A Torch Against the Night

Laia begins the novel as a character defined by fear and guilt, but she undergoes a significant, dynamic transformation, evolving from a passive victim of circumstance into a determined agent of her own fate. Her initial motivation is singular and deeply personal: to rescue her brother, Darin. This quest serves as the crucible in which her character is forged. In the early chapters, she is heavily reliant on Elias’s skill and protection, her actions often dictated by her terror of the Empire and its enforcers. However, her experiences steadily strip away her timidity, replacing it with a hard-won resilience. A pivotal moment in this development occurs when she is forced to navigate the treacherous market of Raider’s Roost alone to find medicine for a poisoned Elias. This independent trial by fire proves her resourcefulness and burgeoning courage, demonstrating that she is no longer the “mouse of a girl” Elias first met (18).

Laia’s growth is intrinsically linked to her evolving understanding of violence and sacrifice. Her first kill, the Tribesman Shikaat, is a traumatic but necessary step in her loss of innocence. Unlike the soldiers she travels with, Laia does not become numb to the act of killing; instead, it solidifies her resolve to fight for a world where such brutality is not the norm. This internal struggle highlights The Corrupting Nature of Violence, showing that even when used in self-defense, violence leaves an indelible mark. Her journey is also one of increasing agency. She learns to fight, to think strategically, and to lead. This is most evident after Elias’s departure for Kauf, when she must depend entirely on herself and her own judgment. However, after Izzi’s death, Laia experiences a setback along her journey to confidence, self-worth, and leadership as Keenan manipulates her grief to make her doubt her abilities. Her relationship with Keenan, the rebel fighter, is central to her development, but his eventual betrayal serves as her harshest lesson, forcing her to recognize that trust and loyalty are fragile and that she must ultimately rely on her own strength and intuition.

The discovery of her ability to become invisible marks a key turning point, transforming her from a character who must physically hide from danger to one who can command the shadows themselves. This power is symbolic of her inner change; she is no longer merely surviving but developing into a formidable force. Her journey, which begins as a mission to save her family, broadens in scope as she witnesses the Empire’s widespread cruelty. By the novel’s conclusion, her motivation is no longer just about rescuing Darin but about saving her people. She embraces the legacy of her parents, the leaders of the Scholar Resistance, and accepts her role as a symbol of hope. Her transformation is complete when she willingly enters Kauf Prison as a determined liberator prepared to face any danger to achieve her goal.

Helene Aquilla, the Empire’s new Blood Shrike, is a deuteragonist whose arc is a tragic exploration of duty and sacrifice. A round and dynamic character, she serves as a foil to Elias, her former best friend. While Elias chooses to follow his conscience and desert the Empire, Helene remains bound by her oath, embodying the immense personal cost of unwavering allegiance in a corrupt regime. Her defining trait is her fierce loyalty, a virtue instilled in her from birth under the family motto, “Loyal to the end” (30). This loyalty is fractured, torn between her love for Elias, her duty to the Emperor, and her own moral compass. Her narrative forces a constant, painful re-evaluation of where that loyalty should lie, making her a primary vessel for the theme of the frailty of loyalty in a world of impossible choices.

As Blood Shrike, Helene is thrust into a position of immense power, but it is a power that requires her to perpetrate the very brutality she finds abhorrent. Her mission to hunt down and execute Elias forces her to suppress her personal feelings and embrace the ruthless persona of her title. This internal conflict is her central struggle. The physical and psychological torment she endures in the Blackcliff dungeons at the hands of Marcus and his interrogator serves as a turning point for her character, stripping away her idealism and hardening her for the grim tasks ahead. Her survival of this ordeal demonstrates her formidable strength and willpower, but it also pushes her further down a path of moral compromise. The discovery that her father traded her sister Hannah’s hand in marriage to Marcus in exchange for her life adds another layer of tragic weight to her sense of duty, binding her even more tightly to the new Emperor.

Helene’s relationships are fraught with tension and heartbreak. Her love for Elias becomes a source of profound pain, a weakness that Marcus exploits with sadistic glee. Her dynamic with Marcus is one of mutual distrust and manipulation; she must serve a man she despises, one who uses her family as leverage to ensure her obedience. By the end of the novel, Helene has been systematically “unmade,” as the Augur Cain predicted. Her family is shattered, her closest friend is an enemy of the state she is sworn to protect, and she is a commander forced to commit atrocities in the name of order. In being broken, however, she finds a new, colder strength. She chooses to prioritize the stability of the Empire above all else, including her own desires and even justice. Her final decision to confront the Commandant’s coup, rather than continue her pursuit of Elias, marks her evolution from a soldier following orders to a leader making strategic, albeit heartbreaking, choices for the greater good of the Empire.

The Commandant is a primary antagonist and the embodiment of the Martial Empire’s calculated cruelty. She is a round but largely static character whose motivations are consistently rooted in an insatiable hunger for power and control. A brilliant strategist and a terrifyingly proficient warrior, she operates with a chilling lack of empathy, even for her son, viewing compassion as a contemptible weakness. Her character serves as a stark illustration of the corrupting influence of absolute authority. She casually murders a Scholar slave while searching for Elias, not out of necessity but as a simple exertion of her power, demonstrating a complete disregard for human life. Her subsequent smile upon locating Elias across the chaotic square reveals that the hunt is a gratifying game to her.

Her relationship with her son, Elias, is complex and twisted. While a flicker of maternal connection may exist, illustrated through the revelation that she didn’t completely abandon Elias at birth, instead feeding and caring for him before leaving him in Mamie Rila’s caravan, it is entirely subordinate to her ambition. She orchestrates his escape from Blackcliff only to ensure his death by a slow-acting poison, a plan that is both strategically cunning and personally sadistic. This act reveals her preference for psychological torment over a simple death, and it allows her to manipulate Helene’s mission and remove a potential obstacle to her own plans. The Commandant’s alliance with the Nightbringer further underscores her willingness to traffic with dark, otherworldly forces to achieve her ends. She is not merely a product of the Empire’s brutal system; she is one of its chief architects, a malevolent force whose influence perpetuates the cycle of violence and oppression.

Emperor Marcus Farrar is a key antagonist whose cruelty is born from deep-seated psychological trauma and insecurity. Unlike the Commandant’s cold ambition, Marcus’s tyranny is volatile and deeply personal. As a Plebeian who ascended to the throne, he is paranoid about his legitimacy and obsessed with projecting an image of strength, often through acts of extreme violence. He is haunted by the murder of his twin brother, Zak, a crime he committed himself during the Third Trial, and has a sadistic need to make others suffer, particularly Helene, whose loyalty and love for Elias he relentlessly exploits even while they are at Blackcliff together. He sees their bond as a mirror of his own with Zak and seeks to shatter it as his was shattered.

Marcus’s rule is characterized by impulsive brutality rather than strategic calculation. His decision to execute the heads of 10 Illustrian Gens is a rash display of power designed to quell dissent through terror. He uses Helene’s family as leverage, threatening their lives to ensure her compliance in hunting Elias, demonstrating his view of loyalty not as a virtue but as a tool for manipulation. “If we do not slake that thirst with the blood of Elias Veturius,” he warns Helene, “perhaps we will slake it with the blood of Gens Aquilla” (241). This threat reveals his fundamental understanding of power: It is to be taken and held through fear and the leveraging of pain against others. He is a deeply unstable and dangerous ruler, a man whose inner demons have been given command of an entire empire.

Keenan is introduced as a devoted member of the Scholar Resistance, a grim but charming rebel fighter who represents a potential ally and romantic interest for Laia. He functions as a symbol of hope for his people and a voice of conscience, often questioning Laia’s trust in Elias. However, his character is a carefully constructed deception. The reveal that he is the physical manifestation of the Nightbringer, an ancient and powerful jinn, is one of the novel’s most significant twists. This transforms him from a supporting protagonist into a primary antagonist and re-contextualizes his entire relationship with Laia. His apparent loyalty was a long con, a meticulously planned manipulation designed to earn Laia’s love and trust so that she would willingly give him her mother’s armlet, a piece of the magical Star he needs to free his imprisoned brethren.

As the Nightbringer, his motivations are rooted in a millennia-old desire for vengeance against the Scholars who trapped his people. He is a master of deception, using a false narrative of rebellion to achieve his true aims. The revelation of his identity serves as the ultimate betrayal in a novel centered on the frailty of loyalty in a world of impossible choices. He is not a simple villain; the text suggests that in taking on human form, he is susceptible to human emotion, including a genuine affection for Laia that conflicts with his ancient mission. This internal conflict, however, does not stop him from pursuing his goal, making him a complex and formidable adversary.

Darin serves as the central catalyst for the plot, a MacGuffin whose freedom is the primary objective of his sister, Laia. Though he is physically absent for most of the narrative, his existence drives the actions of the protagonists. He is characterized as a brave and brilliant blacksmith, the only Scholar known to have mastered the secret of forging Serric steel, a skill that makes him invaluable to both the Resistance and the Empire. This knowledge is the reason he is imprisoned in Kauf rather than executed, as the Empire seeks to extract his secrets.

Darin’s willingness to be captured to ensure Laia’s escape establishes his selfless nature early in the story. Inside Kauf, he endures horrific torture at the hands of the Warden but resists, maintaining his mental stability by secretly drawing on the walls of his cell, earning him the moniker “The Artist.” This act of creative defiance in the face of immense suffering defines his character, portraying him not as a passive victim but as a resilient symbol of his people’s unbroken spirit and the catalyst for a full rebellion.

The Soul Catcher, whose true name is Shaeva, is a supernatural entity who rules the Waiting Place, the realm of ghosts. She initially appears as an enigmatic and powerful figure who pulls Elias’s spirit from his body during his poison-induced seizures. She acts as a reluctant mentor, providing cryptic guidance and forcing Elias to confront the consequences of his violent life. It is later revealed that she is a jinn, cursed to serve as the Soul Catcher as punishment for betraying her king, the Nightbringer, centuries ago. Her interest in Elias stems from her desire to find a successor so she can be free of her eternal duty. She recognizes in Elias a similar capacity for compassion, a quality necessary for the role. Ultimately, she strikes a deal with him, bringing him back from the brink of death in exchange for his taking her place, an act that fundamentally alters Elias’s destiny.

Izzi is a fellow enslaved Scholar at Blackcliff and Laia’s first true friend and ally. She represents the innocence and resilience of the Scholar people in the face of the Empire’s oppression. Despite the brutality she has endured, including losing an eye to the Commandant, Izzi maintains a core of kindness and unwavering loyalty. She provides Laia with crucial support and information during her time at the academy. Laia’s decision to give Izzi her own chance at escape demonstrates Laia’s growing selflessness and commitment to others. Izzi’s eventual death during a Martial raid is a devastating blow to Laia, serving as a harsh reminder of the fatal cost of rebellion and strengthening Laia’s resolve to fight for a better future.