Frentis

Frentis
Biographical information
Born	Varinshold, Asrael Unified Realm
Physical description
Gender	Male
Political information
Affiliation	Sixth Order of the Faith
Title(s)	Brother of the Sixth Order
Appearances information
Book(s)	Blood Song Tower Lord Queen of Fire

Frentis was an orphan living on the streets who met Vaelin and becomes inspired to join the Sixth Order.

Appearance and Personality

At the beginning, Frentis is a skeletally thin street urchin, dressed in rags with bare, mud-stained feet. But after joining the Order, he grows tall and broad shoulders. The blind enthusiasm and whining of his youth develops into a confidence in his own abilities, and he emerges as the leader of his novice group. After his ordeal with One Eye, he becomes less talkative and quicker to anger. The scars he suffers never fully heal. Frentis remains a believer in the Faith and their cause, even as some of his brothers slowly lose faith.

History

Blood Song

Frentis is an orphan and has lived a squalid life on the streets of Varinshold for years. He becomes a thrall of Hunsil, the leader of a group of child thieves. Each month he must give him five coppers, or risk a beating.

One day he is working the Summertide Fair, when he foolishly choses to pick the pocket of a novice brother of the Sixth Order, Vaelin Al Sorna. Vaelin catches him, but rather than give him over to the Realm Guard, he demands that Frentis guide him to the gallows. Frentis shamelessly demands something in exchange, and gets a throwing knife and the promise of a lesson in return.

Frentis is behind on his payments to Hunsil, and fearing another beating, he tries to kill him with the throwing knife. Frentis hits him with a fine shot, but Hunsil survives the attack, though he loses his eye. Fearing for his life, Frentis flees Varinshold. Enthused by the legend that has built up about Vaelin and the Blackhawks, Frentis seeks refuge in the Sixth Order. With no one to vouch for him, Frentis nominates Vaelin to speak for him to the Aspect. Reluctantly, Vaelin agrees.

While Frentis waits for the next intake of recruits, he bunks with Vaelin’s group. At first the group are reluctant, but Frentis’s energy and blind enthusiasm soon wins them over. He also demonstrates an effortless ability to steal from other groups, which is tolerated within the Order. In time, Frentis joins his own group under Master Haunlin. Frentis proves to be an enthusiastic student, learning quickly and loving life in the Order, compared to his former life.

During the Test of the Wild, Frentis is snatched by Hunsil, now known as One Eye. One Eye takes him to some kind of abandoned temple to the mysterious and supposedly defunct Seventh Order of the Faith, the Order of the Dark. He tortures Frentis, tattooing his torso with scars. During the torture One Eye keeps repeating “The One Who Waits will destroy your precious Order”. However, Barkus, Vaelin, Nortah, Caenis and Dentos track him there, thanks to Scratch, the Volarian slave-hounds. The outlaw One-Eye makes a wall of fire using Dark power, but Caenis recognises it as fake, and leaps through the flame and kills him. The scars Frentis suffers never fully heal.

After Frentis graduates, he joins Vaelin and the others in the invasion by the Unified Realm of the Alpiran Empire. Frentis commands a company of the Wolf Runners. He is in the middle of the melee during the battle of the Bloody Hill, where Vaelin kills The Hope, the heir to the Empire.

Vaelin’s forces with Frentis are assigned to take and hold the key city of Linesh, which they succeed in doing. During the occupation, the Red Hand plague breaks out in the city, and Frentis is sent with a Meldenean captain to bring Sister Sherin with a cure. After Vaelin sabotage an Alpiran army approaching the city, the Alpiran’s seem to avoid Linesh, so Vaelin sends Frentis scouting towards Untesh to find out the state of the war. Frentis never returns. When Vaelin scouts Untesh himself, he finds the city fallen, with Frentis presumed dead or captured.

At the end of the story, Vaelin’s Blood Song gives him a vision that may indicate that Frentis is alive.

Tower Lord

It is revealed that Frentis survived the fall of Untesh. When the last Alpiran assault hit the walls, an Volarian man called Arklev Entril bound him and forced him to abandon Prince Malcius, using some Dark gift and his scars. He was taken aboard a ship and taken to the Volarian Empire.

He has spent the last five years in the fighting pits. He is utterly controlled by the fighting pit overseer through same Dark gift. One day a mysterious woman called Elverah comes to view him fight, and afterward she takes him with her on a journey; she now controls him through his scars in the same way.

They travel first to Mirtesk, regularly changing their names and back-story. Along the way, Elverah forces Frentis to kill a man at small oasis who she claims is a spy. In Mirtesk, she meets a man she calls the Messenger who gives them a list of people to kill. The Messenger reminds Frentis of someone, and knows things that only one of his brothers of the Sixth Order would know, particularly Barkus. They travel to the Alpiran Empire through the marshes that seperate the realms by stealing a boat at a small port. Along the journey she forces him to have sex with her, insisting on the illusion that they are contented lovers.

In Hervellis, they go to kill an old man called Revek in a temple. Revek is gifted with the Dark ability to create fire, and seemingly was once an associate of Elverah, but left her becuase he realised she was a monster. Elverah kills him and drinks his blood, stealing his gift. Before Revek dies, he touches Frentis and whisper “The seed will grow”; Frentis feels a small tingle in his scars.

They continue to kill as they journey to Alpira: on the islands of The Twelve Sisters, a magistrate, a merchant’s clerk, and a tavern girl; in Dinellis a rotund innkeeper and a village washerwoman; and on and on. Each person great and small has been foretold to play a role in a future war when the Volarians invade the Alpiran Empire. In Alpira, they aim to kill the son of Lady Emeren, the widow of The Hope. The assassination goes disastrously, and the Alpiran guards catch them. While Elverah goes to confront them, Frentis is left to kill Lady Emeren and her son. However, Revek's touch has started to give Frentis brief moments of control, and he resists killing them. Elverah uses her power to create flames, but she eventually collapses with blood streaming from her nose, ears, eyes and mouth. Frentis grabs her and flees.

Once Elverah is recovered, they make their way to Marbellis and take a smugglers boat to the Unified Realm. Posing as Cumbraelin fanatics, they try to kill the Tower Lord Al Bera of the South Tower, but again it goes disastrously. The Tower Lord is poorly guarded, but he has been kind to the poor, and Elverah's attack is foiled by a throng of hungry beggars.

They head north from South Tower, Elverah brooding over her failure. In her introspective mood, Frentis tries to bargain with her; he will truly be her willing lover, if she turn away from the path of killing. But, Elverah says that she has already made a bargain with the One Who Waits, and if she turns away from the path, he will find them. Two weeks later they make it to Varinshold. Elverah's mood lifts as she sees a large force Realm Guard, leaving the city in pursuit of the Cumbraelin fanatics.

In the western quarter, they meet with company of hidden Volarian soldiers disguised as sailors, and an Asraelin traitor Frentis doesn't know as Lord Kelden Al Telnar and arrange to meet him at the docks. Two days later, they play out their ruse that Frentis has returned to the Realm with Elverah having escaped the Volarian fighting pits.

Frentis and Elverah are taken to the palace, and greeted warmly by King Malcius. Elverah has such total control over him that he can barely speak. When Malcius embraces him, Frentis clasps the King’s head between both hands, breaking his neck with a loud crack. Lyrna reacts instinctively, and launches a throwing knife into Frentis; the knife that the High Priestess of the Lonak placed a mysterious black liquid on. The pattern of scars covering his torso flaring with an intense pain, and then in an instant the binding in gone. He rises to see the room burning bodies everywhere, and Elverah approaching Princess Lyrna. Finally free, he stabs Elverah in the back. She dies with complete devotion on her face.

From the windows of the palace, Frentis can see that the Volarian invasion has been lauched. He pursues Lyrna determined to save her, but she flees from him. Trying to find her in her chambres, he finds only the Lonak woman Davoka and her ward Arendil. Seeing the Varinshold has fallen to the Volarian, the three of them flee through the sewers and escape the city.

Frentis and the others make their way through the Urlish Forest, avoiding the roads which are thronged with Volarians. When they reach the order house they find a massacre, the bodies of brothers and Volarians everywhere. The only survivor they find is Master Grealin. Frentis tells him the truth about his involvement in the King's death, but Grealin refuses to let him wallow in regret. Frentis and his group make camp deep in the forest, and fight a guerrilla war against the Volarians, swelling their numbers by attacking slave convoys and freeing the people. They also attack the house of the Sixth Order, but only find Master Rensial alive, and no sign of the Aspect.

The Volarians eventually sends troops to root out and destroy Frentis's encampment. During the carnage, Master Grealin is forced to use his Dark gift, and is revealed to be the secret Aspect of the Seventh Order. In the aftermath of the attack, Frentis's group are grievous depleted with many wounded. Frentis breaks camp, and moves north hoping to reach the Skellan Pass. They are constantly harried by the Volarians, despite all the false trails they lay. Frentis eventually sets a trap, with Grealin using his powers to bring a rock outcrop down on their pursuers. However, exhaustion and overuse of his powers have taken their toll of Master Grealin, and he dies. Continuing north, they meet up with Master Sollis and over a thousand troops marching south to war.