Unpopular Opinion
I don’t mind Helvitas’s ending in A Sky Beyond The Storm. Their relationship always made me uncomfortable considering the first time they meet is him beating her for five days and beating her so bad her father was horrified upon seeing her. It wasn’t a light beating either, even made a joke out of it, and her family ended up having to nurse her back to health afterwards.
- “He was your ally. Your friend.” The Northman pulls something from his pocket. It clinks, but I can’t see what it is. “The moment he was to be executed, a series of explosions nearly leveled the school. Do you expect anyone to believe that was a coincidence?”
At my silence, the Northman motions for the legionnaires to dunk me again.
- The legionnaires yank my head from the bucket, and I draw a deep gulp of air. The interrogator tips my face up with a firm hand, forcing me to look into green eyes that glimmer pale and unfeeling against the silver of his mask.
- “Very good, Aquilla.” His words are deadly quiet. Immediately, I think of the Commandant. The softer she spoke, Elias once said, the more dangerous she was. I can finally see what the Northman pulled from his fatigues. Two sets of joined, metal rings that he slips onto his fingers. Brass beaters. A brutal weapon that transforms a simple beating into a slow, bloody death
“Why don’t we begin there?”
“Begin?” I’ve been in this hellhole for hours. “What do you mean, begin?”
“This”—he gestures to the bucket of water and my bruised face—“was me getting to know you.”
- I try to answer him, but I’m in too much pain to do more than moan. The legionnaires dump me on the floor. I lay curled in a ball, a pathetic attempt to protect my broken ribs. My breath escapes in a wheeze. I wonder if death is close.
- “Aquilla.” The Northman sounds … different. Tired. “You’re out of time. Tell me about the girl.”
“I don’t—”
“Otherwise, I have orders to beat you to death.”
“Emperor’s orders?” I wheeze. I’m surprised. I thought Marcus would visit all sorts of horrors upon me himself before killing me.
“Doesn’t matter whom the orders come from,” the Northman says. He crouches down. His green eyes meet mine. For once, they are less than calm.
“He’s not worth it, Aquilla,” he says. “Tell me what I need to know.”
“I—I don’t know anything.” The Northman waits a moment. Watches.
When I remain silent, he stands and pulls on the brass beaters.
- “Father?” What in the bleeding hells is he doing here? Is Marcus using him as leverage? Planning to torture him until I give up information? “Your Majesty.” My father’s voice as he addresses Marcus is smooth as glass, so uninflected as to be uncaring. But his eyes flick to me, horror-filled.
- “Six broken ribs, twenty-eight lacerations, thirteen fractures, four torn tendons, and bruised kidneys.”
Helene was even so traumatized by it that when Avitas so much as moved his hands she would flinch. Then as time progresses he never brings it up again. Never apologizes. Never sits down and talks about it with her. Granted that still wouldn’t magically make everything okay. I’d still find it very problematic but at the very least it still should’ve been acknowledged. That’s not to say he’s a bad guy. As all masks had to do horrific things in their life. So I don’t think Avitas is evil or anything like that. I actually think as a friend he’s fantastic. I do not hate him. He’s done many good things and has been there through some of the roughest times to help out and battle through. He clearly is kind and does believe in the cause he’s helping. It’s just this concept of their relationship is not okay to me. As well as the fact that the reason she caught his eye in the first place was because he realized that she was close to his brother so that peaked his intrigue. They just started off on the worst foot that I can’t look past it. It feels wrong to romanticize a relationship that had started with trauma and assault and try to pass it off as okay cause he ends up deciding to team up with her and be nice to her afterwards.
Its very triggering actually.
It’s just a very sensitive topic for me.
He crossed a line when he brutally tortured her and that’s something he can’t undo. The damage has been done and it took a huge toll on Helene afterwards. Both physically and mentally. It also doesn’t feel right to me that instead of talking about it together Helene just justifies the situation for him to herself so she can accept him as an ally. No matter how nice he was to her afterwards it doesn’t erase or lessen the grief he put her and even her family through. She wasn’t able to feel trusting or comfortable around him for months and not in an enemies to lovers sort of way but because she genuinely felt threatened and would remember the interrogation torture whenever she saw him. I’m not saying this means his character is completely ruined and no one should ever like him. I still like him enough. Just not as a love interest. Avitas by himself? Perfectly fine. But pairing him up with the girl he tortured, traumatized, and whose mere presence had her on edge and would make her shudder and recoil whenever he was near, not so much. So I’m satisfied with their ending and glad Sabaa ended it that way.