Nicodemus Weal is the protagonist of the Spellwright trilogy by Blake Charlton. He is a student at Starhaven, a grand academy carved into a mountain where spellwrights learn to compose magical text within their own muscles. Nicodemus is a cacographer: every spell he writes comes out misspelled and broken. In a world where literacy is power, his condition makes him an outcast. He was once thought to be the Halcyon, a prophesied savior who would avert a catastrophic war, but that designation was revoked when his disability manifested.
Charlton based the concept of cacography on his own experience with severe dyslexia, and it gives Nicodemus a specific, grounded kind of struggle. The first book begins with a murder at Starhaven that forces Nicodemus to question whether his cacography is a natural condition or something that was deliberately done to him. As the trilogy progresses through Spellbound and into Spellbreaker, the story expands well beyond the academy. Spellbreaker shifts perspective to Nicodemus’s daughter Leandra, though his presence remains central to the plot.
Reading Order
See the complete Spellwright reading order for all books featuring Nicodemus Weal.