The Primal of Blood and Bone

Cas is the second protagonist and first-person narrator of the novel. He combines the archetypes of the obsessive romantic lead, the anti-hero, and the powerful king. Described as superlatively handsome, Cas is very tall, with thick, dark hair, high cheekbones, and golden-brown eyes. He bears a distinct family resemblance to his brother Malik and his great-grandfather Attes, the Primal God of War and Accord. In The Primal of Blood and Bone, shadows appear under Cas’s skin, resembling shifting tattoos. His eyes change color in his Primal form, often silver and gold with bands of crimson. The crimson represents his power of death, since after his Joining with Poppy, her destructive power has concentrated itself in Cas. Cas is the son of King Valyn and Queen Eloana of Atlantia.

Cas has a unique relationship with Kieran Contou, Kieran being his bonded wolven and lifelong best friend. Kieran often acts as a sobering influence on the impetuous, impatient Cas, and is his natural complement. Cas is capable of taking harsh decisions and inflicting damage when necessary: He tells Poppy that he sometimes staged fatal attacks as part of his strategy as a rebel leader to unsettle the rulers of Solis. Thanks to his superior battle strategy and ruthless treatment of his enemies, Cas was known as the dreaded Dark One in Solis. Cas’s well-known impatience is balanced by his great love for Poppy and his family and friends. Cas is also deeply perceptive, with an insightful, radical way of thinking. Cas is the first to recognize the fact that Kolis may not love Sotoria’s soul anymore.

In The Primal of Blood and Bone, Cas is tested by new-found powers and revelations. Not only does he struggle to manage his destructive powers, but he also feels alienated from Kieran when he learns Poppy and Kieran kept secrets from him. The separation from Kieran isolates him. Further, Cas’s abilities are now outpacing his comprehension. Perhaps because of his Primal blood line (through Attes), Cas is a stronger Primal than Kieran, possessing some powers—such as shapeshifting—which even Poppy does not have.

With all these changes, Cas finds himself in flux. As the novel ends, Cas loses his father, Valyn, and the wolven, Delano, and believes Poppy to be in terrible harm. The confusion and rage within him transforms him into an unprecedented creature, the Primal of Death and Destruction. Though Kieran fears that Cas, cut off from him and Poppy, is going to wreak havoc in this form, the text suggests Cas’s transformation is tied to a necessary cosmic reset.

One of the three protagonists of the Blood and Ash series, Kieran is a wolven, a werewolf-like creature descended from kiyou or wild wolves who were given duality by the True Primal of Life, Sera. Kieran is handsome and muscular, with pale or wintry blue eyes (most wolven share the eye color), warm beige skin, and hair cropped close to his skull. In his wolf form, Kieran is large and fawn-colored. He is the son of Jasper and Kirha, wise, prominent wolven of Atlantia, and has sisters, including the outspoken Vonetta.

As a newborn, Kieran bonded with Casteel, the then-prince of Atlantia. The two became best friends, sharing a deep, extraordinary connection. This connection strengthened after Kieran’s Joining with Poppy and Cas. Kieran, Poppy, and Cas can now telepathically communicate their thoughts to each other. At the start of the novel, Kieran is the royal advisor to Poppy and Cas, as well as a Deminyen Primal of Life. As a Primal, his eyes glow silver with eather at times, and his touch can heal wounds.

Poppy describes Kieran’s scent as earthy and woodsy. Kieran has a droll, sardonic sense of humor and often guards his emotions. According to Poppy, Kieran’s emotional state feels like a tree, giving the impression of something solid and rooted. Kieran’s calmness is necessary, as he acts as a foil to the wild, impetuous Cas and the passionate Poppy. Though Kieran is patient with Cas, he never shies from showing Cas the mirror, checking Cas when he is being unreasonable or immature. He tells Cas that he would be a bad advisor to the crown if he did not remind the King of his duties, a statement which establishes Kieran’s integrity.

Kieran loves Cas and Poppy dearly, his relationship with Poppy especially deep because of the bond a kiyou wolf feels with a Primal of Life. It is because of this love that Kieran agrees to make the painful promise of stopping Poppy if needed. Significantly, Nyktos makes a similar promise to Sera in the Flesh and Fire series, the plot points establishing parallels between Nyktos and Kieran. Kieran gives Poppy space to take her own decisions, even when he does not agree with them, showing his maturity. Although he only has one point-of-view chapter in the novel, the narrative establishes him as someone deeply affected by his love for his friends and his guilt over possibly wrong decisions—such as stopping Cas from going to Pensdurth.

It is also suggested in the novel that Kieran may be developing a life outside his triad with Cas and Poppy, as Poppy notes a hint of attraction between Kieran and the general, Helenea. With his capacity to learn from his mistakes, Kieran is a rounded character with a dynamic arc.

Sera is variously known as the Consort, the Queen of the Gods, and the True Primal of Life. She is described as beautiful and curvy, with silver-blond hair the color of moonlight and freckled, pale skin. She has a crescent-moon-shaped birthmark on her left shoulder, which symbolizes that she is to be the Consort of Nyktos, the Primal of Death. Poppy notes that Sera bears an uncanny resemblance to her older granddaughter, Poppy’s sister, Millicent.

Although Poppy and Sera are very similar in their mannerisms—Poppy notes that, like her, Sera fidgets when she is restless—they are different in many key ways. While Poppy tends to weigh her choices carefully, Sera is quicker to anger. When she meets Nyktos, she has already killed several people. Unlike Nyktos, Sera is sexually experienced, reversing the dynamic of traditional romances.

Sera is capable of taking harsh decisions, such as denying her sons the heartmate trials, and revealing she is the one who entombed Malec. After Poppy meets her, she marvels at her grandmother’s audacious, radical choices. Like Poppy, Sera symbolizes female resistance to male domination. Even though Kolis torments her (in the Flesh and Fire series), Sera goes on to build a new life. Nevertheless, in history Sera is known more as Nyktos’s Consort. Cas notes that she is absent from murals and art celebrating the gods. Though concealing herself is Sera’s deliberate choice to prevent the prophecy from coming true, the anonymity also signifies the real-world erasure of female gods.

Sera’s lineage and history are important in context of the prophecy around Poppy. To stop a drought plaguing his kingdom, Sera’s ancestor, King Roderick of Lasania, described in the prophecy of the Ancients as the desperate king with a golden crown, made a deal with Ethyos, the Primal of Life. Roderick promised to give the firstborn daughter of his line in marriage to Ethyos’s son, Nyktos. Ethyos hid the embers of life in the newborn Sera to hide them from Kolis, and she ended up becoming the first mortal True Primal of Life.

The chief antagonist of the novel and the series, Kolis is also knows at the Great Conspirator and the True Primal of Death. The descriptor “true” indicates the Primal’s nature rather than their duties. Kolis is a “true” Primal of Death, not just because he fulfils the role of dispensing death and justice, but also because he is genuinely destructive and malicious. On the other hand, Nyktos, who served as a Primal of Death, takes his duties very seriously, but does not enjoy causing pain. Nyktos even has tattooed on his vast form the names of those taken by him, as a reminder of the cost of life.

Kolis is presented as an irredeemable character, with no shades of grey. His moral corruption contrasts with his physicality, which Poppy notes is beautiful to the point of perfection. However, his golden hair, glowing skin, and delicate features are also described as artificial-seeming. His eyes have crimson bands, a mark of the Primal of Death. As a shadow, Kolis is represented by a black and crimson mist, but in his corporeal form, he is often dressed in white and gold, the colors of luxury.

Before Sera destroyed Dalos, Kolis’s court, in the Flesh and Fire series, it was gilded, grand, and showy. Thus, Kolis is also associated with unnatural wealth, decadence, and gaudy displays. Fond of senseless and unmitigated cruelty, Kolis likes to display the corpses of his victims, a practice picked up by the Blood Crown. He also has certain unique powers, such as oneirou, the ability to enter the dreams of others. According to Attes, Kolis uses this power to “ferret out a person’s hidden fears and deepest shame, then exploit it” (207).

However, the most risible aspect of Kolis is his obsession and pursuit of Sotoria. Though he claims his feelings are love, they are actually a corruption of the emotion. Kolis threatens Sotoria in her many lives—including when her soul is still in Sera’s body—cages her, and humiliates her. His attempts to sexually dominate women shows how he is threatened by female agency and power, which is why his final downfall is connected with the rise of a powerful female Primal. Kolis is a flat character in the novel since he shows no change. He continues to use his powers to wreak havoc, despite having been entombed for centuries.

Reaver is a draken, a dragon who also takes human form, loyal to Sera, Nyktos, and Poppy. Since Poppy Ascended as a Primal of Life, Reaver responds to her notam. Like other living draken, Reaver is thousands of years old, yet he is still in his adolescence. His behavior mimics that of a sarcastic teenager, and he is often shown eating, since he has an endless appetite. In his human state, he has blue eyes and long hair that falls around his face like a curtain. Reaver frequently forgets to dress himself after his transformations, effectively appearing nude before company. Though his habit annoys Cas, Reaver thinks people of the mortal realm are unnecessarily prudish.

Behind Reaver’s blasé, hostile exterior is his concern for those he loves. He weeps when he sees the entombed Jadis, his childhood friend, and is always ready to battle for Poppy. Reaver serves a specific narrative function, supplying humor, insight, and exposition. Since he is thousands of years old and close to Sera and Nyktos, Reaver often fills in characters about clues they may be missing. For instance, it is Reaver who forces Cas and Kieran to see that Poppy may be possessed by Kolis.