King of Scars

After a brutal civil war that shook his fragile nation, King Nikolai Lantsov was pushed onto the throne of Ravka and must attempt to pick up the pieces. However, just as his kingdom is still scarred by the actions of the tyrant and powerful Grisha (magic-user) known as the Darkling, Nikolai is similarly haunted by the past. Nikolai begins shapeshifting into a hideous flying monster at night, threatening not only the lives of people around him but his tenuous claim to the throne.  

Simultaneously, Ravka begins experiencing strange magical phenomena that some call the work of Grisha, while others attribute it to the work of the Saints. Nikolai and his trusted Grisha general, Zoya Nazyalensky, follow the trail of these phenomena to the Shadow Fold, the site of the Darkling’s abuses of Grisha power and his death. With the help of a Darkling-follower named Yuri Vedenen, Nikolai and Zoya hope to use this journey to rid Nikolai of his demon and secure the future of the kingdom. Their quest leads to discoveries about the worshipped Saints, the Grisha, and their world as they know it. 

Meanwhile, Grisha spy Nina Zenik is still reeling from the loss of her love, Matthias Helvar, and recovering from her addiction to the deadly jurda parem, a drug that makes Grisha incredibly powerful at the cost of their free will and, usually, their lives. Nina is on a mission to gather intel in the cold and closed-minded land of Fjerda, which hates Grisha like her. In addition to arranging safe passage away from Fjerda for any Grisha she can, Nina must also finally lay Matthias’ body to rest. When Nina and her fellow spies discover a river that has been poisoning a Fjerdan river city called Gäfvalle, they trace the source to a mysterious factory that piques their interest. Hiding in a convent, Nina’s mission to uncover the hidden truth causes her to uncover a larger scheme against the Grisha and Ravka.  

King of Scars switches third-person perspective every chapter, following Nikolai, Zoya, Nina, Isaak, the Ravkan soldier who takes Nikolai’s place during his quest, and Dima, a minor character in the beginning of the story. The focal point of each chapter is specified in the chapter’s title (i.e. “Nikolai” or “Zoya”). Nikolai, the “King of Scars,” is the primary focus of the story and duology, and most of the issues faced by the other characters are tied back to his country’s problems. Despite having multiple perspectives, the story remains easy to follow due to its pacing and the frequency of expositional dialogue. Each perspective takes on the unique personalities of the characters, and, although every persona has its flaws, all of them are relatable and entertaining. Each one is given a proper backstory and depth, which keeps this ensemble story engaging. 

This book contains numerous storylines and a multitude of characters. Nothing feels unimportant due to the author’s care in making the characters and their lives feel three-dimensional. Side characters usually get only a sentence of exposition, so it can be difficult to remember the relationships and connections between them. Many of the less significant characters, such as Adrik, David, and Leoni, play central roles in other stories within the Grishaverse, and the events they mention are often elaborated upon in other books. While much of the backstory is explained, King of Scars takes place after the Shadow and Bone trilogy and the Six of Crows duology. Thus, King of Scars is not meant to be read first, and doing so would undoubtedly confuse.  

King of Scars is about determination, change, and hope. Ravka is a nation constantly plagued by war and despair, and the central characters are as well. Nevertheless, despite facing many challenges in the past, present, and future, none of the protagonists relinquish the fight. They grow stronger, learning new powers, abilities, and tactics to succeed. The overarching theme of resilience makes for a worthwhile read for audiences interested in the Grishaverse and its characters.  

Sexual Content  

• After Nikolai has a particularly brutal transformation, he says to Zoya, “When you purse your lips like that, you look like you’ve made love to a lemon.” 
• Zoya tries to find Nikolai a wife. Zoya argues that the precautions they take to prevent his nightly transformations into the winged monster should not inhibit a strategic marriage, remarking, “She can lock you in at night and kiss you sweetly in the morning, and Ravka will be secure.” 
• To cover up the fact that Nikolai’s curse makes him disappear, he and Zoya pretend to have spent the night together. Nikolai jokes, “Kiss me sweetly as a new bride would.” To be more convincing, Zoya makes their clothing appear more disheveled. A guard who encounters them asks, “She only play with royals?. . .She looks like fun.” While Nikolai and Zoya’s affair is a ruse, Zoya does admit that she would have “possibly taken him to bed for a few hours” under other circumstances. This scene lasts for about two pages. 
• Lazlayon, aka The Gilded Bog, is a compound in Ravka that the rakish Count Kirigin runs. It is a “pleasure compound” that Nikolai designs to serve as a front for secret technological experiments and innovation that will help Ravka compete on a global scale. During his first visit, Nikolai sees a “man wearing nothing but an admiral’s hat.” The Gilded Bog is a recurring setting with a reputation for being steamy. 
• In a meeting with Ravkan officials, Zoya and Nikolai compare international alliances to nighttime companionship. Zoya asks, “Who do we want to go home with when the music stops?” Nikolai adds, “Pick the wrong partner and we could be in for a disappointing night.” 
• The previous king, Nikolai’s father, had a reputation for having many affairs. Nikolai admits that those who claim “to be a by-blow of [his] father” may be telling the truth. Genya Safin, a Grisha tailor whose beautiful face was mutilated by the Darkling, was essentially the king’s concubine. Zoya says that Genya was “tossed into the old king’s bed” by the Darkling. 
• There are also rumors that Nikolai’s mother cheated with a “Fjerdan shipping magnate” named Magnus Opjer, who is Nikolai’s true biological father. This is explained over three pages. 
• Brothels exist in multiple locations. Zoya mentions them, and Nina worked in one during the events of Six of Crows. The activities inside the brothels are not described. 
• Isaak admits to “falling a bit in love” with Genya while she is altering his appearance. A few pages later, Genya excitedly kisses Isaak’s cheek in response to his effective impersonation of Nikolai, and Isaak blushes. 
• Zoya is not sexually active, but her dalliances are mentioned. She refuses to tell Nikolai where she goes at night, and the narration later says, “Zoya did not desire; she was desired.” Zoya later says, “Every lover [she’s] taken” has asked about her scars. 
• The tension between Nikolai and Zoya is palpable. Zoya thinks before their journey to the Shadow Fold that Nikolai looked like “a boy in need of kissing.” Nikolai briefly kisses her knuckles later, and Zoya admits to herself that she “long[s] to try” to make Nikolai fall in love with her.  
• One night, Zoya takes off her kefta and shows Nikolai the scars on her back, and Nikolai stamps down “an unwelcome bolt of desire.” 
• Nina often uses flirtation as a tactic in her covert operations. The Wellmother, the leader of the Fjerdan convent, accuses Nina of wanting to “become a rich man’s mistress” after seeing her interact with the fearsome Fjerdan officer Jarl Brum. 

Violence  

• Since the book contains an excessive amount of violence, not all of it is included below. 
• The book opens with Nikolai turning into a winged demon and attacking a farm. Dima, a young boy who fears the creatures of the dark, is threatened by a demon that has “dark stains around its mouth and on its chest,” which Dina realizes are blood. Zoya chains the snapping monster before it can harm any humans. This scene is described in two pages. 
• Nikolai has scars that are “a reminder of the torture he had endured at the hands of the Darkling” during the Ravkan civil war. This torture is what led to his demon curse. 
• Adrik Zhabin, a Grisha Squaller remarks, “I’ve been shot, stabbed, bayoneted, and had my arm torn off by a shadow demon.” All of these events take place in the previous series. 
• Zoya reflects on “the Darkling’s slaughter of Novokribirsk,” which resulted in the death of her aunt Liliyana. 
• Nina prepares fish for the market. “She drove her blade into the fish’s belly, yanked up toward its head, seized the wet pink mess of its innards, and tossed them onto the filthy slats where they would be hosed away.” 
• Captain Birgir is a violent inspector who tortures and murders Grisha. Nina reflects on multiple instances of his brutality: “She’d seen Birgir and one of his favorite thugs, Casper, drag a mother and daughter off a whaler bound for Novyi Zem and beat them bloody . . . Then he’d doused them in a slurry of waste and fish guts from the canneries and bound them outside the harbor station in the blazing sun.”  
• Nina keeps shards of bone that she uses like darts. She first uses them on the Casper: “The darts lodged in Casper’s windpipe, and a sharp wheeze squeaked from his mouth. Nina twisted her fingers, and the bone shards rotated. The guard dropped to the dock, clawing at his neck.” 
• Nina kills Captain Birgir to protect Grisha refugees. Nina drives “a shard of bone through his heart,” and the fearsome captain dies. 
• Nina and her fellow spies save a girl who was thrown from her horse and nearly trampled to death: “All it would take was a single heavy strike and the [girl’s] skull would be crushed.” This incident occurs over three pages. 
• The Ravkan Triumverate council talks about “the Lantsov pretender,” Dunyasha Lazareva, who was found “splattered on the cobblestones outside the Church of Barter . . .” 
• Zoya has an altercation with Nikolai’s monster form. Her shoulder “crack[s] against the edge of a column,” and her arm is dislocated. The demon and the Grisha battle for three pages before the Shu soldier siblings Tamar and Tolya arrive as reinforcements and save Zoya’s life. 
• Wolves attack Nina while she is burying Matthias. First, Nina uses her bone shards and “pierc[es] the animals’ bodies,” but the remaining wolf bites her arm. Another wolf emerges and fights the remaining wolf off. The fight occurs over two pages. 
• The Saints trapped in the Shadow Fold—Elizaveta, Grigori, and Juris—fight Nikolai and Zoya upon their arrival. Elizaveta swarms them with bees, and Grigori fights in the shapeshifting form of various animals. Juris takes on the form of a dragon, and he and Zoya fight one-on-one: “The dragon unleashed its fire and Zoya let loose the storm…then the flames collapsed. The dragon reared back, a choked wheeze emerging from its throat. Zoya had stolen its breath…” The battle spans five pages and concludes in a tense truce. 
• In an act of betrayal, Elizaveta impales Nikolai’s palms and legs with thorns to prevent him from slaying the shadow demon. This action initiates a multi-chapter battle between those on the side of the Darkling and those who are not. 
• Zoya is encased in amber for the final battle, but she escapes and runs to Juris for backup. She finds him dying. Juris says, “My flames burned me from the inside.” To take on his power, Juris urges her to kill him, and she does so by stabbing a broadsword into his heart. He, in turn, pierces her chest with his dragon claw, solidifying the sacrificial bond. 
• Elizaveta kills Grigori with her insects: “Tiny holes and furrows began to appear on his flesh as burrowing insects consumed him.” 
• Zoya is the one who ultimately defeats Elizaveta in the Shadow Fold. She turns the Saint’s powers against her, reversing the path of Elizaveta’s vicious thorns and impaling her “on the claws of her own creation.” 
• Nina uses her power to manipulate the dead and summon an army of corpses. As the corpses claw through the Earth, the dead speak through Nina and recount their tragic endings at the hands of the Wellmother and the Fjerdan guards. One woman says, “You cut me open and took the child from my womb. You let me bleed to death as I pleaded for help.” 

Drugs and Alcohol  

• Nikolai uses a tonic “to keep [him] tucked into bed and the monster at bay.” Later, the tonic is enhanced to knock him out completely. He needs a separate wake-up elixir to emerge from sleep. 
• Nina is a recovering addict and survivor of the drug Jurda Parem, a synthetic substance created to enhance Grisha’s powers. “The drug was the product of experimentation in a Shu lab. It could take a Grisha’s power and transform it into something wholly new and wholly dangerous, but the price for that brief bit of glory was addiction and eventually death.”  
• Nikolai has commissioned a man to “develop both an antidote to jurda parem and a strain of the drug that might allow Grisha to heighten their powers without making them addicts.”  
• A river is poisoned by runoff from a factory. After testing the water, the Grisha spy, Leoni, falls ill. A version of jurda parem is infecting the water, resulting in the “orange eyes and rangy bodies” of the wolves that Nina encounters. 
• Absinthe is a drink that “tastes like sugar dipped in kerosene.” 
• The Fjerdans have been dosing pregnant Grisha women with jurda parem. Nina sneaks into their facility and finds, “Women and girls . . . in narrow beds . . . addicted to parem.” Their children would be born addicted to the substance, making for “perfect Grisha slaves.” 
• Characters drink alcohol frequently at social and political gatherings. For example, The Gilded Bog reportedly has “a wine cellar said to stretch for a mile underground. . .”  
• Zoya and Nikolai share a bottle of brandy. 
• While impersonating the king, Isaak is nearly poisoned by arsenic gas.  

Language  

• Profanity is rarely used. Profanity includes damn, ass, shit, and hell. For example, Nina says to the deceased Matthias, “Matthias, your country can kiss my fat Grisha ass.” 
• Bastard is used a few times. Nikolai ponders how, “The rumors of his bastardy had circulated since well before birth.” 
• Instead of saying “oh my God” or similar phrases, characters fill in the word “Saints” or “Djel” (a term for god in Fjerdan culture). For example, some say, “For Djel’s sake.” 

Supernatural  

• As detailed in the Shadow and Bone trilogy and the Six of Crows duology, the Grisha are individuals with various magical abilities, categorized into three broad groups, each with smaller subcategories. This is called “The Small Science.” 
• The Corporalki are “The Order of the Living and the Dead” (Heartrenders and Healers). Nina was a Heartrender who could control the living before the drug jurda parem changed her powers and gave her control over the dead. 
• The Etherealki are “The Order of Summoners” (Squallers, Inferni, and Tidemakers). Zoya is a Squaller with power over wind and air. “The wind did what she willed it, had since she was a child.” 
• The Materialki are “The Order of Fabrikators” (Durasts and Aklemi). Leoni is an Alkemi who can control and study poisons. 
• The deceased Matthias Helvar’s voice speaks to Nina until she finally buries his body. Upon laying him to rest, Nina finally admits that “Matthias’ voice was not [real]. It never had been.” 
• The Shadow Fold was created by “merzost,” also known as “abomination” or the corruption of Grisha power. The Darkling had aimed to create more amplifiers, magical artifacts that enhance Grisha magic, but instead created abominations.  
• Zoya explains to Nikolai that amplifiers are “tied to the making at the heart of the world, the source of all creation.” Grisha’s magic is intrinsically connected to the world itself and the powerful forces that created it. 
• Three “Saints,” Elizaveta, Juris, and Grigori, are all trapped by the Shadow Fold. Nikolai, Zoya, and Yuri are all transported there, where time is immeasurable. Elizaveta can control natural organisms like bees, other insects, and plants. Grigori is a shapeshifter whose form constantly morphs between human, bear, and amalgamated forms. Juris is a less chaotic shapeshifter who can take on the form and powers of a dragon. 

Spiritual Content  

• People in Ravka pray to the Saints, all-powerful beings of old who performed miracles and were revered for their martyrdom. There are “churches” dedicated to the Saints. 
• Tolya and Tamar are both very religious. When Tolya recites “liturgical Ravkan,” Tolya explains, “It’s from the Book of Alyosha, which you might know if you ever went to church.” 
• Zoya admits that she isn’t “much for praying” to the Saints, and it is later revealed that her faith was destroyed by past unfulfilled prayers. 
• In the country of Fjerda, Djel is worshipped as an all-powerful god. The people believe the river’s poisoning was “a sign of Djel’s disfavor,” requiring “a priest to say prayers.” 
• “The great ash” is a sacred tree to Djel.  
• People in Fjerda sometimes make signs in the air, “meant to wash away evil thoughts with the strength of Djel’s waters.” Water is also sacred in Fjerdan culture. 
• One of Nina’s main goals is to lay Matthias to rest so that “he could find his way to his god.” 
• The Apparat is the Ravkan “spiritual counselor to the king,” but the current one is considered self-serving and a traitor. He is followed by the “Priestguard,” holy soldiers who supposedly originated from shapeshifters who survived the obisbaya ritual. 
• Yuri is a young monk who follows the “Cult of the Starless Saint.” He urges Nikolai during a large demonstration, “Tell your false priest [the Apparat] to do what is right and recognize the Starless One as a Saint.” He believes that the Starless One deserves Sainthood because of the “good” he did for Ravka, despite the horrors that he committed. 
• The line between the Grisha and the Saints is consistently blurred, and multiple characters imply that the martyred Saints, whom many civilians worship, were actually powerful Grisha, not otherworldly beings.  
• Grigori says that creation “belongs to the First Maker alone,” implying the presence of an all-powerful creator figure.