So, she joins forces with the Crows to help stop the Darkling, even sending a Heartrender into the darkness in order to save Inej. However, as punishment for her betrayal, the Darkling consumes the back end of the skiff with darkness, leaving them vulnerable to the volcra, who attack Zoya and Inej.
Mal was oblivious to Alina's love from before book one even began. He slept with Zoya and countless others before he realised who was waiting by his back door. Was this the relationship we were rooting for?
Elizaveta and the Darkling
However, in regards to one character in particular, it's worth noting that there's a brief moment in the finale where a bee lands on Zoya's kefta. This is meant to be a nod to Elizaveta, the patron saint of gardeners who first appears to Nikolai and Zoya as a swarm of bees in King of Scars.
Genya remains loyal to the Darkling, but his nichevo'ya mutilate her when she betrays him to help Alina escape in Siege and Storm. She joins Alina and helps in taking the King down.
In the beginning, the Darkling and Alina felt drawn to one another. Before Alina left the Little Palace, the Darkling kissed her abruptly by the lake, after he told her about the stag he was hunting. He then kisses and touches her at the winter fete, before they are interrupted.
While searching for the last amplifier, Mal and Alina find out the truth about Mal's heritage. He is descended from Baghra's sister, making him a great-nephew of the Darkling.
He sees her strong desire to belong and to find herself and it reminds him of himself. While his desire for Alina is not a healthy one and is obsessive, he truly does develop feelings for her. She is the one person who can bring balance to his life.
Rather than raping or assaulting women, the Darkling tricks Alina into falling in love with him, his goal being to take Alina's power for himself and effectively enslave her.
As punishment for Nikolai stealing Alina from under his nose in the previous book, the Darkling infects him with merzost, the same forbidden power that he has been using to create his nichevo'ya. It warps Nikolai, transforming him into a winged monster with fangs, talons, and skin filled with veins of darkness.
After being attacked by nichevo'ya, or the nothings, her skin is scarred all over, and she has one remaining eye.
As the heroes watch, there is a moment when a bee lands on Zoya and then flies away. While this moment may seem like a random addition, the "Shadow and Bone" showrunners told Entertainment Weekly that this is a nod to the Grisha saint Sankta Lizabeta of Roses, who can control swarms of bees.
The bee is a reference to Sankta Elizaveta, one of the Ravkan saints and a Grisha. She is the patron saint of gardeners and was trapped in the Shadow Fold along with two other saints, Sankta Grigori and Sankta Juris.
One of the most evocative symbols in The Secret Life of Bees is the picture (and later the statue) of the black Virgin Mary that the Boatwright family idolizes.
Zoya was initially infatuated with the Darkling. Upon Alina's arrival at the Little Palace, Zoya instantly hates her for becoming the Darkling's new favorite, and expresses her jealousy by cheating during a duel and injuring Alina.
From the start, Zoya views Alina as a rival despite how much they have in common: Much like Alina, Zoya is also biracial, only she's half Suli — not that it dampens her fierce loyalty to Ravka.
5. As a result of winning the war, Zoya will become beloved by common people of Ravka, who no longer hate/ fear her as a Grisha, but love her as a war heroine. (Note: this overcomes one major obstacle of her marriage to Nikolai-- since she's now the beloved hero of the people, they WOULD accept her as queen.)
Between the novels Siege and Storm and Ruin and Rising, on which season 2 is largely based, Alina loses her Sun Summoner powers completely for a time after a fight with Kirigan. She also ends up gaining a piece of the Darkling's power and vice versa.
Nina first thought Hanne was a Heartrender, but it appeared to be that Hanne was a Healer. The two become very close, eventually working together at the end of King of Scars to begin to bring down Jarl Brum. Nina is in love with Hanne and they are engaged to be married.
Ulla is a half-sildroher songcaster and the half-sister of The Darkling via their late mother, Baghra. She is also known as Sankta Ursula of the Waves.
Alexander III wants Genya to be beheaded for high treason and murder, while it becomes clear that he raped her. Genya confesses that she poisoned her own skin so that the king would consume it when he kissed and touched her.
A picture of him in Baghra's cave reveals the man hasn't physically aged a day in centuries. The Shadow Fold was created roughly 400 years prior to the events of the series and the Darkling was already an adult by then. An estimate would put him at 500 years of age, if not a bit older.
In the end, Mal is magically healed and the Fold is destroyed, while Alina loses her powers and fakes her own death. She and Mal eventually marry and rebuild the Grisha orphanage. While Alina Starkov is not in the King of Scars, she appears in the second book of the King of Scars duology, Rule of Wolves.
In the book, however, Alina uses merzost through her still-active connection to the Darkling in order to create her own nichevo'ya (shadow monsters like the Darkling uses) to fight back against him at the end of the second novel. As a result of her using the power that one time her hair turns permanently white.
Shadow and Bone
It is revealed that Alina had been subconsciously suppressing her power when she was tested as a child in Keramzin for signs of Grisha ability. It was as though she knew that if she was found to be a Grisha, she would be taken away from her best friend, Mal.
We've been through this huge battle and so much has happened, Nikolai almost feels that sigh of relief, and things are starting to fall into place: Mal's gone off and taken the Sturmhond role; Nikolai has finally accepted that he can be himself; he's finally accepted that he's fallen in love with Alina.