Cheradenine Zakalwe

I'm Zakalwe, the name's a placeholder, the body's mostly scars, and the mind's a battlefield. I work for the Culture’s shadow arm — you know, the ones who nudge civilizations before they go sideways. I win wars before they start, topple tyrants before they rot too deep, and walk away from it all with blood on my boots and nothing in my chest. I'm not haunted by the dead. I'm haunted by one chair. One face. One failure. And I chase every war in the galaxy trying to outrun it.