Literature / Graceling Realm

"Does it lighten the burden of your Grace, to know you have beautiful eyes?"

The Graceling Realm series (also known as the "Seven Kingdoms" series) is a series of young adult fantasy novels by Kristin Cashore. Each novel tells its own story, but they aren't completely divorced from one another either.

• Graceling (2008): Katsa is a Graceling with a particularly deadly skill: she can kill anyone with ease. This has earned her a spot as King Randa's enforcer, forced to hurt and maim anyone who displeases him. Though she despises her work, she fears Randa's wrath far more. It isn't until she meets Po, a visiting Graced prince from a foreign court, that she begins to learn how to fear her Grace less and love a little more. Of course, if that was all the prince brought with him, life would be far easier: a sinister presence has made its way into one of the seven kingdoms with nary anyone the wiser. It will take far more than each of their Graces to bring the evil to light and end it.
• Fire (2009): Takes place 35 years before the events of Graceling. Most monsters in the Dells are animals. Fire, however, is the last human monster in existence. Her bright scarlet hair and supernaturally good looks aren't the only mark as to her heritage: her ability to read and manipulate minds is too. Despite her father's teachings, Fire refuses to use her powers over others; the last thing the Dells need is another human monster that almost destroyed its people. In order to prove to everyone- including herself- that she won't turn into her father, Fire aids a royal in his quest to bring a current political conflict to an end.
• Bitterblue (2012): Eight years after the events of Graceling, Bitterblue has more or less settled into her role as Queen of Monsea. If only her council would lighten up a bit. They mean well, but the endless parade of paperwork they thrust on her wears her out. Plus, she believes that their reports regarding the state of her citizens aren't as honest as they should be. So, she begins to sneak out of the castle during the night in order to see for herself what's going on in her kingdom. Her nightly sessions unintentionally wind up revealing more about Monsea's past than it does its present; Bitterblue's father left untold scars among his subjects, both visible and hidden. Uncovering them all will be an arduous and painful task for everyone involved, not just for Monsea but for Bitterblue and her council as well.
• Winterkeep (2021): Takes place four years after the events of Bitterblue. Politics are no stranger to Lovisa. The daughter of a prime minister and an opposing politician, Lovisa knows more about the behind the scenes of what keeps Winterkeep's government running than the average citizen. Not that this knowledge prepares her for what's to come: the Queen of Monsea, Bitterblue, is set to arrive in Winterkeep along with her entourage. The Queen, however, never arrives; she seems to have drowned on her way there. Though heartbroken and distraught, Giddon and Hava- two of Bitterblue's closest friends- resolve themselves to figuring out the truth behind the incident that brought them there: a couple Monsean envoys died and the circumstances behind their deaths smacks of foul-play. Unbeknownst to Giddon and Hava, Lovisa is just the person they need to solve this mystery.
• Seasparrow (2022): On their way back to the Royal Continent, Hava, Bitterblue, and the rest of their entourage become shipwrecked after storms steer their ship off course. As they brave the snow and ice, Bitterblue wrestles with what to do about her discoveries in Winterkeep. Meanwhile, Hava struggles to figure out her place in Bitterblue's new world.

Due to the way the series progresses, spoilers from the first book have been left completely unmarked. You have been warned!

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This series provides examples of:

• Action Girl: Katsa can more than hold her own in a fight.
• Aerith and Bob: There are a mix of characters with standard names (Clara, Hanna), medieval-sounding names (Katsa, Raffin, Helda), and names that are clearly specific to fantasy (Bitterblue, Greening (Po's birth name)).
• All of the Other Reindeer: Ever since Katsa killed a noble with her bare hands, everyone believed her to have a killing Grace. She's treated more like a dangerous animal than a human.

• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Monsters can be any kind of animal, but they're easy to tell apart from regular animals by their vibrant, unnatural coloring.
• Anti-Climax: Katsa's final battle with King Leck involves her killing him with one dagger thrown through his mouth.
• Arranged Marriage:
  • King Randa wants to enter his niece, Katsa, into one, but she does everything in her power to make sure the few suitors who want her for a bride will find her intolerable.
  • Randa's son Raffin expects he'll be entered into one eventually. Falling in love with a lady or a princess on his own isn't really an option, as he's gay.
• Ascended Extra: Giddon is a minor character in Graceling, showing up for the first third of the novel before swiftly being forgotten. In Bitterblue, he becomes Bitterblue's primary confidante and in Winterkeep, he gets several chapters from his point-of-view.
• Attempted Rape: Implied during Graceling: while Katsa and Po are staying at an inn, Katsa notices a man leering at the inn-keeper's daughter. When they speak to him later that night, he mumbles a comment about protective fathers and locked bedroom doors.
  • Also appears several times during Fire. Due to the titular character's supernatural beauty and allure, she is repeatedly the target of attacks. Most of these are stopped either by her guards or her mind control before they get too close; others, like Gunnar, are far more troublesome. Even King Nash, whom Fire eventually considers a good friend, pins her to a wall and gropes her during their first meeting because he is so overwhelmed by her beauty. Thankfully, none of the attacks get further than that.
• Awesome Moment of Crowning: Bitterblue swiftly asserts her newfound authority after her father's death.

• Badass and Child Duo: Katsa with Bitterblue at the second half of the first book as they flee Monsea together: Katsa is possibly the most competent fighter of the seven kingdoms, and has sworn to protect Bitterblue, a ten-year old girl who just lost her mother.
• Bad Powers, Bad People: King Leck plays this trope to the hilt: he has a powerful lying Grace, meaning he can make people believe anything and everything he says no matter how ridiculous or contradictory. He is also incredibly sadistic and hedonistic: he only uses his Grace for his own purposes, often in an abusive way because it amuses him.
• Balcony Escape: Fire and Brigan clandestinely escape this way after an encounter with two rebelling nobles in Nash's castle.
• Battle Couple: Katsa and Po can fight against anyone with each other as well as they can separately.
• Beautiful Dreamer: Katsa admires Po while he's asleep, thinking his slumbering face quite handsome.
• Bedsheet Ladder: Ashen and Bitterblue start their escape out of Leck's castle by knotting bedsheets together and climbing down into the garden.
• Berserk Button: Do not imply that Po is Katsa's "sensible keeper" or she will make you pay.
• Bestiality Is Depraved: It's implied that King Leck fornicated with the animals he kept before brutally hacking them to bits.
• Blessed with Suck:
  • Since Graces can basically be anything, it's possible for someone to be Graced with an especially useless skill. These Gracelings aren't kept at court and are sent home, usually in shame.
  • Being a human monster is more of a burden than a gift, especially if you're a woman. Everyone objectifies you for your beauty, and you constantly have to watch for people who want to sexually assault you. And monster animals hunger for your flesh and are drawn to your blood, so things get awkward during your period when you need armed guards around to protect you.
• Blind Seer: Po becomes permanently blind while trying to help Bitterblue escape her sadistic father. However, his true Grace is perception, the ability to sense everything around him, including the thoughts of others (so long as those thoughts relate to him). Because of this, his Grace helps mitigate some of the disadvantages of being blind.

• Brainwashed: King Leck's particular Grace essentially hijacks the minds of those who listen to him.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Everyone Leck affected with his Grace were forced to do horrible things to other human beings. Eight years later, Bitterblue's horrified to find that not even his death got them to stop carrying out his work and covering it up.
• Breaking Speech: Randa delivers speeches to Katsa that are intended to break her spirit and keep her under his thumb.
• The Casanova: Despite being in a relationship with Fire, Archer still flirts and has sex with any woman he can charm.
• Cats Are Mean: Death's cat, Lovejoy, is as grumpy and foul-tempered as his name is cute and fluffy.

• Child by Rape: Bitterblue and Death find confirmation in one of Leck's journals that Leck kept both Ashen and Bellamew for himself.
• Childhood Marriage Promise: Subverted. Katsa and Raffin made a promise so Raffin could avoid an Arranged Marriage with a woman he can't love and Katsa won't be tied to a man who'd demand children from her. They don't take it too seriously and laughed about it when they realized it would never work.
• Closed Door Rapport: Fire insists that Nash speak to her through doors at first, since seeing her face reduces him to a babbling idiot. When he gets better at keeping his composure in her presence, Fire no longer requires this of him.
• Combat Clairvoyance: Po's Grace lets him perceive where people and things are, as well as thoughts centered around him. This helps him immensely during a fight, as he can basically learn what his opponent will do before they do it.
• Compelling Voice: King Leck's Grace of lying pretty much amounts to this. Since everyone who hears one of his lies believes what he says over any logic and evidence, he can use it to make people do whatever he wants with the utmost obedience.
• Conlang: Dellian is the main language of the Dells. Their alphabet consists of thirty three letters with some of them being double vowels. Cashore hired a linguist to help craft the language so it could be fully translated into English.
• Content Warnings: Seasparrow opens with a short note to the reader that includes a brief content warning for mentions of sexual assault and sexual abuse.
• Cool Horse: Subverted when Fire chooses a plain, but sweet-tempered gelding instead of the showy mare Cansrel picked for her. Played straight with the river horse that "adopts" her after her escape from Leck's hideout.
• Crapsack World:
  • Six of the seven kingdoms are run by a greedy, selfish king who don't give a crap about their people and are more interested in having spats with each other.
  • While the Dells are more advanced in terms of medicine, science, art, etc, it's been in a lawless, decaying state for the past thirty years and is in the middle of a civil war, thanks to Nax and Cansrel being more concerned with indulging in themselves than running the country.
• Creepy Child: Leck's childhood nurse found his oddly mature behavior and cruel actions unsettling.
• Cursed with Awesome: Katsa's Grace is incredibly useful for fighting and defending herself as well as others, but people treat her poorly because of it.
• Deadpan Snarker: Katsa has a streak of dry humor in her, sometimes making wry remarks to those her annoy her.
• Death by Childbirth: Leck's mother died soon after she birthed him.
• Delicate and Sickly: Garan's health has never been the best; he's often restricted to the castle because of his illnesses.
• Determinator: Katsa manages to cross Grella's Pass with Bitterblue in the middle of a blizzard. While her Grace certainly helped, her sheer willpower helped even more.
• Differently Powered Individual: Gracelings are beings who are born with an extreme skill, such as exceptional fighting prowess, amazing cooking knowledge, incredible long term memory, and so on. All Gracelings have mismatched eyes, though they don't usually settle until several months after birth.
• Dirty Mind-Reading: Part of being a monster means being able to read people's minds. Another part of being a monster is being supernaturally beautiful. Due to both of those facts, Fire is often privy to any one person's sexual thoughts, usually about her if they happen to be sharing the same room.
• Disability Superpower: Po's has always had a perception Grace, and he's very skilled at using it long before he becomes permanently blind. As such, a lot of the problems blind people face in regards to moving about space isn't much of an issue. He does need assistance when it comes to reading and writing though.
• Disc-One Final Boss: King Randa is set up as a major obstetrical in Graceling, mostly because of his mistreatment of Katsa. She tells him off about halfway through the book and then leaves court for good. It isn't until she digs deeper into Tealiff's capture that the real antagonist becomes apparent.
• The Dog Bites Back: Katsa comments about how Randa knows how to make her feel like a brutal dog. She then tells him how she will kill all of the hundreds of guards he has with him, along with Randa himself.
• Dramatis Personae: The end of Bitterblue includes a list of characters that appeared or were mentioned in the novel. Each entry was written by Death, Bitterblue's librarian, complete with snarky notes.

• Driven to Suicide: One of Bitterblue's advisers after she arrests two of them on charges of treason and conspiracy. The other one mentions he's considered it but has his family to worry about, so she grants him house arrest.
• Drowning Their Sorrows: One of Bitterblue's advisors, Darby, has the Grace of not needing sleep. So, to escape his memories and sorrows, he frequently drinks himself in a stupor.
• Embarrassing First Name: Bitterblue's librarian is named Death. It's supposed to be pronounced "Deeth", but Bitterblue will often mispronounce it whenever she gets annoyed by him.
• Enfant Terrible: Leck has been torturing animals and killing people since he was a child.
• Everyone Can See It: Everyone, from Po to Randa, was aware of Giddon being in love with Katsa. Katsa, however, never picked up on it for a number of reasons, not the least of which being low self-esteem.
• Evil Tainted the Place: In Bitterblue, it's discovered that the former ruler of Monsea- who was Graced with the ability to make people believe anything he wanted to- left a nasty taint on the kingdom for his daughter to deal with when she takes the throne. The former king was a creepy sadist whose favorite past time was torturing his subjects with his Grace. The fallout of having literally hundreds of people mentally tortured into believing things left the new ruler with the problem of having the occasional person or two go completely nuts out of the blue. Needless to say, she tires of it real quick.
• False Friend: Fox is actually a member of a proud family of thieves. She not only stole the crown but also a ring that belonged to Bitterblue's mother.
• Fantasy Contraception: Both Katsa and Bitterblue use seabane, an herb that prevents pregnancy, and Fire eventually decides take a certain type of medicine that leaves her permanently unable to have children.
• A Father to His Men: Brigan cares a lot about the soldiers under his command.
• Female Gaze: Katsa will sometimes find herself unconsciously eyeing up Po's body or staring at his face.
• Fighting from the Inside: Po, Ashen, Bitterblue are skilled at seeing through the lying Grace; Po because his own Grace helps him read minds (to an extent) and Ashen and Bitterblue have had lots of practice. Katsa, though, has far more trouble with it.
• Foreshadowing: Leck is the only potential culprit for the plot-triggering kidnapping that is dismissed without a logical reason. He did it, and he uses his Grace to make sure he's never considered suspicious.
• Freak Out: Katsa does not take her revelation that she's in love with Po very well; she does what she can to avoid Po afterword despite the two of them traveling together.

• Friend to All Children: Fire adores children, which is why her resolution to remain the last of her kind is so difficult to keep: she wants to have her own child to care and fuss over, but she also doesn't want another Cansrel rearing their ugly head.
• Friend to All Living Things: Fire loves animals and they love her. It helps that she has mind reading and mind control powers, so she can sense how they react to her and directly reassure them when needed to.
• Friends with Benefits: Fire and Archer have been friends for a long time and they also share each other's bed. Archer would like to get married, but Fire knows he wouldn't be faithful in the slightest.
• Genius Ditz: Clara may seem silly at first meeting, but she's actually one of the Dells' highest-ranking spymasters.
• Government Conspiracy: Bitterblue is mainly about the title character- Queen Bitterblue- figuring out that her advisors have been keeping secrets from her, and discovering what they are.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Archer doesn't like it when Fire gets friendly with any man he thinks might be competition.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: In Graceling, Katsa is easy to anger and is often quick to act on this anger. This trait lessons as the novel goes on.
• Hallucinations: Po talks about "the dead in the river" after Bitterblue sends him after Saf into the rain and he gets a fever. Turns out the fever was warping and distorting his Grace, and there actually are bones in the Dell.
• Hand on Womb: When Fire sees Lady Murgda placing a hand on her own belly at the Winter's ball, she recognizes the gesture from a pregnant friend and (correctly) assumes Murgda to be pregnant.

• Heroic Bastard: Bitterblue's half sister, Hava, saves her life a few times but is the only person to know they are related.
• Heroic BSoD: After he goes blind, Po falls into a depression that Katsa has a difficult time bringing him out of.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Fire killed her father, Cansrel, because he was an evil, selfish man intent on keeping the Dells in chaos.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: One-Word Title-style, with Portmantitle for the last three books: Graceling, Fire, Bitterblue, Winterkeep, Seasparrow.
• I Love You Because I Can't Control You: Brigan's mind is so disciplined that he can block Fire's powers. It unsettles her, but is also a part of what makes her fall for him.
• If You Die, I Call Your Stuff: Just before a dangerous mission, Fire jokingly says that all of Brigan's things will be hers in order to get him out of his sleepy mindset and to pay attention.
• Important Hair Cut: Bitterblue cuts her hair after ascending the throne, symbolizing that she's no longer a pampered, sheltered princess.

• Inverse Law of Fertility: Fire really wants to have children, but she doesn't dare; she deeply believes that monster humans should not exist, so she takes a potion that renders her barren. Meanwhile, Mila and Clara become pregnant without even trying, both within the same month and by the same guy.

• Last of Her Kind: After the death of her father, Fire becomes the last human monster alive. She intends to keep it that way, going so far as to take a potion that renders her barren despite the fact that she really wants to be a mother.

• Lineage Comes from the Father: Fire obviously takes after her father, having inherited being a monster from him.
• Logical Weakness: Po's perception Grace doesn't let him perceive colors or the written word.
• Love at First Punch: A big part of Katsa and Po's relationship is centered on trying to punch each others' guts out. Both of them are accomplished fighters who revel in sparring matches, so this dynamic is far less dysfunctional than it sounds.

• MacGuffin: Bitterblue's crown for most of the book named after her. She eventually pretends that a fake has been found, to get the thief off the hook.
• Mass Hypnosis: Not only within Monsea, but everyone who personally meets King Leck. In fact, anyone who hears him, and then talks to other people, who then talk to other people will believe the lie.

• Medical Rape and Impregnate: One of King Leck's greatest passions was his "hospital" where he would perform surgical experiments. He even raped women for the purpose of having pregnant subjects. His impulse control problems often caused his subjects to die too quickly as he would perform multiple simultaneous experiments on a single person.

• Murder by Suicide: Fire did this to kill her own father. She used her mind control powers to trick him into opening a cage containing a starving animal, which then killed and ate him.
• Nasal Trauma: When she was a child, Katsa panicked when an older man seemed to be taking a sexual interest in her and she proceeded to smash his nose into his face so hard it killed him.
• No Periods, Period: Averted. It's brought up how inconvenient it is for Fire: monsters are drawn to the smell of her blood, so she can't go anywhere without a guard.
• No-Sell: Po's Grace makes him entirely immune to King Leck's Grace of lying.
• Not Wanting Kids Is Weird: Giddon flips out when Katsa refuses to marry him and says that one day she will grow to want children, despite her denials.
• Oblivious to Love: Katsa is so oblivious when it comes to love that she doesn't realize Po was in love with her or she was in love with Po.
• Offing the Offspring: Archer is shot by his biological father, though it's not known if either one knew about their relation.
• One Person, One Power: Each Graceling can only have one Grace. However, a Grace can be any skill and the same Grace can be slightly different between two Gracelings.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Archer's real name is Arklin, but no one calls him that, not even the other Lords and Princes.
• Parental Substitute: Fire considers Broker more like a father than her own father, even when he was alive. Unlike Cansrel, Broker actually showed her the value of life and a sense of morality that wasn't perpetually skewed.

• The Power of Love: The only way for someone who can't already see through King Leck's Grace is to focus on someone that they love. Queen Ashen is able to resist it for her daughter's well being, and Katsa kills Leck at the end because she loves Po and he was about to reveal Po's secret.

• Queen Incognito: The plot of Bitterblue is kicked off when Bitterblue sneaks out of the castle to see for herself how her kingdom is doing.
• Rape as Backstory: Archer was conceived when mad King Nax sent a man to rape Brocker's wife as revenge against Brocker for sleeping with, and impregnating his own wife, Queen Roen.

• La Résistance: The Council is a mild version of this. At first they're not interested in taking down any kings, merely just off-setting the damage they do, but by Bitterblue they're supporting one kingdom overthrowing their king and replacing him with a democracy.

• Running Gag: Katsa "abusing" her horses by pushing them to their limits, and even sometimes beyond them. She tends to ride her horses full tilt at night for hours because it's "only" five or six more leagues until they get home and she's too impatient to wait until morning to continue.
• Second Love: For both protagonists of Fire: Fire used to be together with Archer, while Brigan was in love with Rose, a stable-hand, when both of them were sixteen.
• Self-Made Orphan:
  • Leck killed his father after the later realized the nature of his Grace in the prologue.
  • A heroic version with Fire who killed Cansrel so that he wouldn't continue hurting the Dells.
• Sexual Karma: Katsa and Po are good people who have enjoyable and fantastic sex. The only sex the sadistic and stone-cold King Leck has is non-consensual.
• Sexy Shirt Switch: Archer finds it impossibly sweet when Fire dons one of his shirts, oblivious to the fact that she's doing it to cover up some bruises.
• Shared Unusual Trait:
  • The tell-tale sign of a Graceling is their hetero-chromatic eyes.
  • Monsters can be told apart from regular members of their species by their extreme beauty and unusually-colored fur/hair.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Randa gives Katsa a Breaking Speech when she refuses to obey him. She responds by telling him exactly how she could kill every guard in the throne room as well as him before leaving.

• So Beautiful, It's a Curse: A big part of Fire is about discussing and deconstructing this trope with its titular character. As a human monster, Fire is a being that looks like a gorgeous human. The problem is is that her beauty is literally mesmerizing: unless someone has a very strong mind or knows ahead of time and raises their guard up, looking at Fire will immediately shut down all rational thought. At best, those with weaker minds will proclaim their undying love. At worst, they'll attempt to rape her, fly into a murderous rage, or both. Compounding all of this is the emotional component, since much of human empathy comes from how people look; the crappier someone looks, the more likely a person is to feel sympathy/empathy for them, and reach out with comfort and understanding. Fire's appearance will never reflect how she feels; she could be covered in tears and snot and still look absolutely stunning. The chance that stranger will reach out to her while she's distressed and have it not be because they just really want to hug or have sex with her is very small.
• Stay in the Kitchen: The setting is medieval, so its assumed that a woman's place in life is to stay at home and let the men protect them. Katsa points out how ridiculous this is: chances are it'll be those same men that want to do them harm. The Dells are a somewhat more advanced and forward-thinking country; shortly before the events of Fire, they've begun allowing women to become full-fledged members of the army.

• Super Gullible: Everyone becomes gullible when confronted with King Leck's Grace of lying: no matter how ridiculous the lie or how far it travels from its source, people will still believe the lie. Po is the only one who can see through it.
• Superpower Lottery: A Grace is a particular skill or ability that's been amplified a thousandfold, often to supernatural levels. However, such skills can be anything; it can be as useless as "opening one's mouth really wide" or "licking one's elbows", something somewhat useful but with limited applications like "fearlessness" or "cooking", or something very useful like "mind reading" or "survival".
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Subverted with Brigan. He's tall and has dark hair, but he is explicitly described as being quite plain in appearance, certainly not handsome.
• Telepathy:
  • Po's real grace is perception, which includes being able to read someone's mind so long as their thoughts are specifically focused on him.
  • Human monsters can sense and influence human and animal minds and speak in the mind of others. They can, however, only read the thoughts of people that don't guard their minds.

• They Call Him "Sword": Archer is so incredibly skilled with a bow that Fire nicknamed him after it. Everyone else adopted the nickname and he's been called that since.
• Time Skip: There's a thirty five year gap between Fire and Graceling, an eight year one between Graceling and Bitterblue, and a four year gap between Bitterblue and Winterkeep.
• Trilogy Creep: The series seemed to reach a difinitive conclusion with Bitterblue, seeing as how it mainly dealt with the titular character picking up the peices of the broken kingdom her father was responsable for shattering. Katsa and Po's relationship was also touched upon and Giddon even got some development too. Nine years later, Cashore would revisit the series with Winterkeep and that book would get a direct sequal in Seasparrow.
• Universally Beloved Leader: The Lienid practically worship their princes, and especially Po.
• Unlucky Childhood Friend: Archer was lucky for a while, but Fire eventually dumps him.

• Unwitting Pawn: In the book that shares her name, Bitterblue is quite unhappy to find out that she has become something of a pawn, with her advisors obstructing education in the city, ordering the army to commit atrocities to cover up Leck's crimes, and leaving her in the dark about the real state of affairs.

• Walking the Earth: In Part II of Graceling, Katsa and Po travel throughout the kingdoms in order to find answers to the mysteries behind Tealiff's capture.
• We Can Rule Together: Leck wants Fire as his partner. Her answer is to send him falling into some sharp rocks.
• We Have Ways of Making You Talk: Fire herself- albeit very reluctantly and after much persuasion- uses her monster powers to interrogate prisoners.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Garan gives Fire one due to her spending so much time wallowing in her grief rather than doing anything useful.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Bitterblue in Graceling is only ten, yet she acts older than that and is able to understand mature subjects and situations.

• With My Hands Tied: When normal fighting gets boring, Katsa begins training to fight up to eight men all at once, with her arms behind her back.

• Wrong Context Magic: The most magical beings in the Dells are monsters, creatures with bizarre coloring and telepathic powers. No one has ever seen a Graceling, let alone heard of one, so Leck's mismatched eyes draw notice, but don't clue anyone in that those working for him might not be doing so because they genuinely want to.
• Yamato Nadeshiko: Fire fits pretty well if you place the Dells in the position of family: A sweet girl with inner iron that tries to be a Morality Chain and lives east of the first book's setting
• You Did the Right Thing: In a moment of anger, Archer lets slip that Fire killed Cansrel, staging it to seem like a suicide. Pretty much everyone tells her that she did the right thing.

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Some entries are at the moment grievously incomplete, pending the final, official reports. The annalists cannot be held accountable for errors or omissions caused or required by others, of which there are doubtless many.

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