The Ever King

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains depictions of child abuse, imprisonment, violence, abuse, and murder.

“[Erik] might see that her hope in the [swallow] charm was less about recalling the tale and more about remembering her [Livia].”

In this passage, the author foreshadows how deep Livia’s feelings for Erik will become. Even as a child caught in the middle of a war between their two peoples, she wants to be a positive memory for the boy whom her father captured and imprisoned. She knows that she should hate Erik, but she cannot keep herself from caring about him, and her innate tendencies also hint at her role in Breaking Cycles of Violence.

“[Erik] had fought against [Livia’s] people; he hated them. Like the serpent from the story hated the birds in the trees for their freedom in the skies.”

Here, L.J. Andrews reinforces the status of the serpent-and-songbird tale as a fable, outlining envy as the source of the serpent’s insidious schemes to devour the bird. Within the analogy of Livia and Erik’s eventual relationship, this passage explains the misdirected anger that Erik carries against Livia and her father, for in reality, Erik’s misguided fury arises from his unresolved feelings toward the now-deceased Thorvald, his abusive father.

“Like my parents, all the kings and queens of our realms fought wars for their titles. Not all were born into the life of a royal, and the twins’ father much preferred being remembered for his life as a schemer and thief than a king.”

In this excerpt, Andrews directly references her previous series, The Broken Kingdoms, in order to establish a timeline between her books. By including these details, she embeds the history of her earlier series within the narrative, relying upon past tensions and character relationships to flesh out her world-building for The Ever King.