ember people
also known as ember man, ember men, ember woman, the Charred
Invested warriors on this unnamed planet whose chests have been burned hollow — pectorals, ribs, and heart scorched away — and replaced by a glowing red ember that pulses brighter when wind stokes it. They wear diaphanous open robes and golden bracers on their forearms, fight with bats or batons, and move with supernatural speed and strength. The first one Nomad meets at his execution site nearly beats him to death before he can summon a tool to break free. STD:TSM:Ch 1
Known facts
- made-from-captivesAre made, not born — driven into existence when Glowing Eyes rams an ember spear into a chosen captive's chest and leaves the ember behind to burn outward from the heart, scoring the survivor's skin with the same vein-streaks of glowing fire that mark the rest of them. The captives selected for elevation appear to be the strongest and most agile of those who survive the arena.STD:TSM:Ch 4
- investiture-reinforces-skinTheir Investiture reinforces skin and muscle; without it, Elegy would tear herself apart raging against the chains. The ember sits where the heart should be, glowing from an ashen cavity in the chest.STD:TSM:Ch 20
- sleep-in-napsDo not keep a unified sleep schedule. Rather than sleeping a single long stretch they take roughly hour-long naps as the mood takes them — a habit Rebeke finds the off-world idea of an eight-hour night baffling to hear about.STD:TSM:Ch 21
- fabrication-via-ancestorsCannot themselves fabricate machinery from raw stock, and never could; the work is done by what Rebeke calls their ancestors — the same shade-mist hosted on every settlement that Nomad is about to be introduced to.STD:TSM:Ch 21
- cinderheart-is-the-linkDriving a spear through a Charred's cinderheart cracks the stone, snuffs its light, and drops the body — eyes streaming a brief puff of dark smoke as they go out. The death also stuns the rest of the surrounding Charred for a heartbeat, suggesting they feel it through whatever link the Cinder King runs through their stones.STD:TSM:Ch 37
- still-feel-fearCan still feel fear of their own. After Nomad kills one of their fellows by punching a spear through its cinderheart, the rest hesitate to charge again; he reads this as evidence that the Cinder King's grip is not absolute, that his control rides on top of whatever the Charred still are underneath. When they finally break and flee his kata on the deck, Nomad suspects they only managed it because their king was there watching, frightened himself.STD:TSM:Ch 37
Events
- STD:TSM:Ch 2 Five of them stand on the hovercity street behind the crowd when Nomad is hauled up — heads bowed, eyes closed, embers cooled in their open chests.
- STD:TSM:Ch 3 Three of them — two with whips, one (the silver-streaked woman) with a machete — drop into the arena and hunt the unarmed captives for sport.
- STD:TSM:Ch 5 Two hundred of them stream out onto the ship rims at Glowing Eyes' order — and then drop in unison as their freeze bracers are remotely activated by the attackers. They begin waking again later, just in time to pursue.
- STD:TSM:Ch 6 Crowd the foredecks of two warships giving chase, leaping in batches onto the hovercycle and then onto the second warship after Nomad boards.
- STD:TSM:Ch 16 Two stand guard at the parlour doors; a third allows the Cinder King to throttle him to his knees without resistance, as a teaching aid.
- STD:TSM:Ch 17 A streak-faced Charred uses Nomad's Torment against him — provokes him to raise his fists, then drops him with three clean punches when his arms freeze. A second Charred body-checks him into the cabinet.
- STD:TSM:Ch 18 Two leap from a hijacker ship in flowing open robes, board the Greater Good's vessel and beat Nomad half-conscious with batons before Contemplation shoots them both down.
- STD:TSM:Ch 46 Six Charred stand on the rim of Union beside the Cinder King — including the newly captured Elegy — and follow his attention as one when his mood shifts toward the advancing sunline.
- STD:TSM:Ch 48 Six Charred are present at the gun. Elegy cleanses three of them in succession; the freed three immediately attack the rest. Reinforcements pour up the streets at the Cinder King's silent summons and corner her against the rim.
- STD:TSM:Ch 48 A continuous wave of Charred runs at Zellion in the street between the rim and the city centre; Elegy follows behind him cleansing the wounded one at a time, leaving freed Charred to set on their former colleagues. The wave finally runs out and the street goes quiet but for the wounded.
- STD:TSM:Ch 49 The Cinder King's remaining Charred participate in the ambush — swinging clubs at Zellion while officials in white pin him with pellet fire, then melting away once the gravity bracer is locked in place.
- STD:TSM:Ch 50 Two Charred guard the corridor outside Union's Hall of Burning when Elegy arrives. She drops both — one with a broken throat, one slammed into a wall by his own momentum. The survivor of the pair is still standing in the hallway afterwards, dazed, when Rebeke reaches for him on the cinderheart network and finds the link half-open.
- STD:TSM:Ch 51 Five Charred guards at the bridge door wave Rebeke and Elegy through without raising a hand — the first concrete proof to the room that Rebeke's partial link is real and that the network is no longer reliably the Cinder King's alone.
Backreferences
- factfreeze bracers
- factElegy
- factember spear
- factThomos
- factthe rebel attackers
- factember warship
- factGlowing Eyes
- factGlowing Eyes
- factGlowing Eyes
- factContemplation
- factHeat prayers
- factthe Reliquary
- factSigzil
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 35
- factGlowing Eyes
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 36
- factSigzil
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 37
- factember people
- factember people
- factthe Chasm Kata
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 38
- factElegy
- factElegy
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 40
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 41
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 42
- factcinderheart bomb
- factElegy
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 44
- factGlowing Eyes
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 45
- factsunheart recharge
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 46
- factElegy
- factCinderheart
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 48
- factElegy
- factElegy
- factthe Hall of Burning
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 49
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 50
- factRebeke Salvage
- factCinderheart
- summarySTD:TSM:Ch 51
- factRebeke Salvage
- summarySTD:TSM:Epilogue
- factRebeke Salvage