There is a persistent misconception about Nicolas DeSilva’s feelings for Allyra Cavidini in Immortalis. Some readers assume that because he is cruel, manipulative, violent, and incapable of respecting boundaries, he cannot possibly love her.
They are wrong. Nicolas loves Allyra desperately, obsessively, and without reservation.
The error lies in the belief that love must improve the person who feels it. For fifteen centuries Nicolas has existed almost entirely among versions of himself. The two hundred and sixteen Nicolai share a single mind. Despite their constant arguments, rivalries, and petty disagreements, his life has been one of profound isolation. Then Allyra appears.
Suddenly he is animated. He wants to impress her. He acquires new clothes, frets over his appearance, dreams of marriage, and schemes elaborate entertainments. He longs for her to love Corax Asylum, his home, and, more than anything, to love him unconditionally for exactly who he is. The difficulty is that who he is remains a repulsive, narcissistic, sadistic monster.
Nicolas cannot grasp why his behaviour frightens her. In his mind, ordering her to kneel, to call him Master, and to marry him is a perfectly reasonable declaration of devotion. Webster repeatedly tries to restrain him, recognising that the sheer force of Nicolas’s intensity is driving her away. Nicolas, however, is incapable of seeing the contradiction at the heart of his desire. He wants Allyra to choose him freely, yet he cannot endure the possibility that she might refuse.
His love is real. So is his cruelty. One does not cancel the other.
Nicolas wants to be inside her at all times, smothering her. This is not tragic for him. It is the ultimate expression of his love, the certainty that she may never leave. Even if she hates him for it, he will be happy knowing she is there every day of his eternal life.
This is the central horror of Nicolas DeSilva. He does not pretend to love her. He does not merely want her body or treat her as a convenient possession. He loves her, and his love is monstrous. It will not make him kinder, gentler, or morally redeemed. Immortalis is not a story about a monster transformed into a good man by the love of a woman. It is a story about what happens when a monster falls genuinely and catastrophically in love and remains a monster.
Nicolas DeSilva loves Allyra Cavidini. That is precisely why she should be terrified.