ACOSF THEORY TIME :
Merrill is being possessed / manipulated by Koschei
( or is maybe in alliance with him )
In my reread, these two passages stood out so much :
In chapter seven, where Vassa is talking about how Koschei manipulated the queens into betraying and selling her to him. Through ‘whispers on the winds’ :
This is notable because in chapter twenty-nine, Merrill mentions that the ‘wind whispers’ to her, and that she knows exactly who Nesta is and what she has done :
We also learn that she is descended from Rabath, Lord of the Western Winds and also that she holds some magical sway over wind, interesting considering that this is the method which Koschei uses to manipulate the queens :
Some other interesting factors :
We can establish that Merrill will be of at least some importance in the next few books solely because of how much time sjm spends discussing her beauty. It’s a well established and well founded fan theory that whenever sjm describes a character as beautiful, they will be a significant - and Merrill’s beauty is said to rival even Mors !!!
^ When she confronts Nesta regarding the swap of books, she calls her ‘girl’. The only other character to call Nesta ‘girl’ is Amren - who is an ancient entity from a different world. Amren is estimated to be 15,000 years old. This similarity suggests to me that there is either more to Merrill than meets the eye, and that she is older than we are led to believe, or that it is Koschei talking through Merrill. As an ancient and powerful death god, this belittling attitude would be more believable coming from him, than coming from ( what we believe is ) a high fae.
^ When Merril catches Nestas eye in the evening service, they settle with ‘hatred’. This seems ridiculous and extremely petty for someone who replaced a book of yours and then set you down a peg when you confronted her about it... there’s definitely something else there.
If she is working in alliance with Koschei - or if perhaps he is possessing her - it would make sense that she is placed in the night court, where she can act as a spy and use the vast library for information. She works closely with Gwyn, who is Nestas close friend and undoubtedly gathers information about Nesta through her. And we know that Gwyn went to Merrill for information regarding the death trove...
I just know that there is more to Merrill than meets the eye, and I’m kind of hoping that she is just being manipulated by Koschei because I would so love for her to be the main scribe and historian for this new legion of Valkyrie warriors.
EDIT
just reread and as far as im concerned this is set in stone...
This is a passage in war and ruin where elain is discussing Koschei, and how he has ‘others’ whom he keeps at the lake whose feathers are ‘as white as snow’ !!!
Back to silver flames, where Merrills hair is described as... you guessed it... ‘white as fresh snow’ !!!!!
