The Regent of Elwynor, Uleman Syrillas, refused all offers from his earls, swearing that his only child, his daughter Ninévrisë, would wield the power of Regent herself. It was unprecedented among the Elwynim and by chance unprecedented among the Sihhë Kings themselves that a woman should rule in her own right. Uleman had nevertheless prepared his daughter to rule… and when the day came that a suitor tried to enforce his demands with arms and carry Ninévrisë away, the Regent refused to yield.
But the earls’ guards were the army, the only army, that the Regent could draw on, and now some earls sided with the suitor and some sued for themselves while others sided with the Regent.
Elwynor sank into civil war… and that war insinuated itself across the river into Amefel, where Elwynim families had historical ties and relatives.
So it was into this situation that Indreddrin sent Prince Cefwyn.
And it was entirely characteristic of Indreddrin that he told Heryn he was to watch Cefwyn and told Cefwyn to watch Heryn, who was, after all, a heretic Bryaltine and a man with ties to the Elwynim earls.
Unbeknownst to the king, in fact, Duke Heryn was in league with the rebel earl Caswyddian, in Elwynor… and that gave the edge to Caswyddian over his own chief rival, Aséyneddin.
And Hasufin Heltain, once again dead, as Men knew death, was waiting only for such a moment of crisis and a condition in the stars. Through the situation in Elwynor, that ancient spirit found his way closer and closer to life… he saw Aséyneddin as his ally.
Mauryl, however, had foreseen the hour Hasufin would make another bid for life, and had saved his strength for one grand, unprecedented spell, a Summoning and a Shaping. So he brought forth his creation from the fire of his hearth—not a perfect effort, however, nor mature nor threatening. To Mauryl’s distress the young man thus Summoned lacked all memory of what or who he had been.
Mauryl gave his Summoning a name—Tristen—and taught him with more patience than Mauryl had accorded any other student, until the day Mauryl lost his struggle with Hasufin once and for all.
So Tristen, a young man with the innocence of the newly born, set forth into the world to do the things Mauryl intended… if only he could guess what those things were.
He came not to a wizard, who would teach him, as Tristen had hoped, but to Prince Cefwyn, on the very night when, despising his host, Heryn Aswydd, Prince Cefwyn was sleeping with Heryns twin sisters, Orien and Tarien.
Now Tristen was as innocent a soul as ever Cefwyn had met… a youth seeming incapable of anger, feckless, and utterly outspoken, but wizardous in his origins at the very least, for he confessed he was Mauryl’s.
Cefwyn’s curiosity was immediately snared; and once Cefwyn began to deal with Tristen personally, he found himself snared indeed—for having suffered his grandfather’s angers and his own father’s cold dislike of him, after the northern lords’ wish for Efanor and Efanor’s desertion toward religion, this was the only offer of an utter stranger’s friendship he had ever encountered, and from a kind and innocent heart.
Meanwhile Tristen continued to learn… for he was a blank slate on which Mauryl’s spell was still writing, Unfolding new things in wizardous fashion, at need; and providing him knowledge unpredictable both in its scope and in its deficiency. Tristen wondered at butterflies… and asked questions that shot straight to the prince’s much-scarred heart.
Cefwyn’s affection toward this tvizardous stranger made Duke Heryn Aswydd hasten his plans for war … for Cefwyn was growing fey and difficult. Heryn used King Indreddrin’s suspicion of his son to lure both the king and Prince Efanor to Amefel… hoping then to do away with Cefwyn and the younger prince in the same stroke as King Ináreddrin. Thus he would overthrow the Marhanen dynasty, end Guelen rule as the Guelens fell to fighting each other, aid Cas-wyddian to become High King in Elwynor, and establish himself as a riding aetheling, a power in the new Elwynim court.
Prince Efanor, however, had not ridden with the king. Fearing for his father’s life if the accusations were true, yet willing to give his brother a last chance to confess, he had ridden straight to Cefwyn to find out for himself the truth ahead of their father’s arrival, to spring any trap upon himself if one existed. It was a brave act of a religious man, and of a brother Cefwyn had once loved.
And when Cefwyn knew his father had listened to Lord Heryn and was proceeding with Heryn’s full confidence into Amefin territory, he was horrified, and rode at once to prevent the ambush he foresaw, no matter the danger.
He arrived too late, and was almost overwhelmed by the force that had killed the king. Heryn’s plan would have come to fruition but for one thing: the knowledge of warfare Unfolded to Tristen that day, on that battlefield, and in that knowledge and with a sword in his hands, the gentle stranger turned warrior. He rescued both the princes and defeated Heryn’s allies.
When Cefwyn reached Henas’amef not only unexpectedly alive, but king of Ylesuin, Heryn paid with his life for his treason. Tristen, however, wounded by his own self-knowledge and by witnessing Cefwyn’s justice, strayed into the hills, where he fell in with the Lord Regent of Elwynor. Lord Uleman was dying, and in hiding from his rebel earls. The old Regent’s last wish was to bring his daughter Ninévrisë to Cefwyn Marhanen, as his bride… for the only hope for the Regency was peace with Ylesuin. The Regent died, his spirit possessing the ruins of Althalen, and he was buried there.
So Tristen brought Lady Ninévrisë to Cefwyn, and the new king of Ylesuin fell headlong in love with the new Regent of Elwynor.
Tristen, for his services to the Crown, became a lord of Ylesuin, no longer mocked for his simplicity, but rather feared by the Guelen-folk, for no one who had seen him fight could discount him. The townsfolk and countryfolk of Amefel, on the other hand, adored him, and saw in him the fulfillment of the prophecy of the King To Come—a fulfillment Cefwyn himself foresaw, and did not attempt to fight. “Win his friendship,” was Emuin’s sage advice regarding his dealings with Tristen, and so he had; and now Cefwyn saw before him the chance for that friendship to settle the whole world at peace, for he did not see Tristen as a reigning king, but as a king in symbol, a reconciliation with the Sihhë. As he declared to Ninévrisë, nothing would be more cruel than to settle on Tristen’s glad spirit all the daily obligations of a reigning king.
Meanwhile Heryn’s sister Orien became duchess of Amefel, since Cefwyn was not ready to set aside the entire dynasty, and had seen hone but the ordinary Aswydd flaws in Orien. He hoped to content the people of Amefel with that appointment and thought that a woman with no martial skills and no command of an army would be a more biddable ruler in the troublesome district.
Orien, however, was bent on revenge, and lied in her oaths. Lacking armies, lacking skill in war, she sought another means to power… and with her earliest attempts at the wizardous legacy of her house, found her answer in sorcerous whispers from the enemy, Hasufin Heltain.
She was not a great wizard, not even a moderately great one, but she deceived herself that she was. Hasufin’s immediate goal was an entry into the fortress of Henas’amef, but because of Tristen and Emuin, he could not breach the wards. It was no difficulty at all to move his pawn Orien to make an attempt on Cefwyn’s life and another pawn to make an attempt on Emuin’s life. Meanwhile he drew the rebel army across the river to all-out war: Aséyneddin invaded Amefel in force.