Therros

A stranger from the Riverlands, Therros came to the fishing village of Raeik-Cove looking for the one thing his life had never given him: somewhere quiet. Then the Northmen's raid burned that away. He holds the beach in polished Riverlander steel, kills to save a boy he barely knows, and, almost without meaning to, becomes the closest thing Aeron has to a brother.

The raid strips the cover. A farmer doesn't wear Riverlander steel, and the survivors can see it: "and you clearly earned it." Therros doesn't dress up what came before. By his own account he was a soldier from a Riverlands trade-town, promoted through the ranks, mustered out with his shares, and drawn to Harthafen, the City of Lights, where an old soldier can find good coin "solving problems for people." He doesn't pretend those years were clean. "I was a shitty person, and I did terrible things." And he no longer drinks: "Me and wine are no longer friends."

When the survivors scatter, Therros doesn't make speeches. He offers his sword to Rielle's burden and chooses the road over the safety of Thaneseat: "these are not my people." He carries the wounded, takes a corruption meant for someone younger and is healed at terrible cost, and through it all he teaches Aeron the unglamorous disciplines that keep people alive: stance, breath, edge; clean your blade; eat and sleep when you can.

He is the one the broken turn to because he is not broken: unflappable in catastrophe, dry around the fire, all ruthless economy when the fighting starts. "The fight ain't over until no one's left to fight it." And beneath the competence is a man who wants something simple and keeps failing to keep hold of it. "I went to the end of the world for a quiet life." He closes the first book arming the boy with a long knife bought with his own coin: "You've earned it, lad. And I'll train you in the time we've got left."