The boy on the gate

THE GUARD WHO BLUSHED

He could barely get through escorting her without turning red.

Ress is one of the young King's Guard assigned to Celaena Sardothien during her time as the King's Champion, and he has it bad. Escorting her to a ball at the Glass Castle, he shyly compliments her, puffs out his chest, offers his arm, and stumbles through a courtly farewell — have a lovely night, Miss Sardothien — plainly flustered by a woman who could kill him with the cutlery. He is a boyish face and an open crush in a castle full of hard men. It is the first note of him, and it is the note the rest of his story is tuned against: sweet, young, easy to like, and standing in the worst possible place.

THE BANTER IN THE GUARDROOM

He was funny, and he loved his captain, and the two things got him killed.

Ress is the guardroom's gossip, telling stories with fiendish delight, easy with both Celaena and his captain. In one exchange Chaol dares Celaena to back up her talk in the training hall, and she fires back that his men would not mind watching him knocked flat — and it is Ress who crows agreement, then catches Chaol's look and hastily adds the honorific. That is the whole warmth of him in one beat: he would tease the Captain of the Guard to his face because he trusted him that much. The trust is real. It is also, in the end, exactly the thing Adarlan will torture out of him.

THE LOYALTY THAT MARKED HIM

When Chaol ran, Ress stayed, and turned spy.

After Chaol Westfall flees Rifthold, the safe thing is to forget he ever existed. Ress does the opposite. Along with the weapons master Brullo and a handful of Chaol's most trusted men, he stays inside the Glass Castle and quietly works for the rebellion, passing intelligence out to Chaol and the rebels. It is the bravest thing the blushing boy ever does, and the reason he does not survive the series — a young guard choosing a loyalty that had already become a death sentence, feeding out the King's movements from inside the King's own house. When Aelin comes back to Rifthold, he greets her warmly, cheeks colouring, and tells her simply that he missed her.

THE GATES

The warmth made the ending worse, which is exactly why it lands.

Ress's spying is discovered. He, Brullo, and Chaol's other loyal men are tortured and hanged from the iron gates at the entrance of the Glass Castle as a warning — the killings tied to Dorian, collared and controlled by the Valg. When Chaol and Aelin reach the castle they find the bodies; Ress's chest is marked with welts and cuts and brands. For Chaol it is a display of everyone he could not protect, strung up where he would have to see them. The boy who blushed escorting a woman to a ball, who teased his captain and meant harm to no one, ends on a gate as a message. We do not get over that one.