CHARACTER
Powerlessby Lauren Roberts

Kitt Azer

Kitt Azer

Quick Facts

  • Role: Crown Prince of Ilya; heir apparent; older half-brother to Kai Azer
  • First appearance: At the palace, amid court lessons and sparring sessions that showcase his groomed, diplomatic role
  • Appearance: Dirty blond hair and green eyes, taking after King Edric; visually contrasted with Kai’s dark hair and light eyes
  • Key relationships: Kai Azer; Paedyn Gray; King Edric; Jax Shields
  • Status by the end: Crowned king in the Epilogue

Who They Are

The essence of Kitt Azer is the paradox of a prince built for mercy in a kingdom that rewards brutality. Groomed to smile, listen, and calm a room, he’s the palace’s hope for a softer future—and a young man restless beneath velvet constraints. His story turns on the friction between royal duty and a conscience awakened, placing him squarely within the theme of Duty vs. Morality. Kitt’s contrasts—gentle but proud, dutiful yet questioning—are not weaknesses but the fault lines along which he breaks and is reforged.

Personality & Traits

Kitt’s warmth isn’t an act; it’s his default. Yet that warmth coexists with growing disillusionment as he recognizes how often he’s shielded from the kingdom’s ugliness. He’s the brother who asks, listens, and offers trust—traits that become both his strength and the lever of his undoing.

  • Personable and kind: He treats staff like Gail as people, not servants, and looks out for Jax Shields, revealing a protective instinct that extends beyond politics.
  • Humorous and playful: His sparring-room banter with his brother disarms tension and shows how he leads with connection rather than fear.
  • Duty-bound: He submits to tedious lessons and endless meetings because he believes, pragmatically, that “a dimwitted king is a dead king”—intellect is his armor.
  • Conflicted and restless: He envies Kai’s freedom to fight and see the world beyond the palace; being coddled and sidelined breeds frustration and self-doubt.
  • Perceptive and teachable: With Paedyn, he doesn’t just flirt—he listens. He makes their “deal” to keep looking and keep listening, and he means it, even when what he hears threatens his worldview.

Character Journey

Kitt begins as the palace’s golden son: charming, sheltered, and largely insulated from the suffering he’s meant to govern. Meeting Paedyn cracks that shell. A walk in the gardens becomes an ideological rupture as she challenges the Purging and the treatment of Ordinaries, and Kitt chooses openness over comfort. He escalates that choice when he shows her the secret tunnels and follows her into Loot Alley, a decision that fuses his feelings with his politics. The Final Trial shatters him: the Resistance attack, Paedyn’s role in it, and the murder of King Edric collapse his faith in trust as a strategy. By the epilogue, the gentle prince has hardened into a king who equates mercy with vulnerability. His command to hunt Paedyn is less a policy than a verdict on what grief and betrayal have taught him about rule.

Key Relationships

  • Kai Azer: Kitt and Kai are opposites by design—“king” and “killer,” diplomacy and enforcement—but their bond is easy and fierce. Playful training-room ribbing masks a mutual reliance: Kitt depends on Kai’s protection, while Kai is anchored by Kitt’s humanity. Kitt envies Kai’s freedom as much as Kai respects Kitt’s restraint, and their shared loyalty makes Kitt’s later severity all the more chilling.
  • Paedyn Gray: Kitt is drawn to Paedyn’s refusal to treat him like royalty; her bluntness is the first honest mirror he’s given. He trusts her with the castle’s secrets because he wants a different kind of rulerhood—one grounded in seeing his people. Their romance sits within Forbidden Love and Romance, but its engine is trust; when that trust is broken, love curdles into a mandate for justice—or revenge.
  • King Edric: Kitt’s relationship with his father is affectionate and aspirational. He is the heir who wants to make Edric proud and to earn, not just inherit, the throne. The king’s murder severs Kitt from the boy he was; honoring his father becomes synonymous with ruling hard, even if that means silencing the compassion that once defined him.

Defining Moments

Even before he wears the crown, Kitt makes choices that define what kind of king he could be—and what kind he becomes.

  • The Garden Walk with Paedyn: He listens as she condemns the Purging and the treatment of Ordinaries. Why it matters: Kitt confronts the moral cost of his inheritance and chooses curiosity over defensiveness, planting the seed of reform.
  • Revealing the Secret Tunnels and Visiting Loot Alley: He shows Paedyn a passage out and uses it to see his people up close. Why it matters: It’s a personal leap of faith and a political one; his trust becomes the mechanism of his betrayal.
  • The Final Trial and Aftermath: The Resistance attack, Paedyn’s involvement, and Edric’s murder rupture his identity. Why it matters: Love and idealism give way to a trauma-forged resolve; Kitt equates openness with danger and recalibrates toward control.
  • Ascension in the Epilogue: Seated on the throne, he orders Kai to bring him Paedyn Gray. Why it matters: The line between justice and vengeance blurs, signaling a reign defined by grief’s iron logic rather than the empathy that once guided him.

Essential Quotes

“I know our duties are different. They always will be. I just wish mine weren’t so damn boring.” This complaint isn’t trivial—it reveals his envy of Kai’s agency and the hollowness he feels in ceremonial duty. The line frames his arc: boredom curdles into longing, then into a ruthless clarity about power’s costs.

“We made a deal, remember? You keep looking at me, and I’ll keep listening to you.” Kitt ties intimacy to moral education; love becomes the condition under which he opens his mind. It’s a manifesto for how he wants to rule—by seeing and listening—made tragic by the way that very openness is weaponized against him.

“I haven’t known her for long, and yet, I find myself wanting to know her for longer.” Infatuation bends toward commitment in this line, revealing how quickly trust and tenderness take root for Kitt. It explains the scale of his devastation: the speed of his attachment magnifies the depth of his betrayal.

“Bring me Paedyn Gray, Enforcer.” Clipped and impersonal, the command reduces love to a target and Kai to a tool. It marks the end of the listening prince and the birth of a king who believes security requires hardness—perhaps even at the cost of himself.