I really really loved Helene's speech to the Empire at the end of the book, the one in which she gets made Empress and I just realized why. You guys remember Blackcliff? Helene used to see thousands of Scholar slaves walking around Blackcliff, beaten, raped, abused, and not only didn't do anything about it, but also never felt anything wrong about it other than a slight discomfort. This is the person who hadn't understood Elias' decision to run away from the Empire, because where her best friend had seen injustice in the shackles around Laia's wrists, she'd just seen righteousness. She had been blinded to her people's crimes by her love for them and that veil got ripped away from her eyes in the last book. While I truly regret that she came to the knowledge through so much suffering, she finally realized that the Scholars are her people too, that they live in the Empire too, that they have a right to live on this land without being forced into servitude, and I'm so, so glad about it. Helene Aquilla went from a person who protested at Livia setting the Scholars free to a person who refused to rule an Empire with Scholars as slaves at the cost of her own nephew's safety (because you cannot honestly believe most of the Illustrian Paters were happy with her decision), and like, if that isn't phenomenal character development, I don't know what is
















