Character Guide

The Rooted

Ground-dwellers. Storykeepers. Builders of what lasts.

Jax (Torian Lirael)
Raised on rope and rhythm, Jax cleans tower glass by day and questions the sky by night. He was born in the clouds—but the ground made him whole.

Essie
Jax’s no-nonsense adoptive mother. Tough as scaffold bolts, warm as soup. Her stories raise truth better than any textbook.

Dren
Quiet, steady, and always fixing what others forget. Jax’s adoptive father, keeper of cracked solar panels and harder truths.

Zinn
Rope-swinging jokester with a heart of twine and timing. Loyal to Jax, allergic to silence.

Elder Sya
Keeper of memory and myth. Her voice weaves the past into song, and her faith runs deeper than the towers’ foundations.

The Highborn

Born in towers. Raised on control. Some question. Some cling.

Elira Koril
Daughter of a minister. A quiet question in a world of noise. When she sees Jax, she starts to see the whole system for what it is—and climbs down to learn the truth.

Minister Koril
Elira’s father, torn between law and conscience. One of the few in the towers brave enough to listen to his daughter.

Chancellor Venn Halvex
The architect of separation. Cold, calculating, and terrified of change. His grip on truth is slipping.

Lady Halvex
Venn’s wife. Elegant and distant. She watches the sky but doesn’t ask who falls from it.

Master Vellin
Elira’s instructor. A mirror of the tower’s logic: clean, controlled, unquestioned.

In Between

Nannix
A decommissioned nanny unit who wasn’t supposed to dream—or remember. But she did. And her secret memory core may be the key to everything.