How exactly does this author imagine secret police works? Uniformed guards everyone recognizes as belonging to the one person nobody trusts? Where exactly is that secret?
Why would Grisha fear oprichniki, when they're literally keeping their boss safe, personally handpicked by him, so they don't hate Grisha unlike the general population?
When Second Army and oprichniki work closely alongside each other?! When they fight the same battles, travel and sleep in the same camps, share food and face the same dangers due to their connection to the Darkling?
As we enter the birch grove, I glimpse a few oprichniki standing guard, nearly hidden in the gloom between the trees. I’ve never grown used to them. They’re a brotherhood of their own, and they keep to a separate code. They never mix with the Grisha or the court.
He shoved me through the door and followed me inside, throwing himself down on the seat opposite me in disgust. The other Corporalki joined him, followed by the oprichniki guards, who settled on either side of me.
...
“Do you all wear this stuff?” I asked as I pulled on the kefta.
“When we’re in the field,” said an oprichnik. I nearly jumped. It was the first time either of the guards had spoken.
Shadow and Bone- Chapter 4
In the light from the fire, I watched the oprichniki sitting side by side with the Grisha. Some of them had already drifted away from the fire to bed down for the night. Others had been posted to the first watch. The rest sat talking as the flames ebbed, passing a flask back and forth. The Darkling sat with them. I’d noticed that he had taken no more than his share of the grouse. And now he sat beside his soldiers on the cold ground, a man second in power only to the King.
Shadow and Bone- Chapter 5
He didn’t seem to hear me. “The Grisha and oprichniki who held the palace on the Darkling’s orders were caught in the lower town, trying to escape. They were executed.”
Siege and Storm- Chapter 11
Behind them, our soldiers were fighting not just nichevo’ya but oprichniki and the Darkling’s own Grisha in their blue and red kefta.
Ruin and Rising- Chapter 11
Squallers stood at the masts in their blue kefta. A few Inferni lined the railings, flanked by Heartrenders in red, heavily armed oprichniki in gray. It was a spare force. The students must be belowdecks. The Darkling stood at the prow, surrounded by his shadow horde.
Ruin and Rising- Chapter 17
The only source setting oprichniki apart is the girl, who isn't really a part of Second Army, and describes them a bit like some strange animals in a ZOO. The rest shows no distance between them and Grisha, quite contrary- there's natural co-operation, even camaraderie in that one scene we get to see them off-duty.
