Extra Character Descriptions

The main character of the Faenriyes series, Attel is a faenriin, a species of magical beings that bond with familiars.

Usually.

Decades have passed, and Attel still hasn’t found hers. For a faenriin, that means she’s incomplete. Adrift in a society where perfection is expected and anything less simply fades away.

Nev’eirys, son of Neth’eirys is the youngest member of the Drathyre, the council that governs the draconic capital of Eirenos. He commands water as easily as sweeping his hand, whether it’s the torrents that pour from the sky or the tides of the sea itself.

Yet such power does nothing to mend the rifts between the Eirenosian draconics and the traditionalists. Nor does it explain why he cannot wield the only magic he should be able to.

Attel’s best friend, Callie, was the light of the duo. The dreamer, the optimist, the one who introduced her to the continent of Drakien, the Land of Dragons, which she learned about in a musty old book in a mustier old corner of the dilapidated “library” of the Outskirts.

Callie’s light was so strong it even shone strong against the miasma. Beside her, Attel started to think that their lives could be more than listless days and being ignored by everyone. That they could be more than Abeyant.

But in the end, the miasma takes everything. Even the light.

Especially the light.

For longer than many draconics live, there has always been a shadow over the eastern lands, claiming them as a last bastion for those dragons that prefer the traditional way of life.

A champion for those who chase strength, who plunder for glory, who gather hoards and look down on others from upon them.

A terror for those who prefer peace, who take only what they need, who gather their wings close and tremble when they look up at the sky.

An abyss that can be neither plumbed nor eradicated.

And for him, the sea and sky tremble.

Bennie has always been in Eirenos, as far as the other draconics can tell. She’s as much a part of the thousand-year-old capital as the trees that sprout from the mountainsides and the blooms that climb along the wings of the dragon statues.

Draconics have long lives and good memories, but there are certain limits. So, very few remember Bennie’s monumental form as flying the skies as anything but alone.

And so, when they come to visit her palace in the clouds, they merely mark the fountain of the dragon and the faenriin woman as one of Old Lady Bennie’s funny quirks. And they think the nightblooms that blanket the strangely perfect stone must simply be the byproducts of wayward seeds carried up by the wind.

Very few notice how misty her emerald eyes become as she welcomes them and ushers them past the fountain. And no one has ever gathered the courage to ask her about it.

There isn’t much to say about the king of the faenriin, though that doesn’t stop his subjects from making stories from the silence.

But despite the gossip about his daily routine and the endless speculation of what he must truly be like, the Blood Red King can’t really be that complicated.

Because Caexiael is nothing more and nothing less destruction. Not in its blazing fury, nor in its wanton bloodshed. These, other gods and their champions have claimed.

No, Caexiael, chosen of the god Caexeros, embodies something deeper. The stillness that hangs over a battlefield after the final body falls. The ashes stolen by the wind when the smoldering embers finally extinguish.

Everything that is left behind when nothing is left behind.

While familiars come in many shapes and sizes, never before had any faenriin seen an ember wolf.

In fact, when King Caexiael returned with the animal at his side, there was much debate in Ayaliis over what species she should be classified as.

“Wolf” was too reductive; “dire wolf” too simple still.

Her fur smoldered like embers in a dying fire, and its warmth and scent echoed it twice over. So for Queen Amariael, the term was manifest—and her declaration universally lauded.

At the announcement, King Caexiael had no reaction. As the faenriin cheered and the Queen’s smile spread wide, the Blood Red King and his ember wolf simply existed, their deep red eyes staring out into the horizon.

The members of the Drathyre consider themselves the ultimate servants of the Eirenosians, upholding peace, order, and knowledge, among other lofty things.

The Eirenosians, on the other claw, see their council as group of slab-scratching bureaucrats.

Fondly so, of course.

And there’s certainly no one else the Eirenosians would rather have behind them should they run into those dragons who don’t uphold peace, order, and knowledge.

The followers of Charion’arkoe, the Great Abyss, are myriad in their number and their nature.

There are fighters, priests, gardeners; those who would spew their breath before their words; those who would rather watch from the shadows, waiting for their prey to show its weakness.

Yet despite their differences, all are united in one thing: their devotion to their Great Abyss.

Because for him, the sea and sky tremble.