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When Ires is rescued, he says that she’s somewhere in the Willow Plains. Hopefully, Poppy, Cas and their allies can locate and save her if she is.

HOLLAND (A.K.A SIR BRAYLON HOLLAND)

A Spirit of Fate. One of the Arae.

Hair: Closely cropped.

Eyes: Hickory-hued.

Facial features: Brown, smooth skin.

Personality: Gentle. Kind. Compassionate. Honest.

Other: Appears to be in his forties. In a relationship with Penellaphe—a goddess.

Background: Posed as a Knight of the Royal Guard from the time Sera was seven, teaching Sera how to deal with her anxiety and taking care of her in each decade of her life. When Sera healed her cat Butters, he told her she did nothing wrong but urged her to be careful. Tavius sent him off on a ship to the Vodina Isles the day after the King died.

HOLLAND’S JOURNEY TO DATE:

Holland first appeared in my visions as Sir Braylon Holland, a Knight of the Royal Guard in Lasania. He wasn’t, however, present on Seraphena’s birthday when the Crown presented her to the Primal God of Death.

When the Lords of the Vodina Isles arrive, Holland is shocked by their refusal of the Crown’s deal and bothered by how they look at Sera. The Queen’s order for Sera to deal with them angers him, even though he’s known for Sera’s entire life what she’s been trained to do…to be.

Still believing that the Primal God of Death will come for her, he carries on, training her as best he can while also protecting her as much as he is able—the Arae are forbidden from directly interfering.

Seeing—and possibly knowing—that Tavius is a threat, Holland warns her. He also asks what’s going on with her. When she says she’s unworthy, it surprises him, and he tells her that isn’t the case at all. He says that she carries the ember of life inside her. Hope. And the possibility of a future. When he said that, it seemed he meant the deal and the Rot. However, we now know that he was being literal.

When Sera asks him why he isn’t married, he responds that he just hasn’t felt like doing it. The romantic in me thinks it’s because he has Penellaphe. The realist in me knows it’s likely because he can’t.

After Sera witnesses the seamstress rising after dying from an attack, she asks him what happened. He replies that he has no idea what such an abomination would be and asks her where she heard about it. I wonder if that’s true. He’s an Arae. Wouldn’t they know all about the Revenants and Craven?

Ezra tracks them down in their hidden spot while they’re training, and Holland is a bit annoyed that she is aware of their activities—especially since he knows that Sera let the Princess follow her. He questions Ezmeria as to why she and the orphanage need Sera’s aid and is irked that his training with Sera is cut short.

Sera is attacked, and Holland checks on her, then later attends Odetta’s funeral. A couple of days later, he learns of Sera’s headache and stomach issues and asks her if her jaw hurts. When she tells him it does, he brings her something for it. We later learn it was a tea that helps a god get through their Culling. He also tells her about Sotoria and says she reminds him of the woman. Reminds? She shares a soul with her.

After all the details were revealed to me, it was interesting to look back on the things I saw happen between these two and their discussions. Holland really was skirting the line of propriety when it came to interfering.

Once Sera is in the Shadowlands, she sees him as he enters the throne room. After her shock, he admits that he’s known her for most of her life. That he trained her. He tells Sera to call him Holland and explains that he’s not a viktor, saying, “That honor is not mine.”

He goes on to explain that he knew his time in the mortal realm was over when Tavius reassigned him to the Vodina Isles. He didn’t go because he knew Sera and Nyktos would want to talk to him. When she asks him how he’s stayed so young, he tells her that he’s ageless because of the whiskey he drinks.

I think maybe I can claim that, too.

Later, he says that he never directly intervened. He couldn’t tell her the Rot wasn’t tied to the deal or the pointlessness of her endeavor, though he was pushing it with the healing tea.

When asked why he got involved at all, Holland confesses that he knew Eythos when he was the Primal God of Life and considered him a friend, though he didn’t know what would become of him. He insists that if he had, he wouldn’t have been able to stand by, and would have intervened, even knowing the punishment for such an act is final death.

He then tells them exactly what Eythos did. When Penellaphe recounts her vision, he reaches over and takes her hand and says how tricky it is to understand prophecies, adding that they’re only one possibility, and not every word is literal.

Gods, is that true. I have revamped my interpretation of the prophecy so many times as visions came to me over the years.

Holland explains that Sera will go through the Culling but won’t survive it. As they talk more, he reminds Sera how reckless and impulsive she is and tells her it can be her greatest strength; it could have given whatever Eythos believed upon hearing the prophecy a chance to come to fruition.

He shows them the cords of fate, and as they look at the almost broken thread, the only way to disrupt fate, Holland reveals that the key is love—the only thing not even fate can contend with. He says that love is more powerful than the Fates. It’s even more powerful than what courses through their veins, though it is equally as awe-inspiring and terrifying in its selfishness. He says it can extend a thread by sheer will, becoming a piece of pure magic that biology cannot extinguish. It can also snap a cord unexpectedly and prematurely.

He reiterates that Sera cannot survive the Culling, not without sheer will of what is more powerful than fate and even death. Not without the love of the one who would aid in her Ascension.

When Ash takes Sera to her lake and Ascends her, those statements become all too clear. And it moved me to witness it.