Character
Aurelius Alidel
The merchant who bought his son a place
A wealthy merchant, father of Aldor, and husband of Louise. He travels with bodyguards and dark capes, gets down from the carriage and goes straight to work, and laughs a franc, ringing laugh that shakes the shop he is standing in. In a room of refined clothes and calculating looks he moves like a fish in water, picking out the one person he came for.
He is proud of his son in the plainest way available to him — better than mine was at his age — and he needles him about the food at the Loubreton stud farm and the daughters who might be there, until Louise slaps his arm. On the one thing that mattered he refused to push: I don't want to force a choice on Aldor.
The place at the Academy was bought. Lucius Stoneheart sold him the recommendation that let Aldor sit the aptitude test, took gold and rare dwarven cigars for it, and then made him choose between protection for his family and a chance for his son. Aurelius chose the chance.
The Alidel are not one of the great magical families, and nothing in that transaction let him pretend otherwise. His son became king of Cerberus anyway.