for power. Just as he is blinded now... Only the volcra have kept the Darkling from using the Fold against his enemies. They are his punishment, a living testimony to his arrogance. But you will change all that. The monsters cannot abide sunlight. Once the Darkling has used your power to subdue the volcra, he will be able to enter the Fold safely. He will finally have what he wants. There will be no limit to his power.”
ALINA ; “He wouldn’t do that. He would never do that... He said he wants to make Ravka whole again. He said that—”
BAGHRA ; “Stop telling me what he said! He is ancient. He’s had plenty of time to master lying to a lonely, naive girl... Think, Alina. If Ravka is made whole, the Second Army will no longer be vital to its survival. The Darkling will be nothing but another servant of the King. Is that his dream of the future? ... But with the Fold in his power, he will spread destruction before him. He will lay waste to the world, and he will never have to kneel to another King again.”

( viii. ) ALINA ; “You didn’t give me much choice.”
THE DARKLING ; “Of course you had a choice. And you chose to turn your back on your country, on everything that you are.”
ALINA ; “That isn’t fair.”
THE DARKLING ; “Fairness! Still she talks of fairness. What does fairness have to do with any of this? The people curse my name and pray for you, but you’re the one who was ready to abandon them. I’m the one who will give them power over their enemies. I’m the one who will free them from the tyranny of the King.”
ALINA ; “And give them your tyranny in return.”
THE DARKLING ; “Someone has to lead, Alina. Someone has to end this. Believe me, I wish there were another way.”
( He sounded so sincere, so reasonable, less a creature of relentless ambition than a man who believed he was doing the right thing for his people. Despite all he’d done and all he intended, I did almost believe him. Almost. I gave a single shake of my head. )
THE DARKLING ; “Fine. Make me your villain.”

( ix. ) I saw a long reach of blanched sand, hulks of what looked like shipwrecks dotting the dead landscape, and above it all, a teeming flock of volcra. They screamed in terror, their writhing gray bodies gruesome in the bright sunlight. This is the truth of him, I thought as I squinted in the dazzling light. Like calls to like. This was his soul made flesh, the truth of him laid bare in the blazing sun, shorn of mystery and shadow. This was the truth behind the handsome face and the miraculous powers, the truth that was the dead and empty space between the stars, a wasteland peopled by frightened monsters.

( x. ) People were streaming from the village and crowding onto the drydocks, pointing at the light that had split the Fold open before them. I saw children playing in the grass. I could hear the dockworkers calling to each other. At a signal from the Darkling, the skiff slowed, and he lifted his arms. I felt a spike of horror as I understood what was about to happen.

“They’re your own people!” I cried desperately. He ignored me and brought his hands together with a sound like a clap of thunder. It all seemed to happen slowly. Darkness rippled out from his hands. When it met the darkness of the Fold, a rumbling sound rose up out of the dead sands. The black walls of the path I’d created pulsed and swelled. It’s like it’s breathing, I thought in terror. The rumble grew to a roar. The Fold shook and trembled around us and then burst forward in a terrible cascading tide.

A frightened wail went up from the crowd on the docks as darkness rushed toward them. They ran, and I saw their fear, heard their screams as the black fabric of the Fold crashed over the drydocks and the village like a breaking wave. Darkness enveloped them, and the volcra set upon their new prey. A woman carrying a little boy stumbled, trying to outrun the grasping dark, but it swallowed her, too.

... The drydocks were gone. The village of Novokribirsk was gone. We were staring into the new reaches of the Fold. The message was clear: Today it had been West Ravka. Tomorrow, the Darkling could just as easily push the Fold north to Fjerda or south to the Shu Han. It would devour whole countries and drive [his] enemies into the sea.

( xi. ) The Darkling turned to the ambassadors. “I think you understand me now. There are no Ravkans, no Fjerdans, no Kerch, no Shu Han. There are no more borders, and there will be no more wars. From now on, there is only the land inside the Fold and outside of it, and there will be peace.” “Peace on your terms,” said one of the Shu Han angrily. “It will not stand,” blustered a Fjerdan.

The Darkling looked them over and said very calmly, “Peace on my terms. Or your precious mountains and your saintsforsaken tundra will simply cease to exist.”

With crushing certainty, I understood that he meant every word. The ambassadors might hope it was an empty threat, believe that there were limits to his hunger, but they would learn soon enough. The Darkling would not hesitate. He would not grieve. His darkness would consume the world, and he would never waver. The Darkling turned his back on their stunned and angry expressions and addressed the Grisha and soldiers on the skiff. “Tell the story of what you’ve seen today. Tell everyone that the days of fear and uncertainty are over. The days of endless fighting are over. Tell them that you saw a new age begin.”

SIEGE AND STORM.

[unsea]

( i. ) I’d seen the Darkling use his power countless times before. This was different. The shadows whirled and skittered around the circle of my light, spinning faster, a writhing cloud that clicked and whirred like a fog of hungry insects. … and something stepped out of the darkness ... it was a creature wrought from shadow, its face blank and devoid of features. Its body seemed to tremble and blur, then form again: arms, legs, long hands ending in the dim suggestion of claws, a broad back crested by wings that roiled and shifted as they unfurled like a black stain. It was almost like a volcra, but its shape was more human. And it did not fear the light...

It was a violation of everything I knew about Grisha power. We couldn’t make matter. We couldn’t create life... “This is the gift you gave me,” said the Darkling. “The gift I earned on the Fold.” His face was alive with power and a kind of terrible joy. But I could see strain there, too. Whatever he was doing, it was costing him.

( ii. ) ALINA ; “Baghra warned me. She said you were arrogant, blinded by ambition.”
THE DARKLING ; “Did she now? And what other treason did she whisper in your ear?”
ALINA ; “That she loved you. That she believed you could be redeemed.”
THE DARKLING ; “Redemption. Salvation. Penance. My mother’s quaint ideas."

( iii. ) Sankt Illya stood barefoot on the shore of a dark sea. He wore the ragged remnants of a purple robe, his arms outstretched, his palms turned upward. His face had the blissful, placid expression Saints always seemed to wear in paintings, usually before they were murdered in some horrific way. Around his neck he wore an iron collar that had once been connected to the heavy fetters around his wrists by thick chains. Now the chains hung broken by his sides. Behind Sankt Ilya, a sinuous white serpent splashed in the waves. A white stag lay at his feet, gazing out at us with dark, steady eyes.

But neither of these creatures held our attention. Mountains crowded the background behind the Saint’s left shoulder, and there, barely visible in the distance, a bird circled a towering stone arch... “Sankt Ilya,” Mal said. “Ilya Morozova.” “A Grisha Saint?”

( iv. ) ALINA ; “What can you tell me about Ilya Morozova?”
DAVID ; “They called him the Bonesmith."
ALINA ; “Why? Because of the amplifiers he discovered?”
DAVID ; “He didn’t find them. He made them.”
( Morozova had been playing with the same forces as the Darkling. Magic. Abomination. )
ALINA ; “How?”
DAVID ; “No one knows... After the Black Heretic was killed in the accident that created the Fold, his son came out of hiding to take control of the Second Army. He had all of Morozova’s journals destroyed. They documented Morozova’s experiments with amplifiers. The Black Heretic was trying to re-create those experiments when something went wrong.”
ALINA ; “And the result was the Fold.”
DAVID ; “His son had all of Morozova’s journals and papers burned. He said they were too dangerous, too much of a temptation to any Grisha. That’s why I didn’t say anything at the meeting. I shouldn’t even know they ever existed. Morozova was a Fabrikator, maybe the first, certainly the most powerful. He did things that no one’s ever dreamed of before or since.”

[ NOTE: In R&R, Baghra indicates that Illya Morozova did not draw a line between "Healer" and "Fabrikator" and existed as a sort of in-between. Much like Genya. ]

( v. ) “We are alike,” he said, “as no one else is, as no one else will ever be.”

“My power is yours,” I repeated. His arms tightened around me. “And yours is mine,” I whispered against his lips. I forced my way across the bond forged by Morozova’s collar and grabbed hold of the Darkling’s power. This was not the Small Science. This was magic, something ancient, the making at the heart of the world. It was terrifying, limitless. No wonder the Darkling hungered for more. The darkness buzzed and clattered, a thousand locusts, beetles, hungry flies, clicking their legs, beating their wings. The nichevo’ya wavered and re-formed, whirring in a frenzy, driven on by his rage and my exultation. Another monster. Another. Blood was pouring from the Darkling’s nose. The room seemed to rock, and I realized I was convulsing. I was dying, bit by bit, with every monster that wrenched itself free.

RUIN AND RISING.

[unsea]

( i. ) The monster's name was Izumrud, the great worm, and there were those who claimed he had made the tunnels that ran beneath Ravka. Sick with appetite, he ate up silt and gravel, burrowing deeper and deeper into the earth, searching for something to satisfy his hunger, until he’d gone too far and lost himself in the dark.

( ii. ) THE DARKLING ; “What have you come here for, Alina?”
ALINA ; “I wanted to see you.”
THE DARKLING ; “There are two thrones on that dais. You could see me anytime you liked.”
ALINA ; “You’re offering me a crown? After I tried to kill you?”
THE DARKLING ; “I might have done the same.”
ALINA ; “I doubt it.”
THE DARKLING ; “Not to save that motley of traitors and fanatics, no. But I understand the desire to remain free.”

( iii. ) [Morozova's] early journals chronicled his experiments: the blacked-out formula for liquid fire, a means of preventing organic decay, the trials that had led to the creation of Grisha steel, a method for restoring oxygen to the blood, the endless year he’d spent finding a way to create unbreakable glass. His skills extended beyond those of an ordinary Fabrikator, and he was well aware of it. One of the essential tenets of Grisha theory was “like calls to like,” but Morozova seemed to believe that if the world could be broken down to the same small parts, each Grisha should be able to manipulate them. Are we not all things? he demanded, underlining the words for emphasis. He was arrogant, audacious — but still sane.

Then his work on the amplifiers had begun, and even I could see the change. The text got denser, messier. The margins were full of diagrams and crazed arrows that referred back to earlier passages. Worse were the descriptions of experiments he’d performed on animals, the illustrations of his dissections. They turned my stomach and made me think Morozova had deserved whatever early martyrdom he’d received. He’d killed animals and then brought them back to life, sometimes repeatedly, delving deeper into merzost, creation, the power of life over death, trying to find a way to create amplifiers that might be used together. It was forbidden power, but I knew its temptation, and I shuddered to think that pursuing it might have driven him mad.

If he was led by some noble purpose, I didn’t see it in his pages. But I sensed something more in his fevered writings, in his insistence that power was everywhere for the taking. He had lived long before the creation of the Second Army. He was the most powerful Grisha the world had ever known — and that power had isolated him. I remembered the Darkling’s words to me: There are no others like us, Alina. And there never will be. Maybe Morozova wanted to believe that if there were no others like him, there could be, that he might create Grisha of greater power.

[ NOTE: In the end, Alina realizes that Morozova did not want to create one Grisha of great power and prowess, but to disperse power among many, many otkazat'sya people - beloved and misunderstood. Grisha power multiplied a thousandfold, through quantity, not quality. ]

( iiia. ) “My son pored over those pages as if they were holy writ. He must have read through them a thousand times, questioning every word. He began to think there were codes hidden in the text. He held the pages over flame searching for invisible ink. In the end, he cursed Morozova’s name.”

( iv. ) ALINA ; “Why do you have such disdain for otkazat’sya?”
THE DARKLING ; “Not disdain. Understanding.”
ALINA ; “They’re not all fools and weaklings.”
THE DARKLING ; “What they are is predictable. The people would love you for a time. But what would they think when their good king aged and died, while his witch of a wife remained young? When all those who remember your sacrifices are dust in the ground, how long do you think it will take for their children or their grandchildren to turn on you? You never considered it, did you?

You live in a single moment. I live in a thousand.”

( v. ) “I want you to know my name. The name I was given, not the title I took for myself..." After a long moment, he said, “Aleksander.”

( vi. ) BAGHRA ; “I am Morozova’s daughter, and the Darkling is the last of Morozova’s line."
BAGHRA ; "Ravka was different then. Grisha had no sanctuary. Power like ours ended in fates like my father’s. I kept mine hidden. I followed tales of witches and Saints and found the secret enclaves where Grisha studied their science. I learned everything I could. And when the time came, I taught my son.”

( vii. ) ALINA ; “But what about his father?”
BAGHRA ; “You want a love story too? There’s none to be had. I wanted a child, so I sought out the most powerful Grisha I could find. He was a Heartrender. I don’t even remember his name.”

BAGHRA ; “My son was not … He began so well. We moved from place to place, we saw the way our people lived, the way they were mistrusted, the lives they were forced to eke out in secrecy and fear. He vowed that we would someday have a safe place, that Grisha power would be something to be valued and coveted, something our country would treasure. We would be Ravkans, not just Grisha. That dream was the seed of the Second Army. A good dream. If I’d known…”

BAGHRA ; “I gave him his pride. I burdened him with ambition, but the worst thing I did was try to protect him. You must understand, even our own kind shunned us, feared the strangeness of our power.” There are no others like us.

BAGHRA ; “I never wanted him to feel the way I had as a child. So I taught him that he had no equal, that he was destined to bow to no man. I wanted him to be hard, to be strong. I taught him the lesson my mother and father taught me: to rely on no one. That love—fragile and fickle and raw—was nothing compared to power. He was a brilliant boy. He learned too well.”

( viii. ) ALINA ; “If Morozova survived, what became of him?”
BAGHRA ; “He probably took his own life. It’s the way most Grisha of great power die.”
ALINA ; “Why?”
BAGHRA ; “Do you think I never contemplated it? That my son didn’t? Lovers age. Children die. Kingdoms rise and fall, and we go on. Maybe Morozova is still wandering the earth, older and more bitter than I am. Or maybe he used his power on himself and ended it all. It’s simple enough. Like calls to like.

( ix. ) “Know that I loved you,” she said to the Darkling. “Know that it was not enough.”

In a single movement, she shoved herself up on the wall, and before I could draw breath to scream, she tipped forward and vanished over the ledge, trailing the nichevo’ya behind her in tangled skeins of darkness. They tumbled past us in a rush, a shrieking black wave that rolled over the terrace and plummeted down, drawn by the power she exuded.

“No!” the Darkling roared. He dove after her, the wings of his soldiers beating with his fury.

( x. ) “This isn’t right,” he said, and in his voice I heard desperation, a new and unfamiliar anguish. His fingers skimmed my neck, cupped my face. I felt no surge of surety. No light stirred within me to answer his call. His gray eyes searched mine—confused, nearly frightened. “You were meant to be like me. You were meant … You’re nothing now.”

He dropped his hands. I saw the realization strike him. He was truly alone. And he always would be. I saw the emptiness enter his eyes, felt the yawning void inside him stretch wider, an infinite wasteland. The calm left him, all that cool certainty. He cried out in his rage.

... I knew there was no bottom to the Darkling’s pain. He would just keep falling and falling.

( xi. ) “Once more,” he said. “Speak my name once more.”
He was ancient, I knew that. But in this moment he was just a boy—brilliant, blessed with too much power, burdened by eternity.
“Aleksander.”
His eyes fluttered shut. “Don’t let me be alone,” he murmured. And then he was gone.

( xia. ) No one knew his name to curse or extol, so I spoke it softly, beneath my breath.
“Aleksander,” I whispered. A boy’s name, given up. Almost forgotten.

THE TAILOR.

[unsea]

[ This is Genya's tale, during the time she was directly in service/spy-service!! to the Darkling. ]

( i. ) “She’s suffering.”
He stops my fidgeting with the briefest touch of his hand. His power flows through me, calming, the steady rush of a river. Best not to think where the current may take me.
“You’ve suffered, too,” he says.

( ii. ) “Do not let them humble you,” he said softly.
I’d had a speech prepared, a hundred things I wanted to say. All of it went out of my head, and I sputtered the first thing that came into my mind. “I don’t want to wear this anymore,” I pleaded. “It’s a servant’s uniform.”
“It’s a soldier’s uniform.”
I shook my head, choking back another sob. He leaned forward and wiped the tears from my cheeks with the sleeve of his own kefta.
“If you tell me you cannot bear this, then I will send you from here and you need never wear those colors or walk the halls of the Grand Palace again. You will be safe, I promise you that.”
I looked up at him, not quite believing. “Safe?”
“Safe. But I can promise you this, too: You are a soldier. You could be my greatest soldier. And if you stay, if you can endure this, one day all will know it.” He lifted my chin with his finger. “Do you know the King once cut himself on his own sword?”
A little laugh escaped me. “He did?”
The Darkling nodded, the barest grin playing over his lips. “He wears it constantly—just for show, mind you. He forgets it is not a toy by his side, but a weapon.” His face grew serious. “I can promise you safety,” he said. “Or I can promise to see your suffering repaid a thousandfold.”

With the pad of his thumb, he brushed a stray tear from beneath my eye. “You decide, Genya.”

SIX OF CROWS & THE CROOKED KINGDOM.

[unsea]

[ Canonically, he's dead by this point, but there is valuable info about the universe's treatment of the Grisha and other select pieces that I feel are important. ]

( i. ) The Grisha Triumvirate hadn’t just wanted to save Grisha from Fjerdan witchhunters. They’d sent missions to the Wandering Isle and Novyi Zem because Ravka needed soldiers. They’d sought out Grisha who might be living in secret and tried to convince them to take up residence in Ravka and enter service to the crown. Nina had been too young to fight in the Ravkan civil war, and she’d been desperate to be part of the rebuilding of the Second Army.

( ii. ) In school, Nina had been obsessed with the drüskelle. They’d been the creatures of her nightmares with their white wolves and their cruel knives and the horses they bred for battle with Grisha... The drüskelle had existed for hundreds of years, but under Brum’s leadership, their force had doubled in size and become infinitely more deadly. He had changed their training, developed new techniques for rooting out Grisha in Fjerda, infiltrated Ravka’s borders, and begun pursuing rogue Grisha in other lands, even hunting down slaving ships, ‘liberating’ Grisha captives with the sole purpose of clapping them back in chains and sending them to Fjerda for trial and execution.

( iia. ) The Fjerdans didn’t believe the Grisha were human. They weren’t even on par with animals, but something low and demonic, a blight on the world, an abomination.

( iii. ) The pyre had been made on a bluff. Whoever was responsible had tried to build the fire in the shelter of a rock outcropping, but it hadn’t been enough to keep the flames from dying out in the wind. Three stakes had been driven into the icy ground, and three charred bodies were bound to them, their blackened, cracked skin still smouldering...
“Ghezen,” swore Wylan. “What is this?”
“This is what Fjerdans do to Grisha.” Nina said. Her face was slack, her green eyes staring.
“It’s what criminals do,” said Matthias, his insides churning. “The pyres have been illegal since—”
Nina whirled on him and shoved his chest hard. “Don’t you dare,” she seethed, fury burning like a halo around her. “Tell me the last time someone was prosecuted for putting a Grisha to the flames. Do you even call it murder when you put down dogs?”
“Nina—”
“Do you have a different name for killing when you wear a uniform to do it?”
“I’ve never sent a Grisha to the pyre. Grisha are given a fair trial—”
She turned on him, goggles up, tears frozen on her cheeks.
“Then why has a Grisha never been found innocent at the end of your supposedly fair trials?”
“I—”
“Because our crime is existing. Our crime is what we are.”
Matthias went quiet, and when he spoke he was caught between shame for what he was about to say and the need to speak the words, the words he’d been raised on, the words that still rang true for him. “Nina, has it ever occurred to you that maybe … you weren’t meant to exist?”

( iv. ) Looking down, Kaz saw rows of heavily armoured wagons capped by domed gun turrets. Their wheels were large and linked by a thick tread. On each wagon, a massive gun barrel – somewhere between the shape of a rifle and a cannon – jutted out into the space where a team of horses would ordinarily be hitched.
“What are those things?” he whispered.
“Torvegen,” Matthias said under his breath. “They don’t need horses to pull them. They were still perfecting the design when I left.”
“No horses?”
“Tanks,” murmured Jesper. “I saw prototypes when I was working with a gunsmith in Novyi Zem. Multiple guns in the turret, and that big barrel out in front? Serious firepower.”

( v. ) A large pyramid-shaped skylight looked down on what seemed to be a training room, its floor emblazoned with the drüskelle wolf’s head, the shelves lined with weapons. Through the next glass pyramid, he glimpsed a big dining hall. One wall was taken up by a massive hearth, a wolf’s head carved into the stone above it. The opposite wall was adorned by an enormous banner with no discernible pattern, a patchwork of slender strips of cloth – mostly red and blue, but some purple, too. It took Jesper a moment to understand what he was seeing.
“Saints,” he said, feeling a little sick. “Grisha colours.”
Wylan squinted. “The banner?”
“Red for Corporalki. Blue for Etherealki. Purple for Materialki. Those are pieces of the kefta that Grisha wear in battle. They’re trophies.”
“There are so many.”
Hundreds. Thousands.

THE GRISHA ORDERS.

[unsea]

	THE SUN SUMMONER (top) and THE DARKLING (bottom) are considered to be of the Etherealki Order, but due to their rarity and raw power, they are classified as atypical, individual Orders. In the context of The Grisha Trilogy, Sun Summoners have not existed among the ranks of the Grisha in countless centuries. The Darklings, on the other hand, have traditionally lead Ravka's Second Army - the branch of the nation's military force that is made up entirely of Grisha soldiers. They are natural foils to one another - one summoning and manipulating light, and the other summoning and manipulating shadow. Due to their power and the premise that Grisha power elongates and empowers the Grisha themselves, the Sun Summoner and the Darkling will live exponentially long lives.
	THE CORPORALKI, or the Order of the Living and the Dead are dressed in red kefta. The HEARTRENDERS (top), capable of stopping hearts, collapsing lungs and basically making their enemies lives a painful, living hell - with emphasis on the "living", wear kefta of red and black. The HEALERS (bottom), who do exactly the opposite of their counterparts, wear red and grey. As Ravka is a garrison state, caught in a deadly three-front war, the Corporalki are therefore the most valuable soldiers.
	THE ETHEREALKI, or the Order of Summoners, are the second most-valued within the ranks of the Grisha. The Small Science cannot create the matter that they manipulate, nor animate it. SQUALLERS (top), who wear blue and silver, raise and lower the air pressure around them to create storms. INFERNI (middle), who wear blue and red, summon combustible gases, and use flint to create the spark that ignites them. And TIDEMAKERS (bottom), dressed in blue and pale blue, use temperature and pressure to summon and control water. The Darkling and the Sun Summoner are technically members of the Etherealki, and presumably do something with magnetic fields - though it has never been explained in the context of the books, due to the rarity of these two types of Grisha.
	THE MATEREALKI, or the Order of Fabrikators, are the lowest ranked among the Grisha orders. They are the lab geeks and the scientists, more valuable to Ravka's war the longer on that it stretches. Within their order are the DURASTS (top), who specialize in solids such as Grisha steel, corecloth (similar to modern body armor, and what all Grisha kefta are made of), other textiles and glass. They wear purple and grey. The ALKEMI (bottom), who wear purple and red, utilize poisons and blasting powders on their end of things.

WORLD MAP.

[unsea]