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Seraphina Dombegh is an ityasaari sixteen-year-old girl living in Goredd. She is a talented musician, the assistant to the Goredd court musician, Viridius, and music tutor to Princess Glisselda.
Background
Seraphina is an ityasaari, a hybrid of human and dragon; her mother, Linn, was a dragon who married the human Claude Dombegh without telling him her secret. Linn later died in childbirth, managing to leave Seraphina a mental box of maternal memories before passing on. Interestingly, Seraphina can recall her time spent in her mother's womb, as well as her birth. Claude initially kept Seraphina's origins a complete secret from Seraphina, instead forging documents naming the fictitious Amaline Ducanahan as his wife and Seraphina's mother.
At the ritual blessing of every infant, Seraphina's patron saint is revealed to be the heretic saint, St. Yirtrudis, but the priest decides to assign her to St. Capiti instead.
In spite of Claude's objections, when Seraphina was eight years old the family friend Orma hired Zeyd, a dragon, to be Seraphina's tutor. Zeyd was Seraphina's favorite tutor, but at the behest of the Censors, holds Seraphina over the edge of St. Gobnait's bell tower, allegedly in a physics lesson in gravity.
In actuality, Zeyd was endangering Seraphina's life at the behest of the Censors to test Orma's emotional reaction: Orma himself was a dragon and Seraphina's uncle, though Seraphina was unaware of it at the time. Orma casually convinced Zeyd to spare Seraphina departed with Zeyd, leaving Seraphina sobbing at the summit of the cathedral. When Seraphina crawled down the stairs and went home, she found Orma waiting for her and ready to scold her for trusting a dragon.
At age eleven, Seraphina discovered the true nature of her origins. She found her mother's old flute and began to teach herself, but her father, who had forbidden her to learn music, caught her on Treaty Eve and broke the flute.
The next morning, feeling reckless, Seraphina snuck out of her room. She joined a crowd, standing beside an old knight and his squire. To celebrate the treaty, there was a procession of dragons in their natural forms; however, one of the dragons spooked and moved out of line, sparking panic and a riot.
Seraphina got caught underfoot, trampled, but a dragon moved to protect her, scaring off the humans with his presence. Seraphina thanks the dragon and realizes that she can instinctively understand Mootya. When the dragon spoke her name, Seraphina looked into his eyes and suddenly knew him to be Orma; seeing Orma in his true form unlocked the maternal memories Linn left her, and Seraphina passed out. She experienced the memory of her birth, from Linn's point of view, revealing Seraphina's species and her relationship to Orma.
When Seraphina awoke, the knight and squire were protecting her from the crowd. They took her home, where she was put to bed. Seraphina had her first manifestation of her latent ityasaari abilities: visions of the grotesques. For the next week she was bombarded with uncontrollable visions and her left forearm and back developed silver scales.
When she had mostly recovered, Seraphina held a conversation with her father and Orma about what to do with her. Seraphina acknowledged the need for total secrecy and near-isolation—if she were to be found out, then she would undoubtedly be killed, if not by the Queen's execution than by maddened rioters. Claude agreed to allow Orma to become Seraphina's teacher, in all matters—including the music previously forbidden to her. Seraphina later claims that in teaching her music, Orma saved her life.
Orma taught Seraphina a form of mental architecture, forming a garden in her mind in which to keep the grotesques. He also taught her everything she needs to know about dragons, ranging from their history to philosophy to higher mathematics.
Seraphina
While her kingdom seems peaceful, especially with its dragon neighbors, there is a strange aspect to this utopia: dragons are able to shrink themselves into human form, and walk among the rest of the Goreddi. Seraphina harbors a deep secret about her mother's identity, and as a result, has desired to stay out of the public eye and remain unnoticed. But this is difficult when her astounding musical abilities have garnered the attention of the royal court. To make matters worse, when a prince is murdered, seemingly by a dragon, she has more reason than ever to stay unnoticed and avoid the menacing glares of Lucian Kiggs.
Relationships
Lucian Kiggs
In Seraphina (book), she starts out by being annoyed with Kiggs, but the end of the book it is clear that there is a romantic attachment between the two of them. Despite the fact that she loves him, she also becomes friends with his betrothed, Princess Glisselda.
Memorable Quotations
"What is it like to be a bastard?"
—Seraphina, to Lucian Kiggs[[Seraphina, Chapter 11|src]]