Born in 1023 to
Inna Shiroko and
Fedir Shiroko, Yakiv was the second grandchild of Ilya VIII Shiroko. By the time he was born, his mother had been temporarily moved out of her cell in order to care for his older sister,
Olha Shiroko. After his birth, Inna was transferred to simple house arrest in order to care for her children. His grandmother,
Kariin Shiroko, was responsible for this as she convinced Ilya VIII that his grandchildren had committed no crimes and thus should not be punished for their mother's wrongdoings.
Like his sister, he rarely saw his grandfather and spent most of his time with tutors or his father. His interest in art began early and as a young child he tended to follow around the courtiers when not in his lessons, watching them make new pieces. However, he had very little talent for art himself and instead strove to learn as much as he could about the process in order to appreciate it. In particular, he loved poetry and sculpture.
During his
Attunement Test, it was discovered that he was a
lu-esh, a compliment to Olha's ability as a pyr-esh and highly important to
Stitching, the Shiroko family magic. While he did not have as much innate talent as others, he worked extremely hard in order to be on par with them and, through the years, managed to learn extremely fine control of light essence.
He adored his older sister and often sat with her while she worked through her homework or practiced magic. His first younger brother, Andriy, clung to him through their younger years then became antagonistic as the two grew older. Zora and Rustem, his youngest siblings, were more or less neutral parties through it all and he was cordial with them, if not expressly close.
After Ilya VIII's death in 1032, his mother, Inna, became empress and his own title changed to prince (janji), rather than a title-less member of the royal family as only the grandson of the ruler. As a ten year old, he stood in the background as his grandmother ended the
Fourth Great War and over the coming years was groomed in foreign policy in preparation for his future role as his sister's husband and royal consort of Eoion.
Olha became empress in 1051 and he married her only a few weeks later, officially becoming the tsudaeba. Over the next year, he focused on shoring up relations between
Yzel and Eoion, continuing his grandmother's work and spending approximately a third of his first year in power traveling back and forth to Yzel.
In 1051, he and Olha had their first child,
Taras Shiroko. As he was born at only 30 weeks, Olha was sidelined from active rule in order to take care of him. In that time, Yakiv took over the active ruling of the empire, although he did not enjoy the job. When Olha returned, he stepped back and split his attention between his patronage of artists and caring for his son. He, along with Inna, taught Taras the basics of essence magic and stitching, as much as the small child could understand. This was his life for the next six years.
A small trip planned to one of the summer palaces in 1057 proved to be his last. Due to a storm, the plans were delayed and this led to his and Olha's deaths at the hands of hired mercenaries, although he was the intended target, not her.
After they were interred in the family temple, Andriy took over rule of Eoion as the emperor regent (vlabaejan).
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