The Spark In Your Eyes
by Muro
published by Webtoon (144 chapters, 1 complete season, ongoing)
2022 – present
Finally, I’m writing about a comic that is NOT about modern gals being transported into books or any character getting a second chance at living the same life!
Hildegard, as her captors rename her, is just a little girl who bleeds (and possibly dies) on a sacred altar during her village’s capture. Her blood activates the altar, and she receives the powers of the sun goddess. The King of the Mormerattan invaders wanted the goddess’ power for himself, but takes the girl, forces her to learn his people’s language, and crafts her into a child-weapon, holding her people’s fate hostage to her performance on the battlefield.
Hilde can feel pain when grievously injured, but will not die – she can repair herself from horrific damage, and blast light that can burn away material things, from castle walls to people. Forced to wear a mask, she is an anonymous and lonely young goddess of death, who must lose the few dear friends she has on the battlefield on behalf of the nation who stole her. She grows numb and ages during the long war with the north. The king wants to exploit her power against foreign rivals in battle forever. Meanwhile, his domestic rivals believe Hilde is a crime against nature that must be destroyed. Even in immortality, she has no real safety or peace.
Erkin is a strapping, peaceful, blue-eyed boy devoted to his parents’ herbalist-medical arts. Told his parents died at Hildegard’s hands, he leaves his defeated homeland to head south, in hopes of (somehow) avenging their deaths. He winds up being hired by a mysterious noble to treat an illness he is not allowed to see with his own eyes, and finds purpose and friendship in the country that conquered his people, but still perceives him as a threat.
I’d like to tell you that they meet in therapy, but therapy hasn’t been invented yet in this brutal feudal fantasy world.
This is a story of people who die too young, of greedy elders who exploit soldiers and captives, of rumors, sabotage, jealousy, and hunger for power that destroys countless lives. Plus, a story about the exploited heroine, the innocent-but-vengeful northerner, and the community of survivors around them who struggle to live in a fragile and perilous peace in a quiet corner of a restive kingdom.
This story has gorgeous clouds, and many sad scenes of death and war. I was completely engrossed at the heroine’s reluctant survival, the pain of her losses, revelations of the many betrayals she has suffered, and her hazy memory of being told by just one person to live on…
I like that the major characters talk to each other: they keep secrets, but also can reveal them; they have revelations about communications misunderstandings before people die over them; they help each other, but can also be manipulated by concern for their families (a recurring theme). This is a high stakes story about people with capacities for both compassion and brutality, who are too often put in difficult situations. I am eager for the next season!