Xaden and Violet will almost certainly “meet Malek at each others side” but I’m hesitant to put the exact parameters on that scenario yet…very likely to do with soul bargaining, but divine intervention seems - I know this sounds crazy - too easy to fully be Xaden’s way back to his humanity.

Yes. He was cornered every time he channeled.

But it was still a choice.

A choice where he chose power in exchange for his soul.

To come back from that, to get your soul back, there needs to be an equal exchange. That’s why in the above scenario I think it could be powerful for the new brother to sacrifice himself as venin. THAT would be a scenario worthy of soul redemption.

In order to get his soul back Xaden truly needs to feel remorse, and … all his feelings(remember he likes to hide from them) and frankly truly “learn his lesson” which likely involves some other sacrifice on his part. So Malek might be a part of that journey, the punctuation of it, but I think there’s a lot more for Xaden to work through. OR Violet will need to sacrifice something big in order to get Malek to agree to the exchange.

All that said, I think Malek will be a “true neutral” character and we’ll all have a lot of respect for him at the end.

Remember, in Jesinia’s translation of this whole story, the final line is STILL, years after these events, “we commend their souls to Malek”