In a ravaged future where the United Commonwealth chooses its leaders through a deadly gauntlet known as The Testing, candidates must balance intellect, conscience, and sheer will to survive. This cast is defined by shifting alliances, moral gray zones, and the tension between public duty and private loyalty. At the center stands a gifted young engineer from the Five Lakes Colony whose resilience—and doubts—shape every relationship around her.
Main Characters
Malencia "Cia" Vale
Malencia "Cia" Vale is the story’s protagonist and narrator, a brilliant, mechanically minded sixteen-year-old whose empathy is as defining as her ingenuity. Guided by her father’s warning to “trust no one,” she enters The Testing with idealism that is stripped away piece by piece, forcing a ruthless clarity about what survival requires. Her journey becomes a painful Coming of Age and Loss of Innocence as she repairs, improvises, and strategizes her way through traps designed as much to break minds as bodies. She is bonded to Tomas through friendship turned romance, yet that bond frays under suspicion and secrets; she is studied by Dr. Barnes, whose interest is both admiring and predatory; and she draws cautious aid from figures like Michal and the gray-haired rebel, who hint that the system can be resisted. By the end, Cia passes The Testing but carries trauma, recorded truths, and a growing resolve to challenge the very institution that validated her.
Tomas Endress
Tomas Endress begins as Cia’s most trusted ally—calm, competent, and unfailingly protective—whose leadership and practical skills make him indispensable. He adapts quickly to The Testing’s brutality, embracing a pragmatic streak that keeps them alive but raises hard questions about what lines he’s willing to cross. His devotion to Cia is real, yet the mystery surrounding Zandri’s fate and his secrecy fracture their trust and complicate his heroism. Wounded and hardened, Tomas embodies The Price of Success: a candidate who may have compromised more than he admits to survive, leaving the reader to weigh his love against his choices.
Dr. Jedidiah Barnes
Dr. Jedidiah Barnes is the unblinking face of The Testing—courteous in public, merciless in design—who treats human casualties as data points on the path to national strength. He manipulates perception with paternal warmth while enforcing rules that reward calculation over compassion, maintaining absolute control inside the Testing Center. His fixation on Cia is clinical rather than personal: he recognizes her resourcefulness even as he positions her inside an inescapable machine. A largely static figure, Barnes personifies Deception and Manipulation by Authority, serving as the novel’s chilling reminder that institutional cruelty can wear a smile.
Supporting Characters
Cia's Father
Cia’s Father anchors the story’s moral tension: a loving, traumatized survivor of a previous Testing whose fractured memories expose the lie behind the University’s shining promise. His parting warning shapes Cia’s every decision, urging vigilance in a world that punishes trust. Though he appears briefly, his influence reverberates throughout the narrative as both protection and burden.
Will
Will presents as charismatic and sympathetic—especially in the shadow of his twin Gill’s failure—before revealing the ruthless opportunist beneath. He ingratiates himself with Cia and Tomas, then turns predator, justifying lethal choices as necessary for leadership. His betrayal epitomizes Trust and Betrayal, proving how easily charm conceals a killer’s calculus.
Zandri Hicks
Zandri Hicks is an artistic, headstrong candidate from Five Lakes whose bold self-assurance both complements and clashes with Cia’s steadier pragmatism. Torn between reluctance to participate and the allure of opportunity, she becomes a catalyst when her disappearance—and the discovery of her bracelet in Tomas’s possession—shatters Cia’s certainty. Zandri’s unresolved fate haunts the story, sharpening its questions about trust, survival, and complicity.
Michal Gallen
Michal Gallen is the seemingly routine Tosu City official whose small, calculated kindnesses suggest a covert allegiance to resistance. He recognizes Cia’s caution, shares quiet warnings, and later delivers a key gift that preserves her memory of the truth. Michal’s presence hints at dissent within the system and offers a measured hope that reform—or rebellion—might be possible from the inside.
Roman Fry
Roman Fry is an aggressive, cunning competitor who weaponizes brute force and sabotage to thin the field. From tripping Malachi to betraying teammates during the group test, he thrives on fear and treachery. His final assault on Cia and Tomas—and his own death—encapsulate The Testing’s predator-prey ethos.
Minor Characters
- Malachi Rourke: A gentle, shy Five Lakes candidate whose fatal mistake during the second test sears into Cia the deadly stakes of a single wrong answer.
- Ryme Reynald: Cia’s first roommate, outwardly arrogant but crushed by pressure; her suicide after the written exams exposes the Testing’s psychological toll.
- Zeen: Cia’s brilliant older brother who was never selected; his modified Transit Communicator becomes Cia’s lifeline to recording and later recovering the truth.
- Brick: A strong Roswell candidate whom Cia rescues from Roman’s trap; his later slaughter of mutated humans, meant as protection, shows how the Testing warps moral judgment.
- The Gray-Haired Man: A mysterious outsider who feeds Cia and gives her a truth-serum antidote, signaling an organized resistance beyond the Commonwealth’s control.
Character Relationships & Dynamics
Cia and Tomas form the novel’s emotional axis: childhood familiarity ripens into partnership as they pool knowledge, guard each other’s backs, and try to preserve a shared conscience in a system that punishes it. Yet their bond strains under secrecy—especially the unanswered questions around Zandri—transforming affection into a test of faith neither can fully pass. Will’s duplicity further corrodes trust, forcing Cia to accept that survival may depend not on who you like but on who you can verify.
The Five Lakes cohort—Cia, Tomas, Zandri, and Malachi—arrive as a loose hometown alliance, but proximity can’t withstand the Testing’s engineered scarcity and fear; grief, suspicion, and conflicting choices dissolve any illusion of unity. Against them stands the institutional power embodied by Dr. Barnes, whose velvet-gloved brutality pits candidates against each other to reveal both capability and moral pliability. Within that apparatus, Michal represents a quiet countermovement: his subtle aid suggests fractures inside the regime, while the gray-haired man signals a broader resistance beyond its walls.
Power dynamics repeatedly split the cast into shifting factions. Predators like Roman embrace open violence; opportunists like Will weaponize charm; principled survivors like Cia try to act without losing themselves; and walking casualties like Malachi and Ryme expose the system’s callous calculus. Across these lines, alliances are temporary, information is currency, and every relationship doubles as a wager on who each person becomes when the rules demand cruelty.