it’s about how Varl has always been positioned in the shadow of death. how when we meet him he is guarding a gate with his life. how he reassures himself after Vala’s passing with the belief that there is no better death than in saving others. how his mother was a war chief who raised him to fight and die honorably if need be. how he falls in love with a Gravesinger, one surrounded by death who guides and comforts those in their final moments. how his very last act is to try to save the life of an innocent. yet how he’ll never get to know of the life that innocent will lead going forward, nor of the life that all his love would bring forth. in this essay I will—















