Foes

The ruined bodies of village women, parted into hoe, pick, dagger, and halberd.

Huangxing's masked guards and three killers hidden in the snow — one set hides the face, the other is frozen through, and both are what happens when men are pushed past their limit.

Monks of Kuye Temple who entered the Sha-Chi Tower and never came out, cased in bronze, iron and gold until they became part of the tower.

One of the Eleven, called the evil Empress, who walks the Waking Realm in a puppet's shell and is worshipped by the desperate as a lady of mercy.

Mu Tianmiao's only daughter and Soul's childhood friend, swift as a swallow with the slender sword Wild Oriole.

The zither players and singers of Pangzhen, sealed into wood, whose music now has only the one use left to it.

Soul's father and the master of the Bastion of Mó, who teaches through crossed blades instead of words.

Eldest of the Four Axes, who underwent Transcension to avenge his three brothers and could split stone with a single swing.

A woman in red who keeps to the top of the Dovecote tower, her swordplay light and graceful, her face burned hollow by Sha-Chi.

A crowd that never formed a unit: bomb carriers, archers, butchers, twinblade swordsmen, shadow killers — each fighting for itself.

The Order's faceless killers, split into blade, horse, and firearm lineages, and lately seen far more often.

White-robed disciples of the Mandate who took Transcension, and kept only a hollow where a face had been.