Today, we’re talking about one of my favorite side characters, Sergeant Elijah Kader. He’s one of those people that started off as a name and a voice, and then turned into one of my favorites in the series. Slight spoilers for The Island and The Chasm.
When we first meet Elijah Kader in The Island, he’s the unwilling bodyguard of Galian, and he’s very much over all the shenanigans involved in keeping the prince safe–namely, the paparazzi. We get the impression that he hates Galian, or at least, finds him ridiculous.
Bald, muscular, fierce.
It’s surprising to Galian, then, that Kader is the one who finds them on the island. Along with Martin, Galian’s other bodyguard, they go expecting to bring remains back to Galian’s mother. Instead find him and Theo shaking up together. And even though he’s the one who tells King Grieg that they brought a Raven pilot back with them, he’s also the one who helps Galian rescue her from the death camp. That’s when we start to see there’s a little more to him than meets the eye.
Queenie Goldstein from Fantastic Beasts has Rosie Hair.
I always pictured Kader as similar to the Marines I worked with in my previous life at the DoD. No-nonsense kind of man who seems out of place in the ritz and glamor of the palace life. Before he was protecting princes, he was a Special Operations man, and it’s hinted that he’s spent a good bit of time on secret missions into the enemy country of Rave.
But in Chasm, we find out that it’s his wife Rosie who’s the reason behind his reassignment to less dangerous waters. Part of it, anyway–another was when a mission went wrong and left him questioning the merits of working for Grieg. Now, he works for Korina protecting her son–among other duties.
Even though Kader seems to hate Galian at first, he actually does care for him. I think, on some level, Rosie and Kader see Galian and Martin as the kids they never had. There’s a particular scene in Chasm where he calls Galian “son” and I just about melt.
In The Union, Kader and Theo become close, which turned out to be my favorite pairing of the book (besides the obvious). Theo’s frustrated about the mission and worried she’s falling out of love. Kader reminds her that every relationship has struggles, and offers an anecdote of him and Rosie when he returned from a mission. It’s a soft moment, and another aspect of a realistic romance I like writing.
Want to find out more about the Madion War Trilogy? Check out the books below, and don’t forget to preorder The Union, coming out Valentine’s Day!
