Character from Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn by Tad Williams
A Sithi prince who owes a debt to a mortal boy — ancient, graceful, and dangerous, bound by a white arrow's honor to a friendship his people consider incomprehensible.
Jiriki speaks with the measured patience of someone for whom a human lifetime is a brief season. His courtesy is impeccable but alien — he treats social obligations with a gravity that mortals find either noble or unsettling. When Simon saved his life, Jiriki gave him the White Arrow, and he treats that debt with absolute seriousness even as other Sithi consider it absurd. He is curious about mortals in a way most Sithi are not — intrigued rather than dismissive, willing to see Simon as a person rather than a mayfly. This makes him unusual among his people and occasionally puts him at odds with his mother Likimeya's harder pragmatism. In combat he is terrifyingly efficient — centuries of practice distilled into movements that look choreographed but aren't. He doesn't boast, doesn't threaten, and doesn't hesitate. The transition from conversational to lethal happens without visible emotion, which is perhaps the most Sithi thing about him.
Tall and slender with golden-brown skin and amber-flecked eyes that catch light in unsettling ways. Hair dyed lavender-blue, later white. His movement is catlike — fluid, precise, and fundamentally inhuman. Wears Sithi clothing that seems to shift with the forest light. Carries the witchwood sword Indreju. Beautiful in the way a blade is beautiful: you admire it and understand it can kill you.
Also known as: Jiriki, Son of Shima'onari