‘ACOTAR’: Who Will Elain End Up With? Here’s My Wild Theory
Details are sparse about the central romance in Sarah J. Maas‘ next ACOTAR book, A Court of Splintered Harmony. After the previous installment turned the focus away from Feyre to her sister, Nesta, many fans have speculated that the middle Archeron sister, Elain, will be the protagonist of the sixth installment.
As it goes in any romantasy book, Elain will get a love interest of some sort if she becomes the lead. There’s been a ton of speculation about who Elain will end up with, after it was revealed that Lucien is (supposedly) her mate. Since the war with Hybern, Elain has grown closer to spymaster Azriel while ignoring her mating bond. So, Lucien and Azriel are the most obvious contenders… But I think Koschei the Deathless could actually be Elain’s endgame.
It may sound pretty far-fetched at first, but I think there are some clues hinting at Elain having an eventual connection with the series’ big bad. Exhibit A: A Court of Splintered Harmony’s synopsis says, “Those who rule and protect the Night Court are reeling from recent betrayals and revealed truths… With the continued threat of Koschei the Deathless on the horizon, a united front is crucial — and farther out of reach than it has ever been before.”
A betrayal by Feyre and Nesta’s own sister would be an incredible plot twist. But if you’ve been paying close attention to Elain’s arc so far, her falling in love with Koschei wouldn’t come entirely out of left field. In A Court of Mist and Fury, the King of Hybern forces Elain into the Cauldron and makes her a Fae. That’s when Lucien feels the mating bond snap into place. In the aftermath, Elain dims and grows distant while also navigating her Cauldron-granted seer abilities. Her human fiancé, Graysen, ends their relationship after she’s been turned, further devastating her.
What’s more, even before Elain was granted her powers, she’s always been treated as the weakest out of the three sisters. Even her mother considered her unambitious and not useful for anything other than being married off. Everything keeps happening to her, and not because of her. Even Nesta refuses to let Elain help find the Dread Trove in A Court of Silver Flames. A villain arc would turn all of that on its head.
The biggest clue so far that Elain could fall for Koschei — or at least that she has a deep connection to him — is when Elain reveals that she’s been having visions of the death-god. “I can never see him,” she says in A Court of Wings and Ruin. “What he is. There is an onyx box that he possesses, more vital than anything… save for them. The girls.” It’s how the Night Court gang discovers that their human queen ally Vassa is being held captive by Koschei.
Later, a conversation between Elain and Lucien plants even more seeds (at least in our opinion) for Elain’s endgame being Koschei. “When I sleep, I can hear your heart beating through the stone,” Elain tells her mate. “Can you hear mine?” (He can’t.) Elain assumes the heartbeat is Lucien’s, but what if it’s actually Koschei’s heart in his onyx stone box?
In response to Lucien saying he can’t hear hers, Elain adds, “No one ever looked — not really. He did. He saw me.” She’s seemingly referring to her ex-fiancé. What if Koschei, with his strange connection to Elain, ends up being the only one who really sees her?
There’s also the matter of the late Archeron patriarch’s bargain with Koschei. It still hasn’t been revealed what he traded to free Vassa. What would Mr. Archeron have to negotiate with besides his daughters? What if Mr. Archeron promised Elain in some way to the death-god? It would reverse Mr. Archeron’s sort-of redemption arc in helping Feyre fight Hybern, but maybe Koschei tricked him, making the deal sound not so bad.
What about the matter of Elain’s mating bond with Lucien, you may be wondering? In Maas’ Throne of Glass series, which is set in the same universe as ACOTAR, the mating bond can be faked. We also don’t know the depth of Koschei’s power, so he could have been the one to make it seem like Elain and Lucien have a mating bond.
Elain and Lucien’s bond doesn’t seem quite like Feyre and Rhys’ or Nesta and Cassian’s. Lucien realizes it so suddenly, it almost seems too easy. In the bonus chapter of A Court of Silver Flames, Azriel, for some reason, can’t stand the smell of Lucien and Elain’s bond, which could mean it’s artificial.
Why would Koschei go to the trouble of creating a fake mating bond? Well, I think that Lucien and Vassa, who are already friends at this point in the series, are actually true mates. What if the true mating bond and/or love could break Vassa’s curse, so Koschei creates the false bond to keep his hold over her?
There’s still the matter of why (or if) Azriel is really detecting that it’s a fake bond. For that reason, it’s certainly possible that Azriel is Elain’s endgame rather than Koschei, but I think Koschei would simply be the better twist. Regardless of whether a romance forms between them, I’m willing to bet that there’s more to Koschei and Elain’s connection than meets the eye. Let us know your thoughts and theories in the comments below!
