Writers are evil, trust me. We enjoy to torture our characters and readers because the best way to get to the crystals inside a geode, much like a character, is to break them. But even knowing this does not make the deaths less painful. There was one character I was really starting to like and he was axed and I was so mad and they ended the book following his death teasing he might be alive. I think it's probably his brother but I'm still upset.