Melles

Full name	Melles
Class	Noble, Mage
Nationality	Eastern Empire
First appearance	Storm Warning

Melles was a court Baron in the Eastern Empire, meaning he had the title. but not the lands that traditionally accompanied it. The son of merchants and an Adept-class mage, Melles had spent years using his abilities to accumulate wealth, making him one of the richest nobles in the empire. He was also the most feared, as he was the Emperor's personal assassin.

The most ruthless of the many candidates to succeed Emperor Charliss, Melles was a personal enemy of Tremane, his main rival to inherit. Once Tremane was committed to Hardorn, Charliss denounced him, gave his lands and title to Melles, and officially named Melles his Heir.

No one else remembered, but Melles was once a cadet in the Imperial Army. Though the exact nature of his crimes is never revealed, Tremane learned of what he had done and reported him to their superiors. Melles was drummed out with military ceremony, to his extreme humiliation. This was the source of his hatred of Tremane.

Charliss, deteriorating due to the Mage Storms, ordered Melles to assassinate Tremane. With his usual cold calculation, Melles chose instead to let his hatred go, and focus on consolidating his power and bringing the Empire back under control.

Melles is described as "a slightly better-looking version of Tremane in some ways; thinner and not as muscular, with none of the physical attributes of a fighter. He was not balding; his hair was darker, and he was two or three years Tremane's junior. Otherwise, though, they could have been cut from the same cloth and sewn by the same tailor. Both of them had cultivated the art of being ignored and overlooked, though Charliss suspected that their motives for this differed greatly." [Storm Breaking, Chapter Three]

In the series

Melles appears in the following works:

• Storm Warning, Mage Storms series, volume 1
• Storm Breaking, Mage Storms series, volume 3

Melles is mentioned in the following work:

• "Heart's Place," by Sarah A. Hoyt in Under the Vale and Other Tales of Valdemar, Anthologies, volume 7