Rana

The truest truths are the ones where nothing is hidden. Truth is the constant that defeats all contenders, even death, for indeed death is a truth, the truth of a path that a life takes, each discerned by its obstacles and yet uniform in its eventuality; For it was, ever since the light of Inrasil, first set aflame the skies of the world, and the brothers of time, Eldir and Lemus, fashioned into form the shape of being, that deaths paths were ever travelled by the lesser beings of Rana…   It had all started after the Last Great Rebellion, a great many of the Graelish people had been utterly eradicated, with few vestigial remnants of their communities persisting through the following years. The Darklyn Clan had ruled in the Shattered Isles since the days of King Walton The Stubborn, save for the Hundred Years Restoration, and had been in constant contention with the family from which they had usurped power. Their rule had been solely predicated on their subservience to the Kings of Carrandor, whom had in the years of strife, known now more commonly as the Wars of Expansion, annexed the sovereignty of the Graelish people and allowed the Darklyn’s to preside as Chief-Lairds of the Isles so long as they contain any rebellious activities in the name of the King. In the year 878 AR the Finnegan Clan had rebelled under Simon of the Finnegan Clan, naming him King and the fifth of his name, which ended as hastily as it had begun after the intervention of Carrandorian forces and the public execution of Simon V in the square of his families keep of Celtingham. In the years following, it was customary for a Finnegan son of each generation was executed to preserve the tenuous stability between these rival families. This generation, the Chief-Laird had chosen the youngest son of Dallum Finnegan, who had been named in honour of the late king, as tithe for this peace, and Dallum had accepted, the light in his eyes growing dark as he watched his boy of only thirteen be dragged to the horses, thinking how it was the last time he would ever see him….