Grave Mercy
- Heartwarming Moments: When Ismae meets her father in person.
- Pretty much all of Duval's interactions with Anne. It's clear how much he adores her. Anne's tale to Ismae about the reason for Duval's "broken" oath to Saint Camulos certainly qualifies.
- When Francois shows up in his Big Damn Heroes moment effectively saving Anne from being being captured by d'Albret. After spending a good chunk of the book being a minor antagonist by proxy of his mother, he rode like hell to Rennes and roused the garrison to ride to Nantes on nothing but Duval's word that Anne was in danger. Doubles as a Moment of Awesome.
- Moment of Awesome: When Anne makes it public clear that she will never marry D'Albret. Hell, pretty much any time Anne shows just how strongwilled she is.
Dark Triumph
- Complete Monster: Count Alain D'Albret murdered every single one of his wives, and also planned to brutally rape Anne and then force the marriage once he captured her at Nantes, and murdered his own newborn granddaughter within minutes of her birth, right in front of his own daughter, while she begged and screamed for someone to stop him. When his wife Alise did try to interfere, he struck her down so viciously that she ended up dying from the blow to the head. Then he snapped the child's neck, dropped the baby on the floor like trash, left both corpses lying there, and calmly walked out of the room. He taunts Sybella about making her his next wife once he finds out that she's not truly his daughter. Wen Julian interferes, Alain tells Julian that Julian would be forgiven for everything if he produced heirs with Death's blood in their veins — in other words, if he raped Sybella repeatedly into pregnancy.
- Moral Event Horizon: The Abbess, for sending Sybella back into the living hell that drove her mad the first time, luring Sybella into it by promising that D'Albret was marqued and the kill would be hers. She was lying. Then the Abbess demanded that Sybella go back to D'Albret a third time despite knowing full well that it would mean Sybella's death. If she hadn't crossed it by that point, there's no question that she's officially crossed the horizon when she throws Sybella's suicidal tendences back in her face, telling Sybella that this is Mortain's way of granting her the death she's always wanted. To top it all off, when Sybella refuses to go, the Abbess threatens to send Ismae or Annith to D'Albret — a death sentence for them as well, and Ismae would be raped and tortured to death if caught due to D'Albret's hatred of her. Faced with that, Sybella agrees to go.
- Tear Jerker: Everything about the truth behind Alise's death and Sybella's descent into insanity that had her sent to the convent. Everything.
- Julian's Heroic Sacrifice. Yes, he was in a rather disturbing relationship with Sybella, but he didn't realize that she felt she couldn't say no and truly believed that she felt the same way that he did. He was just as much a victim of their twisted childhood as Sybella, just in a different way. And when given the choice between being her lover and being her brother, he chose to be her brother and protect her despite knowing it would cost him his life.
Mortal Heart
