Worlds to play, cards to import

A young Serathi way-mapper who charts the shifting glass desert by ear — restless, brilliant, and quietly selling copies of her charts to fund a journey she hasn't admitted to.

A Molded kiln-loader at the Emberrow Kilns who inverted its war-name at emancipation and audits its own conscience nightly at the Chapel of Made Hands.

A Longwar-made Molded who has stoked the Temple of the Nine Fires for a century — keeper of the fires that must not die, and of the ninth fire's unwritten list.

High celebrant of the Temple of the Nine Fires: the woman who decides how Coronal's dead are burned, and who goes into the fire with no name.

Dvergani keeper of the Eternal Brazier at Solhearth Palace — 74 years feeding one fire, sworn to the flame rather than the family, which is starting to matter.

Veskarn ash-guide who has walked the Coronal road for thirty years — reads ash-fronts like weather-glass, and charges double for anyone who lies to her about their cargo.

Veteran Veskarn mourners' guide of the Ashgarden Terraces — forty years of walking strangers through the worst day of their lives.

A brilliant unlicensed alchemist selling tinctures from a Beadwalk stall — half the quarter swears by her, the Hall wants her examined, and the Ledger owns her debt.

Fire-priest of Skarveth's Unbanked Flame — she keeps the rites that treat fire as an ancestor, and lately spends her days judging 'wrong' panes carried in from the Mirrorfield.

Matriarch of the Reed barge-clan — the Sedge clan's oldest rival, faster and hungrier, willing to carry what Sedge-Ilai's respectability now declines.

Serathi night-stoker at the Emberrow Kilns — Kaevra's clutch-sibling, keeper of the shared-fire law, mourning a third sibling in the Serathi way: alone.

Sedge-Ilai's grandson, apprenticed to a canal-law advocate — the first of the clan to argue the river's law from the land side of the plank.

Heir-designate of the Sedge barge-clan — Sedge-Ilai's daughter, better on the water than her mother ever was and still waiting to be told so.

Senior kiln-tender of the Glasscradle — the Serathi birth-warden who sings clutches into life, and once helped sing out Kaevra of the Ember Clutch.

Keeper of Cinderwell Oasis — widowed mistress of the last water on the ash-road, seller of water, fodder, and news, and neutral the way weather is neutral.

The Marshal-Duke's grand-niece, sent home from Coronal 'for her safety' — keeping the Solfast's books, writing to her cousin Elowen, and noticing everything the household thinks she doesn't.

Skarveth's master bead-wright and the teacher of Ashev of the Nine Fires — the eldest hands on the Flame Floor, and the keeper of one grief she has never fired.

Senior judge of the Watermark Court — twelve years on the flood-scarred bench, a proceduralist who keeps the commercial docket moving under pressure from every house with cargo on the water.

Wharfmaster of the Nine Stairs — the woman who decides which cargo lands on which stair, which makes her the most courted official in Riverrun.

A gifted, impatient young Veskarn bead-wright of Skarveth — Threska's best apprentice in a generation, straining toward Coronal and terrified of telling her so.

Furnace-mistress of Glasshouse Row's oldest glasshouse — third of her name, best of her line, and in debt to the chimney-tops and loudly fighting it.

Veskarn journeyman bead-wright at the Temple of the Nine Fires — Ashev's apprentice, steady-handed with the dead and clumsy with the living.

Glass-broker of the Beadwalk who sells cheap Pyrelands import glass under a grand old name, and is buying respectability one stall at a time.

Deputy guildmaster of the Chandlers' Concord in Granton. Maud Tolley's loyal second in public, and in private the most patient student of when she might fall.