51 pages • 1 hour read
Opal ReyneA Soul to Keep
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Reia Salvias
Content Warning: This section references to sexual assault, sexual coercion, and abuse.
Reia Salvias is the female main character and protagonist of A Soul to Keep. She is described as petite in stature with snowy blonde hair and emerald green eyes. The people of her village considered her a harbinger of bad omens as she survived a demon attack that killed her family and a demon attack during her attempt to find help. The people of her village assumed that she somehow attracted the demons, though Orpheus debunks that theory. The reason she survived is her lack of fear; though she was horrified by the demons eating her family, she had less fear than most people, so the demons could not sense her hiding. The first thing Orpheus notices about Reia is that “she appears rather... angry” (22). Her anger and lack of fear of him is what draws him to her initially as his goal is to find a companion, and the scent of fear inspires him to eat humans. Reia’s anger stems from the cruel treatment she receives from the other villagers and from her feeling of confinement and isolation.
Reia experiences a number of changes throughout the narrative. At the beginning of the novel, Reia is lonely, an outcast in her village. She recognizes Orpheus’s loneliness mirrored in her own, but he still wants a companion, while “she no longer [cares] to have a friend. All she [wants is] freedom and to avoid the cruelty of being outcasted and shunned as a harbinger of bad omens” (68). Reia’s core desire is freedom; in the village, she was confined to her house and only allowed out to obtain food and water. The threat of the dungeon drives her to agree to be Orpheus’s offering. She still wants freedom and initially feels trapped by her situation with Orpheus, though she does feel both “foreboding” and a “sense of freedom” when she leaves the village with Orpheus. Though she cannot leave the protective boundary of Orpheus’s home, she can “do whatever she [wants], go wherever she [wants] as long as it [is] within the safety borders of this place” (402). She ends up happy with Orpheus, content with the freedom that she has within their home.
Another change Reia experiences is in her perception of Orpheus and herself. Initially, Reia views Orpheus as a “creature, monster, nightmare” (68). The villagers also refer to Reia herself as a “monster.” Reia’s negative view of Orpheus correlates with her negative view of herself. She thinks her desires for Orpheus are wrong and unnatural and that she is wrong and unnatural. As her heart softens to Orpheus and she falls in love with him, she stops judging herself for her feelings for him. Her growing acceptance of herself mirrors her acceptance of Orpheus and their new life together.
The most drastic change Reia goes through is when she offers Orpheus her soul and becomes a phantom. When she transforms, she leaves part of her humanity behind, becoming more like Orpheus and the other beings in the Veil who share her new home.
Orpheus
Orpheus is the male main character and Reia’s love interest. He is described as seven feet tall and human-shaped with a wolf skull and antelope horns. His body is made of various animal components, with fur like a wolf, fish fins on his arms, and an external rib cage and spine. He can use magic because he ate some priests and priestesses who could use magic, granting him their abilities. As a Duskwalker, or Mavka, he is the offspring of the Witch Owl and the void, a spirit of darkness. He has become more human due to consuming humans and obtaining their higher consciousness. Orpheus suffers from intense loneliness, as he struggles to keep a human companion. He receives a human offering every 10 years from the human village in exchange for a protection spell. Before Reia, he has lost all his prior companions. He kidnapped Katerina, his first companion, but after five years together, she fled to be with Jabez, the Demon King. His other companions, 17 in total, either fled from Orpheus and died in the process, were helped to escape by Jabez and Katerina, or were eaten by Orpheus himself. He feels hope because Reia is not afraid of him, but the pain of losing his past humans makes him hesitant to be vulnerable with her.
Orpheus becomes more human and more open with Reia as the novel progresses. Whereas in the past he gained humanity by eating people, he now gains humanity from observing Reia and talking to her. With Reia, he feels “tenderness, fondness, joy, and hope,” feelings that are all human (189). Being with Reia lets him push against his baser, hunting-oriented instincts to be more human, exemplified by the numerous times he almost eats Reia but resists. As he becomes more human, he also becomes more attuned to his emotions. He does not know what love is, the emotion that turns his eyes pink, until Reia asks him to describe it. He describes the emotion as being “warm” and “whole.” Reia guides him to the understanding that what he feels for her is love, a love that she reciprocates. This reciprocated love allows Orpheus to feel secure in this relationship with the knowledge that Reia is tethered to him and wants to remain with him. Instead of feeling insecure and lonely, he feels comfortable in the knowledge that he and Reia have an “eternity” together.
Katerina
Katerina is one of the antagonists of the novel. She is described by Reia as voluptuous with dark hair. Though she is mentioned throughout the novel, she does not appear until the last 10 chapters. Katerina was Orpheus’s first human companion. Orpheus found her while hunting. She was not afraid of him, so he did not feel motivated to eat her. He instead took her home with him to the Veil, eventually constructing a house for them to live in when she did not like his cave. Katerina was physically intimate with Orpheus but only because she felt she had to since she views Orpheus as a monster. She spent five years with him, “hoping for a way out,” a way out that materialized as Jabez, the Demon King (442). She left with Jabez and remained with him, his magic keeping her alive for over 200 years. She is a static character as she does not change across the course of the narrative, instead serving to offer Orpheus a tragic backstory and create tension for Orpheus and Reia to resolve.
Katerina cannot forgive Orpheus for the pain he caused her. Two centuries later, she still hates him. She plans to kill him, using Reia as bait. Her hatred is complicated by her desire to know that Orpheus still wants her, which is clear when she calls Reia a “poor replacement” for her. Her identity is formed around her anger at Orpheus and her need to still feel wanted. Her insecurity about Reia adds nuance to her anger. She wants to kill Orpheus as revenge, but before she kills him, she wants to taunt him to make him think Reia left him just as she left him. This desire demonstrates a more sadistic side of Katerina, which is also demonstrated by her willingness to torture the ram-horned Mavka. When Reia kills her, it ends her villainous arc.
Jabez
Jabez is the King of Demons and is described as a handsome, human-shaped man with tan skin, dark hair, and elf-like ears. He is half-demon and half-elf and came to the human world through a magic portal, as he was the only hybrid in his home world, and the elves reviled him. He wants to use the demons from the human world that he brought with him to eventually return and fight the elves. He hates Duskwalkers for their refusal to join in his fight, so when Katerina came to him wanting revenge, he agreed to help her. He also has a sexual relationship with her. Katerina describes him as both a “jerk” and “pleasant to be around” (441). He uses his magic to keep Katerina alive, likely for his own gain and desire to have his own companion.
Jabez survives the fight with Orpheus, setting him up as a potential greater villain for later in the series. He is saddened by Katerina’s death but does not react nearly as emotionally as Orpheus does when he thinks Reia died. He even removes the cloaking spell to tempt Orpheus to eat Reia and Katerina’s bodies, showing his lack of care for the body of the woman who spent 200 years with him. His cruelty stems from his insecurity in his hybrid background; he knows no one likes him and spent his youth feeling unloved and unwanted. Like Reia, he was judged and ostracized for something out of his control. Unlike Reia, however, he does not become kind or empathetic because of his tragic past. Instead, like Katerina, he becomes a tyrant who wants to exact revenge on those who hurt him. He cannot let go of the past, and though it is not his downfall like it is Katerina’s, it is a weakness that may come back to haunt him later.
