Essun aka Damaya aka Syenite aka Syen

Essun is 42 years old at the time of the novel. She is the heroine of the novel, an orogene who has suffered bias and discrimination because of her abilities. She wishes the world were a different place.

As a child, Damaya discovered she was hated by the world when her parents had the Fulcrum contacted about her even though they believed the man coming to get their daughter was going to kill her. As an older Imperial Orogene, Damaya learned from her mentor, Alabaster, that the leaders in the Fulcrum did not necessarily have the best interests of the orogenes in mind but instead used them for their own selfish desires. Syen killed the son that she and Alabaster had together because she believed it would be better from him to be dead than for him to be taken to the Fulcrum...