Alerion Solastis

Alerion Solastis is cruelty wrapped in silk: racist, narcissistic, and convinced the world is a mirror made to admire him. He does not merely believe in hierarchy: he worships it, and punishes anyone who refuses to kneel.

Appearance

Alerion is an elf with pale, luminescent skin, broad and powerful shoulders, and dark, intricate tattoos across his shoulders and chest. He has long, wavy blond hair and wears radiant golden armour set with luminarite, bearing the Solastis crest. He trains with a pair of longswords.

In The Outcast Knight

Alerion Solastis, called Ali by his brother, is the younger son of King Aurelion, last year's tournament champion and one of the book's principal antagonists. He is a fierce believer in elven purity, vain to the point of self-worship and cruel for pleasure. In the previous tournament he killed Oakren Strom, taunting him as he died.

He smiled as Tragus Halmund was hanged, then went white with rage when his father named Haelara's unborn half-human child heir above him. Railing against the human queen in the training yard, he urged Astarion to act before their bloodline ended. The King then made him captain of the guard, and he used the post at once: he turned Mary Halmund away from the citadel gates, then dragged Haelara and her mother into the courtyard to watch ten half-bloods beheaded, a child among them. At a noble protest he had a boy's face smashed into the marble as an example. Catching Astarion alone with Haelara, he sneered at them both and warned his brother, while privately casting himself as the saviour who would cleanse Luna after the tournament.

On the morning of the tournament he admired himself in his mirror while two palace attendants served him sexually, a scene that shows his contempt for others. In the high bracket he took Sir Eadric of Grimsward apart with deliberate cruelty, ending with a gut wound meant to make him suffer.

In the final he faced Fi. He mocked her and her Old Speak vow, but she drew his blood for the first time in battle, and when his lunge for her heart failed she held Velorith at his throat and ordered him to yield. Unable to bear yielding to a human, he drew a concealed dagger and stabbed her in the side, a cowardice that made even his supporters look away. Fi drove Velorith through his breastplate and killed him, his blood soaking the same sand that had drunk Oakren's.

His death brought no mourning. His attendants muttered "good riddance" as they packed his rooms, and the city met the news with relief. His body was burned on raw luminarite with only Astarion of the family present. He had wanted to be remembered as a legend; the book notes that he was already becoming a warning.

Family

After the books

Dies before the end of the books. Reported dead; body cremated by luminarite rite. He dies by Fi’s hand before the city, ended in public, without mercy. She shouts his death-rite in the taboo language the elves exiled along with people like her, turning his execution into an indictment the whole realm is forced to hear.