Portraits revealed through your current reading position.
Slain by Aja on the polar ice while bringing the truth home, the Obsidian giant dies free, begging his sister to 'live for more.'
Homeward-bound to the Valkyrie Spires to raise an Obsidian army, Ragnar hides his true dread from Darrow: he expected he would have to kill his own mother Alia Snowsparrow to free his people. When Cassius's disguised ship shoots them from the sky, Ragnar fires a sarissa out the cargo bay, downing their pursuers, and survives the crash into the polar sea—dragging a man-eating Eater off Holiday before nearly drowning, revived by Darrow's CPR. Across the ice he leads them to the wreck of Cassius's ship, cutting down cannibal Obsidians, then insists on hunting Aja to avenge Lorn, Quinn, and Trigg.
In the crevasse-riven snowfield he beats the Fury back with sheer fury and mass—until she springs Lorn's whip-feint, going limp under his overhead strike so his weight falls on empty air, and cuts through his spine and out his belly. Dying slowly, he finds his sister Sefi descending on a griffin; he presses her hand to his fading heart, forgives Darrow, gives him leave to do what must be done with Alia, and dies with snow in his hand—asking Darrow to end it, and telling Sefi to 'live for more.'
An eight-foot Obsidian giant, pale-skinned and tattooed, white beard braided with red winter-berry ribbons, a braided white tail; the Howler skull and protection runes dark on his face, twin razors in his six-fingered hands, in torn white polar sealSkin.
Darrow's Obsidian protector and general; the prince of the Spires who dies on the ice bringing his people the truth, his death lighting the Obsidian to the cause.
Also appears in books you've already read — spoiler-safe to their endings: