Onyx Storm characters

Appears from the start

A third-year rider at what is left of Basgiath, bonded to two dragons, wielding lightning, and one of the few people who knows exactly what the war against the venin actually is. She comes into this book grieving her mother, carrying the authority that comes from having been right when the leadership was lying, and holding a secret heavier than any she has kept before: what Xaden became to save her. Physically she is still the most breakable rider in any room, and she still compensates with knowledge, preparation and a refusal to be managed by the people who love her.

Appears from the start

The heir of Tyrrendor and the leader of the resistance, who channelled power from the earth to keep Violet alive during the battle for Basgiath and became venin doing it. He is fighting to stay himself, concealing what he is from almost everyone, and carrying both a hidden second signet and a hunger that gets harder to refuse the longer the war lasts. His relationship with Violet is now bound up in that concealment, and their dragons' mating bond still keeps them within reach of one another.

Appears from the start

Violet's black morningstartail, among the oldest and most powerful dragons alive, blunt to the point of rudeness and entirely without patience for human hesitation. His mating bond with Sgaeyl and his own long memory of the Vale both shape what Violet is able to do.

Appears from the start

Violet's golden dragon, who came out of a long sleep during the battle for Basgiath as something no rider had seen before. She is unlike the other dragons of the Vale in ways the Vale has never explained, and the question of what she actually is, and where the rest of her kind went, is one Violet can no longer put aside.

Appears from the start

Xaden's blue daggertail, fast and sharp-tongued, mated to Tairn. She is closer than anyone to what her rider has become and is not inclined to discuss it.

Appears from the start

Violet's older brother, a mender and one of the leaders of the resistance based in Aretia, who spent six years officially dead. Protective and habitually controlling, he is now one of the last of Violet's family and one of the people whose caution she most often has to argue past.

Appears from the start

Violet's older sister, a serving rider who spent her career defending a border against an enemy she was never told the truth about. She comes into this book having lost her mother and having chosen the resistance over the command structure she was raised in.

Appears from the start

Violet's closest friend and a rider who has grown into command, steady where Violet is impulsive and one of the few people who will tell her plainly when she is wrong. She now knows everything Violet spent the previous year hiding from her.

Appears from the start

A rider in Violet's circle who has kept his sense of humour through two years in which most of his classmates died. Beneath it he is dependable in a fight and quietly aware of how much everyone around him is carrying.

Appears from the start

A rider in Violet's circle, older and more methodical than the rest, who has kept flying and fighting through injuries that would have ended anyone else's career.

Appears from the start

Violet's oldest friend, whose ability to read recent memories through touch spent a year making him a danger to her. He ends the previous book on the other side of the argument he started on, having seen for himself what the command he trusted was concealing.

Appears from the start

A marked rider from Tyrrendor, silver-haired and abrasive, wholly committed to the resistance and long past pretending to be a model cadet. She and Violet have become allies through repeated proof rather than affection.

Appears from the start

Xaden's closest friend and one of the resistance's most capable fighters, positioned close enough to him to notice things about him that Xaden would rather nobody noticed.

Appears from the start

Xaden's cousin, a rider and a member of the resistance's inner circle from the beginning, with his own standing among the marked riders of Tyrrendor.

Appears from the start

Liam Mairi's younger sister, a rider now rather than the hostile first-year who arrived blaming Violet for her brother's death. She came through the battle for Basgiath and has stopped refusing the people trying to keep her alive.

Also known as Cat

Appears from the start

A gryphon flier from Poromiel, from a prominent family among the drifts, brought into Basgiath by the alliance and kept there by the war. Proud and combative, with history with Xaden that predates Violet, she has become a working ally rather than a guest under guard.