Jaenelle Angelline
The Heroine of the story. She is a Black-jeweled (as a child), Ebony-jeweled (as an adult), Queen, Healer and Black Widow.
- Badass Adorable: As a child. On the surface she's a shy, sweet girl with mega helpings of power. Then Briarwood "teaches her to hate" and she almost kills a stranger for approaching her handicapped Papa and develops a habit of splattering enemies all over the walls.
- Beware the Nice Ones: As a child and a teenager, she seems like a nice, polite, adventurous girl... until make her angry.
- Blessed with Suck: She can do things no member of the Blood had ever dreamed of... and it makes her life hell. It alienates her entire blood relatives, causes her to be sent to an asylum periodically where she's sexually assaulted and tortured, her entire blood relatives as a child believes she's insane and more than halfway convince her of it, and it renders her completely incapable of a variety of basic tasks.
- Break the Cutie: Her entire childhood, despite Saetan's best efforts.
- Brought Down to Badass: After the trilogy, both her Ebony and her Black jewels are shattered, but she receives Twilight's Dawn, a jewel unlike any other which seems to be every jewel from the Rose to the Black at the same time. It is also revealed than she could reclaim her original level of power, but doesn't want to.
- Discard and Draw: At the end of the trilogy. See Brought Down to Badass.
- Eye Colour Change: They turn from "summer-sky" blue to "sapphire" when she's in Witch mode.
- Famed In-Story: As of Queen of the Darkness.
- Friend to All Living Things: Since she is the incarnation of both human and Kindred dreams and is therefore part Kindred herself, she is the catalyst to the reconciliation of the humans and Kindred races.
- Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: Teen Jaenelle is basically a Disney Princess (with superpowers and rage issues), but she dresses like a tomboy. She retains her fondness for borrowed men's shirts as a grown woman.
- Happily Adopted: By Saetan, as of Heir to the Shadows.
- Happily Married: With Daemon as of the novella Kaeleer's Heart.
- Heroic RRoD: In Heir to the Shadows, when trapped in the landen village with Lucivar, the villagers and insufficient supplies. Her power begins to consume her body as it is used. Then one of her friends dies... After she kills the attacking jhinka, she can't even walk under her own power.
- I Have Many Names: Jaenelle Angelline, aka Witch, aka the Living Myth, aka Dreams Made Flesh, aka the Queen of Ebon Askavi, aka Kaeleer's Heart
- Lethal Chef: Marian tries to give her cooking lessons at one point. She manages to spectacularly fail at boiling eggs.
- Not a Morning Person: She is a delightful person before her first cup of coffee. Not.
- Person of Mass Destruction: In Queen of the Darkness, initially she can't figure out how to lend her power to fighting the war because if unleashed she'd wipe out everything.
- Rape as Drama: Happens to her in Daughter of the Blood and is the source of a lot of her subsequent traumas.
- Trauma Conga Line: Like most of the protagonists.
- Violently Protective Girlfriend: Daemon's.
Saetan Daemon SaDiablo
One of the three main POV characters. He is a Black-jeweled Warlord-Prince as well as a Black Widow, and the father of Daemon and Lucivar. He later adopts Jaenelle.
- Honorary Uncle: To the entire First Circle after adopting Jaenelle.
- I Have Many Names: Saetan Daemon SaDiablo, aka the High Lord of Hell, aka the Prince of the Darkness, aka the High Priest of the Hourglass, aka the Warlord-Prince of Dhemlan, aka the Dark Court's Stewart
- Papa Wolf: Do NOT even think about harming any of his children. Just... don't.
- Person of Mass Destruction: The short story Zuulaman revealed that he once completely and utterly erased a country. And not just the country. Anything and everything that could possibly lay a claim to being a part of that culture was eradicated. The people, the artifacts, the documents, the islands. The only sign that it ever existed is others' memory of it.
- Shrouded in Myth: As the High Lord of Hell.
- Trauma Conga Line: Like most of the protagonists.
- True Companions: He and Andulvar, with fifty thousand years of shared experience behind them.
Daemon Sadi
One of the three main POV characters. He is a Black-jeweled Warlord-Prince as well as a Black Widow, the son of Saetan and the brother of Lucivar. Considered his father's mirror. He is Jaenelle's
Love Interest.
- Dirty Business: While playing the Sadist one last time in a gambit to rescue his father and brother, he admits that even he can't keep his lunch down.
- Heroic BSoD: After the events of Daughter of the Blood, he falls into one that lasts eight years.
- Heroic Willpower: What he uses to fight the Ring of Obedience.
- I Have Many Names: Daemon Sadi, aka Saetan Daemon SaDiablo, aka the Sadist, aka Hayll's Whore, aka the Queen of Ebon Askavi's Consort, aka the High Lord of Hell, aka the Warlord-Prince of Dhemlan
- Limited Wardrobe: He wears a black suit and white silk shirts for apparently most of his 1,700 year lifespan. Lampshaded by his valet, under duress, to Daemon's dismay.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Look at the entry under his father, now consider that Daemon is acknowledge as being more powerful than that.
- Red Baron: He is known in Tereille as The Sadist.
- Trauma Conga Line: Like most of the protagonists.
Lucivar Yaslana
One of the three main POV characters. He is a Ebon Gray-jeweled Warlord-Prince, the son of Saetan and the brother of Daemon. He sees Jaenelle as his little sister.
- Had to Be Sharp: His backstory.
- Hulking Out: He is shown on many occasions to have an exceptionally volatile temper, unlike most who "Go Cold"
- Happily Married: With Marian.
- Heroic Willpower: What he uses to fight the Ring of Obedience.
Surreal SaDiablo
- Break the Cutie: What happened to her following her mother's murder.
- Genre Savvy: In Tangled Webs. Justified, since the spooky house she's trapped in was explicitely made in-universe after all the classic elements of horror stories, and she herself is well-read.
Marian
A purple-jeweled Eyrien hearth witch. Lucivar's wife, and, in later books, the mother of Daemonar Yaslana.
- Attempted Rape: A victim of it. Jaenelle rescues her and takes an interest in her recovery, which is how she meets the rest of the main characters.
- A Day in the Limelight: Her romance with Lucivar gets the spotlight in the novella ''The Warlord Prince of Ebon Rih."
- Silk Hiding Steel: Marian's a gentle person, especially by the standards of the Blood, and she has some self-esteem issues stemming from her personal history, but she's tougher than she looks.
- Winged Humanoid: Like most Eyrien.
Karla
A Black Widow Healer Queen who is one of Jaenelle's closest childhood friends.
- Boyish Short Hair
- Butch Lesbian: Implied. She has the style and she's certainly not interested in men, but it's less obvious whether she prefers women or nobody.
- Catchphrase: "Kiss kiss."
- Disabled Snarker: After surviving a poisoning attempt and losing full use of her legs.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Her attitude can be quite abrasive, but she's a devoted friend to Jaenelle.
- Life-or-Limb Decision: How her legs were injured. When she was poisoned, the poison had to be redirected away from her vital organs before it could be neutralized or removed from her body. Better damaged legs than damaged everything else.
- The Medic: She's a Healer.
Geoffrey
The librarian of Ebon Askavi. An old associate of Saetan's.
- Classical Movie Vampire: He's a blood-drinking undead being with very pale skin, dark hair, and a prominent widow's peak, who always dresses neatly in black.
- Magic Librarian: Most of the books at the Keep are normal books, but he is a millennia-old undead serving as the librarian of a mystical sanctuary that links three planes of existence.
- Time Abyss: He was ancient when Saetan was a young man.
Cassidy
The heroine of
The Shadow Queen and
Shalador's Lady.
- Boring, but Practical: She's not glamorous in looks or personality and she doesn't have a great deal of magical power, but she's very conscientious.
- Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Versus Jaenelle. Jaenelle is estranged from her biological family and a Superpower Lottery winner; Cassidy is modestly powerful, has no special abilities apart from being a Queen, and gets along well with her parents.
- Daddy's Girl: She's very close to her father.
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: Cassidy has some self-esteem issues, due to her first Court abandoning her en masse.
- Modest Royalty
- Nice to the Waiter: One of the qualities that endears her to her subjects and distinguishes her from Kermilla.
- Offered the Crown: She's not from Dena Nehale, but the land didn't have any suitable Queens of its own.
- Plain Jane: She's average-looking and lacking in superficial charm, which sometimes puts her at a disadvantage in making first impressions.
- Working-Class Hero: As close as one can get while belonging to magical nobility. Her father was a carpenter.
Kermilla
A beautiful and vivacious but obnoxiously self-centered young Queen, and Cassidy's main rival.
- Alpha Bitch: Acts like a stereotypical spoiled high school Queen Bee despite being a grown woman.
- Entitled Bitch
- Evil Is Petty: Her entire schtick. Kermilla has no great malevolent plans, she's just an entitled little twit who can't stand not getting her own way, whether what she wants is a bottle of perfume, a (sapient) puppy, or rulership of a country.
- Five-Finger Discount: Not above a little shoplifting when the pocket money runs out.
- Ms. Red Ink: Kermilla's quite the shopaholic. This is particularly problematic because a Queen's expenses are paid out of her realm's government funds, which means that any money Kermilla spends on new shoes can't go toward getting the potholes fixed.
- Narcissist: Has a major case of It's All About Me and lacks empathy toward landen, her subordinates, and pretty much anyone she doesn't personally like.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Beautiful!
- Spoiled Brat
- Verbal Tic: Oh, la.
Theran Grayhaven
- Anti-Villain: He's not a bad man, and he genuinely wants a good ruler for his country, but his ideas of what makes a good Queen are skewed, and that leads him to misplace his loyalties.
- Distracted by the Sexy: He's dazzled by Kermilla's beauty and superficial charm, even though she's a terrible ruler.
- Everyone Has Standards: Despite his misplaced loyalty to Kermilla, he still recognizes when she does something truly out of line.
- Fantastic Racism: He doesn't have much regard for landen.
- No Sparks: Feels no attraction to Cassidy - neither as a woman nor as sovereign - which leads to trouble down the road.
The Scelties
A race of intelligent, telepathic (Technically. All the Blood can communicate with all the rest of the Blood via "Spear" and "Distaff" threads) small herding dogs (Shetland Sheepdogs, according to
Word of God). They can use magic and follow the same jewel-rank system as the humanoid Blood.
- Badass Adorable: Scelties with the right magical and martial training can take down full-grown humans.
- Genki Girl: Scelties are energetic and enthusiastic.
- Heroic Dog
- Killer Rabbit: Sceltie Warlord Princes. That means a Proud Warrior Race Guy Magic Knight with heightened killer instincts, who looks like this
◊. - Logical Weakness: Being dogs, Scelties lack opposable thumbs and need to use Craft if they want to write or do other activities that require manual dexterity. And their small size makes them more physically vulnerable than larger Kindred.
- Mister Muffykins: Sympathetic version, as Scelties are generally helpful and on the side of good, but they tend to drive the humans around them crazy with their energy and bossiness.
- Plucky Comic Relief: Scelties can get dangerous, but most of the time they're used for the comedy value of a fluffy little dog bossing everyone around.
- Talking Animal: They technically communicate telepathically, but the same idea.
- This Is My Human
