- Myntra TasMyn Mydya Moc
- A Reader of Mydya Moc, twenty years old, who has stood the watch since she was a girl and reads the patterns at the edge of sky and sea. Her name means Vengeance of Hope in the old tongue. She was named for a sister she never met, and for a mother who died the hour she was born.
- Besder Mydya Moc
- Myn’s father. Once a Reader and a teacher; now a man whose mind has fled so far into the past that most days he does not know his daughter’s face. He keeps a pouch of relics and one secret worth more than all of them.
- Aren Mydya Moc
- Myn’s mother, and the greatest Reader Mydya ever produced. Murdered by Takers the day Myn was born. All Myn has of her are green eyes flecked with gold, the ivory bands, and the reading itself.
- Renka Mydya Moc
- Fourteen, newly changed, and already showing the sight that will save or destroy her. Laset’s daughter, Direl’s sister, and the closest thing Myn has to someone to protect.
- Laset Mydya Moc
- High Reader of Mydya and Besder’s sister. She can barely read anymore — struck blind more often than not, her face webbed with spidery veins. Every Reader who looks at her sees her own future.
- Direl Mydya Moc
- Renka’s brother, and Myn’s betrothed by the arithmetic of bloodlines. He has the Reader blood but not the sight, and he has never forgiven her for having both.
- Dasel Mydya Moc
- Besder’s pytal — a flat-headed cat with faintly bioluminescent eyes. Pytal bonds are exclusive, and Dasel has never once acknowledged Myn.
- Kessa Mydya Moc
- An old woman mending nets near the dwelling entrance, who makes the sign against evil when the taken walk past. You’re not here. The taken are already gone.
- Nesander Manerikthe neDumin The Argent Keep
- Heir of Sendya, and half a Bittoran in a court that despises the south. He has his mother’s will and his father’s fire, and no clear idea yet which of the two will decide what he becomes.
- Gradno IIthe Demon of Sendya The Argent Keep
- Dumin of Sendya and terror of the North. A capable ruler once — four trade alliances, close to uniting the mountain holds — before the barduhl and the Shaimin and whatever is eating him from inside. What is left rules anyway.
- Esmira Teska The Argent Keep
- The Dumina. Bittoran-born, cast out by her own family for marrying Gradno, and kept now in a glass-domed atrium she calls the only bearable part of her prison. Her coldness toward her son is the most deliberate thing about her.
- Marek Dool-Manerikthe Ravager The Argent Keep
- Nesander’s cousin, bodyguard and appointed protector — raised by an Arci sect that makes boys into warriors and men into killers. He loved his cousin once, which is the dangerous part.
- Vesha Dool The Argent Keep
- Marek’s mother. She holds the wealth, the port of Betta, the poison tides and a set of hidden vaults, and she has been building toward Sendya since before her son could walk.
- JokubusJok The Argent Keep
- Gradno’s younger brother and Vesha’s husband. Disinherited, frightened of his own wife, and quietly aware of what he has helped make of his eldest son.
- Peder The Argent Keep
- Nesander’s teacher: Bittoran, andris-smoking, sharp-edged, and keeper of a hidden den beneath the Mount full of maps and pickled specimens. He tells the boy stories about the Bit ka and the Talen Feir, and rather fewer about himself.
- Tar The Argent Keep
- The gisel Master, who runs the Dumin’s confine and keeps the ledger of every woman in it. In the Dumin’s absence he is god there.
- Kalas The Argent Keep
- A Lembexa dancer, newly acquired, small enough that the men who watch her make jokes about it. Her name means Firefly.
- Indas Minitux Bit ka & neDoni
- Purveyor of the finest fashions in the Upper City and one of Sendya’s celebrated hostesses. Also neDoni, mistress of the Sen Chapter, and the coldest strategist in the book. She travels under the name Lady Demis when she needs a different face.
- Baldoh Bit ka & neDoni
- Master of the finest gallery in the Upper City, where the beautiful are remade into what buyers want. Bit ka of an old Moldin line, with the Star of Nine burned into the skin over his sternum.
- Brin Bit ka & neDoni
- A Bit ka warrior out of Skorn — craggy, thinning at the crown, and entirely at ease with what the work requires.
- Soamar Bit ka & neDoni
- Fifteen or sixteen, from Renelay in Plenara, and gifted with animals in a way that may destroy him as a soldier. The only person in Sendya who is kind to Myn without wanting something.
- Gwid Bit ka & neDoni
- Baldoh’s Goloni assistant and lover — golden braids, scaly hands, honey-sweet when watched and poison-sharp when not. He has an appetite that someone else is feeding.
- Qweep Bit ka & neDoni
- A Sendyan scribe who records collections in a leather ledger and takes his work seriously. He is in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he notices too much.
- Dras Eng The Shaimin
- Executive Engineer, newly posted to Vadred, half-eurogin and reminded of it constantly. He believed every word of the Shining Path at the Academy. He is about to watch what it does to a world.
- Ton Naidenthe Ivern Devil The Shaimin
- Chief Verification Proxy for Vadred, four years planet-side, answerable in practice to nobody within reach. He climbed from a rice paddy to the stars and never once forgave anyone for the climb.
- Rosina Naiden The Shaimin
- Naiden’s wife. Pink silk, artificial sweetness, and a genuine delight in native things that her husband finds embarrassing and inconvenient.
- Junko Pontu The Shaimin
- Primary Cultural Liaison, ten years Dras’s senior, a xenological genius who once guest-lectured at his Academy. Her cynicism is not disillusionment — it is an instrument.
- Kitiq Far The Shaimin
- A Specialist out of Atoll, the exile moon, who says plainly that she is not ashamed to be here. She studies native communication, and she is reading things she should not be able to read.
- Tien The Shaimin
- The intelligence in Dras’s ear implant. She sings to him. Whoever built her did so with exquisite and stubborn care.
- Obedai The Shaimin
- A hopper pilot who smells of chili oil and combustion, plays Kalandri peasant music at ruinous volume, and tells the truth for free.
- Voss The Shaimin
- The Shaimin executive attached to Gradno’s court — embalmed-smelling, careful, and playing blod with a man he is not required to respect.
- Cahrinathe Widow of Kade Dorz & the Riverway
- The Widow of Kade. A trader on the Urnis whose fortune is nearly gone, whose reputation was destroyed by a stepson’s lies, and who has been climbing out of worse since she was six years old.
- Folan Dorz & the Riverway
- Cahrina’s Glion companion — blue-skinned, serrated-toothed, superstitious, disapproving, and the only friend she has.
- Gadiel Dorz & the Riverway
- Cahrina’s stepson, who made her name filth from the Zo to the Urnis after she refused him.
- Queen Tredisa Dorz & the Riverway
- Ruler of Dorz. Age has wasted her face but left her skin unlined, and power comes off her like heat from a forge. She welcomed the Shaimin first.
- Lejen Dorz & the Riverway
- The queen’s son, heir of the sands. He keeps a hunting lodge to escape court protocol, and a Fuzin he saved instead of putting down.
- Aracna and Ro Dorz & the Riverway
- A Goloni minister of Lankor Wa and his scribe — kohl-lined, silk-draped, and crucial links in the Shaimin expansion.
- Kotar The Tabban
- A Tabban merchant whose cart sings with ribbon-bells because the law requires it. He carries sweets, clockwork trinkets, and something in a painted box that has not been seen in the Nine Lands since the Fall.
- Cham The Tabban
- Kotar’s daughter, eight years old, who has become the parent in the family and knows exactly what her father is risking.
- Siltish The Tabban
- Kotar’s son, younger, still a believer, still asking when they will trap the Tenth Land.
- Nitishar The Tabban
- Kotar’s wife, taken by the Shaimin three years ago. Cham says she is dead. Kotar says he can feel her in the Pattern.
Nothing by that name. Try another word.