A Soul to Keep

“She had experienced her own family dying, and then had been treated as a disgusting outcast. She wasn’t allowed to speak to anyone, wasn’t allowed to look upon anyone.”

The cruelty of Reia’s treatment from the village is made clear in these concise lines. She was not treated as the victim of a tragedy but instead blamed and then shunned. Like Orpheus, she is “othered” and left in isolation.

“Your life is precious. I will try to make sure it does not end if I can.”

Orpheus assuages Reia’s fears about her safety while also providing insight into his character. Though he does not trust Reia, he is desperate for a companion and tired of the anguish of loneliness that he feels. Reia continues to think about this line later in the narrative as she sees the lengths Orpheus goes to in order to protect her.

“‘Come, little human.’ He gestured his hand out to present more of his left arm for her. ‘Let me melt your heart.’”

When Orpheus offers to carry Reia after his injury from the demonslayers, he offers to melt her heart, not warm her body. This hints at and foreshadows the coming romance between the two of them, when Reia will eventually give him her heart and her soul.

“Orpheus didn’t want to grow attached to her, didn’t want to be given additional pain that losing a human gave him, but it was hard not to lose himself in her beauty.”

Orpheus’s fear of not being accepted by Reia is made clear in his point of view sections. He fears that she will not stay with him but still finds himself drawn to her. This quote highlights the theme of The Impact of Loneliness and Isolation.

“He didn’t want to use it. He wanted to keep it as a token from her.”

Orpheus’s attachment to the protective token Reia makes foreshadows the gift she will later give him. It also further demonstrates his growing attachment to Reia.

“He hoped one day she would allow him to be seated next to her and allow him to gaze at her while they did this.”

Orpheus has several hopes for his relationship with Reia. Hope and fear are opposites, and he feels both in equal measure. He is afraid of her rejection and being lonely again, but he also hopes that his days of isolation are over.

“And Reia had paid the price of that for the rest of her life. As an outcast. A shame. A thing to be terrified of. Alone. So alone.”

Reia’s reference to herself as a “thing” connects her to Orpheus, whom she once referred to as “something” instead of “someone.” This further shows the “otherness” she feels in her village and the severity of her status as an outsider.

“That swirl of sadness took charge, and he was filled with hopelessness like a constant ache in his heart that he’d held for eons. His vision turned to such a deep blue that it made everything appear darker and lonelier, like a veil had been laid over his face.”

The image of a veil over Orpheus’s eyes is juxtaposed against his desire for Reia to become his bride. He wants her to offer him her soul, but the Arachnid Demon of Sorrows plays on his insecurities to make him believe Reia does not want to be with him. Instead of a bridal veil, the veil is now associated with his grief.

“She couldn’t lose anyone else. She couldn’t lose someone else she... she cared for.”

Reia realizes that she cares for Orpheus as she tries to save him from the demons after his encounter with the Arachnid Demon of Sorrows. Reyne’s repetitive use of “she…she” gives the effect of Reia thinking on the page, coming to the realization in real time.

“He gently nuzzled the top of her head with the side of his jaw, adoring how she felt in his arms. He doubted he’d get much rest with how quickly his heart was beating, but he knew he’d enjoy every tortured second of it.”

The connection between how Orpheus feels while holding Reia to “torture” further illustrates the connection between their love and violence. It also demonstrates Orpheus’s growing feelings of love for Reia, feelings that he cannot yet name.

“He also knew of four Duskwalkers, Mavkas as he called them, and they also didn’t remember how they came to be, only knew they were other in the world.”

This line makes clear that none of the Duskwalkers know where they come from, including Orpheus. This lack of understanding of his past contributes to his struggles to form a meaningful identity and understand himself and his place in the world.

“She knew that within the depths of his humanity that bore his pain and sorrow, that he must have cared for each of his offerings. He had treated them preciously, like her, and them being gone saddened him.”

Reia wrestles with Orpheus’s humanity in her thoughts about leaving. Though he is not human, he seems to possess humanity, which allows him to feel and understand the impact of his loneliness. The use of the word “precious” connects back to how Orpheus referred to her life earlier in the narrative.

“Am I the one who can spare this for another Mavka?”

This inner thought from Orpheus demonstrates the empathy he develops as a result of Reia encouraging him to think about the other Mavka. He gains additional humanity from Reia without consuming another person, becoming naturally more human.

“The Veil’s properties were filled with invisible rings of life. The border ring held those who were crazed for human flesh, living inside this section so they only had a short journey to scour the surface and hunt—with little success.”

Reyne borrows from Dante’s Inferno in her description of the Veil. Orpheus has his house at the edge of the Veil, similar to Dante’s limbo. As they move closer to the demon village ruled by Jabez, the Veil’s version of Satan, the rings intensify.

“Had she been like him, filled with the same pain that had lingered inside him for hundreds of years?”

Orpheus continues to feel an emotional connection or mirroring to Reia. Their relationship strengthens from their shared experience with painful pasts, which both must reckon with to fully heal from The Impact of Loneliness and Isolation.

“Your kind is so remarkable, able to create stories with nothing more than pen and paper and your wonderful minds.”

Reyne reflects on the act of writing through the bookstore shopkeeper’s perspective. In this metafictional, self-referencing line, she is able to write about writing organically through character dialogue.

“For this woman that had seen Orpheus for what he was, who he was, and still wanted him. For this wonderful creature that was accepting him and allowing him to be himself as he slowly showed it to her. To be greeted in return rather than recoiled from.”

Orpheus finally recovers from his fear of being rejected by Reia. He grasps that she accepts him for who he truly is, which allows their relationship to blossom. This moment illustrates The Tension Between Fear and Acceptance in Identity Formation.

“I like you, Reia. You are special and different to every human I have brought here. You want my touch, let me hold you because you want it. You are beautiful, and strong, and brave enough to face me, even when I am crazed. You protected me when all the others would have let me be eaten. I do not want you to go away. I don’t want another human if you disappear.”

This is the closest Orpheus comes to confessing his love for Reia. He does not use the word love because he does not yet know what it means, but regardless, this dialogue is vulnerable and honest about his inner emotions.

“Shame? What is there I need to be ashamed about?”

Reia questions why Katerina would think she is ashamed of being intimate with Orpheus, which demonstrates the changes in her character regarding fear of external judgment. Though she refers to herself as a pervert for desiring Orpheus throughout the narrative, by the end she has made her peace with her feelings and shrugs off the fear of what others may think.

“Reia didn’t miss the disgusted twitch in the woman’s upper lip, her eyes dark with an ugly emotion.”

The “ugly emotion” here could be either hatred or jealousy. Katerina either hates that Orpheus has had sex with another human, perhaps unwillingly on the part of the human, or she feels jealous that he was intimate with someone besides her. This emotion is not clarified, as she later does exhibit both hatred and jealousy.

“Maybe she and Orpheus could tell the world the truth so they could figure out a way to drive the Demons back into their home world. Then the Elves could deal with them once more.”

These lines look forward to future potential books in the Duskwalker series. Reyne establishes a future conflict between the demons, elves, and humans that she can use to drive new narratives with current and future characters.

“Reia wanted to be with this strange being who was so completely and utterly different to her, but had a heart that was so tender and gentle that it was more pure than any child or innocent animal.”

Reia’s view of Orpheus as “pure” is reminiscent of the purity requirements he put in place for his offerings, which the humans interpreted to mean virginal, but he meant to be pure of disease. Reia now views Orpheus as pure, but pure from malicious thought and the capacity to do evil.

“That singular bell hanging from his horn jingled and it caught his attention each time. It was a like a ringing of madness to him. A single bell without its pair.”

The image of the lonely, single bell matches Orpheus feeling alone when he thinks Reia has died. Their relationship is briefly ruptured, like the horn decorations, but is repaired later by Reia.