Thorne is a Kavari warrior, and his history gives the whole question of courage a much more personal side. He comes from a people who place enormous importance on their pride an…

Thorne is a Kavari warrior, and his history gives the whole question of courage a much more personal side. He comes from a people who place enormous importance on their pride and their obligations to one another. When the Skarabs threaten his village, he gets his wife and son away to safety. He survives with his family, but carries shame over the people he left behind. That is part of why he joins the effort to recover the Veridian Scepter. He wants to regain his honor. It also explains why he can be so hard on another character for showing fear. He has his own fear and guilt sitting underneath the way he presents himself. There is a difficult question in his story: what should he have done? His family needed him, and his people needed him. Saving his wife and son is something another person can understand, even while Thorne sees it as a failure to live up to what his tribe expected of him. Bartleby's response to his confession makes that contrast clear. Thorne is judging himself by a standard he has carried his whole life. Someone outside that upbringing can look at the same decision and see a man trying to protect his family. That gives the fighting a different weight. Thorne is capable of facing an enemy, but proving that to himself takes more than winning a fight. His idea of redemption keeps pushing him back toward danger.