Content Warning: This section contains references to bigotry in a fantasy setting, as well as to child abuse.

Despite this novel shifting to include additional perspectives (as opposed to the first entry in the series, which focused on Essun at different points in her life), Essun is still the primary protagonist. Hoa narrates the story directly to her—she is the “you” he addresses. Moreover, Hoa includes the sections that aren’t directly about her to contextualize her, implying her centrality to all that is happening.

Essun is a Fulcrum-trained orogene who has experienced multiple forms of suffering, abuse, and trauma throughout her life. Necessarily, this has turned her into an obsessive survivor. She has highly tuned instincts for danger and has learned to be adaptable, resourceful, and, more than anything, to trust no one. Nevertheless, there are several passages that imply Essun does not have much agency in what is happening because she is being used by Hoa. Though apologetic, he foreshadows that the unfolding events will lead to her death.

Essun begins the novel with very strong opinions and assumptions about how the world works and what someone in her position can hope to achieve from life: “[T]he world is just shit.