Cat

Cat is a street orphan from Borosevo, Emesh, and one of Hadrian's closest companions during his years as a pauper in the city. Copper-skinned with amber eyes, she survived on the streets after her mother died of the Gray Rot, dreaming of traveling to Luin -- where her mother told her there were silver forests and fairy pools -- a world she was legally barred from reaching.

Cat dies of the Gray Rot on Emesh at eighteen, asking Hadrian for one last story in her final hours. The story he tells her -- of Kharn Sagara, his revenge and his conquest of a daimon -- is the same tale that later draws Hadrian toward Vorgossos. He reflects with bitter irony that the fairy-lights of Luin, Cat's lifelong dream, mark the very road to the daimon beneath Vorgossos, the subject of the last story she ever heard.