Portraits revealed through your current reading position.
Darrow's frail, iron-spined mother, who led his funeral dirge believing him dead and now guards him at Tinos.
Deanna of Lykos, Darrow's mother, was seized from Lykos with the family and kept safe at Tinos by the Sons—never, as Darrow feared, tortured by the Jackal. Bent and fragile since a stroke, her hands slowed with age, she is nonetheless the iron and spine Darrow credits for surviving the Institute. Believing the Jackal's staged execution of a Darrow-double, she led the Fading Dirge and buried her son's boots in the deeptunnels, grieving nine months and drowning now in guilt for having given up on him.
At his bedside she offers cold-eyed, unbreakable love, patching socks, pouring coffee, and reminding him there is nothing to apologize for—while watching the war swallow her broken son again.
A small, bent, fragile woman aged by a stroke, crooked slowed fingers, gray hair at her temples, crow's-feet about her eyes; smelling of rust, sweat, and oil; iron on the inside though frail without.
Darrow's mother and moral anchor; the grieving matriarch of the Lykos family sheltered at Tinos.
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