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teresChapter Thirty-Six (Part I) | Table of Contents | Chapter Thirty-Seven (Part I)
SCSF: A good day, everyone, and welcome back to BattleAxe! Last time, we spent some more time with the Avar, and we saw them react to earlier events. For the reader post:
On the first part of this chapter, Chessy notes that “quern stones” are an actual tool for grinding. I have amended it there already, but I did think it worth noting.
She further notes the absence of a harvest festival, which I would indeed be expecting from the Avar. I see that the NRSG already noted that, too… Come to think of it, as Chessy says, it might just be a “too much of a harvest festival” and thus not allowed, because it would be too Acharite, and too agricultural. I would not be surprised.
She then notes that Pease asking Azhure who she “dreams of” is all too personal a question to ask. I suppose that Douglass wanted to show us Azhure being uncomfortable; while this might work with a group of friends, it does indeed overshoot its mark when applied here.
PPP: 364
(Though it is not relevant here, I did talk with Epistler about some future plot points, in case that interests you.)
We last left off with Raum confirming that Faraday was chosen as Tree Friend. There is silence for a while as the other Avar think this over, and we get told more about Tree Friend. Ever since the Wars of the Axe, when the “southern Avarinheim” was destroyed and the Avar were driven back, it has been “legend among the Avar” that Tree Friend will appear one day. Tree Friend will then lead them back out into Achar and allow them to “re-establish themselves and the Avarinheim on the barren plains that [run] down to Widewall Bay”.
That tracks with what we have heard, mostly because we know the larger part of it already. I do appreciate that the Avar have a legend of their own, though I have some problems with this. First, let me show the map…
I was just going to complain about the talk of the “southern Avarinheim”, but that is clearly a fair description, so… that brings me to the “barren plains”. As we have seen already, the plains of Arcness and the Seagrass Plains are not barren at all. Further north, we have the WildDog Plains, which cannot be all that barren if they support so many dogs (their prey needs to live off something, after all). I can see the southern plains of Arcness, bordering on Widewall Bay, be barren, since they would be quite dry because of the climate, but they would hardly be wastelands.
IYES: 37 (+2)
So then we learn that Tree Friend is supposed to re-establish both the Avar and the Avarinheim. I have no trouble with the former, but the latter does trouble me, since that would entail destroying all these plains as they are now. …I think that is another reason for the insistence that the plains are “barren”; if they are, that means that forest can be planted on them without destroying anything, and that makes replanting the Avarinheim quite a bit more convenient. That fits with the “deforestation leaves never-healing wastelands” idea I talked about earlier, since replanting the forest would presumably “heal” those. I do not think Douglass thought this way, but it is the ideas I am getting from her treatment of it, and it is just… not how anything works. (I might just have liked it if she had actually implemented this, but that was not to be.)
Going back to the topic at hand, replanting the Avarinheim is certainly a possibility, but it would have to be done with care, especially since the conditions on the Avarinheim’s former area have changed quite a bit in the meantime. So how will that be done? It would also need to be done with regard for the plains, as they are certainly not “barren” and pasting forest over them would quite destroy their ecosystem. How will that be prevented? Then there are the people who are living on those plains, like the Renkins, and the Seagrass Plains yielding grain for the whole of Achar. Will those people be evicted when Tree Friend comes? Where will the grain for Achar come from then, and is it alright to possible expose more land to agriculture?
I think that could make for a quite interesting plot, if Douglass were willing to answer those questions. As it is… Douglass will ignore most of this, though we will also not be getting a full-scale reforestation. (And most of these problems would not be problems all that much if this took place decades after the Wars of the Axe.)
Back to the present, the Avar do not like that Tree Friend is an Acharite, “of the race that had both slaughtered the Avar and the Avarinheim”, and find it “unthinkable!” Once again, this strong reaction would work better if there had not been a thousand years between the Wars of the Axe and now. Also… I would think that Tree Friend would ideally be quite familiar with the Acharites, especially those of the plains, or even hold power among them, to ensure that leading the Avar and Avarinheim back will not go wrong. If Grindle, for example, were Tree Friend, he would not have much resources to keep the people of Achar from attacking the Avar when they appear. If Tree Friend were Acharite, in contrast, the Acharites might listen… and if Tree Friend is a Lady of Skarabost and the Duchess of Ichtar, they would have quite some means to make people accept the Avar.
I had not put much thought to that earlier, but Faraday being Tree Friend is a quite lucky break, because she does have quite some authority, and she is specifically royalty in Skarabost, the area where the Avar would first be coming into if they spread. So Tree Friend may be an Acharite, but she is one of the best choices they could have had in any case… though I am quite sure Douglass completely ignores this.
FYRP: 126 (+2)
Well, Raum can that the Avar are thinking about this. He goes on with his story, knowing that they do not “really want to hear the words”. After he tested Faraday, he bonded and presented her to the Mother, like he did with Shra. Then they went to the Sacred Grove, where the Horned Ones were, who “greeted [Faraday] and called her Tree Friend”. Raum pauses to let everyone absorb this news. We cut to GoldFeather, who naturally has less trouble with it. She knows that the Avar “place[] all the hopes of their race in the long-hoped-for Tree Friend”, so finding out that Tree Friend is an Acharite is “a hard blow for them to absorb”. Yes, thank you for repeating what we just heard!
We Understand Already: 26
She then thinks about Faraday and remembers that Raum said something to Axis about her, which she cannot quite remember (he said that she lives, which I would think would not be that hard to remember). Azhure is quite mystified, and GoldFeather indicates to her that she will explain later. Then she looks back at Raum, thinking that “[s]trange days [are] upon them”. Ooh, ominous! …Or it would be if we had not known that already for half the book and are now waiting for something to happen with that.
After a bit Barsarbe reluctantly asks where Tree Friend is now. Raum says that she is travelling to Gorkenfort, at which GoldFeather looks at him with hard eyes, and that she is to marry Duke Borneheld there. At this, GoldFeather “[gives] a strangled moan, her hands flying to her mouth, her eyes distressed”, which makes everyone look at her. I can certainly imagine why; after all, Borneheld is still alive, and we have seen she feels guilt about him, not to mention that Faraday’s situation might remind her of her own with Searlas. So this is not badly done.
Azhure asks her what her is, concerned because she has “never seen GoldFeather anything less than totally composed” (which does fit with what we have seen of her so far). GoldFeather then grabs Azhure’s hand and holds it so tight that “she crunche[s] the bones of Azhure’s fingers” (which I hope is hyperbole). Azhure finds it uncomfortable, but says nothing. Grindle then asks what is going on, and we cut to GoldFeather’s POV, as she “[fights] to compose herself”.
She tells us that “some of the Avar, mostly Banes” (who specifically?), know that she comes from a “high-born Acharite family’, but none knows who she really was. After all, she has “buried her past completely” when she came to live with the Icarii. But now there is Borneheld. Before this day, she has “hardly thought of him in almost thirty years”, then she feared he might be BattleAxe, and now Raum has mentioned him.
Um, if she has hardly thought of him since she came to live with the Icarii, how does she feel so much guilt about him? Her reaction, and her earlier worrying, do not quite fit with her never having thought about Borneheld in the meantime, either. I just do not believe it; sure, she may have tried to leave her past behind her, but what we see clearly shows that that did not wholly succeed in the meantime.
PPP: 365
She thinks this is “[h]ardly coincidence” and wonders if the Prophecy will pull her into “its frightening entanglements”, too. That is certainly a valid concern… though I am not quite feeling why she is so reluctant. It is probably supposed to be because she left her past behind her, and does not want to be dragged into it again, but we have not heard just what was so terrible about it, and playing a part in the Prophecy does not have to mean she will interact with her past. Douglass needs to explain it a little better, I think.
So, she finally tries to reassure the group with a smile, and says she knew Borneheld’s father once. He was a “hard and humourless man, more comfortable with his enemy at the point of his sword than wasting time in needless pleasantries”, and she does not imagine Borneheld will be anything less. Disguising her reaction as worry over what might happen to Faraday is reasonably smart, and we are also supposed to believe that Borneheld is very bad, after all. I do wonder just what enemies Searlas is supposed to have had; sure, I can come up with some, but we should probably not be guessing. She finishes by saying that the Prophecy “moves in mysterious ways” and thinks to herself that the Duchess of Ichtar will once again “become friend to the Forbidden”. I think that is Douglass drawing parallels, GoldFeather (not that I do not appreciate it).
Raum looks at GoldFeather, “concerned by her sudden pallor”, but he knows he needs to tell still more news, which “[will] confuse, perhaps frighten” the group even more. Well, we were able to endure it the first time, so I think this will not be all that bad. So Raum explains that Tree Friend is not the strangest news, and as they know, he and Shra were captured in Smyrton and held “for four days in foul conditions”, which brought Shra near death. I… think the lack of food and drink and the beatings are more important than the “foul conditions”? Yes, the former is probably included, but some specificity could hardly hurt here.
PPP: 366
Pease is shocked at this and holds Shra tight, who is, by now, “awake and listening to Raum avidly”. So, on the fourth day, the villagers brought the BattleAxe, and Shra was “no more than an hour from death”. Barsarbe wants to break in now, but Raum holds up a hand and tells her to wait until he is done speaking. He held Pease in his arms and watched Axis walk toward them, and he thought they were dead, but then… Axis “asked to hold Shra”. Pease asks if Raum let him, “her voice angry and hostile”, which I can understand quite well.
Raum says that she was not there, and he saw “compassion, not hatred” in Axis’s eyes, so he gave Shra to him. He held her for a moment, and then… the BattleAxe, “the one man [they] have all been taught to hate and fear without thinking”, recreated Shra before his eyes. Hmm… Shra was going to die anyway, so I cannot much blame Raum very much for giving Shra to Axis, but he should not be dismissing Pease quite so readily; she is Shra’s mother, after all, and, like he says, they have all been taught to fear the BattleAxe! On that matter… why are the Avar “taught to hate and fear” the BattleAxe like this after a thousand years? I can see them being taught how to recognise the BattleAxe, and the Axe-Wielders, of course, but this makes little sense when the Axe-Wielders have not fought the Avar for hundreds of years.
FYRP: 127
The Avar are now “stunned into complete silence” (as they might well be), and look to Shra and back to Raum. Raum says he has “never heard such power” from an Enchanter before, not even from StarDrifter, the “most powerful alive today”. In the body of the BattleAxe lies the “soul of an Icarii Enchanter”. Yes, Axis is stronger than the most powerful Enchanter; we get that he is totally Awesome, Douglass. Also, it is… not great to hear about StarDrifter again, to say the least.
We cut back to GoldFeather, who is “battl[ing] to control the emotions within her”. She realises that it is not just Axis’s resemblance to Priam that makes him so familiar, but also that he has “the facial bone structure and the eyes of an Icarii”, and what she thought was his arrogance caused by the Seneschal’s ignorance is actually the “natural demeanour of an Icarii Enchanter”. Then a “crazy thought” drifts out of her subconsciousness, “so disturbing that it threaten[s] to drive her over the edge of sanity”, but she thrusts it back “into the darkness where it belong[s]”. She thinks about how she will not consider it, since he “died!”.
Who do you think you are fooling, Douglass? It is very clear by now that GoldFeather was once Rivkah and that she thinks the BattleAxe might be Axis, her son… but she still does not come out and say it! At this point, it’s hindering our insight into Rivkah, even.
This is What the Mystery: 29
Let me look further… So the Icarii have a different “facial bone structure” and eyes than the Acharites? That is good to know, though it is quite useless without us knowing just what it looks like… which would be a great way to indicate that someone has Icarii heritage without saying it explicitly.
FYRP: 128 (since these differences would be used to mark Icarii, and it helps to know what they are)
Then… I thought that his arrogance lay in dishonouring Raum? Dishonouring Banes is not a “demeanour” of any kind, Douglass.
PPP: 367
That aside, if Axis’s behaviour during their meeting is the “natural demeanour” of an Enchanter, that… does not say great things about the culture of the Icarii. But it seems like we are supposed not to see it like that, so…
Can’t Argue With Icarii: 10
Then we have more Drama with GoldFeather thinking she will “go crazy” if she thinks about Axis still living. A word of advice: if your story’s understanding of mental illness is about as nuanced as Lovecraft’s, do more research into it! This (and actually, all the talk about “madness” so far) is so very much not how anything works that it is almost hilarious. (I do seriously wonder if she has much experience suppressing such thoughts and if so, why…)
Finally, GoldFeather deduces that Axis is the BattleAxe (within half a day, no less!) and she is horrified… because her son has become the BattleAxe, I suppose? I do not quite know what is going on here yet.
Back with the others… Barsarbe asks what Axis being the BattleAxe means, and how it could be, while twisting her hands in her lap and looking “distressed”. …I do not quite like how Barsarbe is the only one of the Avar who seems to be so distressed about all this, especially given the pettiness we have already had. And yes, this is the opposite of what she was supposed to be bad for before, but I do find it quite clear.
Petty Ain’t the Word for You: 53
Raum “fold[s] her hands in his own” (that strikes me as a bit presumptuous), and says they will need to present it to the Yuletide Meet; the sooner the Icarii and Avar can discuss it, the better. Well, that is solid advice. Grindle agrees but is concerned. After all, they will need to start for the meeting place within a few days, so will Raum be able to travel? Raum gets determined, and says he will need to manage. If they make him “some crutches”, he should be able to keep up. You should make them quite sturdy and be sure to keep clear of the terrain, then.
Helm (Grindle’s oldest child, for reference) says that they could make a sled; pulling Raum would be no trouble, since the paths are clear “most of the way to the north” (so the Avar are keeping the snow out of the forest). Grindle looks at Helm with “affection and pride”, and compliments him, saying that he will make for a fine clan leader one day. Helm swells with pride, and his sisters “gaze[] at him admiringly”. Fleat nods, “clearly proud of her son”. …It is a good solution, to be sure, but it is hardly the great accomplishment everyone is making it out to be.
Godmode Engaged: 10 (I doubt this can hurt)
Azhure breaks in awkwardly, not wanting to speak, but driven by her uncertainty about her situation. She asks if she can travel with them, since she cannot go back to Smyrton now, and we are told that Grindle let her stay until Raum told his story, but her position is not yet resolved. Barsarbe looks at her “consideringly” and says that it might be best if she says exactly why the villagers would not want her back. I do understand that they want to know if they can trust Azhure, but if you put it this way… it is obviously because Azhure has fled to the Forbidden.
PPP: 368
Azhure is rightly worried that the Avar will not understand “the circumstances surrounding [Hagen’s] death”, as Barsarbe already reacted badly to GoldFeather suggesting that Azhure had used violence to free Raum. She looks about the group, feeling their eyes on her and “feeling very alone”. She turns to GoldFeather, but she is too preoccupied with thinking about Axis to help out. So she first says that she helped Raum and Shra escape, which the villagers would not want her back for to begin with.
She then looks at her hands, “unconsciously cleaning imaginary blood” from under her fingernails (which would work better if she had had bloodied hands), unable to look anyone in the eye. She says that they would not welcome her either for having “mistakenly caused the death” of Hagen and for having knocked Belial unconscious. She looks at the Avar again, hoping they will understand, and says that she was desperate to help Raum and Shra, before begging them to understand. …I would have liked to see more emotion about Hagen’s death from her, but I suppose that is not to be.
We then get this:
But her own guilt about Hagen’s death and Belial’s injury shone from her face and hardened Barsarbe’s heart.
“Wanton violence always results in heartbreak, Azhure.” Barsarbe’s voice was cold. “Your actions caused his death. Even though the act was not premeditated, it is still murder.” The Avar, as wild as they were, abhorred physical violence, let alone murder; any brutal behaviour was extraordinarily rare among them.
Credit to Douglass, this does have its intended effect of Azhure’s attempt at misunderstanding misfiring and her presumably feeling even worse. I cannot imagine that she feels much better after being called a murderer, after all!
The big problem with this, though, is that Barsarbe’s reaction makes no sense! Azhure clearly does not think that what she did was right, and this “hardens Barsarbe’s heart”? And then she thinks that Azhure needs to be told that it was murder?? It is certainly heartless, and an awful thing to say, but why does she ever think that Azhure does not know it is bad?! Beyond that, Azhure did not say that she used “wanton violence”, and, in any case, Barsarbe should know better than to make such groundless accusations. But I suppose she is Bad now, so we get this.
Petty Ain’t the Word for You: 54
PPP: 369
All of this might work if Azhure had stabbed Hagen to death in a fit of anger, since what Barsarbe says is roughly sound in and of itself, but here… I get the idea that this is in part Douglass wanted to use some grand language, because it does sound good. For the rest of it… maybe you should not be talking about how “wild” the Avar are, Douglass. Also, while I can accept that “brutal behaviour” is rare among the Avar, I cannot help but remember that the Bane-making ritual entails a quite brutal sacrifice. Finally, you want “especially” instead of “let alone”.
FYRP: 128
PPP: 370
That “wild as they were” in particular is practically “noble savage”; I suppose Douglass did not think about this, given how minor it is, but it is still quite unfortunate. I also do not exactly know what to make of the focus on physical violence; it is perfectly possible to hurt others without doing anything physical, after all, and this seems like it might encourage the Avar to turn a blind eye to emotional abuse, for example.
At hearing this, Azhure hangs her head, “too ashamed to meet Barsarbe’s eyes”. I can imagine that very well, and I think she should probably be having a full-on breakdown, given how bad she felt at “killing” Hagen. Also… I would expect the other Avar to react to this, either to have the same reaction as Barsarbe, or to point out that she has no evidence for her accusation of murder. Yes, that is probably because that would “get in the way” of the scene Douglass wants to have, but it still bothers me… not in the least because it means that Barsarbe’s accusation goes mostly ignored. Accusing someone of murder without any evidence for it is not a good thing, after all.
Gold-Star Worldbuilding: 89 (this ought to be a big deal for the Avar)
Morals for Thee But Not for Me: 111 (for lack of a better place to put it)
So Azhure says that Hagen was a “violent man” who “abused and maltreated” her since her mother ran away. She did not mean to kill him, but she was afraid of what he “would do to Shra”, because he… At this point, I would bring up that he stood with a knife over Shra and was ready to strike, but Azhure decides to relate it to how Hagen abused her. She pauses, naturally “unwilling to show these people what she [has] never shown or spoken of to anyone else”, but she is just desperate for them to understand “why she had taken the foolhardy actions she had”. She tells them to look and think that if she has to, she will.
So Azhure is now going to lay bare the abuse inflicted on her for everyone to see, for nothing but Drama. I find that in quite poor taste, especially given that lack of care we have had for Azhure’s abuse, not to mention that this would be an awful experience for Azhure. She has just left Hagen behind, and now she is reminded of his abuse in full force, before an audience of people she barely knows, and who might not even react well! (And that is not to mention that she has always hidden it, so having anyone see it would not be nice.) As before, this is all too much to put on Azhure, and Douglass does not seem to realise how serious it is.
And, of course, she could easily say that Hagen threatened Shra; the proof of Shra being in danger does not have to come from her own abuse. Also, what “foolhardy” actions? She tried to save someone who was about to get killed! In fact… this, along with “if I have to, I will”, feels quite like something she could have developed from Hagen’s abuse; she might well default to assuming she is wrong and push herself to do things she would not normally do. If this were intentional, I would quite like it, but since it is probably not… it feels on a certain level like Douglass invoking Hagen’s abuse to get Azhure to do what she wants, and I do not like it.
Ill Logic: 208
So she starts fumbling with “the fastenings at the back of her dress”. GoldFeather rouses herself enough to push Azhure’s hand aside and unfasten “the gown” herself. We get some description of her folding it back, and she is “startled at what she [sees]”. She tells the others to look, and then “twist[s] the woman’s upper body around with her hands so that the others [can] see”. Um… Azhure is facing the others, so I suppose it would be possible to let everyone to one side see her back, but to let everyone see, she would need to break Azhure in half. It would also be easier to pull on Azhure’s shoulders rather than on her upper body.
Did Not Do the Research: 64
Ill Logic: 209
Everyone gasps in horror, since this is what they see:
Running down Azhure’s back were the raised and red scars that looked to be the result of years of repeated vicious beatings; running down either side of her spine their tracks ruined her pale skin. She was marked for life.
That does suck, but I do not care much about the focus on just the physical scars, and how those “mark her for life”. After all, the emotional abuse she endured (being called “evil” by Hagen, for example) will be much harder to shed and have a far greater impact on her than these scars. Yes, they are more visible and make for a nice image, but it is not the most important thing. In fact, it seems almost like the scars themselves, and not Hagen’s causing of them, is what “marks her for life”… In any case, I find it hard to follow Douglass’s lead here.
Then we have the suggestion that the scars are caused by “years of repeated vicious beatings”… which does not work at all. Beatings would simply not cause such narrow scars, nor would they look like this. This is clearly the result of cuts which got infected, so you need a better Red Herring, Douglass.
This Is What the Mystery: 30
(I also note the reference to her “pale skin”, which is… a bit awkward given how the Avar have been handled.)
For Azhure showing her scars… if these had been caused by an accident, for example, I would not have nearly as much trouble with this scene, because there would likely not be very much other stuff attached. Here, when she shows her scars, she does not just show her scars, which shows Hagen’s abuse, she is also showing everything tied up with it, for the very first time, to people she barely knows! I get the feeling that Douglass did not think about that, and so she once again ended up with something more serious than she probably meant.
Morals for Thee But Not for Me: 112 (via the same reasoning as before)
Thankfully no one makes nasty comments now, but it would be a quite unpleasant experience for Azhure all the same.
Well, GoldFeather puts the dress back and gives “the tense women” a hug, which is nice of her. GoldFeather tells us that in “all the years she [has] known Azhure”, Azhure has “never, never mentioned this to her”. That is only to be expected, given that you only met for a night at a time. Come to think of it, this might well be the longest time they have spent with each other, and I would be interested to see how this develops…
Either way, she looks at Barsarbe “challengingly” and prompts her for a reaction. Barsarbe is shocked; even as a healer, she has never seen anything like this. As she tells us, child abuse is “rated close to murder” in Avar society, “but [does] it justify murder?” Well, it is good to see that Barsarbe is relatively reasonable about this, though I still wish she would stop assuming it was murder. Come to think of it, would there not be a general answer to this…? Then again, if child abuse is thought of as “close to” murder, that is something that would need to be evaluated in more detail, which is why Barsarbe should be asking for more details.
At this point, Shra gets up and walks over to Azhure. She touches her forehead, looks back at Raum and says “accepted”. Raum frowns and asks what she means. Shra repeats “accepted”, “almost angrily now”. Azhure looks up, eyes bright “with the shame that the Avar [have] seen her back”. Yes, that was clearly a very good thing for her, was it not? You really should have realised just how bad this is, Douglass! Azhure explains that after Hagen died, Shra put her fingers in Hagen’s blood, then ran them over her forehead and said “accepted”. GoldFeather wants to know what it means, to which Raum says that it is strange and he is not sure, but it might mean that she “accepted Azhure’s father’s death as a sacrifice to the Mother”. And, according to later canon, she did.
I have some problems with this. Yes, I grant that Shra was a Bane when she did this, and I grant that Banes can do this. Further, I must grant that Shra knows at least something about this (else I doubt she would have made the connection between blood and “accepted”). Given all of that, I find that this should be considered invalid, for the following reasons:
-Shra is still a small child, and is unlikely to understand fully what happened, which means that she cannot make an informed decision to accept Hagen’s death as a sacrifice.
-She was also quite clearly upset due to Hagen trying to murder her, which would interfere with her decision-making ability in any case.
-She did not know about Azhure’s deeper history of abuse, which is quite essential context to make a good decision.
-She had, in all probability, not received any Bane training in the while since she left Fernbrake Lake, and if she did, it would have been the very basics, not anything on how to accept sacrifices.
Any of these four issues would be enough to invalidate this sacrifice, and this assumes that Shra had any idea what she was doing! In short, I am positive this was not the case. I will not score this yet, since it is only a supposition.
Shra walks over to Azhure and looks at the rest of the group. Raum says that if it was not for Azhure, he and Shra would not be here now. Azhure showed “great courage”, first in trying to make them more comfortable, and then in freeing him. He says that they should let her stay for the time being, since she cannot go back. If the Clan wants to, she will answer to the Yuletide meet for her violence. I quite agree! If she wanted to hurt the Clan, after all, she could have easily fled back to Smyrton and sent the villagers after them, so she is probably not a danger. As for judging her… everyone here is all too entangled with her actions to be objective, and especially in the case of something as apparently controversial as what she did, that is quite necessary. The Yuletide meet would indeed be a better occasion for that.
Barsarbe then considers and nods, before giving a very stilted speech.
Talk Like a Natural: 8
She first says that she will accept that “Shra has apparently approved of Azhure’s actions”. Yes, from what we just saw, Shra did approve, and she is a Bane, but that does not prove much of anything. Then again, I am happy to see that Barsarbe does not say that Shra accepting Hagen’s death is valid…
Ill Logic: 210
She further accepts that Azhure has saved Raum’s life, but she cannot easily accept “the violence she has demonstrated”. She will support what Raum says: let her stay with them, and let her answer to the Yuletide Meet for “the death of her father” and assaulting Belial. So she does not call it murder now? That is an improvement!
Grindle nods and accepts this, too. Azhure can stay with them, and he tells her to be “well and welcomed to [their] Clan”. He smiles for the first time, “his face completely losing its normal austerity”, and we learn he has accepted Azhure for whatever reason Shra did. Because of course he needs to follow Shra’s lead here, no matter that there are much better reasons to accept Azhure.
Ill Logic: 211
That aside, I do like this! It is good to see Azhure accepted here. Azhure smiles, relieved, since she can at least stay with the GhostTree Clan for a while. The chapter ends with her thanking them. At least someone is allowed to be happy for a bit…
Overall, I find this one of the better chapters of the book. It certainly has flaws, chief among them Azhure “having to” show her abuse, and Douglass trying to maintain the “mystery” of who GoldFeather really is, but the better points, like the Avar worldbuilding, and the Avar deciding to accept Azhure, make it relatively bearable for me. Join me again next time, as we go back to Faraday and Timozel. Until then!
