Raffaele Laurent Bessette

Raffaele Bessette
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Member (and later leader) of the Dagger Society
Aliases	The Messenger
Age	18+
Gender	Male
Species	Human (Malfetto)
Hair	Black w/ Sapphire colored strands
Eyes	Green (left) Gold (right) Both green (in the end of TMS)
Family	Unnamed Mother 5 Unnamed Brothers
Allies	The Dagger Society The Rose Society
Enemies	The Inquisition Axis The Rose Society
Status	Alive

Raffaele Laurent Bessette is a Young Elite and a member of the Dagger Society, known as The Messenger. He worked as a consort, building political alliances for the Dagger Society. He can sense threads of energy from other Elites and people. He now works as Queen Violetta's advisor.

Biography

Raffaele is one of the members of the Dagger Society and was the first person to be recruited. His family was very poor and he was sold to a man to become a consort. On the day he became an official consort for the Fortunata Court, the court held an elaborate bidding masquerade in honor of his debut. Enzo was secretly searching for other Young Elites, and Raffaele sensed Enzo's powers for the first time in his life. Enzo noticed Raffaele's strange interest in him and believed that Raffaele was indeed another like himself with unique abilities. His servant helped him bid an exorbitant amount -double anyone else’s bid- on Raffaele and won. As frightened as Raffaele was about his debut night and what was to follow, in reality Enzo simply wanted to talk. They both confessed about their strange powers, Enzo being able to control fire and Raffaele being able to sense others' energy and very slightly alter them.

Afterwards, The Dagger Society recruits a few more members before coming across Adelina. Since Raffaele detects that Adelina aligns very strongly to fear and fury, he suggests that Enzo get rid of her because she would be their doom. Enzo decides otherwise and the two train Adelina to use her power. Raffaele is captured by the Inquisition Axis and Enzo challenges Teren to a one-on-one duel to the death. After Enzo is killed by Terren, Raffaele becomes the leader of the Daggers and banishes Adelina and Violetta.

The Rose Society

Adelina and Violetta are hunted all through Kennettra and start to make their own society, their first elite being Magiano. Raffaele and the Daggers stay with Queen Maeve in Beldain as they discuss plans of bringing Enzo back. Enzo is supposed to be tethered to Raffaele after his resurrection but Adelina overhears the plan and weaves an illusion of herself being Raffaele.

Raffaele discovers that the Young Elites' human bodies will not be able to keep up with their supernatural abilities, and that over time, their powers will slowly destroy them.

The Midnight Star

Raffaele and the Daggers stay in Tamoura and both he and Violetta sense the power of death in the ocean. This provokes Raffaele to come to the conclusion that the Young Elites and their immortal powers are the imbalance between the mortal and immortal realm, and that they must return their powers to the Underworld. The Daggers and Tamourans seize Adelina when she fails to conquer them and strikes up this new alliances, during which they also take Teren because they need his alignment with his god, the god of war. Raffaele and the Daggers grow more trustworthy of Adelina and they are once again friendly to each other, though never like before. Raffaele and the others emerge from the Underworld and are distressed to find Adelina dead. Violetta now inherits Adelina's Kenettran throne, and Raffaele is her adviser.

Physical Descriptions

Raffaele is said to be a very beautiful person, people often falling in love with him on sight. He is described as, "one kissed by moon and water," which is an old saying describing those with amazing beauty. He has long, shining black hair with sapphire strands, flawless glowing olive skin, and is described as tall and fit. His markings from the Blood Fever are his eyes and hair. Several strands of his hair sapphire blue and his eyes are two different colors. One is a honey color, and the other is green as an emerald. His eyelashes are very long as well and he walks in a graceful manner.

After giving up his powers, his eyes both turn emerald green, and the sapphire strands grow in black, however he does not lose his beauty.

Personality

Raffaele acts kind, flirtatious, and charismatic and he tells people about himself in bits and pieces, because he is very guarded of his heart. He is actually quite complex—he puts on a kind facade in front of people and if their potential as an Elite is recognized, he will tell the truth of his opinion without the knowledge of the subject. Such as with Adelina, he was kind to her face but almost immediately told Enzo to "get rid of her," because he was afraid of darkness within her, realizing that she was very dangerous long before anyone else did. He is also rational, as shown at the end of the first book, when he cast Adelina out due to her unsafe powers and dark personality. He is not cruel though, because it is shown that after Enzo's death he felt bad for banishing Adelina but he thought that it was the right thing to do, as he could not risk the safety of the Daggers. He is very aware of his power and status, understanding that his task is essential as a Dagger to gather allies, since his clients fall feverishly in love with his charms. He is also dangerously loyal, shown when he stabs a man's neck through with his own dagger when his Dagger's safety is in danger.

Powers and Abilities

Raffaele can sense and find other malfettos. He can also see and manipulate threads of energy. By doing this, he can comfort and calm others. Raffaele can also pull on the heart strings of others to make them fall in love with him.

Trivia

• Raffaele is Enzo's most trusted Dagger and acts as a "right hand man" to him.
• Raffaele's singing voice is described as beautiful by Adelina when he sings a lullaby to her.
• Raffaele's original name in the story was Tye - he was supposed to be the main character but Marie Lu, the author of The Young Elites, thought that his story was too plain/bland, wherein, Adelina then takes his place as the main character (when she was only intended to be a side character). She also said that she enjoyed writing the story of a villain more that writing the story of a hero.
• Once says that he wishes Enzo step on the throne so he can step away from his consort life.
• Artwork by Tumblr user Deanpinterester.