A Torch Against the Night characters

Appears from the start

A Scholar woman fleeing Serra after breaking the condemned Elias Veturius out of his execution. Her grandparents were killed and her brother Darin taken in a Martial raid; she now knows he is alive in Kauf, the Empire's prison in the far north, and she intends to reach him. She has no combat training and no illusions about how badly the last set of bargains she made turned out. She wears her dead mother's silver armlet, the only thing left of her family.

First appears in chapter 2

A Blackcliff-trained Mask who refused the throne, was condemned as a deserter and was pulled off the execution block by Laia. He has agreed to get her north to Kauf and free her brother, a journey of a thousand miles through territory that is now hunting him. He is the son of the Empire's most feared commandant and the adopted son of a Tribal storyteller, and he is beginning to feel unwell in ways he cannot explain.

First appears in chapter 5

Elias's oldest friend, now Blood Shrike of the Martial Empire, second only to the Emperor Marcus and sworn into his service after refusing to kill Elias in the final Trial. Marcus holds her parents and her two sisters as surety for her obedience, and his first order is that she hunt Elias down and bring back proof of his death. She believes in the Empire's law and its continuity, and she is being asked to prove it with the one life she would not take.

Appears from the start

The red-haired Scholar fighter who broke with Serra's resistance leadership and escaped the city with Laia and Elias. He is competent, quiet and unsentimental about the movement that betrayed her, and he is the only one of the party with contacts along the roads north. His attachment to Laia has stopped being purely professional.

Appears from the start

The one-eyed slave girl from Blackcliff who chose to run with Laia rather than stay in the Commandant's household. She has never been outside the Academy walls in her life and treats every ordinary thing on the road as a marvel. Laia's closest friend, and the person she is most afraid of getting killed.

Appears from the start

Laia's older brother, held in Kauf prison since his arrest. He learned Martial steelmaking in secret from the swordsmith Spiro Teluman so the Scholars could one day arm themselves, which is why the Empire wants him alive and talking. Everything the party does is aimed at reaching him before that changes.

First appears in chapter 5

The new Emperor of the Martial Empire, raised to the throne by killing his twin brother in the final Trial. He is unstable, physically formidable and shrewder than his cruelty suggests, and he governs by threat. He keeps the Blood Shrike obedient by naming exactly which of her relatives will die if she fails him.

Also known as the Commandant

First appears in chapter 5

Elias's mother, commandant of Blackcliff and one of the most powerful Martials alive. She survived the change of regime intact and is manoeuvring inside the new Emperor's court, with her own agenda and an ally nobody in the Empire can identify. She has plans for the Scholars, for her son, and for the Blood Shrike sent to watch her.

First appears in chapter 8

A Mask attached to the Blood Shrike's hunting party, calm, quiet and almost impossible to read. Helene is certain he was placed at her side to report on her to the Commandant and treats every word she says in front of him as evidence that may be used against her.

First appears in chapter 8

A Blackcliff classmate serving as the Blood Shrike's lieutenant, and one of the few soldiers whose loyalty to Helene herself is not in question. He carries out orders he plainly finds repellent because she is the one giving them.

First appears in chapter 14

Helene's younger sister, gentle where Helene is hard, and one of the hostages by which the Emperor keeps the Blood Shrike compliant. She is the member of the family Helene would sacrifice the most to protect.

First appears in chapter 20

The Zaldara of Tribe Nur, a formidable Tribal trader and caravan leader who owes Elias a life debt and pays it by hiding the party inside her wagons. Sharp, vain about her reputation, and unforgiving of anyone who endangers her people. Once her tribe is committed to the fugitives, the Empire's attention becomes her problem too.

First appears in chapter 24

The Tribal Kehanni, or storyteller, who raised Elias for the first six years of his life before the Martials took him, and who has never stopped considering him her son. Her position among the Tribes makes her a lever the Empire can use against him.

First appears in chapter 30

The Soul Catcher of the Waiting Place, the haunted forest that separates the living from the dead. She is a jinn, immortal and bound by a curse of her own making to ferry the ghosts of the dead onward, and she has been alone at that work for a very long time. She knows what is wrong with Elias, what magic is stirring in the Empire, and how little time either of them has.

First appears in chapter 35

The master of Kauf, the Empire's northern prison, a Mask with a scholar's manner and no discernible temper. He does not torture in anger; he does it methodically, records the results, and is interested in what he finds. He has been working on Laia's brother for months and considers Elias, when he arrives, an unusually promising subject.

First appears in chapter 57

An ancient jinn, the last of his kind still free, who has spent a thousand years working toward the release of his people from the prison the Scholars made for them. He can wear any shape he chooses and has walked among humans for centuries, patient enough to spend a lifetime building a single deception. His interest in Laia's family was never accidental.