Erazel

The youngest child of a dying tyrant, and a man. Passed over by the power of his bloodline, and gifted with cunning. A son of winter and the clouds, and a heart of stone.

---

I have always struggled to find my own place in the world. Mother died as I first breathed, my Father was old and fading, my elder sister already half grown and beginning to come into her power. By the time I was born, there were already doubts that my existence was even warranted. What use was another child, even a male, when the firstborn was a scion of the blood, powerful beyond the rest of us mere mortals and destined for greatness beyond what most could fathom?

There was hope, at first, that I would be like Hanara, that the dying king would be gifted two scions at the end of his reign to know that he had done well and the gods had blessed his kingdom in his final hours. But where my sister prevailed, I had nothing but failure to show the Council. My shrewd intelligence meant nothing in the face of a being who could wipe out an army with a wave of her claws, nothing to someone who was necessary to beat back the growing threat of her equal opposite in the south. After Hanara, after Keyn, despite all my strengths, I was nothing.

Some of the lords supported my claim over hers anyway, simply because of the accident of birth, because they could not admit that Hanara was the better heir simply because she could carry a child. They never said it that way, but it was obvious. Oh, but my keen mind would be better at the wartable, let that beast become a general, a pawn on the field where her brutishness would be more use. He has the mind for politicking, for trade and smoke and dagger and making us money. But how could I turn them down when I knew what would become of me if i could not claim my father's empty throne?

By most estimations, our odds of succession were even for most of our lives. Despite the decade of time she had over me, Hanara had not started displaying her powers in full until well after my birth, enough time for the more traditional lords to cement themselves behind me. Then she came into her power and others flocked to her and her strength. Yet, Father did not name either of us his formal heir. I hoped beyond hope that he would name me, and that Hanara would not tear our kingdom apart in the aftermath.

I had not dared to think she would be so bold.