Aurelio

Aurelio is a Gold semidiós — one of the highest-status demigods in Aiden Thomas's Sunbearer Duology — and Teo's complicated history made flesh. Powerful, stoic, and possessed of the kind of natural authority that comes from being exactly who his world expects him to be, Aurelio represents everything Teo is not supposed to compete with or against. When the Sunbearer Trials throw them together in the monster-infested wilderness, their history must be reckoned with.

Aurelio's character develops significantly across the duology as circumstances force him to be something other than the ideal Gold semidiós his status requires. Thomas writes him with the same care for complexity that defines Teo's characterization — Aurelio is not simply the powerful rival but a person whose certainties about himself and his world are challenged by what the Trials reveal. His relationship with Teo is the duology's central emotional core and one of its greatest pleasures.