A navigator who tells the world its story, an heir who has never felt rain, a knife from the Floor, and the people around them.
Ages are counted in dimmings: the number of dimmings a life has seen end. A full life sees eight.
Keeper of the oldest forge, and a Measurer's student with a small round lens on a chain. The best-read person in the sky, and the finest duellist on the Crown, who has only ever sparred. Composed, curious, and trusting in a way no one here can afford.
"I wonder how rain feels."
Sera's father, head of the house with the oldest array and the deepest vault. He held a port in the Seventh Dimming, and remembers it.
The most senior navigator of the Flotilla and the Elder: the voice of the Telling, and the one who presides when children take the horn. His robe is a lifetime of sky-roads stitched collar to hem. Quiet, tired, certain. The voice that tells the world its own story.
"We have never known a season that did not end."
Bright and quick, the first line of ink on her wrist, learning the horn under the best teacher alive.
"What is rain like?"
The best horn alive, and Tam's teacher. When a god will not answer anyone else, they send for Maelis.
A commander of the Aerie's war-birds. He was young in the Seventh Dimming. His face is his ledger.
Sells the Aerie's contracts, and draws the red line across a rider's eyes with his own thumb.
An Ossuary knife, dressed like a dock hand. She counts the fallen gods.
"That's the third this dimming."
He holds the oil, and so the light. He never leaves the Floor.