Shadow & Bone: The Darkling’s New [SPOILER] Explained

Warning: SPOILERS for Shadow and Bone season 1 ahead.

The final scene of Shadow and Bone season 1 revealed General Kirigan, a.k.a. The Darkling (Ben Barnes) had survived the Shadow Fold to emerge with a brand-new type of monster following him. The first season of the new Netflix series was ambitious, with four different storylines going simultaneously while crisscrossing a giant world. It was all building to a convergence, however, and the story finally found three of those storylines and their characters all coming together in the finale.

That meeting took place on one of the sandskiffs, which the Darkling had brought into the Fold for his grand demonstration. Using Alina’s (Jessie Mei Li) Sun Summoner powers, which he controlled through the amplifier around her neck, Kirigan expanded the Shadow Fold to swallow up the port city of Novokribirsk, proving a point to the horrified international delegates and dignitaries on board. In the meantime, Mal (Archie Renaux) had stowed away hoping to take out Kirigan, while the Crows, Kaz (Freddy Carter), Inej (Amita Suman) and Jesper (Kit Young) had disguised themselves in order to slip on board undetected. Lastly was Grisha Squaller Zoya (Sujaya Dasgupta), who watched, horrified, as the general she had loyally followed slaughtered an entire town. An enormous fight erupted then, with Kirigan appearing to have been killed by the Fold’s volcra he’d accidentally created, the ravenous flying creatures attacking him and dragging him into the darkness.

However, the final scene showed the Darkling staggering out of the Fold, miraculously still alive but drastically changed. Black gashes slashed across his once-flawless face, and he was clearly injured. But despite his grievous injuries, something else came out of the Shadow Fold with him: nichevo’ya. The nichevo’ya are creatures made of pure shadow, and for as deadly and terrifying as the volcra are, the nichevo’ya are even worse, for they have virtually none of the volcras’ limitations. Unlike the volcra, nichevo’ya can exist outside of the Fold, they are not bothered by fire and not harmed by sunlight, they can not be killed by anything other than Alina using The Cut, and the Darkling can summon them at will to do his bidding. A bite from one of them is excruciating, never fully heals, and, worst of all, the Darkling can use his shadows to turn a human into a nichevo’ya, too.

However, if the nichevo’ya take something from the people they attack, they take something from the Darkling, too. No one knows how the Darkling survived the Shadow Fold, exactly, or fought off so many volcra – even the books don’t explain that. All that is known is that he once again turned to merzost in his desperation – and as it has been established, merzost is not like the Small Science. Where practicing the Small Science gives to the Grisha, merzost only takes. Whether it manifests in an unwanted and negative way or rebounds upon the Grisha using it, merzost never comes without a heavy price.

So it is for General Kirigan. The nichevo’ya are not creatures that exist apart from him; every time he summons one, it takes a little piece of him. Unlike the Darkling’s Shadow Summoner powers, which give him health and longevity, the nichevo’ya drain him bit by bit. Once again, merzost shows why it’s always a devil’s bargain: Kirigan survived the Fold, but the price of survival is having his vitality drained one nichevo’ya at a time. The nichevo’ya play an important role in the second and third books of the Grisha trilogy and their effects are felt even beyond. If Netflix sees fit to greenlight Shadow and Bone season 2, it’s a certainty that the Darkling’s new shadow creatures will have a big part.

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