How Does It Feel?

Prince Mendax is both foil to and love interest for Callie. His character begins as the antagonist, the Unseelie royal who wants Callie, the assassin, dead. Slowly, he falls for Callie; once he realizes that her beauty is matched only by her ferocity, he begins to desire her, then wants to possess her. His alleged love for her is marked by obsession. As he clearly concedes, “I would stop at absolutely nothing—nothing—until she was mine forever, my queen” (301). His all-consuming passion is possessive, and his obsession threatens her autonomy while she is his prisoner, but this dynamic is complicated when she is revealed to be his assassin. Mendax represents a version of the Fae, popularized in recent years and backed by Celtic folklore, wherein his attraction to humans is as dangerous as it is enthralling.

Mendax’s bloodlust is equaled only by his beauty. Callie is overwhelmed by the sight of him from the very beginning: “A sharp jaw contoured his backlit face as cold blue eyes bore into my body and through my very soul” (66). Once she has a chance to scrutinize him further, she thinks, “He was beautiful. [...] Gorgeous in a hauntingly evil way with the bone structure and build of a Roman god” (77). She has a difficult time reconciling his physical beauty with his monstrous actions—or, at least, of that she tries to convince herself. Part of her attraction to him is clearly informed by his darkness; this is a trope common to fantasy, wherein creatures are both threatening and appealing in equal measure. Humans are both repulsed by these creatures and fatally drawn to them. Without the suggestion of danger, the attraction would not be so tantalizing: “He was nothing but danger, in every sense of the word,” Callie admits (264). And yet she cannot help herself, becoming enraptured by his mesmerizing good looks and bad energy, which mirrors her own.

Though Mendax is not an entirely rounded character, he sometimes displays more complicated impulses. For example, his hatred of humans is tempered by his growing affection for Callie; concomitantly, his plan to invade and destroy the human realm appears to lose its urgency. He defies his mother, the Queen, both in choosing Callie and in delaying the invasion. There is also the surprising fact that most of his subjects wish for him to succeed; he is well-liked by the servants who attend to Callie. Finally, his violent tendencies are undermined by the gentleness with which he treats Callie when she is wounded. His love for her—as disturbing as it can often be—occasionally humanizes him: “I hadn’t even left the room before I wished I was with her” (271). His obsession with her might also be seen as devotion, as he shifts from villain to lover and protector. He is also committed to finding her and being with her, even after her assassination attempt.