Gabriel de León
The last of the silversaints, a paleblood legend called the Black Lion, now a sanctus addict chained at Sul Adair and dictating his life after murdering the Forever King. His confession spans his training at San Michon, the hidden Esani gift that lets him boil a vampire's blood, the loss of his wife and daughter, and his bloody rescue of Dior from the Rite meant to kill her.
Dior Lachance
A sharp-tongued teenage orphan being smuggled north, taken for a boy until Gabriel discovers she is a fifteen-year-old girl. As the last descendant of the Redeemer's bloodline she is the living Grail; her blood heals mortal wounds, sears any vampire that bites her, and sanctifies the broken Ashdrinker so that she can destroy Danton herself.
Jean-François
A highblood Marquis of the Blood Chastain, sent by the Undying Empress to record Gabriel's confession before his execution. He feeds his prisoner's sanctus addiction to keep the words flowing, spars with him between chapters, and survives Gabriel's parting attack by scattering into a column of rats.
Danton Voss
The Forever King's youngest son, the highblood known as the Beast of Vellene, who hunts Dior across the north and wipes out most of her protectors at San Guillaume. Gabriel shears off his arm early in the chase, and he finally burns to ash on the frozen river when Dior drives the sanctified Ashdrinker into his heart.
Laure Voss
An ancien called the Wraith in Red, favourite child of the Forever King, who moves through the deep-past hunt disguised as the prospector Marianne Luncóit. She tears Greyhand apart, boasts of butchering Gabriel's home village, and dies at the pass of the Twins when his waking Esani gift boils her from within.
Fabién Voss
The Forever King, ancient patriarch of the Voss line, whose legions have overrun most of the sunless continent. To avenge Laure he comes to Gabriel's lighthouse, kills the child Patience, and turns Astrid; his own death at Gabriel's hands, just before the story opens, is the reason the confession exists at all.
Celene
Gabriel's half-sister, long believed a charred skeleton in Lorson, who shadows the fellowship as Liathe, a masked highblood in red who fights with blades formed from her own blood. Maimed and turned by Laure Voss and reborn as an Esani sanguimancer, she revives her executed brother at the bottom of the chasm so he can stop the Rite.
Astrid Rennier
A sisternovice of San Michon, bastard daughter of Emperor Alexandre III, who inks Gabriel's aegis and joins his secret research into the fifth bloodline. Their hidden love ends in excommunication, exile, marriage, and a daughter; years later Fabién Voss turns her, and Gabriel gives her the mercy of a final death.
Chloe Sauvage
Gabriel's old friend from the Order and the driving force behind the quest to bring the Grail to San Michon and undo daysdeath. Presumed drowned after San Guillaume, she resurfaces alive, prepares Dior for a dawn ritual she knows demands the girl's lifeblood, and dies on Gabriel's blade at the altar.
Greyhand
The stern silversaint who recruits Gabriel from a lynch mob and trains him without softness, losing an arm, an ear, and an eye to Laure on the hunt. As Abbot of San Michon he sanctions Dior's sacrifice, cuts Gabriel's throat in a false Red Rite, and is burned to ash by his old apprentice's touch in the cathedral.
Aaron de Coste
A baron's bastard and Gabriel's fellow apprentice, hiding his love for Baptiste inside an Order that would flay him for it. After fighting beside Gabriel at the Twins he leaves the silversaints, and seventeen years on he co-rules the refugee fortress of Château Aveléne, which he throws open to shelter Dior.
Baptiste Sa-Ismael
The blackthumb smith who hands Gabriel his first silversteel sword on arrival at San Michon and becomes Aaron's secret lover. Imprisoned when the two are caught, then freed to fight at the Twins, he later builds Aveléne alongside Aaron and forges fresh silver for its defense against Danton.
Seraph Talon
The vicious quartermaster who runs Gabriel's Trial of the Blood and writes him off as a frailblood. He proves to be Sister Aoife's seducer and killer, and when Gabriel confronts him with the truth he attacks, dying on Greyhand's blade.
Père Rafa
The fellowship's priest and scholar, whose decades of study decoded the Grail prophecy and set the whole journey in motion. Dragged down and bitten at San Guillaume, he is later paraded before Aveléne as a leashed Voss messenger, until a merciful arrow ends him at Dior's urging.