From Blood and Ash

Masks allow for characters to hide their own identities and to present false ones. While at the Red Pearl, Penellaphe’s mask allows her to be Poppy instead of the Maiden. While wearing another’s mask, Penellaphe can exercise her independence and try on different personalities. Prince Casteel also wears a mask of sorts. From the name “Hawke” to his Royal Guard’s wardrobe, he presents a false identity. Both characters use masks to distort the truth. While Penellaphe’s mask gives her a sense of independence and freedom, masks can also be used to deceive. Armentrout shows that sometimes the most dangerous masks are the ones we can’t see.

The very mask which serves to free Penellaphe from her role as Maiden also constrains her within it. As Maiden, she is forced to wear a veil that covers the entirety of her face and hair, except for her lips. Only a select handful of individuals are allowed to see Penellaphe unveiled. As such, the veil becomes a staple in her identity as Maiden. Her veil is white “with delicate gold chains” (55). The material is made of “the finest, lightest silk” (55). Penellaphe reflects that she “should’ve grown used to it by now” but instead she feels its immense weight (55). At the start of the novel, Penellaphe often feels naked without it, showing her apprehension towards renouncing her Chosen One status. In this depiction, Armentrout alludes to Penellaphe’s personal identity clashing with the identity of the Maiden. Before she embarks on her journey to the capital, she leaves her veil behind and puts on yet another mask, that of a commoner. Hawke tells her to not “bother taking that veil. You won’t be wearing it” (333). She no longer wears white, and her face is on full display. It’s when Penellaphe is not wearing her veil that she gives into her desires, such as being intimate with Hawke at the Rite and at New Haven.

Scars memorialize the past in From Blood and Ash. They tell stories and reveal one’s truth. As Penellaphe begins to heal from her past, her opinion of her scars evolves. She shows her scars to Hawke, sharing the most intimate part of her body with him. She wants to tell “someone the truth behind them” (385). Penellaphe finds refuge in Hawke’s body, which is also covered in marks from his past. While Penellaphe’s scars act as proof of her Atlantian heritage, Hawke’s scars are evidence of the Ascended’s true nature. Branded on Hawke’s skin is the “Royal Crest.” Hawke’s enslavement by the Ascended is undeniable, and Penellaphe struggles to understand Hawke’s truth in his scar.

Beauty is “highly coveted and worshipped” because it’s “considered godlike” (143). Hawke covets Penellaphe’s body. He lingers “over the scars on my stomach, kissing them, worshipping them until I was sure that he didn’t find them disturbing or ugly in any way” (387). The very feature that made Penellaphe unworthy of affection, is now the very epitome of her beauty. Penellaphe heals from the past her scars represent and turns towards her future.