Daughter of the Empire characters

Appears from the start

The daughter of Lord Sezu of the Acoma, seventeen years old and days away from taking final vows as a novice in the temple of Lashima. She is intelligent, stubborn and entirely untrained in politics, having chosen the contemplative life precisely to avoid the endless manoeuvring of the Tsurani nobility. Word from the war beyond the rift takes that choice away from her and leaves her the head of a great house that has just been reduced to almost nothing.

Appears from the start

Mara's childhood nurse, an old woman of the Acoma household who has served the family all her life. Blunt, superstitious, sharp about people, and unafraid to tell her mistress uncomfortable truths, she becomes the closest thing the ruined house has to a political adviser.

Appears from the start

Force Commander of the Acoma, a scarred veteran of many campaigns who has served the family since Mara's father was a boy. Utterly correct in manner, he is one of the very few survivors of the disaster that killed his lord, and he holds himself responsible for a house he can no longer defend.

Appears from the start

A Strike Leader of the Acoma and Keyoke's constant shadow, a large, silent soldier of exceptional skill. He is the officer entrusted with Mara's personal safety, and his loyalty to the house is absolute even when the honour code he lives by turns against him.

First appears in chapter 2

Lord of the Minwanabi, master of one of the Empire's five greatest houses and the hereditary enemy of the Acoma. Powerful, well allied and confident, he arranged the deaths that left the Acoma leaderless and intends to finish the family without ever appearing to have broken the forms of honour.

First appears in chapter 2

The Acoma hadonra, the estate's manager, a small anxious man responsible for its accounts, herds, workers and trade. He is scrupulously honest and permanently alarmed by his new mistress's willingness to spend money on things no Tsurani noble would spend money on.

First appears in chapter 4

Lord of the Anasati, head of another of the Empire's great houses, an old rival of Mara's father and currently allied with the Minwanabi. He is a careful, intelligent player of the Game of the Council who prefers advantage to bloodshed and dislikes being manoeuvred.

First appears in chapter 4

The second son of the Lord of the Anasati, thickset, loud and physical, with a taste for wrestling, drink and the pleasure houses of the city. His father regards him as the least gifted of his sons, and he knows it.

First appears in chapter 4

The eldest son and heir of the Lord of the Anasati, clever, cold and well aware of his own quality. He takes an interest in Mara and does not take being passed over gracefully.

First appears in chapter 4

A grey warrior, one of the masterless soldiers whose lord was destroyed and who are held by Tsurani custom to have lost all honour and all place in the world. Cheerful, quick-tongued and a gifted officer, he is a distant cousin of the Acoma and is offered something no grey warrior is ever offered.

First appears in chapter 5

Former Spy Master of a house destroyed in the Game of the Council, who kept his network alive after his master's death with no one left to serve. Unremarkable to look at and able to pass as anything from a labourer to a priest, he offers his organisation to the one ruler who might survive long enough to use it.

First appears in chapter 5

A younger son of the Lord of the Shinzawai, a northern house that keeps out of the Minwanabi quarrel. Courteous, observant and noticeably more thoughtful than the other young nobles Mara meets, he treats her as a person rather than as a piece on a board.

First appears in chapter 6

The ruler of a hive of the cho-ja, the insectoid people who live alongside humans on Kelewan and whose warriors, silk and craftsmen are prized by every great house. A new queen bargains for the land her hive will settle on, and negotiates on terms most Tsurani nobles are too proud to learn.

First appears in chapter 9

A courtesan of striking beauty and expensive tastes, ambitious far beyond the position her trade allows and skilled at making herself indispensable to powerful men. Her charm is entirely deliberate and her temper, when it slips, is vicious.

First appears in chapter 10

Mara's infant son, heir to the Acoma and, through his father, grandson of the Lord of the Anasati. His birth alters the balance between the two houses, because a family that would happily see the Acoma destroyed cannot afford to see its own blood destroyed with it.

First appears in chapter 12

The Warlord of Tsuranuanni, holder of the white and gold, the most powerful man in the Empire after the Light of Heaven himself. He commands the war on the barbarian world, uses it to keep rival houses obedient and bled, and enjoys his own supremacy openly.