Black hair, grey eyes, son of Arik Shadoval and Leandra Lightbringer. An orphan who bears the Phoenix Claw and the Sword of Worlds, learning that every power exacts its price in memory, name, and years.
From the mountain tribes, House of Storm. Reckless in a way that costs; her brother is the storm general in the Emperor's army. Her thread with Leo is left open at the end of Book One.
Leo's maternal half-sister, Leandra's daughter of the House of Light behind the 'Firehart' mask. A scholar who knows the price of the final sealing before Leo, and seeks another bearer so her brother need not pay everything.
Commands the Emperor's largest army and has never lost a battle. He draws the battle weeks in advance; the enemy is not a force to break but a mind to deceive.
The man who killed Arik Shadoval at Frostgard's threshold nineteen years ago. A sword without a mind, yet Leo's shadow all the way to the valley.
An old seer in Frostgard (truly Ninsa), the last hidden guardian of the Abkallu. She hid the Claw for nineteen years and was the only tenderness in Leo's childhood. Her face was the first thing the sword took from him.