The realm
Five places from the opening of the war. Tap a plate. The rest of the realm is named further down, where the book has not yet asked for a portrait.
Prince of House Cock
A prince should look unbothered even when he’s counting knives.
Indigo’s tutors trained the posture. The shard-compass on his left wrist is less obedient: splinters of Glass Oath that tug when other Glass, other Gates, or other things move too fast. He rides the road between Crow Marsh and Cock Fortress with Goss at his shoulder and a dead god in his skull.
Old King of Wet Peck
This wasn’t a victory. It was a greeting.
He wears lacquered marsh-steel, not pretty plate. He counts the dead, spits a small offering to the turtle under the water, and sends his son upriver with the first word of the war. Fortresses, he says, don’t like owing rivers.
The Void King
You built your fortress on a door and then act surprised when the draft comes through.
Pronounced YEZ-meer. His presence presses against Nezz through silence, temptation, inheritance, and promises of merciful absence. He is not a companion. He is a pressure with a voice like old parchment, and he prefers to speak when the living are trying to be quiet.
Indigo
Lord of the fortress that stares down the river. His men wear cleaner plate than Karl’s. His tutors taught Nezz how to look calm.
Goss
The old captain. He has not let Nezz out of arm’s reach since the rumors started sticking to the prince’s shadow.
Drix
Karl’s son. The armor is still almost too clean. He carries day one up the inland road.
Queen Lucy
The political marriage that binds House of Hen, and the Eastern Hills, to House of Cock.
Orin
God-turtle of Crow Marsh. Twenty stories when he wishes. Karl feels him the way you feel a storm behind your shoulder, and would like him to keep napping.
Legless
The name on Pale Dawn. On the second day he is still a color in the fog and the reason scouts are riding.