Alexander Avent

Alexander has carmine red hair and Imperial green eyes, described at the execution as glass green as poison. At the execution on Tenba he arrives on a gestatory throne, wearing white-and-gold armor, a white cape, a lion skin in the high Martian style, and the gilt laurels of the Grass Crown, his long red hair oiled back.

Alexander's swordsmanship is poor and overly mechanical, a consequence of drilling at half-speed without real pressure.

• William XXIII (Father) -- accuses Hadrian of killing him; formally charges him with regicide
• Maria Agrippina (Mother) -- manipulated him against Hadrian
• Selene (Half-sister) -- calls her a whore and a disgrace
• Ricard (Brother)
• Philip (Brother)
• Hadrian -- former mentor; sentences him to death and drives a ceramic knife into his side before the scaffold; Hadrian tells him he will fear his ghost in every shadow all his days
• Cassandra -- hostility; previously attempted to have her shot
• Yod -- Chantry handler who controls the execution; rebukes Alexander when he stabs Hadrian prematurely; Hadrian calls Alexander Yod's puppet Emperor
• Bassander Lin -- present at the execution
• Amon Kosis -- flanked him at War Council
• Lorian Aristedes -- struck him with a cane previously; present at the execution
• Pallino -- won his approval by turning a jibe back on him
• Gibson (Tutor) -- scholiast at Nov Belgaer
• Holy Terran Chantry -- controls the execution through Yod; rules through Alexander from Earth as the Serpent

Alexander is the 107th child of Emperor William XXIII and Empress Maria Agrippina. By Imperial policy he is denied marriage and children. Among the Emperor's many children he was the apparent heir.

Alexander served Hadrian as a squire and was his greatest admirer. The relationship collapsed when Hadrian delivered a crushing insult, and Alexander fell under his mother's influence. He arranged the Urslic assassination attempt on Hadrian and Valka on Carteia. After the Cielcin assault on Perfugium, the two reached an uneasy reconciliation at Fidchell. On Gododdin, he commanded in the Emperor's name, struck Hadrian on his return, challenged him to monomachy at the War Council, refused food distribution duties, accused Hadrian publicly of bombing the city, lunged at Hadrian with his father's sword in the throne room, and attempted to have Cassandra shot at Aurora before being overridden by Yod and escaping in the melee. After Amon Kosis freed him, he took control of Aurora and by comm argued against Hadrian's plan to fire Astrophage -- revealing his strategic goal as allowing the Cielcin to crush mankind into an obscurity in which his masters on Earth might survive.

At Tenba, commanding a fleet of at least a hundred ships, Alexander crowned himself Emperor Alexander VI and sentenced Hadrian to death for high treason, regicide, the massacre of the people of Gododdin, and the destruction of the Imperial fleet. He wore the Grass Crown woven from the golden branches of the Tree of Avalon and occupied a gestatory throne carried by countless androgyns. He stated that he once worshipped Hadrian but knows better now, quoting that there are no gods but those we make for ourselves.

At the execution on Tenba, Alexander arrives in white-and-gold armor with a lion skin and the gilt laurels of the Grass Crown, his long red hair oiled back. He strikes Hadrian twice across the face and drives a ceramic knife into his side before departing to the scaffold; Yod rebukes him to stop, warning they need Hadrian alive a little longer. Hadrian tells him he will fear his ghost in every shadow all the days of his life. The Chantry rules through Alexander from Earth, with Yod serving as his handler -- Hadrian calls him Yod's puppet Emperor.