Aganir Ash



Nir or Aganir Ash, the elf King named Alone, is a fictional character from the fantasy novel series The Hollow Kingdom. He plays a leading role in the third book of the triology, In the Coils of the Snake. He is Miranda Richardson's love interest and Marak Catspaw's rival. By the end of the book he is revealed to be the first elf king since the death of the last on hundreds of years previous.

Character backstory
Ash, who goes by the title Nir or elf lord, is the son of an elf man and a human woman. His father, Ash, was the last in his band of elves when he met and fell in love with Nir's mother. After kidnapping and marrying her, they concieved Nir. His mother was always sad because she missed her family. She also had problems adjusting to the night time world and missed the daylight. After the death of his father, Nir released his mother and she returned to the human world. Nir then went in search of elves.

Since Nir does not know he is the elf king, his magic tells him what to do and he obeys, because he knows his magic is always right. His magic instinctively knows where each surviving elf is and leads him to them. Over the years of searching, Nir reestablishes elf culture and customs. The first elves he meets are Kara and Hunter, who are siblings. Nir falls in love with Kara and marries her. They don't have any children together, even though they're married for years. He takes her on his trips to find elves, but when he goes on one mission, his magic tells him to leave Kara behind. She believes his magic is trying to get rid of her, but he doesn't believe that. When he returns from his trip, he finds out that she was right and his magic killed her. Nir later takes on a new fiance, Arianna. She is more beautiful than Kara, but he doesn't love her. They remain engaged for years, because she is too young to marry. Nir's magic plans to get rid of her as well.

Once all of the elves are gathered together, Nir's magic tells him to go to the ancient truce circle for goblins and elves, and meet with the goblin king to organize a treaty between their people. In exchange for a treaty and the use of the elvish spell books the goblins possess, he is to offer the goblin king an elf bride. Nir knows Arianna will be chosen, but obeys his magic anyway. Right away, Nir and the goblin king, Marak Catspaw dislike each other and are suspicious of each other's intentions. Catspaw is also angry that Nir has offered him a bride, because he already has a fiance he is in love with, the human Miranda Richardson. For the good of his people, Catspaw agrees to the treaty and the exchange, marrying Arianna. He allows a devastated Miranda Richardson to leave his kingdom for a day under guard, intending to bring her back and marry her to another goblin.

While she is in the forrest outside of the goblin kingdom, Nir runs into her in the truce circle. His magic tells him to take Miranda back to the elf camp, marry her, and have a son with her. Nir hates the thought of this because he remembers how unhappy his human mother was when his father married her. He obeys his magic anyway and brings a struggling Miranda back to camp, where he puts the Seven Stars spell on her. Unbeknownst to her, the spell is used for elf king marriages and she is now engaged to him. Initially, Miranda is hostile toward Nir, but the two bond over the hardships they suffered and the similarities in their personalities. Miranda falls in love with him and resists attempts made by Sable, an elf woman who lives with the goblins, to convince her to escape the elf camp. Even when Sable tells her Nir will never marry her, because elf men never marry humans, Miranda refuses to leave. She is depressed by the visit and distances herself from Nir. When he finds out that Sable has been coming into camp under the guise of delivering elf spell books in order to liberate Miranda, he confonts her. During the confrontation, he banishes her from the camp and orders her to tell Catspaw that he will kill any other spies he sends.

To keep the goblins from coming near the elf camp, Nir's magic teaches him a spell that will create a border that will keep goblins out. The spell would require him to leave the camp for two weeks. Before he goes, he and Miranda confess their feelings for each other and he expresses his intention to marry her once she is 18, which will occur when he returns from his two week journey. After he leaves, Catspaw comes to the camp intending to kill Nir for harming Sable. He reveals that once Sable delivered her message to him, she fell down dead. He believes Nir put a spell on her that caused it. Miranda tries to convince Catspaw to leave Nir alone. He agrees to as long as she returns to the goblin kingdom. She agrees and brings Hunter, the elf Nir left in charge of her.

Once Nir returns to the camp and discovers what happened, his magic tells him to fight the goblin King in order to retrieve Miranda. Even though Nir believes he will fail and die in the fight, he leads his men to fight to goblins. At Seylin's suggestion, Catspaw, who wants to get rid of Nir and rule the elves himself, challenges Nir to single combat while their men stay safely inside the truce circle. When they fight, they discover that they can't harm each other, wich is what Seylin knew would happen. Based on information Miranda gave him about Nir, Seylin came to the conclusion that Nir is the elf king. As brother kings, the elf king and the goblin cannot hurt each other. This also explains why Nir's magic orders him around and why it got rid of his elf brides. As the elf king, he has to marry a human. Seylin also reveals how Nir's legacy came to be. The wife of the last elf king hated her husband because he disrespected her. She switched their child with the child of a normal elf lord. That elf lord posing as the king died childless because normal elf men cannot have children with humans. The real elf king married three times. His magic killed two of his wives before he finally had a child with his third elf wife. The child seemed unmagical, because his power was left unaccessable because his mother was an elf. Two hundred years later, when Nir's father married a human woman, that allowed the elf king power to come out in Nir.

After this revelation, Nir and Catspaw agreed to the truce once again and Nir heals Sable. Catspaw also agrees to respect Nir's marriage to Miranda. Seylin becomes Nir's tutor, teaching him how to be a king. Nir and Miranda eventually have a son who becomes king after him, Aganir Usan, the elf King named Evening.

Magical ability
As the elf King, Ash is the most powerful of the elves and the equal of the goblin King. Like all elf Kings, he embodies the magic of his entire race. His magic instinctively tells him what to do, but not why. He has the power to know the exact location of each elf by instinct. Elves are magically required to be obedient to him. Only the elf King can successfully cast certain spells, such as the Border Spell and the Seven Stars Spell. Sometimes his magic does things he does not expect. For instance, his magic kills his first wife, Kala, to get her out of the way because as the elf King, he must marry a human. His magic also puts the Call of the King on every elf he incounters, which causes varying responses from them. The Call makes Kate Winslow cry because she cannot follow him and it makes Sable's heart stop beating.

Physical appearance
Ash is described as "[S]trong and strikingly handsome, he possessed a cold authority that demanded respect." He has black curly hair, large black eyes, and pale skin that glimmers with "a silvery sheen in the moonlight". He also has pointed ears and eyebrows that curve upward, like all elves. During their first meeting, Miranda's impression of his phyical appearance is both positive and negative. "The inhuman beauty that awed her before was now a terrifying force, just as incomprehensible and fearsome as the inhuman ugliness of the goblins."