Direbound

Anassa, Meryn’s bonded direwolf, is her greatest ally, though Meryn doesn’t realize it until late in the novel. Mated to Stark’s direwolf, Cratos, Anassa is one of the most powerful direwolves. She forces Meryn to bond after the Ascent, despite Meryn’s intentions to remain bondless.

Proud and secretive, Anassa is also as strong-willed as Meryn, and their relationship is fraught with mistrust and hurt egos. However, while Anassa genuinely cares for Meryn, she (like all of Nocturna’s other inhabitants) is under the blood curse that won’t allow her to speak of Nocturna’s heritage and, by extension, Meryn’s true role in the kingdom and Killian’s true identity. She tries to warn Meryn about Killian to the extent that she can. When the Alpha of the Strategos pack dies in battle, she and Meryn become the bonded Alpha pair to lead the pack. By the novel’s end, she and Meryn have learned to trust one another and work together.

Meryn’s secret protector in the Bonded City, as well as her most challenging trainer and potential new love interest, is Stark. Their attraction grows throughout the novel. He’s bonded with the direwolf Cratos, Anassa’s mate. The son of the Sovereign Alpha, Stark’s lineage intertwines with Meryn’s beyond their wolves’ mated bond. His ancestor hid the last remaining descendant of the rightful rulers of Nocturna. In addition, his family safeguarded the kingdom’s true history through written accounts of the past, before the blood curse.

Feared and respected, Stark is the hero of Linsfall since he singlehandedly saved the town from a Siphon incursion, and he bears numerous tattoos in commemoration. While not comfortable with the moniker, Stark is nevertheless an esteemed figure, as he’s the Alpha of the Daemos pack and set to become the next Sovereign Alpha. Stern, stubborn, and callous, he has a largely antagonistic relationship with Meryn for most of the novel since he hates her for her relationship with Killian, the man keeping her from her inheritance. Nevertheless, Stark protects Meryn from the shadows by securing her a private room for her safety and training her hard as the Strategos pack’s new Alpha. He’s subject to the blood curse, so he’s unable to communicate the truth of Killian’s identity, which leads to frustration and miscommunication. The novel suggests that Stark has strong feelings for Meryn, though it remains unclear whether his emotions derive from his direwolf’s mate bond with Anassa. By the novel’s end, Stark recognizes Meryn as his queen and works with her to confront Killian.

Meryn’s love interest, Killian, emerges as one of the novel’s main villains. At the beginning of the novel, he’s Meryn’s boyfriend and one of her few sources of support, but he conceals his true identity as Killian, Nocturna’s Crown Prince, from her and presents himself as Lee, a simple court messenger. In reality, he’s the son of King Cyril and the descendant of Alistair Brightbane. After Meryn kills the king, he becomes a Siphon and Alistair’s vessel. Even after Meryn discovers his identity, however, Killian manages to gain her forgiveness.

The kindness he shows Meryn, however, is often poisonous in its deliberate misdirection. For example, he promises to take care of her mother while she trains as a Rawbond but orchestrates her murder. Likewise, he promises to help Meryn find Saela and bring an end to the Nabbers, but he only increases the frequency of the kidnappings, distracting her with a captured Nabber. Also, while he offers to become her family so that she won’t be alone, the engagement band he gifts her becomes a tool by which he can sap her power. Unbeknownst to Meryn, Killian is aware of her true lineage, and though he claims that he loves Meryn and wants her as his queen, the depth of his schemes and his intentions lead to significant problems for her and create a cliffhanger for subsequent novels in the series. At the novel’s end, Killian disappears from the castle, makes Saela a Siphon, prevents the removal of the engagement band on Meryn’s finger, and becomes her sworn enemy.

Izabel and Venna Brooks, Tomison Thorne, and Nevah Rivenson are Meryn’s closest friends in the Bonded City. These secondary characters are all children of Bonded families who have been trained to survive the Trials ever since they were children.

Izabel and Venna are twins and the first friends Meryn makes. Venna is hard of hearing, so she and her sister often communicate through sign language, which they teach Meryn. While Izabel bonds with a wolf in the Strategos pack, Venna bonds with a wolf in the Kryptos pack. Throughout the Trials, both sisters support Meryn, and they’re the only reason she survives the Ascent. The three women trust each other implicitly, which is why Meryn enlists Venna to help her discover what lies beneath the arena. Through their collaboration, they discover the king’s kidnapping scheme and the missing children, unraveling the centuries-long lie that the Valtiere are the true monarchs of Nocturna.

Tomison is a childhood friend of the twins and Izabel’s suspected love interest. Charismatic and charming, Tomison easily becomes the social star of the Strategos pack after bonding with his direwolf. Like the twins, he helps Meryn train to become a better rider and fighter.

Nevah is the last to join Meryn’s social group. During the Ascent, she loses her lover and, for a time, remains isolated from the other members of the Strategos pack. When Meryn and the others defend her during the Purge Trial, however, Nevah becomes friends with them and helps Meryn during the rest of the Trials.

Meryn’s younger sister, Saela, is a secondary character. Bright and book loving, Saela attends an expensive school in the hopes of a better future. A few months shy of her 11th birthday, she becomes a victim of the Nabber kidnappings. She’s taken to a dungeon beneath Sturmfrost Castle, where King Cyril keeps the children he kills to sustain Alistair’s transference magic. Though Saela survives long enough for Meryn and Stark to save her, Killian transforms her into a Siphon at the end of the novel. Meryn, however, resolves to find a way to cure Saela.

Another secondary character and ally to Meryn is her mother, whom the novel never names. She has visions and episodes of apparent mental illness. She was once married to Meryn’s father (also unnamed). After he died in the war, she became the sole breadwinner of the household, working in a laundry room. When her illness became unmanageable, however, Meryn took over her job to ensure household income. Unbeknownst to Meryn and Saela, their mother’s visions are (rather than symptoms of mental illness) manifestations of the family’s matriarchal power, as she and her daughters are the only remaining descendants of Nocturna’s rightful queen. During Meryn’s visit, she gives her the opal necklace that was passed down in their family for generations, which is a symbol of the family’s royal lineage. While Meryn is away training as a Rawbond, Killian schemes to have her mother killed so that her powers will transfer to Meryn. She dies at the hands of guards but leaves behind journals filled with notes of her visions for Meryn.

Igor is a secondary character and a father figure to Meryn. A former fighter, he’s Meryn’s neighbor and mentor. When her father died in the war and she chased violence in the streets, Igor taught her how to fight and hold her own. For years, he taught her how to defend herself. Later, he became her agent in the illegal pit fights, scheduling her fights and ensuring that she got paid when she won. Though he often offered to help Meryn with her mother’s medical expenses, she always refused to accept this help. Before Saela’s kidnapping, he suggests that she train children to defend themselves against the Nabbers. Once Meryn enlists and becomes a Rawbond, he offers to keep an eye on her mother for her.

One of Meryn’s allies in the Bonded City is Egith. A secondary character, she’s the Beta (or second in command) of the Strategos pack and trains the Strategos Rawbonds. Like Meryn, Egith’s father is a commoner. Sensible and logical, Egith is the pack favorite to replace Markos Blackwood as Alpha after he’s killed in battle. When Meryn is chosen as the Alpha, however, she designates Egith as her proxy at the front until she finishes her training and is ready to take on the responsibility. During Meryn and Stark’s operation in Grunfall, Egith helps coordinate the incursion.

One of the story’s main villains is the secondary character King Cyril, Killian’s father. The descendant of the Siphon who overthrew the Queen of Sturmfrost, Cyril is the unrightful king of Nocturna and owns the Diren Blæd, the magical sword that enables him to impose his will on direwolves bonded to humans. Eccentric, sexist, and abusive, Cyril often uses his control over the wolves for his entertainment and love of bloodshed.

Unbeknownst to everyone but Killian, Cyril is a Siphon, and before the Rawbond graduation ceremony, he’s the vessel for Alistair Brightbane. Whether he initiated the kidnappings in Sturmfrost’s poorer quarters is unclear, but he certainly took part, gathering young children and draining their blood to sustain the magic necessary for Alistair’s transference into his body. It’s also unclear whether Cyril knew that Killian directed Meryn to kill him during the graduation ceremony; nonetheless, Meryn beheads him after commanding the direwolves to cull more of their pack members.

The secondary characters Jonah and Perielle are minor villains in the Bonded City. Like Izabel and Venna, Jonah is the child of a Bonded family and was trained from a young age to survive the Bonding Trials. He bonds with a direwolf in the Daemos pack under Stark’s supervision. His wolf is mated with Perielle’s. Jonah exhibits violent and murderous tendencies from his first introduction in the novel, where he attacks Venna before the start of the Ascent. Throughout the story, he antagonizes and targets Meryn, demeaning her for her alleged “commoner” blood. During the Unity Trial, he deliberately attacks Henrey—the only other commoner among the Rawbond—as a show of dominance.

Perielle is deemed a beauty even among the other Bonded. She (like Jonah) is the child of a Bonded family and was trained from a young age to survive the Bonding Trials. She bonds with a direwolf in the Strategos pack and later reveals that her direwolf is the mate to Jonah’s direwolf. Perielle often bullies others, especially Meryn, which identifies her as a weak link in the pack. During the Purging Trial, the pack collectively decides to cull her. Meryn directs the attack, and Perielle dies in the arena.

The secondary character Henrey is an ally to Meryn in the Bonded City. He dreamed of becoming a Bonded rider and bonds with a direwolf in the Phylax pack. As the only other common-born rider, he and Meryn become friends, despite being part of different packs. During the Unity Trial, however, Jonah targets Henrey because of his social status. The attack severs Henrey’s bond to his direwolf, which instinctively leads his wolf to fatally attack him. While slowly and painfully dying, he asks Meryn to end his suffering. She kills him quickly out of mercy, but his death haunts her. His body is taken away and given to Killian to drain when Cyril makes him a Siphon.