Blackcliff is the setting for most of the book and represents how the empire indoctrinates its military. Soldiers are brought to the school at age six and tossed in a pit for three days to fight over food and other resources. Those who survive become students, and this is just the first in a long line of exercises meant to teach soldiers to be ruthless tools of violence. Blackcliff drills both knowledge and combat techniques into its students. By the time they graduate, soldiers can decipher meaning from the drumbeats in a few seconds, recite the vows and histories they’ve been taught from memory without flaw, and kill a foe in any number of ways. They are also taught that Scholars, tribal people, and anyone not a Martial is inferior and that the empire is justified in destroying the lives and livelihoods of these lesser groups. As a motif, the school represents the oppression of individual thought and the perpetuation of violence, bigotry, and cruelty.

For Laia and Elias, Blackcliff is a place that offers them a chance to change. Any system dependent on brainwashing is only as strong as its most free-thinking member.