It stands where there was once farmland and bustling villages stretching the length of Ravka and is basically a swath of land filled with shadow and darkness and these fun little creatures called Volcra just waiting to rip apart anyone who enters the Fold. The story goes that the Shadow Fold, sometimes called the Unsea, was created hundreds of years ago by a Shadow Summoner known as the Black Heretic, hellbent on power and destruction. What’s the Shadow Fold? Well, good on you for asking, because it is central to all of the shenanigans going on in Shadow and Bone. The king especially needs the Darkling on his side because he is key to dealing with the major obstacle stopping Ravka from being victorious over their enemies: the Shadow Fold. Whether you’re reading the books or hopping right into the show, you’ll catch on pretty quickly that the king may think he has control over the Grisha commander of the Second Army - in the novels, he’s called the Darkling in the show, he’s Ben Barnes’s General Kirigan - but the Darkling is an extremely powerful Shadow Summoner (he, uh, controls shadows and darkness and stuff) and can pretty much do as he pleases, when he pleases. The king at the time this story begins lives in relative safety in the Grand Palace in the capital city of Os Alta, where he commands the First Army, made up of non-Grisha Ravkan citizens, and has a … let’s call it tenuous command over the Second Army, made up of Grisha (those people with powers I mentioned, don’t worry, we get into it below). So, basically, not a super fun place to live unless you’re rich (what’s new!). It’s a nation that’s spent the last hundred years or so engulfed in war with its neighbors to the north, Fjerda, and to the south, Shu Han. Welcome to Ravka, the central location for the Grishaverse, a fictional nation that is sort of a stand-in for Russia/Eastern Europe - you’ll notice the influence in the language, architecture, etc. Oooooh, so that’s why it’s called the Shadow Fold.

The grishaverse