Dark Trilogy Thoughts

[willswillpower]

Read-along

I'm so excited for the third book, so while waiting for it, I'll do a little read-along! I'll be going through the book chapter by chapter, I think this approach works best for me.

This is not going to be a spoiler-free read-along, given that I've already read the series, but one that's focused on foreshadowing and picking out any details that catch me eye.

As for me, I'm a huge fan of Will/James in particular, but I'm also happy with all other canon ships. And I love pretty much everyone in this bar, and most of all, Violet.

With that said, let's dive right in! I'll return to this post regularly to update the index. Index:

Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34

[willswillpower]

Dark Rise - Chapter 4

Intro/Index

It's interesting to me that this part -- and indeed every part Will spends in the hold -- is told purely from Violet's pov. It's of course particularly interesting in conjunction with what Violet thinks in her final chapter in DH, that Will knows a side of Tom she's unfamiliar with, that they have some kind of history he's never brought up.

Under normal circumstances, I'd assume it's not that deep -- most likely, he beat Will up, maybe interrogated him, but that's "all" (not to be too blasé about it, of course it's awful for Will).

But I think it's interesting that the necklace hasn't been taken away despite the fact that Tom must have seen it. Will laters thinks his attackers just weren't interested in that old thing, but idk, I think Tom (assuming maybe he wasn't part of the trio that chased after Will along with Matthew) would be smarter than this and have an eye for potentially significant artifacts. If he left it with Will, I think it must have been a deliberate choice.

Moreover, I wonder if they had an important conversation Will is concealing from us. Nothing that would have revealed too much new information (new to Will, at the time) I assume, but still, there must have been something.

She told herself that if Simon had a boy down here, he must have reason for it. He must be a prisoner or—or a petty thief, an urchin criminal, the paid flunky of one of Simon’s merchant rivals.

Violet is trying so hard to cling to her denial of what's going on here.

She was a similar age to Justice, perhaps twenty, her voice containing the hint of a French accent.

I saw a post recently that was like, wait, Justice is so young, but damn, I'm still thrown seeing it again here. He's so young! He should be at the club. With Marcus.

She knew what she had to do. For so long all she had wanted was to prove herself—to Tom, to her father, to Simon. But there were some things more important than that.

Violet <333 And not a moment to soon really:

The boy was still chained, and alone now, in the watery hold. He was breathing carefully, staying quiet in the dark with his head up, as if, even alone, he was trying not to show he was afraid.

It's so heartbreaking to see this. And I'm suddenly realizing that this is how Sarcean was originally supposed to die, in the oubliette. Alone, trapped in darkness, no allies, no hope.

“You don’t have a key,” he said. “I don’t need a key,” said Violet.

That was such a cool way to reveal it. And now Justice has joined them too! Showing how hard Stewards are to kill, given that he seems to have spent a considerable amount unconscious AND with his head under water.

[willswillpower]

Dark Rise - Chapter 3

Index

Violet! I'm so very fond of her; she's so earnest and brave and ready to take on everything head-on. Her friendship with Will is one of the highlights of the series for me.

And in a way it was, like a promise: Do well for Simon, please Simon, and this is what you will get.

Yeah, totally fucked is what you'll get. I've been listening to the Dark Heir audiobook these past couple of days, and was surprised to find that the brand is actually something fairly new -- the model for the brand was discovered only 8 years ago (as per Will's conversation with Kettering). It makes me wonder if this also coincides with Eleanor leaving London.

Watching, Violet swore to herself, I’ll be even younger.

OOF. Nice parallel with Cyprian there too (wait, I hope that's not foreshadowing for Violet deliberately getting the brand in book 3. Best case scenario, for Plot Reasons, she has to be connected to Will, and she does it because she trusts him as her friend. Worst case scenario, Sinclair does it. Or actually, Even Worse case scenario, her father does it. (Actually, does he have a brand... It never comes up, but probably?))

What also makes me sad though is that this is just one of the many ways Violet tries so desperately to fit in. We see what her life is like, rejected at home by Luisa, enduring racist insults on the docks and being chased away... and she seems to believe that becoming one of Simon's/Sinclair's people would put an end to all that, would finally give her a place where she truly belongs. It's like the Hand says at one point, that to Sinclair, your origin or gender or anything doesn't matter at all, as long as you can prove yourself. No wonder this appeals to her, no wonder she is so dedicated.

“I swear this oath to Simon,” said Tom, ritualistic words. “I am his loyal servant. I will obey and serve. Brand me.” 

Meanwhile Simon isn't even there. I mean, seriously, Tom is one of the most important people who could join him, and he doesn't even bother.

He’d tug one of her curls and say, “Violet, let’s go for a walk,” and take her out to a street vendor to buy her hot tea and a curranty roll, while inside his mother shouted at their father, Why do you have that girl living in this house? To humiliate me? To make me a laughingstock?

I really like Violet's relationship with Tom, she clearly means a lot to him too (more thoughts on Tom later, but for now I'll say I assume he doesn't know the truth.)

Lion? thought Violet, the strange word echoing in her, even as she realized they were talking about her brother.

God, it's so harrowing to see how deliberately ignorant Violet's father has kept her (and I assume Tom played along because he bought into the notion that "it's for her protection".)

[notprocrastinatingatalltoday]

Hi, okay, strap in, we're talking Shadow Kings

The Shadow Kings. We know they were kings before they became shadows. Now I wonder, how much of their person remains in the shadow?

(Yes we're told nothing remains but I'd like to call bullshit because really, what do they know of something that happend 10,000 years ago + how accurate is their information? Did they just believe what they wanted to believe? What was (morally) convenient for them?)

With a regular shadow, we've seen, it's not much, next to nothing. There was no more Marcus. But we're also told the Shadow Kings are much stronger.

But the Shadow Kings were far worse. Faster, stronger, and with a deadlier desire for destruction.

Now let's backtrack for just a second;

Marcus did want to destroy. He wanted to destroy Simon, his men and what he stood for. Wanted to destroy the Dark King. That sounds hefty, put like this, but it was their entire life mission. (This is not to say that was his only personality trait).

Marcus as a shadow did destroy. He destroyed a lot, almost everything. Not at his own will, not at his own (or the Steward's) command.

What if, instead of completely losing all sense of self, that destructive streak was kept? Harboured, even?

When the Shadow Kings are released from the stone, we have these lines:

Kill the Blood of the Lady. Kill her and end her line.

We thirst for destruction. We thirst to conquer. We thirst to kill!

All this we will give you. The world that was taken from you will be yours once again.

(not my point rn, but "once again"? did he (sarcean) rule? completely? at least for a little while?)

We also have this:

He was their maker. He was their master. They recognised him, and when he took control, they had to obey him, bound to him by their abhorrent bargain, made when they had drunk from the Cup.

All he mentions is a bargain, not what that bargain was. Strength, yes. Shadows at the end of their life, yes. But was there more to it?

I think it's safe to assume the Kings had their own want for destruction, the war must have been ongoing at that point, for them to take up such a bargain. Desperate times, desperate measures?

Anyway, onto the next part:

‘Return to the Stone!’

They wanted to fight. They wanted to kill and to conquer, to create a world where they could reign. But he was their monarch and he drove their darkness back, chasing it down with every atom of his will.

‘I am your King, and YOU WILL obey me.’

Their will doesn't align with Will's at all. Even after having told them to stop their path of destruction, to not kill Katherine, there's still a battle. A battle between what they want to do, versus what Will tells them to do. Will's words cannot have been less powerful than Simon's, not with "They recognised him, and when he took control, they had to obey him,...".

If Will had true and full control over the Shadow Kings, they should've obeyed his command immediately. They recognise him as their master, the one who controls them.

So I wonder, is there some left over force and desire for destruction from their person? Wrapped up in a shadow, controlled by (the line of) the Dark King? Is it that much harder to keep them innocuous? Because it goes against their (leftover) nature? A nature wrapped up in a form for the Dark King to harness and mold?

With a last inhuman scream, the two Shadow Kings were compelled, throwing themselves against his command but unable to fight it, forced down into the Shadow Stone.

They genuinly do not want to follow Will's command. And in order to not want something, there should be part of a person left in there, no? A mindless shadow has no will, no desire.

Could it be Sarcean's? Maybe. But Sarcean is now Will, in a way, so my point stands. The command should have been followed with no resistance.

I'm sure there's something to be said about their blood as well, since there's such heavy emphasis on goddamn everybody's blood, but alas. Maybe that's part of the reason they were able to 'resist' Will's order for a little longer?

Who knows

[willswillpower]

Dark Rise - Chapter 2

Index

And now the plot is catching up with Will while offering us another little glimpse at his life after his mother's death. Revisiting his circumstances really highlights how momentous being taken in by the Stewards was for Will.

How? Why are they here? What had given him away?

I don't necessarily need this to be explained in more detail or expect it to, Simon/Sinclair has his ways and the exact circumstances don't matter, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious at all. Maybe it will come up again.

without the first idea why they had killed her or what they wanted from him

This is one of the most harrowing things about the situation for me, that Will just has no idea why this is happening. Why his mother tried to kill him, why they have been on the run the whole time... He's barely even encountered magic for the first time.

Matthew's appearance is part of what makes Eleanor's past so intriguing. She has all these agents working for Simon. Is this a network she has built? Or that has been established across centuries?

Matthew Owens, a servant of his mother’s in their old house in London. Their first house, their first life, before they had moved to a series of different out-of-the-way places, his mother never telling him why, but increasingly anxious, wary of strangers, watching the road.

Another mystery! When was this "first house, first life"? Before Elizabeth was born? After, with Will not counting the first years for whatever reason? Did Eleanor leave Katherine at the inn during the first couple of years of her life, so Matthew never knew that she also had a daughter? In general, I assume that Will and Katherine were both easily convinced that the other was someone else's child, whether they actually lived under the same roof for a longer period of time or really just during a scant few months.

It's also interesting to see what this implies about Eleanor's life/family in general. Not necessarily Sinclair-rich, but reasonably well-off? And we can possibly infer that she and Mary were raised by their mother, given hat Eleanor was clearly aware of the magical world (and seemed to be acquainted with the Elder Steward.) Did they spend their childhood on the run? Has there been a feud across centuries between the two families, or was there an uneasy truce that was ultimately broken by Sinclair?

I cannot return when I am called to fight So I will have a child

This book is full of quotes that get recontextualized throughout the story, but this is quite a big one. A message to Will indeed.

For a moment, it was as if the S was reaching for him from out of a deep pit.

AU where Will ends up taking control of the attacker here, realizing he has powers and how they work, averting his capture...

“You’ve had an easy life, haven’t you.” The man raised his foot to nudge at Will briefly with his toe. “A mama’s boy, clinging to your mama’s skirts. That’s all done now.”

🥺

[sinallday]

I cannot stop thinking about how Will (without hesitation) gave his mother the knife when she asked him to.

[notprocrastinatingatalltoday]

Hello hello, an Elizabeth thought for you this time

Dark Rise, page 392

‘You’re lying. You’re lying to me. You’re lying to everyone. And tonight – you’re planning something. What?’

Now she isn't incorrect, quite frankly she's more correct than most could even begin to comprehend. BUT. Will is indeed planning something. Is it good? Depends on your outlook. Did he go with his main goal to stop the Shadow Kings from escaping the stone and wreaking havoc, destroying the world as they know it with everyone on it? Or did he go to kill Simon? Were they equally important?

(Fun questions, not actually my point rn)

It's just one side of the coin Elizabeth sees. Yes he is lying, yes he is sneaking, but in the end part of the reason he did that is to save the world. Or at least try to. To stop something horrible from happening.

And Elizabeth doesn't see that. Granted, she is a child, she probably lacks most of the mental capacity needed for such complex matters. But regardless, I'd like to think how this could reflect the old world. Where the Lady only saw one side of what Sarcean was doing, and not what he tried to achieve with said doings.

[notprocrastinatingatalltoday]

Actually, on that same note

‘You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?’ said Elizabeth.

You already know where I'm going with this

[willswillpower]

Honestly, one of my favorite things about people (especially Elizabeth) talking about Will is how often they aren't wrong. Technically. He is lying! He is a sneak! It's all true, but it's also not the whole picture.

(My very favorite instance of it though is Visander telling Phillip that "the dark king will kill his entire family". He's already started, and Visander isn't even aware of it!)

[notprocrastinatingatalltoday]

back again,

Dark Rise, page 399

At once, Bowhill disappeared, and he was somewhere else – an ancient battlefield under a red sky, surrounded by the clashes and cries of fighting. Before him towered a true Dark Guard in full armour, not Simon’s poor imitation playing dress-up with a rusty gauntlet. It was the armour the Remnants wore, whole and unblemished. And now he confronted its bearer. A terrifying fighter of immense power, with an armoured hand around his throat. They were locked together, the Dark Guard’s eyes burning into his.

Is that really what happened? The Dark Guard strangling Sarcean? Or is Will's mind playing tricks on him? It's very plausible, he's not in the best of mind rn, PTSD (CPTSD) all around, flashbacks hitting him everywhere. So it's a real possibility Will's mind in reshaping a memory into something that's happening to him now.

But what if it isn't? What if the Dark Guard really did strangle Sarcean? Why did he do that? Were those Sarcean's orders? Who was the Dark Guard?

The current Remnant of the Dark Guard isn't able to touch Will. Hurt him. How does that work, when in the vision a powerful hand is around his throat?

So many questions

[notprocrastinatingatalltoday]

So here was talk about Katherine and Will potentially acting out scenes from the past, and I've got to add to that:

Dark Rise, page 383

It felt important. As if what Will could tell her was more important than anything else. As if she had to know it.

Maybe that's just a little something Will has to him, making people want to listen. But before that, there's also this:

Her heart started beating in a different way when she realised Will had taken her ungloved hands in his and was simply holding them.

We know the Lady and Sarcean had a night together, and while this is definitely not a night together, it feels close enough. Why the specific mention of ungloved if it wasn't important to her? If it didn't feel at least a little indecent, a little risqué if you will.

What if the Sarcean told the Lady something, potentially (most probably) something she didn't want to hear, and it escalated?

After their night together, when the Lady had called Sarcean to the garden, she had called him there as a trap.

When Katherine learns who Will is, her first instinct is to kill him. That feels eerily similar.

(Now guaranteed I'll come back to this because my memory isn't so good I remember what was said about them exactly, nor did I finish my reread just yet, but I'll burn that bridge when I get there)

[notprocrastinatingatalltoday]

Well I'm back already, so strap in

It was easier to speak in the dark, words that might not have found their way out in daylight. He’d given her something true, she could feel it. She owed him something true in return, words that could only be spoken in the dark.

‘I thought there was a life that I wanted,’ she heard herself saying. ‘It was jewels, and gowns, and pretty fashionable things. Lord Crenshaw would have given me that. But I couldn’t be with him. Not once I knew what he was.’

‘No, of course not,’ said Will, with a strange half smile. ‘Once you knew what he was – what he really was – you couldn’t bear it.’

The first sentence, It was easier to speak in the dark, words that might not have found their way out in daylight.

They're talking about honesty, a thing they cannot do in the light. Could that allure to a thing they cannot do 'in front of' the Sun King?

Maybe, perhaps, this whole conversation is more a mirror of the Lady's and Sarcean's night together than my previous mention.

What if the Lady was unhappy with the Sun King? What if she found out what he had been doing, potentially even 'with' Sarcean?

And maybe she does confront him (TSK), and he tells her it's Sarceans fault, he's scheming. He's the only with the dark powers, how could I be the one to do it? Order it? You've known me, he is an outsider.

In Dark Heir, we have this snippet:

‘Ensorcelling the king,’ said Sarcean. ‘Is that what he told you?’

So some form of confrontation did happen, whether TSK came to her or vice versa. And of course the Sun King twists whatever happened to fit his narrative. Why wouldn't he? He's probably gotten what he needed from Sarcean, whatever that may be.

Feels a bit like confirmation to me, a betrayal on many sides

[3viesvib3]

Concerning Devon, is he really on the side of the dark king (Will)? Is he working with Sinclair because he doesn’t believe Will has what it takes to bring back the old world and rid it from humans?

I say this because he is the first to discover Sarcean has already returned, yet, has not alerted Simon or Sinclair. You’d presume with the amount of hassle they’re going through to bring back the dark king he would notify them. Maybe he chose to let Will do his own thing, but it doesn’t make sense. If he really believed in the dark king why not follow him? Has he told Sinclair the dark king is back and if so, have they both concluded that he doesn’t have what it takes to restore the old world back into its “rightful image.” Or is he playing Sinclair??

It honestly seems Devon doesn’t really care as long as humans are gone from the land.

As with Sinclair, what is he playing at? I thought they wanted the lady’s descendants dead in order to raise the dark king. They have Elizabeth and “Katherine” and rather than kill them, Prescott quickly marries Philip and Katherine fully knowing that Visander is present. Why? Is there a larger plan or did he plan to bring them to Italy and kill them there and watch him rise??? Is Sinclair planning to take Sarcean’s powers for himself because it seems very likely.

[willswillpower]

I think for Devon, it might be that Will isn't fully "the Dark King" yet. He might have approached him to join him at Bowhill, and then he realized that Will is trying to work against the Dark King's original goals. So as far as he's concerned, the Dark King hasn't returned yet, and he needs to continue biding his time, under the assumption that Sarcean has set things up in a way to fully return*

I also think he hasn't told Simon or Sinclair because initially, he just directly wants to join Will, but after that, it might be more convenient to let things play out, especially if it means he'll get to take a look around Undahar. He might even distrust Sinclair to some extent because I doubt Sinclair shares Simon's wild optimism about ruling by the Dark King's side as his equal. I agree that he'd want to usurp him, and Devon most likely knows this. It would be inconvenient for him to draw even more attention to Will at this stage.

And as for marrying off Visander to Phillip, I agree with the theory I've seen floating around that Simon misunderstood the "blood of the lady" prophecy. It's not about killing her, it's about their lines joining (and incidentally, I think Sarcean might have planned for exactly this to happen, to avoid the risk of being reborn completely at random, but in an environment primed with knowledge about his world. (This theory also presumes that Will's father might actually be Simon, even with Devon denying it. Or potentially Sinclair, but Simon seems to work out better age-wise. Either way, mirroring the Lady and Sarcean falling in love in the past, and then that brief affair abruptly ends when Simon kills Mary.) So this would be Sinclair's attempt at bringing him back.

Another suggestion is that he just wanted them married off for a convenient excuse to whisk Visander away from Katherine's family because he might be useful potentially, but I kinda prefer the idea of Sarcean having a specific plan in mind.

* Now, as for Sarcean's "full" return, this is basically assuming that by putting the collar on James, Sinclair has accidentally awakened Anharion in him, memories and all, and there's something that would awaken Sarcean in Will in a similar way (I've seen someone suggest it might have been the brand, so maybe Cyprian destroying it isn't so bad after all.)

[willswillpower]

Dark Rise - Chapter 1

Index

Full disclosure, the first time I read the book, I struggled a little to connect to Will (and I know that I wasn't alone with that). Of course that's the intention in a way, he's supposed to be kind of mysterious and ambiguous to the reader too, and only "opens up" to us in the second book. Well, now I completely adore him and just want good things for him, but alas, everything has to be at its absolute worst first!

It's so interesting to see Will playing his role as just a harmless dock worker so successfully. In retrospect, there are signs it's an act, but they're still hidden pretty well.

The rope whipping up through the iron rings released all of it, snapping canvas, barrels rolling, tumbling. Right toward Murphy. No—!

But no matter how cagey and hellbent on revenge he is, I do like that he still cares about not getting others caught up in his schemes. A loose rope is a good metaphor for potential loss of control.

As always, I also wonder how this can be read as a parallel to Sarcean, how he might have lost control while caught up in his desire for vengeance.

The mirror scene reads quite different in retrospect of course, and I'm wondering two things: 1) Will we see the mirror again? (Perhaps this time, Elizabeth will look? Or Visander? But I'd hope it's Elizabeth really, because her connection to the Lady is the least explored/the least immediately apparent, shared powers aside.)

2) If it's truly a two-way thing... When did this happen in the Lady's timeline? Somewhere in the years between Sarcean escaping the oubliette and the meeting with the Queen and Visander, after the Sun King fled to the Hall? Because given that Will remembering the place, I assume this is where Sarcean and the Lady had their one night together, at the Sun Palace. And presumably, Sinclair's men managed to dig out the mirror at some point. in Umbria. Did this interaction with Will inspire the Lady to have a child, to continue the battle? Since she saw this youthful version of Sarcean and realized that one day, he'd truly be back, just as he threatened? For that matter, did she keep the mirror, did she try to destroy it, did she try to use it in some other way... When/if it appears again and someone else contacts here, will it be the same version they'll encounter, or will it be her at a later stage?

3) Interesting that Visander knows her as the Queen (and I'll have more to say about the gap between what Visander knows/believes and what others know/believe later on), but in the present day, she's "just" the Lady. Did she abandon the title herself, or was there some conflict with the Sun King? Was the title taken from her?

[willswillpower]

Different ways to be a "true" Steward?

Only a true Steward can walk past the wards Nathaniel set up, so we can assume that he was a true Steward himself, one who had taken his vows. As presumably was his mentor, Ouxanas, the "High Steward" (a position that no longer seems to exist in the present day; maybe it was folded into the role of the Elder Steward, who also existed at the time. Or potentially, there were multiple "High Stewards", who were in charge of various missions, but only one Elder Steward).

Ettore is needed to let them pass through the wards, because he's taken the vows. This confirms that Ettore is a true Steward.

Another feature of being a true Steward is immunity to the white death. That's why the group talk about sending Ettore down the Oubliette to retrieve the staff, because the Shadow in him would prevent possession.

We see that confirmed later, when everyone except him (and James) has died of the white death.

Also, most notably of course, Cyprian drinks from the cup and makes it to the Oubliette unharmed, because of the Shadow inside him.

So. How did Ouxanas get possessed then? And for that matter, how did apparently hundreds of Stewards succumb to the white death? Did they not have Shadows in them?

What I'm gathering from this is that originally, Stewards didn't drink from the Cup. Impossible to tell at this stage whether they had the same level of strength, gained through different means, but whatever vows were made, they were magically binding (thus allowing them to pass through wards), but didn't actually require possession.

Was this the event that led to them starting to drink from the cup, to be immune to Shadows? But also, what is the other way to become a Steward? Is it still something that can be achieved? (Would this avenue be open to an "outsider" like Violet, so that she, Cyprian and Grace could start a new Steward Order, one that's less militant and exclusive?)

Technically,there's also an alternate explanation, that Nathaniel was able to set up the wards without being a true Steward himself, that maybe drinking from the cup happened under much more restricted circumstances back then, and there were more roles than just Novitiate, (fully-realized) Steward and Janissary, but why would they send a bunch of not fully realized Stewards to guard a place as important as Undahar? (Though maybe that is why they send 1200 of them.)

So yeah, until further confirmation, I'll continue to assume that Stewards didn't originally drink from the cup, that's something that was introduced at a later point. (And then there's also the question of how it ties into the original cup bargain, the circumstances of which are still pretty nebulous too, but that's a thought for another day.)

[willswillpower]

Dark Rise - Prologue

Really interesting to see we're starting out with James's POV, giving us one of our few glimpses of Marcus as well. Here, James is pretty much at his worst: resigned to his fate and wrapped in an armor of arrogance and cruelty. Obviously, it's partly an act, he needs to keep proving himself to Simon and Sinclair while looking for the Collar, but to some extent, he's also lashing out.

Now, as for my pet theory for their relationship, I wonder if there's a chance that Marcus was one of the Stewards (or the Steward) who "ran James out of the hall", but to protect him from Jannick, who clearly had not a shred of mercy to spare for him. I wonder if that may be the reason why James is so merciless towards Marcus now... since he also doesn't know that Marcus was trying to change Jannick's mind and sees him as one of the main aggressors against him.

“All those vows. You’ve never really lived at all. Don’t you wish you’d been with a woman? Or a man.” “Like you?” “Those rumors,” said James evenly, “aren’t true.”

So much going on in these few lines.

Do we assume that Marcus and Justice actually ended up sleeping with each other, or was Marcus taken before they even had the chance to do so? Because in Dark Heir, Marcus writes in his diary that the last thing he remembers is Justice's hand on his cheek as he offers him a night together, which I'll interpret as "they didn't even get there". (So I guess we can assume that Justice might have been in the inn, looking for a room, while Marcus was tending to the horses outside...) So, if we assume James was generally aware of their relationship, since he does get pretty judgmental about Cyprian not realizing how Emery felt about him... yeah, that's twisting the knife there.

And then there's Marcus twisting it right back with the comment about Simon. On a first read, the context is still a bit vague of course, though in retrospect I do like it as a way of showing that queerness is normalized in this world (not quite on the level of Captive Prince of course though). But at the same time, one of the first impressions of James we get is him denying that he has this kind of relationship with Simon, something he's unsurprisingly very adamant about whenever it comes up. Even at a point here where playing it up might serve his purpose of further knife-twisting. Honestly though, every time I re-read it, it strikes me anew how messed up the entire situation is for poor James.

“I beg you,” said Marcus. He said the words like there was a system of honor in the world, like all you had to do was appeal to a person’s better nature and goodness would prevail.

Let's not think about how James has learned this lesson the hard way.

—for a single terrifying moment the iron groaned, shifting—

Interesting that James is terrified of this. And I don't think that it's because he's afraid that Marcus would be stronger than him, I think it's really more about the prospect of actively fighting Marcus.

“The boy’s alive.” James felt hotly resentful that it made him stop.

Introducing James's ambivalent relationship to the concept of Will. I like to think that in calling out Marcus's hope here, he's also partly calling out himself, because despite everything, he has to suppress his reaction to his words. I believe there's a small part of James's that also still believes, and he tries to mask it with sarcasm when he confronts Will face to face for the first time.

So, off to an interesting start! I'll go back to this scene when Marcus's diary shows up in the second book.

[earl-cerulean]

The name Will

Spoilers for the end of Dark Rise!!!! .

.

. Can we talk about the awesome choice of Will as the name for Sarceans reincarnation? It is so ominous once you know. It is his will. He will come back. And c.s. pacat keeps using the word troughout the book. Even on her instagram post: «The Dark will rise, who will fall? Who will stand?» The will of someone past is so important to this book. And still, Will has his own agenda, his own will. But how much of it is really his own? Altogether quite fantastic name choice mhm yep yep

[willswillpower]

Pictured: Will's easy smile

[willswillpower]

Can you imagine this scene from Devon's pov though.

You're at your shitty retail job which you've taken up ironically, and suddenly the evil overlord who's destroyed your world once and will destroy it again (and this time you'll help him) walks in.

And he puts on the crappiest, most obvious "I'm just a harmless curious customer, here to look at your wares" act possible for fuck knows what reason, jangling a purse that you're pretty sure is stuffed with rocks.

You start hinting at your true identity in case he's here for you, but you seem to be talking past each other. Does he recognize you? Does he even know who he is?

In the end, you decide he's prooobably here for Anharion, and if that's the case, who are you to interfere with whatever these two have going on.

[willswillpower]

From chapter 7, Dark Heir

My favorite thing is that after this entire scene of Will not-fluffing James's pillow — tucking him in in front of the fire, making him drink water, talking gently to him, and brushing his hair from his face — this is the first indication that anyone else (or indeed, everyone else) is even in the room with them. They get so caught up in each other ❤️