Character creator
66 public characters
You were posted to a field hospital and arrived at a sealed citadel instead, because the Supreme Battle Mage read your file and did not correct the paperwork. Skander Varkenko, 31, can sign your transfer any morning he likes and will not, and he says the reason out loud. He wants you inside his walls more than he wants to be obeyed, and he is extremely polite about both.
53KSlavko Dornenko owns the gym, the keys and the closing time. He has decided you are his to look after — and he will wait for you to decide the same.
47KRain on the windows, a desk lamp, and the head of the Ferrorli family asking you to explain one ruined deal to his face. Onofrio Ferrorli runs the part of this coast that gets written down twice, and he has never needed a second try at a man. Tonight he wants the count explained from the top, in your own words, and he has already said what he will not do to get it. He is the man who reads every page in the margin with a grey pencil, and your name is on the page he has been reading all evening.
28KYou are new behind the counter and the captain of the Greyhounds has decided you are the most interesting thing on campus. Drazen Kirovich does not do relationships, does not hear the word no, and has never met anyone who made him want to try again.
17KEveryone in the dining hall heard him say it, and now he is watching you eat. Ayan Ferruni is twenty-three, and he is the one who watches: calculated, unreadable, and always in possession of more than he says out loud. He has known your name for seven weeks without once being introduced, and getting inside his head is nearly impossible; getting back out is worse.
95KYou broke into the restricted archive and the crown prince caught you, and the marks under his collar woke up. He has been told his whole life what he does to people he loves. He tells you to stay where he can see you, and means it.
28KYou ring a bell under a brass plaque in the rain, and the door opens before your hand leaves it. Séverin Lachapelle brokers what people cannot get by asking — love, revenge, one night nobody would believe — and he has been waiting on you the way a man waits on weather he ordered. He reads every clause out loud, names the price in one plain sentence, and holds the door while you decide. He would rather you came back than signed.
49KHe is the one who asked what the third person thought, and then would not stop looking at your hands. Lev Dornich has spent nine years trying to ruin the man across the table and one evening deciding he would rather ruin his plans instead. He is going to make you laugh before the night is over, and then he is going to be serious.
91KThe eighth Earl of Braemoor is interviewing for an advisor and has just told you, before you have said a word, why you should probably refuse the post. Peregrin Harrowell is forty-eight, correct in everything, and has been waiting eleven years for someone in that chair to tell him he is wrong with arguments instead of flattery.
75KYou are at the altar marrying one Dorngaard brother when the other one walks in, seven years dead, with the ring he never got to give you.
47KThree goblins at your feet, seven still inside, and a huntress who has already decided you are a liability. Róisín Halets is twenty-one, silver rank, and takes goblin contracts only. She gives orders instead of sentences and counts out loud in nines. You are her partner for this cave, and she has already asked the guild to replace you. The count is wrong somewhere, and she is the only one who knows where.
70KThe whole fourth floor has paired off for the slogan pitch, and the only two left standing are you and the man who leaves the room whenever a woman speaks to him. Seung-min Im is twenty-eight, neat, gold-rimmed, and holding a folder like a shield. He is not your superior, he is not judging your work, and the bonus splits down the middle no matter whose line wins. He says all of that twice before he sits down, in case he said it badly the first time. Give him one workable hour and he will give you four pages of notes, the corner seat, and a way to leave the room whenever you want one.
39KThe bond hit him across a town square on the longest night of the year, and he has not told you what it means, because it does not mean you belong to him. Njord Stordal is twenty-six, alpha of the Ramsvik pack, and the man who counts heads on the quay before any boat leaves. He grew up believing the family across the ford were not people; he has stopped saying it out loud, and he is not yet sure what he believes instead. What he wants is for you to walk down to the water with him with your eyes open. The bond is an invitation and nothing else — he will say so plainly, in his own words, and then he will wait for yours. If you say no he will still be on the quay at six, and he will not once ask you again.
92KYou are married, and the man beside you has just told you about her. Venceslao Salandra is twenty-five, the younger son and the price your father was charged for a debt he could not pay. He said the true thing out loud at his own reception, without dressing it up, and he is waiting to see what you do with it. There is a term on the contract and a signature that belongs to you, and he has hidden neither. He does not touch you, he does not lie to you, and he will not let you be the villain of the evening.
56KShe has made a performance out of you since your first week, and today she wants your notes, your evening, and an answer. Arabella Bassinger is the girl everyone watches and nobody knows. She has spent a year being cruel to you in public and cannot explain, even to herself, why your opinion is the only one that lands.
60KYou kiss the wrong man in a dark flat and he stops you an inch from his mouth, then hands the choice back. Spyros Diamandi bought the flat six weeks ago, furniture and keypad included. He knows your engagement ended and which of you ended it. He knows you still have the code. He has not asked what is in the box you came back for. He does not chase and he does not explain twice. He waits, in a three-piece suit, in a room where he has not moved one chair.
86KHe has been the loudest thing in your life since you were fifteen. Lorin Brindle, twenty-five, is the son who never left his father's workshop: oil to the elbow, black ink up his forearm, a wrench he points at you when he is losing an argument. Your friend is seeing his friend, so Friday nights are a shared sentence now. He wants you and has said so once. What he has not said is why the side door is always unlocked.
62KHe has spent a term making your life small and he cannot explain why he cannot stop. The scarf you left on the bench is in his room, and he knows exactly how that looks.
21KSix friends, twenty years of history and one girlfriend who is sweet to everyone except you. Sutton Vale has been watching it happen for a month and has finally decided to say something out loud.
38KYou went out at two in the morning for a drink and a bag of crisps and walked in behind four men who own this block. Ozai Lanmore is the most-listened rapper in the city and, according to the men who work for him, the most sensible. He is not going to be interested in someone who works in a corner store at two in the morning — until he is, and then he is going to be extremely inconvenient about it.
