"This was always going to happen. She's been dead since the beginning."
- Aeschylus
It is a child's dream to outwit fate, to somehow escape the great ending that awaits us all.
But Orianne Fernwood would burn the world if it meant a moment longer w...
Lukan Fernwood was not born to be the Lord of Emberhall, but perhaps that was his fate all along.
As a second son, it was Lukan's job to support his brother's claim and stay out of the way. He did just that. Rather than hiding away in his family's keep, Lukan did what few northerners dared to do. He traveled south.
From Braavos to Yunkai, Lukan adventured the lands he'd only dared to dream of. But it was in the sun-kissed deserts of Dorne that Lukan discovered his greatest adventure yet, Zephyra Allyrion. The two were wed not long after meeting, the love they shared an everlasting flame in their hearts.
Lukan never expected to fall in love and wed a Dornish Lady. He never expected to receive a letter from his father detailing his brother's death alongside an order to return home and take his place as heir.
Though he had traveled the world, soaking in cultures from near and far, Lukan remained a northerner through and through, and above all else, those of the north answered to duty.
With his southern wife at his side, Lukan returned home, facing scrutiny for his choice of a bride. Still, Lukan remained steadfast, refusing to buckle as men japed and jeered at his wife. Instead, Lukan changed their tunes, proving to be a capable and shrewd Lord with Zephyra as a cunning advisor always by his side. Together they kept House Fernwood afloat, and never again did the men question him or his wife.
From their line were borne two children, both as blessed by the Gods as their parents. Euric and Orianne were healthy and hale children, a perfect mix of the far north and far south.
Euric was gifted his father's pension for passion and his mother's intelligence, a wild young man made for the land he would one day inherit.
But it was Orianne Fernwood whose name would be the topic of ballads for years to come.
Orianne burned as bright as the sun but as cold as ice, a cunning and ambitious young woman.
