Character from Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn by Tad Williams
The High King who sold the world to get his wife back — a warrior-prince broken by grief, manipulated by a sorcerer, and bound to a dead Sithi prince's sword that is slowly hollowing him out from the inside.
Elias was once the golden son — boisterous, fierce, a born warrior who laughed loud and fought harder. His men loved him. His father trusted him. He was everything a king's heir should be, and he knew it. Then Hylissa died. His wife, his anchor, the one person who made the crown feel bearable — gone from an arrow wound that shouldn't have been fatal. The grief didn't make Elias sad. It made him desperate. Desperate enough to listen to Pryrates. Desperate enough to take up a Sithi sword that whispered promises. Desperate enough to bargain with the Storm King for the one thing no king can command: the reversal of death. His tragedy is that he's not evil — he's lost. Somewhere beneath the paranoia, the cruelty, and Sorrow's corruption, there's a grieving husband who would burn the world down for one more day with his wife. He treats his brother as a threat, his daughter as a reminder of what he's lost, and his kingdom as a resource to be spent. By the end, he barely remembers why he started.
Large and powerfully built with black hair, green eyes, and the same hawklike nose as his brother Josua. Wears black and green. As the trilogy progresses, his physical deterioration becomes unmistakable — gaunt where he was robust, shadows pooling beneath his eyes, a feverish pallor replacing his soldier's complexion. The sword Sorrow seems to drain him visibly.
Also known as: High King Elias, King Elias