Gabriel de León
The Black Lion, still trading his story for sanctus in a cell at Sul Adair. In the tale he tells, he flees San Michon with Dior and his undead sister, is dropped from the collapsing bridge at Carinhaem, and claws his way back to lead a Highland army against Dún Maergenn, only to watch Lilidh kill the Grail at the moment of victory.
Dior Lachance
The girl who carries the Redeemer's blood, seized by Blood Dyvok after Carinhaem and handed to Lilidh as a thrall. She learns her blood can break any vampire's hold on a living human, quietly frees the keep's servants, burns Lilidh to ash in the buried chapel, and, after her neck is snapped in the battle's last moments, opens her eyes on a slab in the tomb of the five priests.
Celene Castia
Gabriel's sister, the mutilated Esani sanguimancer behind Liathe's porcelain mask, who becomes the novel's second narrator from a cell below her brother's. She shepherds Dior through a moth built of her own blood, discloses that the ancien Wulfric sired Gabriel, and ends the book having survived, and struck a bargain with, the awakened Maryn.
Jean-François
The Empress's historian, who opens the novel waking between two lovers he drained in the night and closes it doubting everything he has transcribed. When Gabriel's account loses sight of the Grail, he descends to Celene's cell for a parallel narration, and finally forces the siblings to tell their stories side by side.
Nikita Dyvok
The Blackheart, Priori of the Untamed, ruling conquered Dún Maergenn from a wolf-flanked throne beside his sister-lover Lilidh. He breaks Aaron for amusement, schemes to sell Dior to the Voss, and dies in the battle when Lachlan pins him, Aaron disarms him, and Baptiste's warhammer falls.
Lilidh
Nikita's sister and lover, who binds Dior as her personal thrall with three forced drinks, never realizing the girl's own blood has voided the bond. Burned to ash by Dior in the chapel duel, she rises from her ashes in grief-madness, snaps the Grail's neck, and is torn apart by the dying Connor.
Kiara
The Dyvok called the Wolfmother, a vampire Gabriel believed he had destroyed years earlier, who leads the sack of Aveléne and delivers Dior and Aaron to Dún Maergenn as trophies. Scorned once too often by Nikita, she turns jealousy into treason, freeing Dior and Reyne during the battle and guiding them down to the hidden chapel.
Phoebe á Dúnnsair
A red-haired duskdancer thought lost at San Guillaume, who hauls Gabriel from beneath the ice in lion shape and swears her life to Dior. She rescues Gabriel again after his fall, hunts his captors one by one, is nearly killed stepping into a silver shot aimed at him, and becomes his lover in the Highlands, where the chapel duel reveals her dead husband alive.
Aaron de Coste
The lord of fallen Aveléne, butchered by Kiara and forced to drink her blood, rising as a fledgling coldblood whose captors nightly strip the silver from his skin. Kept by Nikita as a plaything, he recovers enough of himself at Baptiste's voice to disarm his own master in the final battle.
Baptiste Sa-Ismael
Aaron's husband, taken in the sack of Aveléne and driven north among the Dyvok's caged captives, later thralled inside Dún Maergenn. Freed when Dior's blood is slipped into the garrison's beer, he cannot bring himself to strike Aaron, but he ends Nikita, hammering the Priori's skull to nothing.
Reyne á Maergenn
Introduced as Worm, a scarred kitchen thrall, she is in truth the princess and rightful heir of Dún Maergenn, sole survivor of the family the Dyvok slaughtered. With Dior she runs a covert thrall-breaking network through the keep, steals a kiss in a secret passage, and faces Lilidh with a silver sword coated in the Grail's blood, lying broken after until Dior bleeds onto her wounds.
Lachlan á Craeg
A young Highland silversaint who first staggers into Gabriel's camp with news of Aveléne's fall, then turns on him after learning of the cathedral massacre, firing the silver shot that fells Phoebe. He returns at Dún Maergenn at the head of a silversaint cavalry column, his aegis blazing, and helps bring Nikita down.
Maryn
The warrior-ancient of the Esana entombed beneath Dún Maergenn, a child-bodied ancien remembered as the Mother of Monsters and the last broodchild of the prophetess Illia. The company's whole journey aims at reaching her; she wakes in the crypt during Dior's funeral, nearly drains Celene, and settles instead into an uneasy understanding with her.
Connor á Lachlan
Phoebe's husband, long presumed dead, hidden for years in plain sight as Prince, Lilidh's pet wolf, secretly slipped from her thrall. He throws himself between Dior and Lilidh in the chapel, has his spine broken, and dies a man's death, ripping off Lilidh's head even as her fist closes on his heart.