The Veiled Kingdom

Both protagonists are powerfully influenced by their upbringing and by the ongoing pressures they feel due to their family dynamics and legacy. Specifically, the novel explores the various ways in which parents’ unreasonable demands can damage the psyches of adult offspring. As the interwoven plots of The Veiled Kingdom unfold, it is clear that Nyra and Dacre both have difficult relationships with their fathers, and they also grieve the loss of their respective mothers. These traumatic experiences and fraught relationships inform their worldviews and influence their most impulsive choices.

Nyra is a prime example of this dynamic, for even before she becomes embroiled in the complexities of the rebellion, she has been deeply traumatized by her relationship with her parents, and particularly her father. When she was young, she believed that her father kept her locked away from the world to keep her safe, but she later realizes the truth, and her utter sense of betrayal takes center stage as she laments:

I had spent far too many years mistaking his disgrace for vigilance. My parents lost hope that the heir to their throne would have power […]. I could still remember the fear and concern in their eyes when they told me that we must keep the secret between us, but that concern died long before my mother. My father had become void of his care for me, and it was resentment that stared back (2).

This passage reveals the depths of her father’s betrayal, for even as an adult, Nyra retains the shocked anguish of a child who realizes that her father’s care for her was contingent upon her political usefulness to him and his reign. When she could not manifest her magic or give him more power, he abused her and locked her away. This deeply dysfunctional relationship stands as a hyperbolic example of narcissistic abuse, for King Roan only values his daughter for what she can give him and sees no reason to make sacrifices for her benefit. His abusive tactics are also apparent in the grim reality that Nyra’s mother died trying to give King Roan a more suitable heir. Thus, Nyra and her mother essentially share similar fates at the king’s hands, which makes Nyra’s choice to use her mother’s name as her pseudonym even more significant. As a father, King Roan abuses Nyra and emotionally abandons her, and he torments her due to his own greed.

Like Nyra, Dacre has a complicated relationship with his father and feels compelled to obey the man’s decrees in order to prove himself loyal to both his family and to the rebellion. This intense connection and sense of obligation makes Dacre vulnerable to acceding to Davian’s unreasonable demands. This problematic dynamic becomes apparent when Wren is taken by the palace guards and held in the dungeon, for in this moment of anguish, Davian is insensitive to Dacre, who thinks, “I gritted my teeth as I listened to my father berate me. As if it was my fault that my sister had been captured. As if I wasn’t already dying inside trying to figure out exactly how we were going to get her out” (19). Significantly, Davian is not upset at the thought that his daughter is in danger; instead, he sees Wren as an asset to the rebellion that is now at risk, and he is angry that recovering this assent now requires him to risk other rebellion assets, such as Dacre. Davian’s callous pragmatism hurts Dacre deeply, for he bitterly yearns for the days when his mother was alive and understands that she, unlike Davian, always loved him and Wren as family before seeing them as soldiers. As Dacre reflects, “Everything about the rebellion had become uncertain since losing my mother” (127). Without his mother, Dacre does not know what the rebellion means to him anymore. His loyalty to the rebellion remains undimmed, but his loyalty to his father begins to erode. Thus, both King Roan and Davian sacrifice their relationships with their children for the sake of their ambitions and political goals, and both Nyra and Dacre suffer deeply for these poor parental choices.