Vis Telimus is the novel’s protagonist. He is an orphan, adopted by Ulciscor Telimus to be used as a pawn in Ulciscor’s plans. However, Vis’s true identity is Prince Diago of the island kingdom of Suus. Vis escaped when the Catenan Republic conquered Suus and executed his family. Unable to pass as a Catenan native, Vis pretends to be a middle-class orphan from another conquered country, Aquiria. His strongest trait is his ability to win loyal friends, and his biggest weakness is his anger. Vis struggles with his personal sense of duty and corresponding feelings of complicity, personifying the deep ethical questions at the heart of the novel.

Vis’s character is the foremost perspective through which the reader sees the novel’s fantasy world, especially the problematic power structures of the Catenan civilization. Vis hates the Republic, which he calls “The Hierarchy” as a mark of its oppressive nature. He also finds the Republic’s Will system to be abhorrent. Despite harassment and abuse for his resistance, Vis refuses to perform the necessary ritual at the Aurora Columnae to join the system. Though Ulciscor believes his objection is to ceding Will only, Vis has no interest in receiving Will either.