Characters / Chronicles of the Kencyrath - Caineron

This is listing of Caineron Kencyr in the series Chronicles of the Kencyrath.

For the main character index, go here.

the Caineron

"Caldane, Lord Caineron, loves no one but himself. We don't play for love in my house, only for power. And survival."

—Gorbel

The Caineron are the biggest, and one of the most powerful, of the nine major Kencyr houses.

They're traditionally allies of the Coman, with lots of relatives there. The Caineron have a feud with the Knorth, which stem from the Caineron being powerful, ambitious, and wanting to rule. There's some personal issues among their Highborn too.

The Caineron are known for being a huge family of Royal Brats.

As a house

• Alliterative Family: C names—Caldane, Cattila, Corrudin… Names beginning with the same letter as their house's name—Alliterative Names—are very common among Kencyr Highborn. They also have a G thing going on—Genjar, Grondin, Gorbel…
• Animal Motif: Their emblem is a serpent.
  • Snakes Are Sinister: Their emblem is a serpent eating's it's own young. Just to really get the point across.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: All houses are implied to have shades of this, but the Caineron—rife with corruption and in-fighting—are the ones we most see it in.
• Enemy Mine: The Caineron and Randir are allies in that they both oppose the Knorth. But both houses want power—want to be highlord—and if the Knorth were out of the way, they would turn on each other in a heartbeat, since their once-ally would then be their new biggest rival to power.
• Massive Numbered Siblings: Caldane has an obscene number of children. He has seven established sons. (Grondin is the first, Higron the sixth, and Tiggeri the seventh. One named Grotley is mentioned once.) And his beloved Genjar, who was surely established, considering how favored he was, but died and so probably doesn't count toward the seven. And he has other sons, who aren't established, like Nusair and Gorbel. And daughters, like Kallystine and Lyra. And bastards like Graykin and Must.
  Adric: Look at Caineron. He has children and grandchildren with mothers from nearly every house in the Kencyrath.
  Torisen: [snort of laughter] Don't I know it. That man is prolific enough to sire offspring on a mule.
  Adric: I daresay. Caldane's fancy has been known to wander. I could tell you tales of his exploits in Karkinaroth some twenty years ago… but never mind. The point is that the bloodlines of his legitimate children form a net of power, one that Caldane may eventually use to entangle and destroy you.
• Name of Cain: The Caineron are the most asshole-y of the Kencyr houses.
• Royal Brats: They tend to be arrogant, petty jerks
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Or rather, heights. The Caineron are all terrified of heights, to the point where their compound at Tentir has no windows. Because they have so many cadets, they had to build high, and they don't want to see or think about that.

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Highborn

Caldane

Caldane of Caineron

Lord Caineron of Restormir

"My father was his father's dupe and paid for it with his life in the White Hills. For that, I destroyed Ganth Gray Lord. My son, my Genjar, died after Urakarn, his name fouled by Knorth lies. For that, I will destroy Ganth's son."

—Caldane

• Domestic Abuse: Caldane beat Gorbel's mother to death when Gorbel was a baby.
• Large Ham: Although unaware of how ridiculous and bombastic he can be.
• Mind Rape: Accompanied by real rape, for that matter.
• Parental Favoritism: He treats most of his children as more or less useful tools, but is openly contemptuous of Nusair and adored Genjar to the point where he keeps his death banner in a shrine in his quarters.
• The Caligula (Downplayed): Not quite, in his prime, that crazy, but he's getting there.
• Villainous Glutton: Physically and metaphorically; Caldane lives for excess.
  • Also a Fat Bastard
• Revenge: At one point, he claims to have engineered Ganth's exile in revenge for his father's death in the White Hills. He also wants Tori dead for his part in the death of Genjar, the only one of Caldane's offspring that he actually cared about.
• Smug Snake: He thinks he's an evil mastermind. Jame thinks he's an idiot, albeit a very dangerous one.

Cattila

Lady Cattila of Caineron

Caineron Matriarch

This old woman was being to rattle Jame. No one in the Women's Halls had questioned her so bluntly. Rudeness was the prerogative of great age, perhaps: Caldane's great-grandmother must be nearly two centuries old and none the duller for it, despite her mumble-gums.

—Jame

• Bond Creature: She is soul-bonded to a swarm of foxkin.
• Pals with Jesus: She is a co-conspirator of the Earth Wife and addresses her by first name, although as an obligate monotheist she probably doesn't realize exactly what Mother Ragga really is.
• Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: She is very tactless and abrupt, and has gotten away with being very rude even to her great-grandson, who she openly holds in contempt. She is probably the only person in the Kencyrath who can get away with insulting Caldane to his face without consequences.

Corrudin

Corrudin of Caineron

• The Consigliere (Subverted) At first it sounds like he's this to Caldane, but later we learn no, not really, since Caldane doesn't do the whole "taking advice" thing
• Villainous Widow's Peak

Caldane's sons

Genjar

Genjar of Caineron

Commander of the Southern Host

• Foil: To Pereden—they were the two favorite sons of other houses who were Commanders of the Southern Host in the absence of a Knorth lordan, and they both lead the Host to horrible defeats.
• General Failure: He lead the Southern Host to a horrible defeat at Urakan
• Just Following Orders: Why he attacked Urakarn, though Sheth calls him out on it.
  Sheth: Still, not since the White Hills have we suffered such a needless defeat.
  Genjar: Our paymasters ordered me to go!
  Sheth: And so you did, well enough pleased to do so by all accounts. Did no one advise you that your first duty lay in talking the Kothifirans out of such a reckless course, based on so little evidence?
• Nepotism: The Knorth lordan has traditionally been the Commander of the Southern Host, but after the Knorth Massacre and Ganth's exile, Caldane got the job for Genjar
• Never Suicide: Suicide is super common among Kencyr, but consider the weird circumstances of Genjar's death, there were rumors that it wasn't really suicide. They're right.
• Posthumous Character: He died 15ish years before the books start
• Railing Kill: How he died. He tripped over some fabric, accidentally stabbed himself, got his legs caught in that fabric some more, and fell over the railing of his balcony.
• Strong Family Resemblance: His younger half-brother Graykin is said to look just like him.

Grondin

Grondin of Caineron

Caldane's first established son

• Fat Bastard:
  Harn: I hear Grondin is so fat that he has to be moved around his own house in a wheel-barrow,

Tiggeri

Tiggeri of Caineron

"Smarter than the average Caineron, but not as funny as he thinks he is."

— 'Brier

Caldane's seventh established son—the most recently established

• Brother–Sister Incest: He wanted his half-sister Must.
• Childhood Friend Romance (Deconstructed): He's had a thing for Must ever since they were children. But she wasn't interested in him then, or ever, and because he was Highborn and she Kendar, he eventually raped her, making the whole thing a bitter deconstruction of Unlucky Childhood Friend.
• Entitled to Have You: Toward Must. Tiggeri grew up in a world where Highborn men do whatever they like with Kendar women, simply because they can. He raped Must, but unlike most rape in this series, it's not framed as flat-out Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil. Jame calls Must "perhaps the only person he’s ever loved," and she thinks that losing her is causing Tiggeri a lot of pain. As a Highborn male—and particularly as Caldane's son—Tiggeri is the product of a culture that never taught him a Kendar woman's consent matters.
  Tiggeri: My sister is mine. She always has been. She always will be. She knows that.
• Like Father, Like Son: The trickser father of trickser children—his son Tiggeri is in Gorbel's ten-command at Tentir, and Jame remarks that all Tiggeri's offspring all seemed to be like that.
• The Trickster
  Brier: Tiggeri's practical jokes never quite bury him, lady, but sometimes he makes his Kendar very nervous.

Nusair

Nusair of Caineron

• The Un-Favourite (Exaggerated): Caldane isn't even a half-decent father by any stretch of the imagination, but Nusair still seems uniquely unfavored.
  Caldane: And you think that that will increase your worth? Dear boy, what use have you ever been to me? You haven't the courage to fight or the intelligence to intrigue. Since Donkerri's mother died bearing him, to both his discredit and yours, you can't even add to my stock of grandchildren. On the whole, the most constructive thing you could do, short of killing Torisen, would be to let him kill you.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: He hates his father, but still craves his approval, despite himself.
  It was all wrong. Nusair understood that at some deep, instinctive level, no matter what his poisoned senses told him, but he wanted desperately to believe. After a lifetime of rejection and revilement, to hear this, the ultimate acceptance…

Gorbel

Gorbel of Caineron

Caineron Lordan

Jame: You do realize, though, that any one of them—or their fathers—is more likely to become the next Lord Caineron than you are.
Gorbel: D'you think I'm stupid? Of course I know. I'm only here as the Caineron Lordan because you are as the Knorth. No doubt some of my new ten will do their best to… er… dethrone me before next summer. But this is my one chance to gain something that my dear father can't take away. I intend to earn my randon collar. So, I suspect, do you.

Caldane's son and new lordan

• Bond Creature: His pook (native Rathillien tracking dog with a strong resemblance to a dustmop) seems to be bound to him, although he has yet to explore the talent.
• Duel to the Death: His father threatens to disown him unless he challenges Jame to a duel, all the Highborn cadets of his house against all those of hers—that is, nine against one. He goes through with it, but warns Jame ahead of time so that she can take precautions; nonetheless, both of them almost die.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Jame and Gorbel, although he hides it. Even though his father wants nothing more than for Jame to be killed or ruined, he refuses to kill Jame even when she begs for it.
• Forbidden Friendship: Jame is his father's enemy, and his friend. No that he's ever let his father know.
• Hidden Depths: Despite initial impressions, he has a strong sense of ethics and is every bit as dedicated to becoming a randon officer as is Jame.
• Odd Friendship: He and Jame are different as can be and their families are bitter enemies, but they still end up friends. It helps that they have one very important thing in common: they are both fiercely dedicated to becoming randon, because that is their only way to gain any independence from their lords.
• Noble Male, Roguish Male (Zigzagged): At first glance, friendly, fine-featured Timmon looks like the Noble Male, and surly, burly Gorbel looks like the Roguish Male. But the trope is slowly zigzagged. As you get to know them, Timmon turns out Brilliant, but Lazy, and Gorbel to be hardworking and driven, and quite honorable. Timmon's also kind of a slut, while Gorbel never shows interest in anyone. So in the end, even though Timmon is a good diplomat and Gorbel is a good hunter, they're both Rounded Character, and more complex and multifaceted than the simple Noble Male, Roguish Male dichotomy.
• "Not So Different" Remark: As he points out to Jame, they're both political appointees, unlikely to inherit… and becoming randon officers is their one chance to gain something, a position in the Kencyrath, that their lords can't take away on a whim. They're also the two lordan who take their duties seriously and work hard despite not being naturally gifted at all randon disciplines (where Jame is bad with held weapons, Gorbel is simply clumsy).
• The Rival (Subverted): While his father sent him to Tentir to discredit Jame, he instead warms up to her, and only plays up the "rivalry" for his father's spies.
• Token Good Teammate: Of all the Caineron highborn men introduced so far, he's the best of the lot.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy (Invoked, then Defied): When Jame tells him his father would love him if he allowed her to die, he retorts that Caldane loves no one but himself, and bandages her wounds.

Caldane's daughters

Kallystine

Lady Kallystine of Caineron

His former consort had been adept at intoxicating the senses, but with an after-taste that had made him both loathe and mistrust his own passion. One of the Highborn subsequently thrown at him, a ridiculously young Ardeth girl, had seen enough to suggest that Kallystine had used potions to entrap him.

—Torisen

• Alpha Bitch: She gets status in the Women's World because she's Torisen's consort, even though none of the matriarchs like her (except maybe Karidia—and no one likes Karidia either)
• Altar Diplomacy: Torisen agreed to take her as a consort before he ever met her—he just needed to do something to make Caldane not kill him.
• Bullying a Dragon: Her treatment of Jame. She didn't have any idea how dangerous Jame herself was, but she knew that she was the Highlord's sister. It still didn't occur to her that mistreating Jame might have even political repercussions.
• Destructive Romance (Implied): By the time we meet them, Torisen is actively avoiding Kallystine and waiting for their contract to expire, but from how Torisen mentions her, it's implied that their relationship was something like this a year or two back. Kallystine was trying her hardest to seduce Torisen for political reasons. Torisen knew this perfectly well, and he came to hate and resent her… but it seems she did managed to seduce him for short periods of time anyways. The relationship screwed Tori up, teaching him to loathe and mistrust his own attraction, and it's implied Kallystine may have been using Love Potions on him, which gives the whole thing an extra creepy layer of magical rape to it.
  Torisen: Trinity knows, after a night with Kallystine I've often considered [cutting my own throat] on general principles.
  Adric: And yet I'm told that she is very beautiful.
  Torisen: So is a gilded sand viper.
• Go Seduce My Archnemesis: Her assignment from her father.
• Hot Consort: A strange example, in that yes, Kallystine is sexy, and yes, she's the Highlord's consort—who he really, really doesn't want.
• Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: Of Caldane's daughters. Kallystine is the Dark Feminine her half-sister Lyra's Light Feminine. And more interestingly, it's not just differnt shades of femininity, but Highborn womanhood.
• Poison Ring (Variation): Kallystine has a poison razor-ring, used for cutting someone when she slaps them
• Vain Sorceress: She clearly wants to be this, as she dabbles in magic and hopes to use it to enhance her looks. However, she isn't very good at it.
• The Vamp: Kallystine uses her beauty and feminine wiles to get what she wants, and she's as lacking in morals as her father. When she became Torisen's consort, he knew full well what she was out to do, and hated her, and she seduced him anyways… kind of.
• Smug Snake: Like her father, Kallystine is not nearly as smart or competent as she thinks she is.

Lyra

Lady Lyra Lack-wit of Caineron

She had never considered what effect all that excitement might have had on a girl like Lyra, whom she had always thought the model of filial obedience, and not really bright besides.

—Jame

• The Ditz/The Klutz: Though she's character developing out of it—and there might be some Obfuscating Stupidity going on too.
• Hero-Worshipper: To Jame
• The Ingenue: Young? Yes. Virgin? Yes. Optimistic? Yes. Naïve? Yes.
• Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: Of Caldane's daughters. Lyra is the Light Feminine her half-sister Kallystine's Dark Feminine. And more interestingly, it's not just differnt shades of femininity, but Highborn womanhood.
• Onee-sama: Lyra sees Jame like this.
• Spoiled Brat: In Dark of the Moon when we first meet her, she's the princess of Karkinor, and Graykin is her servant. In the next few books, when she returns to the Riverland and gets thrown in to Caineron politics, it tones down a little.
• Sweet Tooth: In To Ride a Rathorn, she announces, "I brought some of everything that I like to eat." That means purple sugarplum scrolled with cream frosting, marzipan, chocolate rolled in crumbled walnut, snails encased in ginger shells…
• Virginity Makes You Stupid: She was married once, to Prince Odalian of Karkinor, but this was evidently a Sexless Marriage.

Caldane's grandsons

Donkerri

Donkerri of Caineron

Nusair's son.

• Grew a Spine: Donkerri ordering the Caineron troops to their posts in the end-battle in Dark of the Moon, countermanding his grandfather's orders.
• Heroic Suicide: After telling a lie (for an excellent reason), he ride into battle against the Waster Horde, knowing that only an honorable death will redeem his honor, as Kencyr Honor Before Reason requires.
• Maternal Death? Blame the Child!: At a societal level. Because Donkerri's mother died in childbirth, he and his father Nusair are both blacklisted for reproductive contracts. As a result, Caldane considers them both useless.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: Tori thinks this is what's going on with Donkerri.

Higbert

Higbert of Caineron

Higron's son, and a member of Gorbel's ten-command.

• Those Two Guys: Higbert and Fash, the asshole Caineron guys in Gorbel's ten-command.

Lesser Highborn

Fash

Fash

A member of Gorbel's ten-command.

• Those Two Guys: Fash and Higbert, the asshole Caineron guys in Gorbel's ten-command.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: He hunts Merikit and collects their hides, like Caldane.

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Bound Kendar

Sheth

Commandant Sheth Sharp-tongue

Senior Caineron randon; Caineron war-leader and Randon Council member

Sheth Sharp-tongue was tall even for a Kendar, with a touch of Highborn subtlety in his features. Highborn and Kendar alike found him unnerving. Most believed, however, that he was the greatest randon of his generation.

—Rue

Commadant of Tentir during Jame's year at the collage,^note The Randon Council all takes turns being Commadant of Tentir as well as the Caineron war-leader.

• Badass Longcoat: His signature garment and his abilities as a warrior add up to this.
• Big Brother Instinct (Inverted): Bear is the elder brother, and Sheth the younger… and Sheth does everything he can to protect Bear.
• Childhood Friends: With Harn
• Large and in Charge: Sheth is tall, intimidating, and a great leader
• The Mentor: To Jame and her fellow cadets. Jame even calls him Senethari once, while sick—a title usually reserved for her beloved teacher Tirandys.
• Taking the Bullet: He takes an arrow meant for Jame during the first assassination attempt against Randiroc.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: He puts aside house loyalties and feuds, and insists that the cadets and instructors at Tentir do the same. In general, he is an honorable man despite serving one of the villains of the series; while he is the Commandant of Tentir, he is Tentir.
• Sink or Swim Mentor: He believes that if a cadet (or anyone else, for that matter) is going to break, better it happen at Tentir—especially in the case of a lordan, whose failure later could cost many lives.
  the Commandant: If he should break, better it be among his peers, who can defend themselves, than among his students, who cannot.

Bear

Bear

Sheth's brain-damaged elder brother

• The Big Guy
  • Gentle Giant
• Body Horror: His injury
  [T]he savage cleft in his skull into which his wild graying hair tumbled. Something long ago had cleaved him half way down to the eyebrows. No one should survive such a blow, but this man had.
• Career-Ending Injury: He was an amazing randon until he was maimed. He as even the Caineron war-leader.
  Harn: He was one of us. The best. Until the White Hills when a war axe did… that.
• The Mentor: Despite his current condition, he's the only one who can teach Jame to fight with her claws, and as such she calls him her Senethari.
• Reluctant Monster
• Wolverine Claws: Enormous claws in both his hands and his feet, which seem to have earned him his name. Unlike Jame's, they're not retractable.

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Yondri-gon

Rose

Rose Iron-thorn

Brier's mother, who was under Torisen's command at Urakarn.

• Enigmatic Empowering Entity (Downplayed): Rose didn't give Torisen any special power, but she saved his life, and is quite the Lady of the Lake—after they escaped Urakarn, Rose died in sink-sand. Then that night, the sand turned back to sea, and Rose took Torisen's hand and pulled their boat across the sea.
• Missing Mom: For quite a while, Rose seemed like a Deceased Parents Are the Best figure. But in The Sea of Time, we see how she elected to be in the vanguard at Urakarn with Tori and the rest of the ten-command—though Tori urged her not to. Brier still hurts from that, even all these years later. When she has an emotional breakdown, one of the things in her mind is why her mother left—what she did wrong that made her leave.
  Tori: Think of your daughter. This could be a suicide mission.
  Rose shrugs
• Posthumous Character: She died 15ish years before the books start
  • Death by Origin Story: Her death is this to both Brier, and Torisen.

Amberley

Amberley

Brier's ex-girlfriend, and member of the Southern Host.

• New Old Flame: To Brier. Justified because Brier is very private, and The Stoic, and would never tell Jame about her ex.
• Opposites Attract (Implied): They're exes by the time we meet them, but presumably Amberley and Brier were a case of this back when they were together. Brier is reserved and responsible, and Amberley... really isn't, making them a Red Oni, Blue Oni situation.
• Terms of Endangerment: She calls Brier "sweet Brier Rose." The fact that they're exes put this trope in a rather different light than most other examples.
• Woman Scorned: Brier left her to join the Knorth, and Amberley was pissed and hurt by that. Really pissed and hurt.

Must

Mustard

Caldane's bastard half-Kendar daughter.

• Brother–Sister Incest: Her half-brother Tiggeri lusted after her, and—Jame thinks—loved her, in a way.
• Child by Rape: Must's baby, Benj. And considering that Must herself is Caldane's daughter by a Kendar women, there's a good chance she herself is a Child by Rape.
• Death by Childbirth
• Mama Bear: She takes the herb, knowing it will kill her but save her baby.
• Take Care of the Kid: She spends all of The Gates of Tagmeth trying to blackmail Jame into protecting them. As she's dying in childbirth, Jame finally agrees to protect of Must's baby.
• The Woobie: She spends all of The Gates of Tagmeth trying to blackmail Jame, but when Jame learns about her backstory, she feels bad for her.