Keris Veturia

**Keris Veturia**, also known as **the** **Commandant**, is the cruel, merciless, and malevolent leader at Blackcliff Academy. She is the mother of Elias Veturius.

## Personality

The Commandant only cares for power. She is loyal to only herself, not the Empire or her family. She hates mistakes and does not tolerate tardiness or weakness. Her favorite way of hurting others is by hurting someone close to her victim. She doesn't have a benevolent bone in her body. Keris is incredibly cruel to the slaves forced to work in her household. She deliberately forces them to be called by their position, such as "Cook" and "Kitchen-Girl." They are punished if they use their names. Keris is terrifying. She takes great satisfaction in mercilessly punishing students for breaking any of Blackcliff''s numerous rules. Keris has a ruthless instinct.

## Physical Description

Keris is slim and small in stature. She has blond hair that she always wears in a stiff knot at her neck. She has pale gray eyes and cut-glass features. Her skin is chalk-white. Like all Masks, Keris wears all black. Her wardrobe includes a tight-fitting uniform jacket and steel-toed boots. She always has a disapproving look on her face. Elias shares her high cheekbones and her eye color. Keris is smaller than a Scholar woman with a deceptively willowy form. She has a strange blue tattoo that begins on her neck and continues down her side. It says "ALWAYS VICTORIOUS," the Gens Veturia motto. Keris moves silently and one does not hear her approach, but feels her, like a storm coming in. Her voice is laced with violence and chillingly soft.

## Biography

 This page may contain spoilers! Do not proceed unless you wish to be spoiled.

The Commandant is the daughter of Quin Veturius. Keris attended Blackcliff Academy herself, and she graduated at the top of her class, as good a warrior as any man. However, her father made Elias his heir. This might have partially been because even he was horrified by her brutality and cruelty. After graduating from Blackcliff, Keris went on to have many accomplishments, including bringing down the Lioness herself.

At some point she had an affair with Arius Harper and gave birth to Elias. Keris felt an instantaneous hatred towards the child the moment she knew she was pregnant. She tried taking a variety of herbs in an attempt to abort the fetus, but none were successful. She went on a solo mission far from Blackcliff so that nobody would notice she was pregnant. She ends up leaving Elias in a Tribeswoman named Mamie Rila's caravan tent.

### *An Ember In The Ashes*

As Commandant, Keris is one of the most powerful people in the Martial Empire. She has spies everywhere. She teaches Marcus Farrar and Zacharias Farrar how to shield their minds against the Augurs so that they can cheat undetected in the Trials. She is working with The Nightbringer to interfere with the Trials. Keris' goal is to make herself Empress.

### *A Torch Against The Night*

After the Scholar Uprising in Serra, the Commandant begins a reign of terror. She systematically travels across the Empire killing all free and imprisoned Scholars. Only the slaves are left alive. Multiple mass graves are made throughout the Empire. Thousands upon thousands of Scholars are killed.

Keris arrives at Kauf Prison to begin killing the imprisoned Scholars. The Warden informs Helene, who is also at Kauf to convince the Warden to give her Elias, of the Commandant's arrival. That night Helene sneaks into the Commandant's camp and eavesdrops on the conversation between the Warden and Keris. Helene learns that the Warden and Keris are working for the same person, the Nightbringer. Keris is demanding the Warden give her his support and aid. The Warden refuses, saying "This is your plot, Keris, not his." Keris attempts to taunt him, but the Warden will not change his mind. He accuses her of furthering her own will and not their master's. She claims she is just "speeding the pace at which we carry out his will" Helene also overhears confirmation that Keris is in fact trying to kill her. She hears Keris reveal the details of her secret attack on Emperor Marcus. She will leave for Antium in three days.

### *A Reaper At The Gates*

Helene reveals that the Martial fleet didn't sink in Navium. It sailed away. Keris has the Nightbringer stir up old shipwrecks to wash to shore so that the people of Navium would believe the Martial fleet had gone under and that Helene was to blame. Helene went to the beach and got past Keris' guards where she discovered that the shipwrecks were decades old. Keris hid the fleet because she needed the ships for the Nightbringer's planned war with Marinn and the Scholars. Keris' plan was to wait out the Karkauns while letting a few thousand Plebeian Martials die. This would force Grimarr to attack on land, where Keris would decimate his forces and steal his ships. Thus, giving her a fleet twice the size of the Mariners. However, Helene orchestrates a plan and takes away Keris' power and reveals her betrayal.

Helene and Avitas discover that Keris has been killing the Masks who murdered Arius Harper. Each time she kills one, she adds another letter to her tattoo of the Gens Veturia motto. When Avitas wonders why she would do such a thing when she isn't sentimental, Helene realizes it is not sentiment, but power. Keris loved Aris, these men killed him, and thus took her power. By murdering them, she is taking it back.

### *A Sky Beyond The Storm*

Keris is ruling as Empress of the Martial Empire from Serra. She has beheaded every ambassador Princess Nikla has sent. When Laia and Helene sneak into the palace in Adisa, Laia is shocked to discover Keris there as well. Laia attempts to fight Keris. She manages to poison her temporarily, but the Nightbringer intervenes and stops her before she can kill her.

Keris and the Nightbringer have begun their war on Marinn. They are winning. Ayo and Adisa have both fallen. Twelve thousand Mariners have been killed. Princess Nikla is killed defending King Irmand. Both were murdered by Keris. Keris killed Nikla's guards, and then stabbed her through the chest before pinioning her to the walls of the palace. Keris killed Irmand in front of Nikla. The ghuls finished Nikla off.

## Relationships

### Elias Veturius

Elias is the illegitimate son of Keris. Even after Elias was born, she refused to touch him. However she found herself cleaning, feeding, and taking care of him. This compassion only lasted a few hours. She ended up leaving him a Tribeswoman named Mamie Rila's caravan tent. When Elias arrived at Blackcliff as a student six years later, Keris was enraged that he had survived. She considers not killing her son when he was an infant to be the biggest mistake she has ever made. While at Blackcliff, Keris terrorizes and thwarts Elias at every opportunity. She does not hide her loathing for him.

### Quin Veturius

Quin Veturius is Keris Veturia's father. Quin always chooses his grandson Elias over his daughter. After the Augurs brought Elias to Blackcliff, he was not very happy to learn his daughter had a child born out of wedlock, but somehow he made sure that people said nothing about it. Even though Keris accomplished many things upon graduating from Blackcliff, including bringing down the Lioness herself, none of it seemed to matter to him. When it was time to name an heir to Gens Veturia, Quin did not even consider choosing Keris. It is thought that part of the reason why he skipped over her, was that even he was horrified by her brutality and cruelty.

## Trivia

* According to Sabaa Tahir during BookCon 2016, the Commandant was initially a male character.
* Keris' favorite weapon is a whip.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 *A Torch Against The Night*: page 344
2. ↑ *A Reaper At The Gates*: page 222