#ada wallace

Farley starts out as a woman fully committed to the rebel cause and despite her concern for her team as their leader, she appears distant, cold and thorny. Yet between the lines of Steel Scars, she loathes how her father has taught her to bury her heart to create her sole focus on the Scarlet Guard. She knows it means solitude and it’s only Shade who dares her to break her loneliness, and only Shade, the newcomer, cares enough for her to ask how she feels beneath her icy glaze of efficiency and ambition that fights the silver supremacy. Farley can be more than that – she wants to be more than that because if she doesn’t open up, all her heart feels is the pain of losing her home town and family and even that loss she must use to further the cause. Her heart is so deeply embedded in her mission its feelings have to serve it as well.

Shade must’ve been impressed by her, inspired to follow the model of a strong and self-confident red woman as a leader who flaunts all the rules and still he starts to rile her, challenge her. He isn’t like the rest of her soldiers who simply trust her to obey her orders and leave it at that to support her. He also doesn’t offer concern directly, asks about her worries. He approaches carefully, courting her as if he was chasing the huntress herself until she is willing to be caught – not in a trap but like saved from a fall. With him, she can stop falling into a deeper hole of loneliness but fall for his affection, granting herself not just a respite. Giving in to their desire is defiance, against her father who expects single-focused commitment, against the silvers who can’t take away their pleasure as well as their freedom, even as Shade and Farley fight against them.

And Shade, too, is a man of many facets. Or shades. Of sunshine, the fun caring brother and friend with the ability to save them in time, to his own risk. He has eyes like honey, yet he is all nurturing words and art or can he build dangerous, sticky traps? Farley showed him to strive for more and fight and he will make use of the power he has. His ability can save but also be employed for sabotage and murder, to kill before anyone can notice or strike back, to protect his loved ones mercilessly. He can be warm light and also a killer in the shadows and Farley treasures both sides, as he not just treasures all of her but yearns to uncover the ways to her soul buried deep within a casket.

They keep their love secret at first which I find hot, personally, because it speaks of disobedience, of taking what you crave without asking for permission. Mare says Farley isn’t one for hugs yet Farley casually touches people all the time. Rather, she longs for touch, to give and receive reassurance, but has become too used to cover that need and limit the physical affection, the intimacy in the dark, to Shade. The secret relationship burns on its own flame but in obscurity, as if from hesitation, a fear of open commitment.

That is all for naught of course when Farley gets pregnant and hiding turns futile so she just stops trying to, even if, in canon, she’ll be a walking tragedy whose child’s father has died. Still she ceases to lock away her feelings and dares to embrace the vulnerability that comes with having a child. She won’t let her child doubt her only surviving parent loves her – in contrast to how the colonel treated Farley – and protects her at all costs.

With Clara, Farley will have a family again, one she starts herself, she’ll give life instead of kill and never be alone again.

For Clara, Farley will reveal the love she holds inside because Shade gave her the courage to, so she can be gentle not just to Clara but to all those with her, to challenge her thorny side and turn it against their enemy instead of herself.

Farley is a woman who continues to grow into all she can be, gentle, cold, calculating, outspoken, brave, ruthless, passionate, secretive, caring, competent, questioning, innovative. But there remains the thought that never leaves me – that they both could still be more – if they got to be together, that Shade could be more, too. He’s remembered as perfect, warm and loving although he didn’t even get the chance to doubt and move beyond that, to find his own unique way to love his daughter (or more children in the future). Clara will always carry Shade’s memory although she never knew him or could ever be him. A baby to take care of is the opposite of a boyfriend who stands by your side raising her. When Farley grows kinder, who is kind to her, seeing into her heart and looking out for and after her? Has Farley re-found joy in her child after the numbness of grief only to be lonely again?

Maybe I relish the tragedy of Farley and Shade but just the same, I’ll never let go of the idea of what they could have been, of how Shade would’ve supported Farley as ambitious general and besotted, playful mother, amazed by even more facets of her. They have come so far, with so much dangerous hope, and they could’ve kept growing together.