The-tyrant-philosophers/Fyon
Fyon is a Maric Shrike - a lone, self-selected assassin in the Palleseen Occupation's besieged city - who matters to City of Last Chances as the personification of a resistance that refuses to be anything other than a death wish with a target. She infiltrates the Occupation's prison, the Donjon, as a servant for the single purpose of killing Fellow-Inquirer Hegelsy, and when that purpose is frustrated by events beyond her control, she is left with nothing but the Shrike path's terminal logic: "What else is there?" Rescued from a fake hanging by Blackmane's intervention, she becomes the only listener truly moved by Lemya's call to resist cultural erasure, and transforms into a tactical leader of the student uprising at Gownhall Square. Her arc compresses the Shrike story into a single life: from solitary killer to grieving comrade, from a woman who spits on a soldier's jacket while the noose is being fitted to one who discovers, in the face of a dead schoolgirl, that "thirty years of being a murderously bad person" could not fully bury the capacity for sorrow.
She dies holding a townhouse staircase against the last Palleseen soldiers in the Battle of Gownhall Square, alone with two knives, having sent the surviving students away with a single word. Fyon's significance to the novel is that she embodies both the Shrikes' ferocity and their tragic isolation - the chapter's observation that Shrikes were "only a part of the resistance because they were always going to be against somebody" is a sentence that could be written over her grave - while also, in her final moments, complicating that verdict with an interiority the resistance itself never bothered to name.
Character
Appearance
Fyon is a lean Maric woman bearing a crude avian tattoo, a mark of her Shrike identity. She is recognizable as a Shrike at a glance to those who know the path. - City of Last Chances, ch 21
Personality
Ferocious, solitary, and vengeful, Fyon carries herself with the fixed focus of a woman who has narrowed her entire existence to a single killing. She spits on a soldier's jacket while he is measuring her for a noose, an act of defiance so reflexive that the soldier cannot bring himself to strike her for fear his punishment will be "overwritten" by the execution already in progress. - City of Last Chances, ch 26. In the charge at the Gownhall gates she leads the vanguard with twin knives drawn, howling for blood. - City of Last Chances, ch 32. Yet beneath the assassin's posture is something the narrator calls "unbearable sadness" and a sudden, ambushing sense of responsibility when a young girl fighting beside her is shot dead; the text frames this not as a change in character but as a capacity that had been waiting, buried, for its moment. - City of Last Chances, ch 37. Lemya regards her as a fool; Fyon tags along in battle simply because Lemya is "up for a fight." - City of Last Chances, ch 37.
Beliefs & Motivations
Fyon lives by the Shrike's terminal logic: "anyone who went Shrike was digging a grave and not inviting mourners." - City of Last Chances, ch 26. Her sole motivation for two years of imprisonment as a Donjon servant was to reach and kill Fellow-Inquirer Hegelsy; when the hanging resolves that purpose without her hand, she asks what remains. - City of Last Chances, ch 29. She joins Lemya's band not from ideology but from the need for a direction to aim her violence, the only audience member truly moved by a speech about cultural erasure. - City of Last Chances, ch 29. She devises the tactical plan to place students in buildings overlooking Gownhall Square, showing a capacity for strategy beneath the howling. - City of Last Chances, ch 37. In the end she refuses to retreat, drawing her knives on the last Palleseen soldiers alone and dying on the staircase. - City of Last Chances, ch 37.
History
City of Last Chances
The Healing of Ruslav
Fyon is brought into Correct Speech's cells alongside Dorae and Tobriant roughly two days after Ivarn Ostravar's imprisonment, filling every remaining alcove of the converted wine cellar beneath the Donjon - ch 21. She is a lean Maric woman bearing a crude avian tattoo, and Ivarn identifies her as a Shrike - ch 21. Ivarn notes that she has "him on her list of reasons to slit throats," suspecting him of collaboration with the Occupation as a Gownhall man - ch 21. Dorae and Tobriant, two beaten Allorwen, are injured more severely than Fyon, owing to the prejudice many Occupation soldiers have accumulated from time served in Allor - ch 21. When soldiers return a day and a half later, they take Yasnic rather than Fyon or Ivarn, leaving the Shrike in the cell alongside the condemned Gownhall maestro - ch 21.
The Hanging at the Donjon
The following morning, Fyon is marched to the execution scaffold in the Donjon yard with the other condemned prisoners - ch 26. Dorae, surveying the line from the platform, places Fyon to Ivarn Ostravar's left, with the unnamed student girl shifting and shuffling beside her - ch 26. Hoyst fits each noose with grotesque solicitude, offering silk rope to Dorae and bowing to an unlaughing crowd - ch 26. As the executioner retreats to the levers, Fyon spits on a soldier's jacket; the soldier starts to strike her, then sees the rope and stops, asking aloud: "What can I do that won't get overwritten by that?" - ch 26. Dorae observes that Fyon, as a Shrike, has already "digged a grave and not inviting mourners" - the Shrike path is understood as terminal self-selection - ch 26. The trapdoors open and Fyon drops with the others - ch 26.
The Rescue from the Donjon
Fyon wakes in a cellar strewn with corpses beneath the Anchorage, having been hanged and faked dead by Blackmane's intervention - ch 29. She reveals that she is a lone Shrike who infiltrated the Donjon as a servant for the sole purpose of killing Fellow-Inquirer Hegelsy, not a member of any resistance cell - ch 29. When asked what remains for her now that the hanging has ended, she replies of Hegelsy: "It sees him dead. What else is there?" - ch 29. After Lemya delivers a speech about cultural erasure and the need to resist Palleseen absorption, Fyon is the only audience member truly moved; she asks for a knife - ch 29. Langrice provides a lost-property trunk of clothing and blades, and Fyon takes two knives - ch 29. She, Lemya, Ruslav, and Yasnic arm themselves and leave the Anchorage with a half-measure of night remaining, while Ivarn watches sourly - ch 29.
The Last Calm Night
During the student confrontation at the Gownhall gates, after Hervenya kills a Palleseen soldier from a window and the students pour boiling soup and aquavit on the troops, the gate is opened from inside and the students charge out; Fyon the Shrike leads the vanguard, twin knives drawn, howling for blood - ch 32. The Palleseen patrols flee - ch 32. Fyon acts as the Shrikes' assassin in the charge, consistent with the chapter's broader observation that Shrikes are only a part of the resistance because they were always going to be against somebody - ch 32.
The Battle of Gownhall Square
Fyon had devised the plan to place students in buildings overlooking Gownhall Square, and in the dawn skirmish those hidden students drive a handful of Palleseen soldiers back into the street, recovering dropped batons - ch 37. Lemya, fighting at the main barricade, regards Fyon as a fool; Fyon has tagged along simply because Lemya is "up for a fight" - ch 37. When Palleseen forces breach the ground floor of a townhouse, Fyon and the students hold the stairs with batons and toppled antique furniture - ch 37. Ammunition runs out. The nameless girl fighting alongside Fyon darts down to strip ammunition from a dead Pal and is killed by three shots - ch 37. Fyon feels what the narrator calls "unbearable sadness" and a sense of responsibility at the girl's death: "Thirty years of being a murderously bad person, and somehow, this was hiding inside her, awaiting its moment for ambush." - ch 37. Fyon kicks a gold-laden armoire down the stairs, shoots through the resulting shrapnel, then sends the remaining students away with a single word - "Go!" - and ducks round the corner to draw her knives - ch 37. She fights the last Palleseen soldiers alone with knives and dies holding the townhouse staircase - ch 37.
Relationships
- Ivarn Ostravar - Fyon carries Ivarn on a personal list of reasons to slit throats, suspecting him of collaboration with the Occupation as a Gownhall man. They share a cell in the Donjon for roughly two days, but she never acts on the grudge; her attention is fixed on Hegelsy. Ivarn later watches her arm herself and leave the Anchorage "sourly." - City of Last Chances, ch 21, 29.
- Fellow-Inquirer Hegelsy - Hegelsy is Fyon's sole reason for infiltrating the Donjon. When Blackmane's rescue makes the hanging moot, she says of him: "It sees him dead. What else is there?" - City of Last Chances, ch 29.
- Lemya - Fyon is the only listener genuinely moved by Lemya's speech at the Anchorage and asks immediately for a knife. She then fights alongside Lemya through the student uprising, though Lemya considers her a fool and Fyon's stated reason for following is simply that Lemya is up for a fight. - City of Last Chances, ch 29, 37.
- Shrike - Fyon is a Shrike: one of the Maric resisters who chose a path understood as terminal self-selection. She acts as the Shrikes' assassin in the Gownhall charge. The novel observes that Shrikes are only a part of the resistance because they were always going to be against somebody. - City of Last Chances, ch 26, 32, 37.
Notable Quotes
- "It sees him dead. What else is there?" - Fyon, on Fellow-Inquirer Hegelsy, City of Last Chances, ch 29
- "Thirty years of being a murderously bad person, and somehow, this was hiding inside her, awaiting its moment for ambush." - Narrator, on Fyon's grief for the nameless girl, City of Last Chances, ch 37
- "digged a grave and not inviting mourners" - Dorae, on the Shrike path Fyon walks, City of Last Chances, ch 26
Tags
- assassin · #resistance-fighter · #shrike-member