Trey
Trey (originally known as Tarathiel Riverbow) is one of the central protagonists of The Metalwood Saga. Introduced as a quiet, unassuming bookseller in the floating city of Newfris, Trey’s life is violently upended when he falls to the ruined Earth below. He soon discovers that his entire human life was a fabricated lie: he is actually an ancient, full-blooded elf and a wildly powerful Prime Mage whose original research set the entire saga into motion twenty thousand years ago.
Appearance and Personality
For most of the series, Trey believes himself to be human. He is a handsome, tall man with dark, slightly long hair and deep blue eyes. Unbeknownst to him, his pointed elven ears were surgically rounded to hide his true heritage. After returning to Valaralda, he often wears gray shirts and functional desert gear, eventually donning a white tuxedo in the series finale after his soul is fully restored.
Trey's personality is defined by a warm, gentle nature tinged with deep hesitancy. He is highly intelligent and loves fantasy books (such as The Lord of the Rings), often wishing his life could be an adventure. However, he is remarkably passive, frequently struggling to make decisions or stand up for himself. He harbors a deep aversion to violence; witnessing or participating in cruelty triggers blinding, agonizing headaches. This extreme pacifism and lack of resolve are later revealed to be the result of a Soulsplinter: Trey is literally only half a person, having severed all of his aggressive, dominant, and destructive traits millennia ago.
Biography
Tarathiel and the Ancient Era
Twenty thousand years before the main events of the series, Trey was known as Tarathiel, a brilliant and driven archaeologist working for the Anthropological Society in Ilyrion on the planet Valaralda. During an expedition to the Tomb of Akhenaten in the Thesserin Desert, Tarathiel uncovered ancient hieroglyphics warning of The Fall (Guruthos)—a cosmic weapon of death that returned every hundred thousand years to wipe out civilizations.
Tarathiel dedicated his life to stopping The Fall. He discovered the existence of a Defense Mechanism (Thangail Band) and orchestrated the controversial Sending Act, a desperate plan to gate teams of elves to seven different planets to activate the mechanism.
Despite his academic success and his marriage to the beautiful Alleria, Tarathiel was a deeply flawed, temperamental, and angry man. Desperate to purge himself of his dark instincts and be a better husband, he attempted an unstable, mythical Mistweaving technique. He accidentally performed a permanent Soulsplinter, splitting his soul into two distinct beings. The gentle, scholarly half became Trey, while his ruthless, ambitious, and violent half became Quynn.
A Fabricated Life in Newfris
Thousands of years later, Quynn tracked down Trey's amnesiac splinter on Earth. Hoping to force Trey's latent Prime Mage powers to awaken, Quynn subjected him to centuries of psychological torture. Quynn masqueraded as Trey's abusive father, "Simon," constantly resetting Trey’s memories with Mindmaster magic whenever an experiment failed.
At the start of the series, Trey is living a quiet, miserable life managing Walker Books. He is married to a human woman named Lora—who is secretly the Cothellon leader Lorelei, conspiring with Quynn. When Lora is supposedly "Selected" for Civil Service, a desperate Trey attends a Shock Crew rebellion meeting. During the ensuing chaos, the floor of the Under collapses, and Trey plummets three thousand feet toward the Earth alongside his best friend, Callan, and the young underkid Rylan.
The Surface War and Awakening
Trey survives the fall thanks to Rylan’s latent magic. On the surface, he meets the elven archer Arra (his ancient wife, Alleria, though neither remembers their past). When Callan is fatally shot, Trey acts on pure instinct and heals him, unwittingly revealing himself as a soulsoother and a lightprime mage.
Trey is quickly drawn into the war between the traditional Eldrim and the marauding human Remnant. Guided by his burgeoning powers, he claims the legendary Tree Ring Staff and the Book of Amplification. During the defense of Sylrantheas, Trey channels massive storms and heals the wounded, cementing his status as a legendary Prime Mage. However, his world shatters when Quynn arrives, murders Callan, and reveals that Trey's entire life was a lie.
Mind Control and the Planetary Gate
While still on Earth, Quynn uses his mindmaster magic to corrupt Trey, turning him against Arra. In a devastating, magic-fueled aerial battle through a massive storm, a mind-controlled Trey nearly murders Arra, throwing her off a cliff before finally breaking Quynn's hold over his mind at the last second. In the aftermath of the battle, Trey realizes that Lorelei was right the whole time—the great device she had been building, Fennas Elenathon, must be allowed to work. Stepping up to help the machine function, Trey utilizes his powers to gate the entire planet of Earth into the Persephone system.
Return to Valaralda
Now in the same solar system as his ancient homeworld, Trey returns to Valaralda and tries to pick up the fragments of his lost memories. He attempts to reclaim his old job at the Anthropological Society to continue his research on stopping The Fall, but is mocked and turned away, as modern elves view "Tarathiel's" Sending as a historical folly. Undeterred, and aided by a fanatical historian named Lashel and the mercenary Shorn, Trey embarks on a dangerous expedition to the Tomb of Akhenaten in the Thesserin Desert. Surviving a brutal gauntlet of ancient tests and deadly traps, Trey successfully retrieves Edrafen (The Key) and a mysterious Soulmirror.
The Final War and Reintegration
Trey's journey culminates in a brutal confrontation with the godlike ancient elf Cariel (Magona). Cariel captures Trey and places a horrific Soulbind on him, forcing him to use Edrafen to unlock Ambarhal. This catastrophic mistake releases The Twins (Nelenor and Velion), unleashing two wrathful gods upon the universe.
Freed from Cariel's control, Trey joins forces with Arra, Lorelei, Elanil, and Rylan to stop the apocalypse. During the final battles against the Cothellon, the Twins, and the rogue system Xyclami, Trey finally learns the truth: Quynn is his missing half, which explains why Trey can only access three of the six core Ways.
In the series finale, Trey and Quynn are forced to work together to seize control of Xyclami. To truly defeat the machine and restore balance to his mind, Trey accepts that he cannot run from his darker instincts. He willingly merges with Quynn, reintegrating their souls to become the complete, fully-realized Tarathiel once more. With his memories and confidence restored, he chooses to leave his scholarly obsessions behind, dedicating his renewed life to Arra.
Powers and Abilities
As a splintered half of a Prime Mage, Trey is uniquely powerful but fundamentally limited. His soul only has access to the "light" or passive traits of the Seven Aspects.
- Lightprime Mastery: Trey is highly attuned to the Protector (Soulsoothing/healing), Scholar (Stormwarding), and Creator (Leafrunning) Ways. He can summon massive thunderstorms, heal fatal wounds in seconds, and fly vast distances.
- The Primal Way: Because the Seventh Aspect sits at the center of the soul, Trey retains access to Gatesending, allowing him to tear dimensional rifts across the galaxy.
- The Block: Due to his splintered nature and passive personality, Trey's raw mental Will is incredibly weak. To perform large-scale magic, he relies heavily on artifacts like the Tree Ring Staff (which provides infinite primewood) and the Book of Amplification (which multiplies his power output).
- The Shocksword: For a time, Trey wields a custom-built sword forged by the artificer Ramul. The blade contains a permanent core of darkprime elm, allowing Trey to channel lethal Shockstriking lightning through the metal without needing to carry loose wood chips.
Key Relationships
- Arra (Alleria): The love of Trey's life. Though he originally failed her as the work-obsessed Tarathiel, Trey's gentle nature allows him to slowly win her heart again thousands of years later. His devotion to her is the only thing strong enough to break Quynn's mind-control.
- Quynn (Simon): Trey's darker half. Quynn represents all of Trey’s ambition, violence, and lust. Their relationship is defined by intense mutual hatred, though they ultimately realize they cannot survive without each other.
- Lorelei (Lora): Trey's fake wife on Earth. Lorelei manipulated Trey for years, though their complicated history traces back millennia. Trey struggles with lingering feelings of lust for her, which strains his relationship with Arra.
- Callan: Trey's best friend in Newfris. Callan's eventual betrayal to save his sister, Deirdre, devastates Trey, and Callan's subsequent murder at Quynn's hands serves as the catalyst that unlocks Trey's memories.
- Rylan: Rylan is the biological son of Quynn and Phoenix. However, because Quynn and Trey share the same soul, Trey is technically Rylan's father. Trey feels a deep, protective kinship with the boy.