An Ember in the Ashes characters

Appears from the start

A young Scholar woman living in the city of Serra under the Martial Empire, which conquered the Scholar people five centuries ago and has kept them poor, unarmed and forbidden to read ever since. She lives quietly with her grandparents and her older brother Darin; her parents and older sister died years before as leaders of the Scholar resistance. When Martial soldiers break into the house she runs instead of fighting, and the shame of that choice drives everything she does afterward. She has no training and no power, only stubbornness, a good eye for detail, and a willingness to trade her own freedom for her brother's.

First appears in chapter 2

The finest student at Blackcliff Military Academy, days away from graduating as a Mask, one of the Empire's elite silver-faced enforcers. Stolen as a small child from the Tribal family that raised him, he has spent fourteen years being trained in a violence he has come to hate, and he means to desert the moment his commission is signed. He is the unacknowledged son of Blackcliff's commandant, which has bought him nothing but closer scrutiny. Capable, watchful and privately certain that the Empire he serves is monstrous.

First appears in chapter 2

Elias's closest friend and the only female student at Blackcliff, a small, silver-haired Mask trainee who matches him at nearly everything but temperament. Where he doubts the Empire, she believes in it entirely: duty, law and the Academy's discipline are the frame she lives inside. Her loyalty to Elias is absolute, which becomes a problem the moment his own loyalty is in question.

Also known as the Commandant

First appears in chapter 2

The commandant of Blackcliff Military Academy, a Mask of terrifying reputation who governs the school and its household slaves through measured, unhurried cruelty. She is Elias's mother, a fact she treats as an irrelevance and he treats as a wound. Politically ambitious, almost impossible to read, and apparently answerable to no one inside the Empire's hierarchy.

Appears from the start

Laia's older brother, a gifted draftsman who has been hiding a sketchbook full of drawings of Martial forges and weapons. Soldiers arrest him during the raid on the family home and take him away, and recovering him becomes the whole of Laia's purpose. Whether he was betraying the Scholars or working for them is one of the questions she cannot answer.

First appears in chapter 4

A Blackcliff student from a poor Plebeian family, vicious by inclination and openly resentful of Elias's name and skill. He and his twin brother Zak are feared throughout the school, and he takes a particular interest in anyone Elias appears to care about.

First appears in chapter 4

Marcus's twin brother and fellow Blackcliff student. He is quieter and visibly less comfortable with his brother's cruelty, but he follows Marcus in everything, and the two are almost never apart.

First appears in chapter 13

One of the Augurs, the red-eyed immortals who serve as the Empire's holy men and are said to read minds and glimpse the future. He announces that the imperial line has failed and that four Aspirants will be tested in a series of Trials to determine the next Emperor. He speaks to Elias in particular, in promises about freedom that are impossible to interpret and impossible to ignore.

First appears in chapter 6

A red-haired young fighter in Serra's Scholar resistance, terse and closed off, assigned as Laia's contact and handler. He lost his family to the Martials as a child and has given everything since to the movement. He is impatient with Laia at first and steadily gentler with her as the danger she is in becomes clear.

First appears in chapter 6

The leader of the Scholar resistance in Serra. He agrees to free Darin only if Laia will place herself inside Blackcliff as a slave and spy on the Commandant. He is coldly practical about what the movement can spend and what it can afford to lose, and his arithmetic on the worth of a single prisoner is not Laia's.

First appears in chapter 6

An older resistance fighter who leads the faction that argues against Mazen's methods and his willingness to spend lives. She is one of the few in the catacombs who treats Laia as a person owed something rather than as an asset to be deployed.

First appears in chapter 8

A young Scholar slave in the Commandant's household, thin and one-eyed from an old punishment, who has lived at Blackcliff nearly all her life. She teaches Laia which rules keep a slave alive there and which are traps, and becomes the first friend Laia has had since the raid.

First appears in chapter 8

The scarred, white-haired Scholar woman who runs the Commandant's kitchen. She is sharp-tongued, refuses to be recruited into anyone's plans, and warns Laia off hope as a matter of policy. She has survived Blackcliff longer than anyone and clearly knows more about the city and its resistance than she is willing to say.

First appears in chapter 20

A Martial swordsmith of rare skill who has stopped forging blades for the Empire. He took Darin on in secret as an apprentice, teaching him the steelmaking the Martials have guarded for centuries, and he is the one who finally tells Laia what her brother was actually doing with his sketchbook.