Realm Breaker

Andry Trelland is Corayne’s prospective love interest and Companion. He is the son of Tedros Trelland, a lowborn knight who was killed in a boarder battle when Andry was six. His mother is Valeri Trelland, a noblewoman from Nkonabo in Kasa. As a child, he grew up with Erida, who becomes the queen of Galland. Andry becomes the squire of Sir Grandel of Tyr, one of Erida’s Lionguard knights, and as the novel opens he accompanies Sir Grandel on his mission with Cortael and the other Companions as they seek to stop Taristan and Ronin from tearing open a Spindle at a temple. Their mission fails, however, and Andry and Dom are the only survivors. In the skirmish, Cortael dies, and Andry receives the man’s Spindleblade and is tasked with safekeeping it from Taristan. When Dom, Corayne, and Sorasa later arrive in Ascal to reclaim the Spindleblade, Andry sees an opportunity to resume the mission that failed.

As a squire, Andry has earned a stellar reputation for competence and nobility that garners him the envy and ire of some of his peers. He dreams of becoming a knight to take up his father’s shield, but after Erida’s betrayal, he allies himself with Corayne and her group, effectively making this dream impossible. During his travels with Corayne, Andry becomes particularly close friends with Dom, as the two men are the only survivors of the massacre at the temple.

Domacridhan, or Dom, is one of Corayne’s closest allies and a Companion on her journey. A Vedera (a near-immortal Elder), he is the nephew of the ruling monarch in Iona, Isibel, and the cousin of Ridha, who is the heir of the enclave throne. When Dom was a child, both of his parents died in a quest to defeat the last dragon in Caledon, so he was raised alongside Ridha. When Cortael was first brought to Iona, Dom took care of him as if he were his own son and eventually had a brotherly relationship with him.

Dom was chosen to be part of the expedition to stop Taristan, and he was unable to stop Taristan from killing Cortael. Shame, guilt, and grief plague him as a result. When he meets Corayne, the meeting is bittersweet, as Cortael never admitted to Dom that he had a child. Now, Dom vows to protect her. To find her, however, he must promise the assassin Sorasa a vast amount of gold, and he must also promise his death to Sorasa in a place of her choosing. Strong beyond compare, Dom is a skilled swordsman and is nearly immortal, but he is nevertheless inept at dealing with his grief and forms a trauma bond with Andry over their mutual survivor’s guilt.

Sorasa Sarn is one of Corayne’s Companions. Enslaved as a toddler, she was trained to become an assassin for the notorious assassin guild, Amhara, and has spent most of her life in this vocation. Her connection with the guild is strained, for although she feels an attachment to the guild, she once committed an unspecified crime that led to her exile and branding as an Osara. She meets Dom in the midst of finishing a contract that she stole from a guild member, and Dom convinces her to guide him to Corayne on the condition that he provide her with significant wealth and promise her his death. She believes that by killing an Elder in front of the guild, she will be reinstated as a member. However, when she sees the sending of Taristan’s burnt army from the Ashlands, she knows that Allward is in danger and continues to help Corayne and the others far beyond the stipulations of her contract with Dom. Though she has a good relationship with Corayne, she and Dom have an antagonistic relationship; Dom holds prejudice against her because she is an Amhara assassin, and Sorasa needles him for being a stoic Elder. However, Corayne suspects that their overt animosity hides a shared attraction. 

Valtik is a secondary character in the narrative and one of Corayne’s Companions. Called a witch by Taristan and Ronin, Valtik calls herself the North Star. Mysterious in nature, Valtik is thought to be more than Spindletouched; she has her own magic, which she uses to send mirages, to speak into others’ minds, and to return legendary creatures like the kraken to their own realms. Valtik also has divination skills and casts and reads animal bones. Seemingly knowledgeable about the future, Valtik manipulates Sorasa and Andry with her magic to ensure that they encounter and remain with Corayne. She also gives Corayne the Jydi charm that allows the protagonist to wound Taristan and make her escape from Ascal.

Sigil is a secondary character in the narrative and one of Corayne’s Companions. Originally from Temurijon, she is a famous bounty hunter by trade. She joins the party later in the narrative and has previous connections to both Sorasa and Charlon. She also has knowledge of other Amhara members. She has been hunting Charlon for quite some time and is initially eager to collect the bounty on his head, but after discussing the future of Allward with Sorasa and the others, she joins their venture to Ibal. Strong and independent, she teaches Corayne close combat skills.

Charlon “Charlie” Armont is a secondary character in the narrative and one of Corayne’s Companions. Once a priest from the Madrentine Order of the Sons of Tiber, he could not abide by the vow of celibacy and became a forger known as the “Ink King” instead. He once had a shared love with an Amhara named Garion, who taught him to fight and revealed certain tricks of the assassin guild. Though the details of his past remain unknown, he is wanted for trespassing, thievery, arson, destruction to holy property, forgery, banditry, bribery of a priest, bribery of an office, bribery of a noble, bribery of a royal, attempted murder, and murder. He has a shared history with Sigil, who now hunts him for his bounty, and with Sorasa, who knew him during her years with the Amhara. He chooses to join Corayne and the others after they explain the danger that Taristan poses to Allward, for he realizes that this imminent doom would also kill Garion.

Erida of Galland is a secondary character and one of the antagonists in the narrative. She became queen of Galland at the young age of 15 after her parents died. She is niece to Konegin, her father’s brother, and cousin to his son, Heralt. She shared her childhood with Andry, but as the only heir to the Gallish throne, she has been raised never to trust others. Like the other Galland monarchs before her, Erida has a conqueror’s mindset and is resolved to reestablish the old Cor empire and conquer all of Allward. To accomplish this goal, she accepts Taristan’s proposal and marries him, despite her trepidations about the Spindles and his devotion to What Waits. By the end of the narrative, she vows to help Taristan kill Corayne.

Taristan of Cor is a secondary character in the narrative and one of its main villains. He is Corayne’s uncle and the twin brother to Cortael. Taristan was born a few minutes after Cortael and was chosen to be abandoned to the mud, while Cortael was raised by the Elder in Iona. This cruel decision was made to avoid any issues in who would become the heir of the old Cor empire. Bitter over his abandonment, Taristan eventually became a mercenary and was found by Ronin, who convinced him to become a conqueror for What Waits. With Taristan’s Spindleblood and the Spindleblade that he stole from Iona, he has the means to tear open all of the Spindles across Allward and is resolved to destabilize the realm’s foundations so that What Waits can cross over.

Ronin the red wizard and What Waits are secondary characters in the narrative and two of the main villains. Ronin is a priest to What Waits and helps Taristan to tear the Spindles open out of devotion to his demon god.

What Waits is a demon god known to the Vederan as “the Torn King of Asunder, the Devil of the Abyss, the God Between the Stars, the Red Darkness” (69). He is the ultimate evil set beyond the Spindles who seeks to destroy and devour realms as he once did the Ashlands. Because he cannot yet manifest in Allward, he operates through his agents, Ronin and Taristan, and sends “blessings”—typically monsters or conquered creatures—to help them tear open the Spindles.