Helene Aquilla

Art by twitter user @taratjah

**Helene Aquilla** is the Empress of the Martial Empire. She is the best friend of Elias Veturius, and a Mask studied at Blackcliff Academy.

## Personality

Helene is proud, steadfast, dutiful, and fiercely loyal to the Martial Empire. She can be harsh, callous, and willing to resort to extreme measures, which leads many to believe she is cold and heartless. Although she originally disliked Scholars and believed steadfastly in the ideals of the Martial Empire, she grew to be more rebellious and independent. Due to many of those she loves dying, she tries not to connect to people, and has a hard time admitting romantic feelings to those she likes. Despite this, she is teasing and has a sibling-like camaraderie with her closest friends, such as Elias and Laia. She dislikes being the main authority figure, however she grows into herself and accepts leadership roles she must take on. Helene is a ruthless general that doens't often believe in mercy, yet she comes around to Elias's idea of pacifism, especially as she always disliked wartime. She takes her a vow of "blood and bone" very seriously, and faces extreme guilt when a vow she makes is broken. She takes Blackcliff's motto, "Duty first, unto death," to heart. It took Helene a while to get adjusted to court politics when acting as the Blood Shrike, which led to Keris Veturia often humiliating her in front of many Paters and high-ranking Gens. As the series progressed, Helene began to "think like the Commandant" and was able to successfully develop political skill in making alliances and taking to Gens which helped her in the future. Despite this, Helene prefers working alone and doesn't trust many very well.

She has a fear of heights.

## Physical Description

Helene has ice-blond hair, pale blue eyes, and fair skin. She looks like the typical Martial. She has a muscular figure, which often makes her self conscious around those she likes, and Elias describes her in armor as looking "like a warrior goddess." Helene frequently wears her hair in a tight braided crown around her head. Elias says she has beautiful lips, the top one fuller than the bottom one. After forcibly removing her Mask in Book 3, she has scars on her cheeks and face which cannot be removed.

## Biography

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

Helene is the eldest daughter of Pater Aquillus, and best friend of Elias Veturius. She comes from a prestigious family in the Martial Empire. Her father is a jurist, and her mother and sisters are intelligent and beautiful. As is custom, Helene is the only female recruit chose by the Augurs to attend Blackcliff Academy for her generation. She is ranked third, behind Elias and Marcus Farrar. It is said that her hardships have made her not weaker, but stronger.

Helene first met Elias when they were six years old in the "culling pen," where new students at Blackcliff are picked on and tossed in rain and mud. She told Elias, "I'll watch your back" with "all the gravitas of a Cadet." As Fivers, Helene and Elias stuck together to survive in the wilderness, solidifying their friendship. At one point during their time in the wilderness, a raiding party is said to have captured them, and Helene got her and Elias safely out due to the raiders underestimating her strength. Throughout their years at Blackcliff, Helene and Elias are targeted by Marcus. Helene is haunted by Marcus' perverse need for her. The Snake, as she dubs him, watches her at every turn, only warded off by Elias. Helene is a skilled combatant and has the potential to be amongst the most experienced Masks in the whole Empire.

### *An Ember in the Ashes*

Helene, Elias, Marcus, and Zach are all Senior Skulls about to graduate. Helene almost finds Elias as he prepares to desert from the Academy. She realizes what he's planning, but decides to drop the issue for later. While receiving her armor with the other Senior Skulls, Marcus insults her. He ends up kissing her without permission, setting off a fight between Elias and his friends and Marcus and his cronies. The Commandant interrupts the fight, and everyone goes to the school’s amphitheater for the graduation ceremony. After the students are declared graduates, the Augurs make an unexpected appearance. Their leader, Cain, declares the current dynasty will fail and it is time for the prophesized Warrior Emperor to be chosen through the Trials. Helene is chosen to be one of four Aspirants, along with Marcus, Elias, and Zacharias Farrar. That night there is a party celebrating graduation at Quin Veturius’ house. Elias meets with Helene and they both realizes they are each keeping secrets from each other for the first time.

During the Second Trial, Helene discovers that she can heal through song. Helene is angry at Elias because he is thinking about Laia. Even though she doesn’t like her, Helene uses her newfound ability to heal Laia for Elias. After the Fourth Trial, Helene is declared the next Blood Shrike, and will be serving the newly crowned Emperor Marcus. Before Elias is executed, the Blackcliff amphitheater is destroyed by Laia and Cook. Helene tracks down Elias and Laia as they are fleeing Blackcliff to save Laia’s brother Darin. Helene tells Elias that she was working with the Augurs to save his life. Elias takes off his mask and gives it Helene. She allows them to escape but knows next time they meet she will be expected to kill him.

### *A Torch Against The Night*

Helene is being interrogated by Avitas Harper about where Elias escaped to for five days. Helene says she has no idea where he went but Avitas doesn’t believe her. She is eventually let free by her father Pater Aquillus who makes a deal with Emperor Marcus. In exchange for letting Helene go, Gens Aquilla will support Marcus’ rule. Helene will also continue as his Blood Shrike. Helene is brought to her family's home to recover. She suffers from six broken ribs, twenty-eight lacerations, thirteen fractures, four torn tendons, and bruised kidneys.

The next day, she goes to Quin Veturius' house, where Marcus has set up his headquarters. Marcus taunts her about her nightmares, as he has been doing for weeks. She has no idea how he learned what they were. Helene's nightmares involve broken children, hollowed-out mothers, houses crumbling to ash with her at Marcus' side. She is his loyal commander, supporter, and lover, reveling and wanting the destruction and wanting Marcus. Marcus then orders Helene to hunt down Elias and bring him to Antium for a public execution. He also informers her that the Commandant has placed Avitas in her Black Guard to report back on her progress. As she is leaving, Helene comes across a strange and dangerous man, who unbeknownst to her, is the Nightbringer. He tells her that he can smell the power on her. He warns her that it will destroy her if she is not careful. He then demonstrates her own power by healing some of her injuries from her interrogation. When Helene somewhat jokingly asks if he is volunteering to be her teacher, he replies that he is not, but perhaps one day he will be. When she asks what he is, he responds, "I am the Reaper, girl. And I go to collect what is mine."

Before setting out on her unwanted mission with Avitas, Helene brings her friends Dex Atrius and Faris Candelan with her. She tells them that she needs people she can trust to be closest to her. As she works toward completing her mission, she struggles with her feelings for Elias. She wonders how she will kill the man she loves. She continues to ponder her love for Elias versus her duty to the Empire. Helene tracks Elias down to the city of Nur. Upon arriving in Nur, Elias corners Helene in an alleyway and tells her he misses her and that they "both know he is not long for this world." She is shocked enough that she lets him go.

Again, Helene tracks Elias down and learns he is heading to Kauf Prison, and so she and her Black Guard journey there as well. Faris tells her that Elias used to sneak off to a nearby cave during his training as a Fiver to get away from the prison. In the cave, Helene finds Elias' scims. She also discovers Laia and Keenan. She tells them to stay out of her way. Helene and Avitas speak with the Warden and deduce that the Warden already has Elias, and the Warden confirms it. Afterward, Helene spies on the Commandant and the Warden. She learns that they share the same master, the Nightbringer. Helene realizes the Commandant is planning to assassinate Marcus and seize the throne for herself. Enraged, Helene returns to her camp where she is met by the Warden. The Warden brings up Helene’s healing ability and mentions the possibility of experiments. Helene tells the Warden that if he gives her Elias to bring to Marcus, she will let him experiment on her, and that she will swear to it. The Warden replies that oaths are not credible. In the middle of this conversation, Helene realizes that she doesn’t need to bring Elias back to Marcus. Instead, she will stop the army that the Commandant is building and prevent Marcus from being killed. This way she will still earn him a victory without having to kill Elias.

    After this, Harper and Helene arrive in Antium. She and Harper meet up with Dex and Faris. Faris reports to Helene that there are at least four thousand men in the army the Commandant is collecting. Helene rides immediately to the palace and demands to see the emperor. She is told that Marcus is in the throne room and explains internally that she's spent days practicing her speech. As she walks into the throne room, she sees Marcus sitting on the throne, sneer replaced by cold wrath as he's listening to a report. Marcus waves off the legionnaire when he sees Helene. Helene warns Marcus of Keris' army and guesses that the Commandant will attack by tonight. Marcus is angry that she did not bring back Elias, and then she sees The Nightbringer and Keris. Keris claims that Helene is absurd and "obsessive," and while she acts calm the Commandant's eyes are raging. Keris tells Helene that Elias is hours away from death, and Helene suddenly realizes that the Commandant poisoned Elias weeks before, livid, realizing she used Nightweed and that once the Blood Shrike was out of the way, Keris would have the opportunity to build her army. However, Marcus already knows of this and believes that Helene failed. He orders her family to be executed. The entire Gens Aquilla is killed except for Helene and Livia; Helene becomes the new Mater Aquilla. Livia becomes betrothed to Marcus and becomes Empress.

Helene is in her office when Cook visits her through the window. Cook tells her gruffly that she is sorry for Helene's loss, but that Helene can call on her anytime she wants to take down the Commandant. Then, Helene opens a letter from Marcus, telling her to assassinate the Commandant, slowly and painfully and to "make her feel it." Helene, knowing this will be a difficult task, calls Harper and gives him the situation. They make an agreement to go find Quin Veturius. This leads Harper to awkwardly tell her about how Elias is his half-brother and that they share the same father. Then, Helene goes to visit her sister Livia, and on the way, receives a message that Elias and others have staged a mass breakout from Kauf Prison and have disappeared into the nearby forest. She wonders how he survived the Nightweed. Helene gives Livia her midwinter gift: an ornate silver mirror. They discuss a variety of topics. Livia says that she will not have Marcus thinking that she is afraid of him. She also thinks Marcus is not insane, despite Helene pointing out that he is acting like he is being haunted by his brother’s ghost. After briefly mentioning Dex, Avitas, and Elias, the sisters briefly argue about loneliness, with Helene shutting her sister out. Helene looks into the mirror she hangs up on the wall and knows that Helene Aquilla has been broken. She silently accepts what has happened to her and who she has become.

### *A Reaper At The Gates*

While wandering the streets of Antium, thinking, Cain appears. Helene is furious with him because she blames him for allowing the death of her family. She calls him a monster and he asks if she is not also a monster. Helene says she doesn't want anything to do with him. Cain asks if she is a "paragon of perfection." And says, "You live and breathe and eat and sleep on the backs of those less fortunate. Your entire existence is due to the oppression of those you view to be lesser. But why you, Blood Shrike? Why did fate see fit to make you the oppressor instead of the oppressed? What is the meaning of your life." He then delivers a message for her from Livia. Before leaving, he tells her that he will see her once more before her end.

Helene launches her move against Keris a month after arriving in Navium, and more than a week after she was almost killed by Keris' assassin. She puts her plan into action when Grimarr begins his land assault on the city. Helene discovers that the Martial fleet didn't sink in Navium. It sailed away. Keris had 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. It would have forced 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. Helene had Dex and his men kill the two dozen drummers and then take their posts, sending out Helene's orders instead of Keris'. On Helene's order, the channel chains drop, letting two dozen ships emerge from the war harbor. Gens Veturia, led by Quin Veturia, controls the ships. Helene has reinstated Quin as Admiral of the Empire's navy. Gens Veturia is supported by Gens Atria. Upon seeing the Martial fleet, Grimarr turned his forces away from Navium in order to defend his fleet against Quin. Helene then cements her victory by shaming the Paters into fighting against Grimarr themselves. After the battle, Grimarr and his remaining ships flee Navium, with Quin chasing them.

Silvio Rallius comes to Helene. He says that Marcus had a fit and was screaming at someone no one could see. He then went to Livia's quarters. Upon arriving there, Helene discovers Marcus has broken Livia's arm. He demands that she heal Livia's arm. Without a thought, she does. He asks if she can heal herself, and she lies and says she can't. Marcus demands Helene heal him, as his brother's ghost is driving him insane. Helene wonders if she can use her power to destroy as well as heal.

Helene and Avitas spread the story about Keris murdering the Illustrian Masks who killed Arius Harper. The classist nobles at court are disgusted that Keris would murder Illustrians from her own year at Blackcliff over a Plebeian.

Helene has Allister, a Plebeian Mask and one of Avitas' friends, watch and follow Corporal Favrus because he lied to Helene. All-star tis murdered by one of Keris' assassins by karka snake venom. Before he dies, he tells her that Corporal Favrus lied and there have been no skirmishes on the border with the Karkauns. They then discover that Favrus is dead as well. Helene sends out scouts to check on the Karkaun clans. That night she learns that the Karkauns have completely abandoned their camps in the west. Their caves are empty, their grazing animals are gone, and their few fields and gardens are fallow. They clearly aren't planning an attack on Tiborum as Helene thought. But she can't figure out where they are gathering and why.

Before the attack on Antium, Helene begs Marcus to let her get Livia and her unborn child to safety. At first Marcus says no, but when Helene says she "thinks it's what he would want," referring to Zak, Marcus changes his mind. He tells her to quietly send her to his family in Silas. Helene sends Livia to Silas with Faris and Silvio.

Artan, the Augur who speaks with Marcus, tells him his future before the Battle of Antium. It is centered on Helene. "The strength of the butcher bird is the strength of the Empire, for she is the torch against the night. Your line will rise or fall with her hammer; your fate will rise or fall with her will."

Upon returning from the Augurs, Helene and Marcus discover that Keris has captured Livia, Faris, and Silvio, and returned to Antium with them.

Helene and Avitas take a small group to go and slow down and disrupt as much as they can of the Karkaun army. They discover they are outnumbered and seventy-five of the five hundred are all that survive. Baristus Aquilla, Helene's cousin, sacrifices himself so Helene can warn Marcus about what's coming to take Antium.

### *A Sky Beyond The Storm*

Upon returning to Delphinium, Helene meets with the Ankanese ambassador.

Helene is crowned Empress of the Martial Empire at the Martial garrison of Estium. There are three thousand Martials and Scholars and another two thousand Tribespeople. Representatives of about five hundred of the Empire's most powerful families as well as the Tribal *Zaldars* witness and support her crowning. She is made Imperator Invictus by Quin. It is Laia who realizes the meaning of Cain's death prophecy. *"It was always three, The Blood Shrike is the first. Laia of Serra, the second. And the Soul Catcher is the last."* Laia realizes that Helene's beginning was Blackcliff, and the words carved on its belltower are: *"From among the battle-hardened youth there shall rise the Foretold, the Greatest Emperor, scourge of our enemies, commander of a host most devastating. And the Empire shall be made whole."* Laia is the second, the scourge. Elias is the last, the commander. And Helene is the first, the Greatest Emperor. Laia tells Helene that if she accepts becoming Empress, she can change things and make them better for everyone. Helene agrees to renegotiate the Tribes' place in the Empire. She outlaws slavery and ends the oppression of the Tribespeople and the Scholars. She announces that she will not marry and will have no children. The Empire will be her family. She names her nephew Zacharias as her heir.

## Powers

Helene has the power to heal. She can heal herself and others by singing. Each person has a different "song" that she uses to heal them. In order to heal a person, Helene must understand them "all the way through to their core." When someone asks her to heal them, she becomes drawn them, needing to help. She describes Elias a feeling "like silver, a bolt of adrenaline beneath a cold, clear dawn." Laia felt like "sorrow and a green-gold sweetness." Cook feels like eels and roiling blackness, the goodness within her is only a memory, the eels have "taken the place of her heart, writhing with mad vengeance." Helene's own song is a combination of rage and love. It is rage for her enemies and love for her people. Helene's power also allows her to recover more quickly than a normal human.

## Skills

As Blood Shrike, Helene developed the ability to understand politics, forge alliances and act as a diplomat, as well as uncovering Empire secrets and general court intrigue.

As a Mask and graduate of Blackcliff Academy, Helene has excellent proficiency in almost every type of weapon, however prefers the war hammer of Gens Aquilla with the Aquilla motto, 'loyal to the end' written on it. She is also highly comfortable with using scims.

Helene is an excellent battlefield commander and general, as evidenced by her reconquest of Antium from the Karkauns, and her reconquest of the empire fron the Karkauns and Keris's army. Her battlefield conquest, as well as her saving the Martials and Scholars, led to her being called *Imperator Invictus* (Supreme Commander) by the people, a great honor.

## Relationships

### Elias Veturius

Elias is Helene's first love and "the worst thing that ever happened to her." They are mutual best friends.

### Laia

Laia and Helene do not like each other upon meeting. They are on opposite sides of their society, and they both have feelings for Elias, which causes friction. Despite this, Helene heals Laia when she is fatally injured, and they become allies and good friends as they travel after Keris takes over the Martial Empire.

### Avitas Harper

Avitas tortured Helene and spied on her for the Commandant. Eventually, he changes his loyalties to Helene. As Avitas continues to be Helene's second-in-command, he grows in importance to her because of his sincerity. Avitas saves her from an assassination and attempt, and Helene heals him after he is wounded in a battle. After the fall of Antium, Avitas saves Helene and Laia, and they travel to Delphinium. Avitas comes to visit Helene in her chambers after she wakes up and the two share a brief but intimate moment. Before things proceed any further, Helene stops him by reminding him of their conditions and positions, after which he leaves.

## Trivia

* Helene is Greek for "shining light" or "bright one."
* Cain's reference to Helene as the "torch against the night" is where the title for A Torch Against The Night comes from
* Helene is "the Greatest Emperor" prophecied to graduate from Blackcliff Academey
* Elias says Helene smells like grass and snow.
* Helene is the "Butcher" in the prophecies. The shrike is a type of bird known for impaling its prey on thorns before it consumes it. People call it the "butcher bird." This is where the name Blood Shrike comes from.
* Rehmat reveals that Helene was a possible warrior and carries Rehmat inside her. This is where her gift of healing comes from.

## Fanart

Helene Aquilla - caihos.readsHelene and LaiaHelene, Elias, and Laia
## References

1. ↑ *A Torch Against The Night*: page 70
2. ↑ *A Reaper At The Gates*: page 70
3. ↑ *A Reaper At The Gates*: page 222
4. ↑ *A Reaper At The Gates*: page 282
5. ↑ *A Reaper At The Gates*: page 300
6. ↑ *A Reaper At The Gates*: page 323
7. ↑ *A Sky Beyond The Storm*: pages 492-493
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 *A Torch Against The Night*: page 288
9. ↑ http://www.babynamewizard.com/baby-name/girl/helene