Six Deaths of the Saint
Into the Shadow Collection
Fantasy
Amazon Original Stories
November 15, 2022
Kindle and Audiobook
30
The Saint of War spares the life of a servant girl so she can fulfill her destiny as the kingdom’s greatest warrior in this short story of love and loyalty by New York Times bestselling author Alix E. Harrow.
Always mindful of the debt she owes, the girl finds her worth as a weapon in the hand of the Prince. Her victories make him a king, then an emperor. The bards sing her name and her enemies fear it. But the war never ends and the cost keeps rising—how many times will she repeat her own story?
“Even with venom in my veins, I could kill every soul in this courtyard.”
Alix E. Harrow holds a very special place in my heart, so whenever she writes ANYTHING, I am all over it. I fell in love with her writing when I came across The Once and Future Witches, and I have yet to find something of hers that I have not loved. Her writing is dark, unique, and it always takes me on a journey that I hadn’t expected.
This time around was no different! I had preordered this short story the moment Alix posted it on her Instagram, and when our Queen Bee told me that I had an ARC for it, I was so unbelievably pumped. Any chance I had to getting my hands on this even slightly before it was released was so exciting. I have been in a major rut lately, and I have been disappointed when my latest reads. Everything has been good not great, or just downright bad. Luckily, Six Deaths of the Saint broke that cycle for me.
An endless loop of falling
Alix has several pieces of work that deal with the concept of a multiverse or slipping through time or worlds, and this short story touches on that in a different way. The choice to use second person narration drew me right in and made me immediately curious about how this story would go. Once I realized that we were watching the same story unfold multiple times, but it was evolving as it went along, I was immediately struck with the brilliance of it all.
Living your life for yourself, by yourself
I believe that Alix used this concept of living the same life over and over and dying constantly until you become aware of what is happening as a metaphor for something. I say something because it could really be so many things. That is one of the beautiful parts of writing, especially Alix’s. She likes to keep her works a little open ended so that the reader can decide what they think it means or what really happened, and that is kind of the point of fictional literature. Maybe not every author and reader see it that way, but that seems to be how Alix views it. For me, I saw the girl dying, being willing to do terrible things in the name of “love” that wasn’t love until she literally couldn’t go on as a reminder that you can live a thousand lives full of fame and glory and still never know love. You can have everyone know your name and sing grand songs and never forget the wonderful things you did, and still never be happy. It is sad, but true. And something we all need a reminder of from time to time.
Short, bloody, and introspective
I think that is the beauty of this short story. Each person who reads it will come away with something different. Maybe it really just is a dark, bloody short story about a girl who becomes a great warrior only to die and start over again. Maybe it is something deeper. Depending on where you are in your life, this piece of literature might mean different things to you, and I think that is how all great works of writing go.
Sorry to get all English Degree on you guys…
Now that I am done raving about Alix Harrow and getting way to research papery on you guys, I just want to stress how much you all should read her work. She is seriously such an amazing author, and a truly genuine and wonderful person. If you want something with a gothic, incredibly unique and creative feel, definitely check her work out. She is always and forever my favorite author, or I wouldn’t have her words in her writing inked on my body forever.
