Tavian Marovan

Tavian Marovan wears authority as if it were another chain of office. He is not a man of bright speeches or feast-hall warmth; his power gathers in pauses, sealed orders, ration counts, and the silence after a witness has been asked to repeat himself. In the Steward's chambers he seems almost bloodless, a narrow figure in slate-blue wool with ink on his fingers and sleeplessness under his eyes. Yet soldiers wait for his signatures, granaries open at his mark, and noble houses learn too late that patience can be a sharper weapon than rage. Tavian's tragedy is Caerdun's own: he may preserve the realm so fiercely that he forgets what mercy was meant to preserve.