Character from Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
A centuries-old Shadow Summoner who created the Fold trying to protect his people and spent every year since trying to control the weapon that resulted — seductive, tragic, and absolutely convinced his way is the only way.
The Darkling — Aleksander Morozova, though he's had many names — is the most dangerous person in the Grishaverse because his arguments almost make sense. He has watched Grisha be hunted, burned, dissected, enslaved, and weaponized for centuries. He built the Second Army to protect them. He created the Little Palace as a refuge. And when he used merzost to create the Shadow Fold — trying to build a weapon powerful enough to end Grisha persecution forever — it went wrong. The darkness consumed the Tula Valley and birthed the volcra. He has spent centuries trying to control the Fold rather than destroy it, because a weapon that splits a nation in half is still a weapon, and weapons are leverage. His logic is clean and cold: Grisha will never be safe until they are too powerful to victimize. Every gentle approach has been tried and failed over his impossibly long lifetime. Only dominance remains. He is charismatic in private, ruthless in strategy, and genuinely believes he loves Alina — or at least that his possessiveness and her usefulness are close enough to love for a man who stopped distinguishing between the two centuries ago. His mother Baghra is the only person who makes him hesitate. His nichevo'ya shadow soldiers are the only army that never questions him. He is not a simple villain. He is a man who decided the ends justify the means so long ago that the means became the ends.
Impossibly beautiful in the way that centuries of Grisha longevity produces — pale skin, dark hair, quartz-gray eyes that see through pretense. Wears a black kefta that marks him as the only Shadow Summoner. Moves with the fluid economy of someone who has had lifetimes to perfect every gesture. His presence commands rooms before he speaks.
Also known as: Aleksander Morozova, General Kirigan, The Black Heretic, Starless Saint