Empire of Storms characters

Appears from the start

Queen of Terrasen in name, camped on her own southern border with a court of five and no army. She holds two of the three Wyrdkeys and a plan she will not share with anyone, including the people who have sworn their lives to her. She is running out of time, money, and allies at the same rate, and she has begun making trades whose full price she keeps to herself.

Appears from the start

A Fae prince of Doranelle, blood-sworn to Aelin and her closest confidant, with wind and ice magic and a hawk's form. He has stopped trying to talk her out of things and started making sure she survives them. He is the only person who reliably knows when she is lying.

Appears from the start

General of the Bane and Aelin's cousin, half Fae, blood-sworn to her and responsible for holding together the only fighting force loyal to her. He is furious with the Terrasen lords who will not acknowledge his queen, and openly hostile to the two Fae warriors Maeve has sent to shadow them.

Appears from the start

A shapeshifter, formerly a courtesan of Rifthold, whose magic returned when the towers fell and who can now take any form she has studied. She is learning to fight, raising her ward Evangeline, and has made herself indispensable to Aelin as a scout, a spy, and a friend who is not afraid of her.

First appears in chapter 2

Lysandra's young ward, a scarred girl determined to be useful and increasingly aware of how dangerous the company she keeps has become.

First appears in chapter 2

The daughter of Terrasen's Lady of Perranth, on the road north out of Morath with a ruined ankle, a Wyrdstone shard, and orders from a dying woman to find Aelin Galathynius. She was raised locked in a tower and has almost no experience of the world, which she compensates for with patience and a very good ear for a lie.

First appears in chapter 2

A Fae warrior five centuries old, the most lethal of Queen Maeve's blood-sworn cadre, with dark magic that can smother life outright. Exiled and hunting the Wyrdkeys for his queen, he falls in with Elide on the road under a false name and finds himself escorting her north. He is loyal to Maeve above every other consideration.

First appears in chapter 3

Wing Leader of the Ironteeth host, sent out with the Thirteen to hunt Aelin Galathynius for Morath. She has begun asking questions her grandmother will not answer, chiefly about her own mother, and she is no longer certain the Ironteeth are on the right side of anything.

First appears in chapter 3

Manon's Second and cousin, the finest rider in the Thirteen, carrying a hundred years of a secret the Blackbeaks punished her for and have never let her speak of.

First appears in chapter 3

The scarred runt wyvern Manon claimed, now the fastest flier in the host, who likes flowers, sunlight, and Manon, in roughly that order.

First appears in chapter 5

King of Adarlan, inheritor of his father's ruined empire and of magic he is still learning to use. He has lost his capital and most of his court and is trying to work out what one king with raw power and no army can actually do against Morath.

First appears in chapter 6

The senior lord of Terrasen's council, elderly and unsentimental, who kept the kingdom's remnants alive through ten years of occupation. He does not accept Aelin's claim: to him she is a girl who vanished, spent a decade as an assassin for hire, and has come back with no army, no treasury, and no proof she can rule.

First appears in chapter 10

Matron of the Blackbeak clan and Manon's grandmother, who has commanded the Ironteeth for five centuries and intends to lead them back into their stolen kingdom in the west whatever the cost to her own bloodline.

First appears in chapter 12

A Fae warrior of Maeve's cadre, young by Fae reckoning, with a wolf's form and a twin brother he does not talk about. He is charming, insolent, and bound by a blood oath he plainly resents, sent along with Gavriel to watch Aelin and report back.

First appears in chapter 12

A Fae warrior of Maeve's cadre known as the Lion, quiet and courteous, with a mountain lion's form. He fought in Terrasen decades ago, and Aedion Ashryver is his son, a fact neither of them has any idea what to do with.

First appears in chapter 20

Pirate Lord of Skull's Bay in the Dead Islands, whose hands carry a magical map of the seas. He and Aelin have unfinished business from years ago, and he has spent the time since building a fleet and an empire of his own out of the Bay.

First appears in chapter 30

The first Queen of Adarlan, a thousand years dead, who has steered Aelin's life from the beginning. She finally begins explaining what she has been building toward, the gate, the keys, and the Lock, and what it will cost the person who closes it.

Appears from the start

The Valg king who was defeated a thousand years ago and never destroyed, now awake at Morath and in command of its armies, its ilken, and its Wyrdstone. He holds the third key and wants the other two.

First appears in chapter 70

Queen of the Fae of Doranelle, Aelin's great-aunt, who was denied Aelin's blood oath and lost Rowan to her. She has been patient about it. Her cadre is scattered across the continent on errands she has not explained, and her fleet is not where anyone expected it to be.