Ferhant
| Title | Sacred Guard to Millennium Loftwind |
|---|---|
| Affiliation | Sacred Guard |
| Home | Galecrest |
| Status | Last seen defending Galecrest |
| First appearance | Sacred: Eslura's Calling |
Ferhant is the Sacred Guard assigned to Millennium Loftwind, Sacred Ruler of the Book of Air, and the figure at her shoulder in the floating city of Galecrest. The narration calls him her loyal Sacred Guard, and once, in a hallway, her steward.[1] He brings her the news that Galecrest's dragons are dying, which is the first sign anyone in Eslura has that something has happened to the Book of Fire.[1] He has served her since her choosing ceremony and she has never seen his face.[1]
Appearance
Ferhant wears a dragon-horned mask that covers his face and long grey robes that drape his figure, and the only part of him anyone sees is his eyes through the slits.[1] The mask stays on. Millennium has known him since her choosing ceremony and has yet to see what he actually looks like.[1] His default posture is standing in a doorway with his hands clasped behind his back, and he bows on arriving, on leaving, on being thanked and on apologising.[1]
The mask is not a personal affectation. Guards go masked and cloaked everywhere in Eslura, and the pattern varies by posting: another Galecrest Guard, Daglow, wears white and a dragon-shaped mask of his own.[2]
Personality
Ferhant is formal to the point of obstruction, and Millennium tells him so. Given the news that the dragons have fallen into "a…a predicament", she asks him to spare her the trouble of deciphering his true meaning, and gets the plain answer: they are dying.[1]
He treats being where she is as a duty rather than a choice. Startled to find him at the dragons' nests, out of breath and leaning his hands on his knees, she says she had not known he had followed her; he apologises and answers that he assumed she would know, since it is his duty to do just so.[1] He had also arranged supervision for the children she left behind in the middle of a story, without being asked.[1]
His judgement carries weight with her. Told that the dragons have lost their flame and are cold as stone, his first response is that it cannot be, and his second, on being asked whether the Book of Fire is behind it, is that there can be no other explanation.[1] In the second novel it is Ferhant who says out loud that the grounding of the border riders' dragons must be connected to the Book of Fire, and Millennium's reply is that she believes he is right.[2]
Duties
Ferhant announces visitors, shows them in and shows them out.[1] He lays out the cushions in a circle for the children who come up to the castle each new moon for a recounting of Eslura's ancient tales, and hands Millennium the large moss-coloured tome she reads to them from.[1] He interrupts her when there is cause, and asks her to close the door before he says why.[1] He keeps track of whether word has come by gully from the Sacred Guard in Zybersia, and he is left on watch over the dragons with orders to send for her if things worsen.[1] By the second novel he commands the rest of the Galecrest Guard at her word.[2]
Story
Sacred: Eslura's Calling
Ferhant showed the children into Millennium's room for their story, set out six cushions for them and handed her the tome. He came back with his eyes wide through the mask slits before she had finished the first sentence, asked to speak urgently, and told her in the hallway that the dragons were dying.[1]
Millennium ran for the nests in the lower quarter of the city and Ferhant followed her without being told to, arriving out of breath. He knelt and touched a green dragon with one finger, found it cold, and said it could not be.[1] He confirmed that no gullys had come from the Guard in Zybersia, agreed that something must have cut the dragons off from the Book's energy, and said he feared for the worst.[1] She left him in the cave's mouth to keep watch, and stepped off the edge of the city.[1]
Sacred 2: Flames of the Awakened
Ferhant stood beside Millennium in the great hall of her castle when the captain of the dragon riders came in from the border with the news that the riders' dragons had lost their fire.[2] He raised the connection to the Book of Fire, and Millennium agreed.[2] When Prylis added that an enemy force was flying in on dragons of its own and would reach the eastern outskirts at any moment, Millennium told Ferhant to gather the rest of the Guard and take them to the easternmost part of the city. He gave a curt nod and bolted out of the room.[2]
That is his last appearance. Alpin Loomin, on the ground below the city afterwards, refers to Millennium and her Guard keeping the enemy busy, but neither book says what became of Ferhant or of Galecrest.[3]
Relationships
Millennium Loftwind trusts her Guard implicitly, and the narration in her point of view calls him her loyal Sacred Guard. She is the only person he is shown speaking to, and the whole of what is known about him comes from two chapters spent at her side.[1][2]
Behind the scenes
The pronunciation guide at the back of both novels gives the name as Fair-hant.[4][5]
The books record no species, no age, no home before Galecrest and no name beyond the one, and Millennium's own castle is never named either. The narration calls him "the steward" exactly once, in the hallway outside the children's story, and never again.[1]