ellipsesetcetera:

in the dream Adam and Ronan share in The Raven King, where Cabeswater is being unmade and they find Aurora, they also find the albino night horror:

Here was Ronan. Finally. Finally.

Ronan was circling something in the burned-out grass between ruined trees; when Adam drew closer he saw that it was a carcass. It was hard to tell what it had first looked like. It seemed to have chalky white skin, but deep slashes bit through the flesh; the edges of them curled in on themselves pinkly. A snarl of intestines roped out from under a greasy gray flap and hooked on a red-tipped claw.

Mushrooms burst through parts of all of it, and there was something terribly wrong about them; they were difficult to look at.

“No,” Ronan said. “Oh no. You bastard.”

“What is it?” Adam asked.

Ronan’s hand hovered over two parted beaks, side by side, both rimmed with black and something purple-red that Adam didn’t want to consider too deeply. “My night horror. God. Shit.”

it died defending Cabeswater from the demon, because:

“Why would it be here?”

“I don’t know. It cares about what I care about,” Ronan said.

the albino night horror was the first nightmare Ronan pulled from dreams that didn’t want him dead, that wanted to protect him and his dreams and his loved ones. it was the first time Ronan’s self-hatred manifested into self-acceptance, a symbol of living with your trauma yet not wanting to die. and it cared about Ronan deeply enough to fight to the death. and that’s why i’ll always remember it.