Fearless

Kai is another of the novel’s primary characters and first-person narrators. The sections titled with his first name are written from his perspective and offer insight into his interior world. Much like Paedyn’s first-person chapters, Kai’s chapters invite the reader into his heart and mind. His voice is honest, open, and self-reflective. Although he presents himself as a stoic, strong, and dependable Enforcer, his first-person chapters reveal that he also has a soft heart and a kind spirit.

Kai is 18 years old in the narrative present, and Kitt is his older brother. The two grew up believing that they were half-siblings; they were told that the late King Edric was their biological father and that their mothers were Myla and Iris, respectively. Kai later discovers that his father is an unknown former lover of Myla’s from before she married Edric and that he and Kitt have no biological relationship. However, the two share an indelible bond because they’ve grown up together. They are close friends, and Kai cares about Kitt, second only to Paedyn. Throughout the novel, he feels torn between his loyalty to his brother and his loyalty to his lover—an internal conflict that complicates his ability to own his true identity, beliefs, and desires.

Like Paedyn, Kai is a sympathetic and dynamic character. His ability to admit his wrongs, perceive others’ feelings, and sacrifice his interests for his loved ones endears him to the other characters and the reader alike. Meanwhile, his self-reflective capacities compel him to examine his own behavior so that he can grow and become a better person. He changes over the course of the novel because of his relationships with Paedyn and Kitt, the physical and circumstantial challenges he overcomes, and the loss and fear he confronts.

Kai has internal demons that he must acknowledge to grow and complete his character arc. He has always seen himself as an angry, violent person because this is who he was raised to be. His adoptive father, Edric, abused him as a child and trained him to be volatile and cold. Kai sometimes fears that this is who he really is, but his relationships with Paedyn and Kitt prove otherwise, as he is consistently gentle and empathetic with them. Once he confronts his trauma, he’s able to process and grow beyond it, demonstrating the importance of Confronting Grief and Trauma to Move Forward.

Like Paedyn, Kai gets his happy ending when he marries and starts ruling Ilya with her. Being with Paedyn has been his greatest wish for many years. Uniting Ilya with her makes him even more fulfilled because he’s helping to realize Paedyn’s dreams.

Kitt is another of the novel’s primary characters. He is Kai’s brother and Paedyn’s friend and, briefly, husband. His parents are Edric and Iris. Because of Edric’s lies, Kitt has grown up believing that his mother died in childbirth. Edric’s deception has weighed on Kitt’s heart and convinced him that he’s an inherently wicked person for having caused Iris’s death. Edric also withheld his love and approval from Kitt throughout his childhood, making Kitt feel perpetually unworthy of love. Kitt’s heart is heavy with shame and sorrow throughout the novel. He relies on his relationship with Kai to understand himself, but Kai has always been the stronger of the two. Kitt often sees himself as inferior to Kai and wishes that he could be more like him.

Kitt’s insecurities dictate his actions throughout the novel. He comes to believe that Paedyn is the cause of all his distress. He blames her for killing his father and taking his family from him. He also believes that she’s coming between him and Kai. He resents her and Kai’s connection because it feels like a threat to his relationship with his brother. When he takes the throne after Edric’s passing, he pretends that he wants to unite the Ordinaries and the Elites. In reality, he’s only using his marriage to Paedyn to manipulate the other cities; Paedyn gets them to open their borders, and he is thus able to import goods laced with the Plague into their streets. Doing so, he believes, will strengthen the living Elites and destroy the remaining Ordinaries. These plans are a symptom of Kitt’s desperation to prove himself. He’s always felt like a weak failure, and he thinks that destroying the Ordinaries will convince the kingdom (and his family and the court) otherwise.

Kitt’s death and fate in the afterlife are the result of his own moral failings. He goes through life believing that no one loves him and that he must destroy others to prove his strength. These self-deceptions lead to his death (Kai accidentally stabs and kills him) and deliver him into an underworld defined by darkness and solitude. Despite these weak points in Kitt’s character, Kai and Paedyn don’t demonize him. Although he is an antagonist in their story, the lovers don’t see him as a traditional villain. They understand that Kitt is a victim of his circumstances.

Edric is a secondary character. The interludes titled with Edric’s first name are written from the third-person limited omniscient point of view and present episodes from Edric’s past life. He is dead in the narrative present (Paedyn killed him at the end of Powerless), but his chapters provide insight into his life in the years prior. These sections are formal devices used to clarify the mysteries of the main characters’ shadowy origins.

Edric is an antagonist. When he was alive, he exhibited the traits of a traditional villain in that he’s selfish, violent, heartless, and egotistical. The only people he ever loved were Iris and Myla, and he lived through his hatred in the decades following Iris’s death in childbirth with Paedyn. He blamed Paedyn (an Ordinary) for killing his first love and resolved that banishing her wasn’t enough. When he encountered her again years later, he used her for his own nefarious devices and then sought to kill her. Because he was so consumed by rage, he failed to seek out the truth surrounding Paedyn’s birth. He died by her hand without discovering that she isn’t his daughter.

Edric was violent and angry with Kai and Kitt, too. He was slightly less physically aggressive with Kitt, but he withheld his love from him, disparaged him for his weaknesses, deceived him about his mother and his birth, and exploited his innocence for his own devices. Meanwhile, he tried to manipulate Kai into the killer he needed to complete his plans to destroy the Ordinaries. He agreed to raise Kai as his son, but he showed Kai no love or care. Because of the trauma he inflicted on Kai, Paedyn, and Kitt, his character haunts the pages of Fearless even though he’s not alive.