The Broken Eye characters

Also known as Kip Guile

Appears from the start

A Blackguard inductee and the Prism's acknowledged bastard, sixteen years old and newly notorious after the disaster at Ru. He is a polychrome of unusual range, he can live other people's memories through a handful of ancient cards, and he is carrying an artifact that strips drafters of their magic. With his father missing and presumed dead, the only Guile left to deal with him is the grandfather who has spent two books deciding whether he is worth keeping.

Appears from the start

The man the world knew as the Prism, in fact Dazen Guile wearing his brother's stolen name. He came out of the battle at Ru without a scrap of magic and was pulled from the sea by a pirate. He is now an oar slave with no colours, no rank, no leverage and no proof of who he is, and he is a very long way from the Jaspers.

Appears from the start

The real Gavin Guile, sixteen years in a nest of coloured cells beneath the Chromeria, breaking out of one only to find the next. He is the reason his brother's colours have been failing, and he is still working.

Also known as Karris Guile, Karris White Oak

Appears from the start

Karris Guile, married and widowed inside a season, a Blackguard whose husband is officially dead and who is not permitted to grieve in public. The White takes her out of the Blackguard and puts her to work as an agent instead, which turns out to be an education in how the Chromeria is really run.

Appears from the start

The head of House Guile and the Spectrum's Red, who now has a vacant Prism's office, a war going badly, and no rival of his own weight left standing. He works entirely from a dark room and expects the succession to go the way he arranges it.

Also known as Orea Pullawr

First appears in chapter 2

The White, head of the Chromeria's administration and openly dying. She spends what she has left arranging the things that will outlast her, including who succeeds her and who is placed where before Andross Guile can fill every seat himself.

Also known as Adrasteia

First appears in chapter 2

A Blackguard and a paryl drafter, the only one anyone knows of. Because paryl is invisible and undocumented, she is the one asset the Chromeria has that can go where nothing else can, which is why she is asked to do something no inductee should be asked to do.

First appears in chapter 3

Commander of the Blackguard, who lost a Prism on his watch and is now protecting an institution that is quietly turning on itself. He holds his people together while the Spectrum argues over what a Blackguard is for.

First appears in chapter 4

The best of Kip's squad and its commander in everything but name: fast, principled and stubbornly loyal, holding the group together as the reasons to stay at the Chromeria run out.

Appears from the start

A pirate captain and cannoneer of genuine and unstable genius, who has a rower on his ship he suspects is worth more than the ship. His decisions are made by whim, superstition and whatever will make the better story about Gunner.

First appears in chapter 8

Aliviana Danavis, now well past anything the Chromeria taught her, working for the rebellion on the banes: the vast floating bodies of luxin that the old accounts say are where gods are made. She has stopped arguing with herself about which side she is on.

First appears in chapter 8

The burned man leading the rebellion, whose armies now hold Tyrea and most of Atash and whose declared aim is the end of the Chromeria and of the Freeing. His interest in the banes suggests his ambitions run past politics.

First appears in chapter 36

A young noblewoman of the Malargos family of Ruthgar, beautiful, well trained in the uses of both, and sent to attach herself to Kip because her house wants something from the Guiles. She is far better at politics than Kip is, and rather less cynical than her instructions require.

First appears in chapter 30

An assassin of the Order of the Broken Eye, the society the Chromeria has insisted for centuries was destroyed. He is a paryl drafter, he can move unseen, he is meticulous, chatty and entirely without limits, and he collects teeth.

First appears in chapter 54

A young red drafter brought to the Chromeria as a claimant to the empty Prism's office, presented with paperwork the Spectrum finds hard to argue with. Charming in public and hollow underneath, he was last seen doing the rebellion's work.