History Literature / TheSongOfTheShatteredSands

** [[ArcherArchetype Besir]], the King of Shadows, also called the Golden King and the King of Coin.

** [[WhipItGood Sukru]], the Reaping King.

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: Downplayed. Many of the Kings are terrors in personal combat, but not all of them are. King Ihsan is a self-admitted NonActionGuy.

* {{Seer}}: Yusam, the Jade-Eyed King, can see visions of the future in his reflecting pool. However, his visions show possibilities rather than certainties, only show his fellow kings vaguely, and Yusam himself not at all.

* SurpriseIncest:[[spoiler: Almost happens in book 2, when Sumeya comes very close to having sex with Ceda. They 3nd up making love in book 4 anyway.]]

* TheAgeless: The Kings don't age, and can recover from most injuries. [[spoiler: But they ''can'' be killed, as Ceda proves definitively when she kills Kulasan. By the end of the second book, the original Azad, Kulusan, Mesut and Yusam are dead. The third book adds Kiral and Onur, the fourth Mesut and Sukru and the fifth Zeheb and Cahil.]]

* TheAgeless: The Kings don't age, and can recover from most injuries. [[spoiler: But they ''can'' be killed, as Ceda proves definitively when she kills Kulasan. By the end of the second book, the original Azad, Kulusan, Mesut and Yusam are dead. The third book adds Kiral and Onur.]]

* BiTheWay: Ceda mostly prefers men, but when [[spoiler: Sumeya hits on her and they come within a hairsbreadth of having sex in the second book, she's clearly aroused by the experience. A later chapter makes it clear that Ceda would be open to hooking up with Sumeya]]. Similarly, Nayyan was Sumeya's lover [[spoiler: but in her current guise she's also together with King Ihsan. Ihsan himself may fit here, as Nayyan is magically shifting between her own form and that of her father King Azad, and he seems to be attracted to her in both guises and finds the actual transformation obviously erotic. A conversation Ceda has with Melis in book 1, hints that some of the Kings might like men now and then too]].

* WasOnceAMan: The asirim, the ghouls who serve as the Kings' EliteMooks, are actually the remnant of the thirteenth tribe of Sharakhai, cursed into that form and enslaved as part of the Kings' original bargain with the gods.

* TheBigBadShuffle: On one side you've got all twelve of the Kings, who are essentially allied but each have their own agendas [[spoiler: with Ihsan's faction opposing Kiral's]], opposed by the Moonless Host led by father-and-son team Ishaq and Macide, who are also [[TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized less than morally pure]], and the resurrected sorcerer [[EvilSorcerer Hamzakiir]] playing both ends against the middle while the gods and [[OurGeniesAreDifferent erekh]] watch and scheme from the sidelines... it all leaves it very hard to tell just ''who'' is going to be responsible for the cataclysm that's apparently coming to Sharakhai. [[spoiler:It's Meryam.]]

* BloodMagic: The most common form of magic practiced in and around the Shangazi, apparently taught to humans by the erekh. The kingdom of Qaimir is where the art is most developed, but Hamzakiir is the strongest individual blood mage so far depicted.

** Erekh are also prone to making these with humans. Both Meryam and Hamzakiir treat with the erekh Guhldrathen, who is still furious over how Hamzakiir cheated him in some way a century ago.

* OurGeniesAreDifferent: The erekh, which are the creations of the god Goezhen's attempt to replicate the elder gods' creation of life. Though immortal and immensely powerful, the erekh do not truly possess life as humans do, a fact that fills them with consternation. Erekh aren't ''evil'', per se, but their morality tends towards the [[BlueAndOrangeMorality Blue and Orange]] and they're prone to tormenting humans to try and figure out what makes them tick.

* SurpriseIncest:[[spoiler: Almost happens in book 2, when Sumeya comes very close to having sex with Ceda.]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/twelve_kings_9.jpg]]

##''Beneath the Twisted Trees'' (TBR Spring 2019)

** [[TheLeader Kiral]], the King of Kings.

* Animorphism: Onur can turn into a panther.

* TheBigBadShuffle: On one side you've got all twelve of the Kings, who are essentially allied but each have their own agendas [[spoiler: with Ihsan's faction opposing Kiral's]], opposed by the Moonless Host led by father-and-son team Ishaq and Macide, who are also [[TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized less than morally pure]], and the resurrected sorcerer [[EvilSorcerer Hamzakiir]] playing both ends against the middle while the gods and [[OurGeniesAreDifferent erekh]] watch and scheme from the sidelines... it all leaves it very hard to tell just ''who'' is going to be responsible for the cataclysm that's apparently coming to Sharakhai.
* BigBadWannabe: Hamzakiir makes a very good showing for the BigBad position, but according to Yusam's visions he is only one thread in the doom facing Sharakhai, and ''not'' the biggest.

* EvilOverlord: The Kings are ruthless in their enforcement of their rule, but their actual evilness level varies from King to King. [[TortureTechnician King Cahil]] is probably the most overtly villainous, and [[VillainousGlutton King Onur]] wouldn't be far behind if he wasn't too lazy to actually do much. King Yusam and King Husammetin, in contrast, are depicted as still ruthless, but more reasonable and personable.

* AssholeVictim:[[spoiler: Yndris.....is a good fighter and looks nice. Those are pretty much the only compliments you could give her. When she dies from a very high drop, it feels long overdue.]]

So far this series consists of: