City of Dragons characters

Appears from the start

An Elderling now rather than a Rain Wild outcast, keeper to the blue queen Sintara and one of the leaders of the settlement opposite Kelsingra. She hunts to feed the company, resists being told what she is for, and is warier than most of the keepers about what handling the city's memory-stone does to the people who do it.

Appears from the start

Keeper of the scarlet dragon Heeby, the first of the company to fly and, since then, the most confident person in it. He has begun immersing himself in the memories stored in Kelsingra's stone, and what he brings back with him is changing how he speaks, fights and looks at Thymara.

Appears from the start

The former slave among the keepers, tending the green queen Fente. Steady and unglamorous, he is still in love with Thymara and still losing ground to a rival he does not know how to compete with.

Appears from the start

The Bingtown scholar who came to study dragons and stayed, now the only person systematically recording an Elderling city as it is rediscovered. She is separated from Leftrin, who has taken the barge downriver, and afraid that her husband will find a way to reclaim her.

Appears from the start

The blue queen dragon, flying now and hunting for herself, restored enough to be magnificent and still short of what a dragon should be. She wants what the buried city was built to supply, and she is not inclined to explain herself to her keeper.

Appears from the start

The golden dragon whose plan brought the herd upriver, and the one most aware of how much of dragonkind's inheritance is missing. He knows what the city needs to be made to work, and how little time the herd has to find it.

Appears from the start

Rapskal's scarlet dragon, no scholar but the strongest flier in the herd, and the reason the keepers can reach the city across the river at all.

First appears in chapter 2

Captain of the barge Tarman, gone downriver to collect the payment the Rain Wild Traders promised and the supplies the settlement cannot survive the winter without. He finds the councils at Cassarick a good deal less willing to honour a contract than they were to sign it.

First appears in chapter 2

Once Hest Finbok's secretary and dragon thief, now an Elderling bonded to the copper queen Relpda and settled with Carson. He is useful, changed and reasonably happy, and entirely aware that Hest will not have let the matter drop.

First appears in chapter 2

The expedition's hunter, now the settlement's, keeping a village of young Elderlings and a herd of dragons fed in unfamiliar country. He is Sedric's partner and the closest thing the keepers have to a level-headed adult.

First appears in chapter 3

A Bingtown Trader's daughter transformed into an Elderling by dragon influence, once a spoiled girl and now a formidable negotiator with a claim to being the Rain Wilds' unofficial queen. She is married to Reyn Khuprus and has a small son whose health is failing in ways no healer can mend.

First appears in chapter 3

Malta's husband, a Rain Wild Trader of the Khuprus family and an Elderling like her, who grew up among the buried Elderling ruins beneath Trehaug and knows more about their magic than most.

First appears in chapter 3

Malta's younger brother, an Elderling who spent years travelling as Tintaglia's ambassador and speaking for dragons to anyone who would listen. He is now a prisoner in Chalced, kept as a curiosity by a dying Duke who has been told that Elderling flesh and dragon blood can restore a man's youth.

First appears in chapter 4

Alise's husband, a wealthy Bingtown Trader accustomed to arranging other people's lives. His comfortable existence has been invaded by Chalcedean agents who know exactly what he commissioned Sedric to bring back, and who are not asking politely.

First appears in chapter 5

A small silver dragon, spiteful, foul-tempered and the most damaged in memory of the herd, who spits venom at anyone within range and is disliked by dragons and keepers alike.

First appears in chapter 10

The great blue-silver queen who hatched in the buried city beneath Trehaug and bargained the serpents home, and who has since gone her own way. She has been flying the coasts of Chalced, where hunters have been paid a fortune for any part of a dragon.