Quick Facts
- Role: Protagonist; feared Ig’Morruthen known as the “Bloodthirsty Queen”; second-in-command to the story’s central tyrant
- First appearance: Opening chapter, interrogating a celestial by tasting his blood to read memories
- Key relationships: Sister Gabby Martinez; the tyrant who owns her leash, Kaden; enemy-turned-ally Liam (Samkiel); rare friend Drake Vanderkai; rival general Alistair
Who They Are
Bold and brutal yet painfully human, Dianna is a woman who traded herself to save her sister—an oath that chains her centuries later. As the Ig’Morruthen enforcer to Kaden, she lives out a bargain sealed in blood to keep Gabby (Gabriella Martinez) alive, a defining act of Love and Sacrifice that both ennobles and imprisons her. The world knows her as a weapon; she knows herself as a paradox—predator and protector—caught between a monstrous nature and a “damn human heart,” a central tension that anchors the story’s exploration of Identity and Monstrosity.
Dianna’s physicality mirrors her inner edge: tall, lean, honed like a blade. After her transformation, her features sharpened, her ember-bright eyes betraying hunger, anger, and power—an emblem she cannot hide. Others read “exotic beauty”; she reads a warning label.
Personality & Traits
Dianna’s persona is armor: wit to deflect, violence to survive, devotion to justify the blood on her hands. Her defining contradiction—monster with a conscience—drives every choice, making her not a villain redeemed but a protector corrupted by the cost of protection.
- Fiercely protective: Every atrocity is calculus for Gabby’s safety. Her deal with Kaden and later choices repeatedly place her own life—and soul—below her sister’s.
- Sarcastic and defiant: She uses razor-edged humor to seize control in powerless situations, sparring even with the god-king Liam (Samkiel), wielding mockery as both shield and sword.
- Ruthless and deadly: The opening interrogation—tasting celestial blood to pull memories—establishes her as a terror in Kaden’s service, earning the title “Bloodthirsty Queen.”
- Internally conflicted: Her mantra “damn human heart” signals empathy she calls weakness. Remorse doesn’t stop her—it haunts her, complicating every act of violence done “for love.”
- Loyal yet resentful: Her obedience is transactional. She obeys Kaden only insofar as it protects Gabby; once that bargain is threatened, her loyalty fractures.
- Physical markers as identity: Ember-bright eyes and a body “sculpted sharp” don’t just describe her—they signify the self she believes she became the day she chose power over peace.
Character Journey
Dianna’s arc is a descent that becomes defiance. At first, she embodies Freedom vs. Servitude in its bleakest form—freedom bartered away for a life preserved. Her coerced execution of Drake Vanderkai in Chapter 3 cements her role as Kaden’s blade and proves the bargain’s cost isn’t abstract—it’s the lives of the few people she lets herself care about.
The turning point arrives through uneasy cooperation with Liam. She recognizes his grief beneath the crown, and in him, a mirror: another powerful being defined by loss. Doubt hardens into rebellion in Chapter 15, when she kills fellow general Alistair to save one of Liam’s Hand—a choice that threads Betrayal and Loyalty into the same act. From there, she stops being Kaden’s instrument and starts choosing her own war.
The shattering climax in Chapter 51—Kaden murdering Gabby—obliterates the one reason she endured servitude. With her purpose torn away, grief and rage rip the restraints off her Ig’Morruthen power. The result isn’t redemption; it’s revelation: Dianna unbound, defined now not by whom she protects, but by what she’ll destroy to end the world that made her choose.
Key Relationships
Gabby Martinez: Gabby is Dianna’s axis. Their bond keeps Dianna human even as it is weaponized against her. Loving Gabby turns Dianna into both guardian and captive—proof that devotion can be the chain as much as the key.
Liam (Samkiel): What begins as wary opposition becomes an alliance grounded in shared loss. Liam sees past the terror of her legend to the woman beneath, challenging her self-hatred and offering a life beyond servitude—hope that complicates every choice she makes.
Kaden: Master, maker, abuser—Kaden embodies the system that exploits love to enforce control. He positions himself as her only path to protecting Gabby, twisting her sacrifice into obedience until his betrayal severs the bond and unleashes her rebellion.
Drake Vanderkai: One of the few who treated Dianna as a person, not a weapon. Being forced to kill him is both a confession and a condemnation of the life she leads—proof that even her “victories” are losses she must live with.
Defining Moments
Dianna’s milestones aren’t just plot points; they’re moral thresholds crossed or refused, each one sharpening who she is.
- Reading memories from blood (Chapter 1): She extracts a celestial’s memories by tasting his blood, establishing her unique Ig’Morruthen power and her willingness to terrify to survive. It announces the story’s ethics: knowledge here is won in red.
- Killing Drake (Chapter 3): Obedience demands murdering a friend. The scene brands her as Kaden’s weapon—and brands Kaden’s control on her conscience. It is the loss that makes every later act of mercy feel insufficient.
- Killing Alistair (Chapter 15): Saving one of Liam’s Hand requires betraying Kaden’s machine. This is her point of no return: she chooses a moral allegiance over a commanded one.
- Sacrificing her heart (Chapter 44): Ripping out her own heart to stop Tobias from seizing the Book and to save Liam literalizes her creed—other lives over her own. The act measures love not in promises but in flesh.
- Witnessing Gabby’s murder (Chapter 51): The keystone of her identity is destroyed. What remains isn’t restraint; it’s the pure, catastrophic version of herself Kaden thought he controlled.
Essential Quotes
There is a line you cross for survival. One I crossed centuries ago.
This line places Dianna beyond innocence and beyond apology. It frames her violence as the residue of a decision made long ago—survival as a permanent state, not a temporary chapter.
Damn human heart.
A mantra and a diagnosis. She names empathy as a liability even as it keeps saving and steering her, capturing the story’s core conflict between feeling and survival.
I said I didn't want to. Not that I wouldn't.
Her pragmatism overrides preference. The distinction lays bare her ethic: desire is irrelevant when duty (or threat) dictates action—a chilling clarity that makes her later acts of mercy feel earned, not easy.
I would rather answer his every call like a dog on a leash than lose you.
This is love as servitude, devotion weaponized. Dianna isn’t blinded by romance; she’s bound by choice, revealing how abusers exploit loyalty to manufacture consent.
I was a blade made of fire and flesh.
A self-portrait of body as weapon. She is both human and instrument—passion and pain fused into purpose—capturing the novel’s fascination with people who become what the world needs or fears them to be.