Valentro keeps the Tiered Gardens — an elf Ranger trained in the way of the leaf under a mentor the gardeners call Strider. He was orphaned young: his mother died first, and then his father, a Fog Warden, simply disappeared. Liminal House raised him. He'd have called himself a quiet man with quiet work — until the day his shears snapped in his hands and, for a heartbeat, he saw two short swords instead, and moved like someone who knew how to use them.
Concept
An elf Ranger working the Tiered Gardens in the way of the leaf, alongside his mentor, Strider. Raised at Liminal House after he was orphaned.
Family Loss
His mother died before his father did. His father — a Fog Warden — disappeared. Valentro grew up in Liminal House.
The Sword Moment
While he was working, his gardening shears broke, and for an instant he saw them as short swords. The reflex — the certainty of the grip — came from a life he can't remember living. Only one other person saw it happen: Roxy, who approached him afterward and has been quietly training him since.
Ties
- Roxanya "Roxy" — The only witness to the sword moment; now his trainer.
- Strider — His mentor in the Tiered Gardens.
- Wylks Ottren — His best friend, a journeyman at the Mirrorwrights; owes Valen twenty coins from a disastrous date, which Valen never mentions.
- Noname — Raised alongside him at Liminal House; he was present the night her fiancé proposed in the Gardens.
- The Gardener's Guild — Names this character in its connections.
Gallery
The Rite He Closed
From Beyond Relief.
Valentro's room in Strider's house is at the back, off the hall, with a PLEASE KNOCK sign on the door. A canal runs behind the house.
On the Overlook stair the morning of Maruk Grommarg's rite, he found the boy Cesco counting the Fog Wardens on the wall out loud at the Fenn stall and did not take it well — never count the Wardens on watch, because counting them calls one away. Nobody corrected the boy.
During the dawn breach on the bridge, Valentro was the one who worked out what the attackers had come for: the rite was open between Maruk's plate coming off the duty wall and the matter being finished, and an open rite was the door they had come through. He completed it, and the fog immediately swept its own back across the span.
That night he took Maruk's lantern to his weekly hangout with Wylks Ottren, with Noname along, and left it with him overnight.