To Green Angel Tower

Simon is a tall, red-haired young man with a white streak left by dragon's blood and a facial scar. Orphaned at birth and raised as a castle servant, he yearns for adventure but is continually thrust into dangers far beyond his training. He carries deep insecurity about his worthiness, constantly measuring himself against the legendary figures around him. His defining trait is stubborn endurance: he survives the dragon, the tunnels, the wheel, and the void between death and life through sheer refusal to let go of himself. His empathy, learned through suffering, becomes the unexpected key to undoing the Storm King¹⁵. He wrestles with rage and a desire for revenge, but ultimately chooses connection over hatred. His late discovery of his royal lineage (descended from Eahlstan Fiskerne) forces him to reconcile his humble origins with a heritage he never wanted.

King Elias's¹⁴ only daughter, golden-haired and sharp-chinned, Miriamele is fiercely independent and tormented by guilt. She fled her father's court disguised as a servant girl, blaming herself for not preventing his corruption. Her journey is driven by a desperate hope that she can reach her father before his humanity is entirely consumed. She carries the secret shame of having willingly given herself to the manipulative Aspitis Preves, which she weaponizes against herself, believing she is unworthy of love or loyalty. Her arc moves from solitary, self-punishing obsession to a willingness to accept help and love from Simon¹. Her act of killing Elias¹⁴ with the White Arrow is simultaneously the bravest and most terrible thing she does: a daughter executing mercy on a father already dead.

Elias's¹⁴ younger brother, a thoughtful, scholarly man who lost his hand defending his brother's wife Hylissa. He wears a manacle from his imprisonment as a reminder. Josua is a capable but unwilling leader, constantly doubting his own fitness for the throne. His deepest secret, revealed late, is that he is not King John's son but Camaris's⁴, the product of a forbidden love between the greatest knight and the king's young wife. This revelation reframes his entire life: his father's madness, his own exile, the burden of a crown he never truly inherited. At the end, he chooses to walk away from power entirely, seeking a quiet life of scholarship and family, an act of profound wisdom in a world that equates masculinity with rule.

The greatest warrior of the age, now old and silver-haired, Camaris spent forty years in a fugue state, his mind shattered by guilt over his affair with King John's wife Ebekah (Josua's³ mother). He was fished from the sea and lived as a wandering beggar until Isgrimnur⁶ recognized him. Even restored, he is haunted, barely functional, and wishes only for death. He wields the black sword Thorn, which sings to him and compels his movements, reducing him to a puppet in the final act. His profound Catholic guilt infuses every action: he sees himself as eternally damned, yet fights on because he believes God demands it. His final whispered 'Forgiven' in the tower is the most hard-won grace in the book.

A Qanuc troll from the mountain Yiqanuc, small in stature but immense in wisdom and loyalty. Binabik studied under Ookequk, a master of lore, and inherited a debt of protection to Simon¹ from Doctor Morgenes. He speaks a fractured but precise Westerling, rides a wolf named Qantaqa²³, and uses a walking stick that conceals a blowpipe and knife. His intellectual courage is his defining trait: it is Binabik who pieces together the false messenger deception, realizing that the dream-sent prophecy was a trap. Despite his gentle demeanor, he is ferocious in defense of his friends. His separation from his betrothed Sisqi to pursue Simon¹ and Miriamele² is one of the book's many quiet sacrifices.

A grizzled, bearded warrior from Rimmersgard, blunt and loyal to a fault. He served King John and has known Josua³ and Camaris⁴ for decades. Isgrimnur's arc in this volume is one of loss: his son Isorn²⁰ dies in the siege, and his own body, battered by war and age, begins to fail him. He provides the emotional anchor for the grieving, gruffly holding the army together after Josua's³ disappearance. His marriage to Gutrun is a portrait of enduring, pragmatic love. By the end, he must bury his child and then return to rebuild a dukedom shattered by war.

A small, dark-skinned marsh man with a lame leg (bitten by a crocodile), Tiamak is a scholar of drylander lore and the author of a treatise on swamp remedies. He is timid, frequently frightened, and acutely aware of his outsider status among the tall northern folk. Yet his courage is of the intellectual and moral variety: he volunteers to descend into the tunnels with Camaris⁴ and the Sithi, and later pieces together crucial clues about the swords. His friendship with the similarly bookish Father Strangyeard⁸ provides moments of warmth and comic relief.

A thin, balding, one-eyed priest who served as Josua's³ librarian at Naglimund. He is socially awkward, terrified of conflict, and more comfortable with dusty manuscripts than battlefields. Yet his knowledge of history and scripture proves vital. He takes Camaris's⁴ confession, becoming the keeper of the old knight's terrible secret. His arc is one of growing confidence: by the epilogue, he is designing a new library and ordering writing-priests about with quiet authority. His friendship with Tiamak⁷ is one of the book's gentlest relationships.

Golden-skinned and amber-eyed, Aditu is one of the immortal Dawn Children. She is curious about mortals in a way many of her kind are not, and forms a genuine bond with Simon¹ during his stay in Jao e-Tinukai'i. She possesses the Sithi gift of 'witnessing' (seeing across distances and into dreams). In this volume, she serves as midwife to Vorzheva and as a warrior at the Pool of Three Depths. Her prophecy over Josua's³ twins is one of the book's lingering mysteries. She represents the Sithi at their most approachable: ancient and strange, but genuinely invested in mortal survival.

Aditu's⁹ brother, with white hair and sharp features. He carries the witchwood sword Indreju and the mirror that once allowed Simon¹ to call for aid. Jiriki is more reserved than his sister, carrying the weight of his people's long decline. His friendship with Simon¹ is one of the saga's core bonds, crossing the immortal-mortal divide. He fights at Naglimund alongside Eolair¹⁷ and later leads the Sithi contingent into the tunnels beneath the Hayholt. His final farewell to Simon¹ is a promise that their story is not finished.

A thick-set, balding monk from Hernystir with a drinker's nose and a liar's tongue. Once a brilliant scholar of the Art, he was captured by Pryrates¹³ and tortured into betraying the League of the Scroll. His life since has been a desperate crawl through guilt, alcoholism, and self-loathing. He attaches himself to Miriamele's² journey, protecting her in his own cowardly way. His final confession in the dwarrow cavern, revealing that the sword prophecy was a trap, is his first honest act in years. His death, holding open an invisible bridge for the others to escape the collapsing tower, is the ultimate redemption: the traitor who becomes the bridge.

The Earl of Utanyeat was King Elias's¹⁴ most trusted general until he was struck blind and driven mad by the sword Sorrow's song. He fled into the tunnels beneath the Hayholt and has lived there like a burrowing animal, guided only by touch and the constant pull of the Great Swords. He stole Bright-Nail from John's barrow and kept it in his nest. When he encounters Simon¹ on the wheel, some remnant of humanity stirs, and he frees the young man at the cost of his own life. His final gift is the sword and the direction to the tower.

Bald, black-eyed, and utterly without conscience, Pryrates is the architect of Elias's¹⁴ damnation. He studied under Morgenes but chose power over wisdom, eventually becoming the conduit between the High King¹⁴ and the Storm King¹⁵. His ambition is boundless: he believes he can use the Words of Changing to enslave Ineluki¹⁵ himself. His laboratory in Hjeldin's Tower is a charnel house of bone furniture and bubbling vats. He survives Miriamele's² arrow through the throat through sheer sorcerous will, but is annihilated in the moment of his apparent triumph, a victim of the very forces he thought to command.

Miriamele's² father, a strong man broken by the death of his beloved wife Hylissa. Desperate to speak to her beyond the grave, he accepted Pryrates's¹³ help and the gray sword Sorrow, which has slowly consumed his humanity. By this volume, he is a skeletal, sleepless wraith, his body soaked in cold sweat, his eyes burning with an inner red light. He is both victim and villain, his original grief twisted into parricidal madness. In his final moments, he surfaces long enough to beg his daughter's forgiveness and to plead for release, making Miriamele's² killing shot an act of love rather than vengeance.

Once the brightest spirit of the Dawn Children, Ineluki led the defense of Asu'a against Fingil's Rimmersmen five centuries ago. Refusing to die, he spoke a terrible Word of Unmaking that slew thousands of mortals and cast him beyond death into a state of frozen, burning hatred. He exists now only as a consciousness of rage, communicating through the Breathing Harp and seeking to return to the living world by possessing Elias's¹⁴ body. Simon's¹ vision of him by the Pool reveals not a monster but a being of infinite sorrow, whose love for his people curdled into an eternal vendetta against the mortal vermin who destroyed his home.

Ruling from the frozen mountain Stormspike, Utuk'ku is the ancient matriarch of the Hikeda'ya. She wears a silver mask to hide features decrepit beyond imagining. Her vanity and hatred of mortals and the Zida'ya alike have fueled a millennia-long scheme to restore Ineluki¹⁵. At the Pool of Three Depths, she battles the Sithi with a cold so absolute it can kill immortals. When Ineluki's¹⁵ return fails, she is left shattered, her mask broken, her power gone, alone in her dark halls.

The Count of Nad Mullach is a slender, dark-haired man of middle years, a skilled courtier who would rather be in his ancestral hall than on a battlefield. He has served King Lluth of Hernystir and later his daughter Maegwin¹⁸, for whom he harbors a deep, unspoken love. At Naglimund, he leads the Hernystiri contingent alongside the Sithi and watches Maegwin¹⁸ slide further into madness. Her death leaves him hollow, and he returns home to bury her. Simon¹ later tells him that Maegwin¹⁸ loved him and that her final act helped save the world.

The daughter of King Lluth, Maegwin lost her father and brother in the war against Skali. Her mind broke, and she became convinced she was dead and living in the gods' heaven. In this state, she accompanied Eolair¹⁷ to Naglimund, where her madness granted her an unexpected perception of the supernatural. She wandered onto the battlefield, drawn to the 'Hole in Heaven' (Naglimund's keep), and was struck down. In the space between death and life, she encountered Simon's¹ wandering spirit and gave him the strength to return to his body, her final gift enabling the world's salvation.

An old, sharp-tongued woman with aching joints and an unshakable sense of duty. She raised the orphan Simon¹ in the Hayholt's servant quarters, pinching his ears and scolding his laziness, but loving him fiercely. When Pryrates¹³ came to power, she hid in a secret room beneath the castle and began leaving food for the blind Guthwulf¹². She survives the apocalypse by sheer stubbornness and emerges to find the boy she thought dead is now Snowlock¹ the king. Her reunion with Simon¹ is the emotional capstone of the epilogue.

Tall and yellow-bearded like his father, Isorn fought alongside Josua³ from Naglimund onward. At the siege of the Hayholt, he volunteered to wear Camaris's⁴ armor and helm to deceive Elias's¹⁴ forces. His impulsive charge through the shattered gate led to his death at Pryrates's¹³ hands, trapped behind an iron portcullis. His loss is the personal tragedy that defines his father's end, a young life spent for a tactic that bought only minutes.

An ancient, powerful healer who lived in a lake house in Aldheorte. She was a friend to the Sithi and a guide to Josua's³ company. Her piercing eyes and blunt manner made her both respected and feared. She died fighting Norns to protect Camaris⁴, transforming into an owl as she fled to die in her woods. Her spirit spoke through the child Leieth to deliver a final warning about false messengers.

A huge, one-eyed, scarred man who runs the underground forge where prisoners melt down scrap metal. He nursed a grudge against Simon¹ from their time together in the Hayholt, and delighted in tormenting him. He strapped Simon¹ to the waterwheel to die slowly. Simon¹ dropped the wheel on him, crushing him to death in the gears.

A large gray wolf from the northern mountains, bonded to Binabik⁵ since both were young. She is intelligent, fierce in battle, and capable of tracking scents across vast distances. She fights diggers, Norns, and Fire Dancers alike, and her presence comforts the company through many dark hours.