Liberty Lornmere Lock'aihain

Once a free-spirited girl known across Hearthmere for her brightness and boundless curiosity, Liberty Lornmere was born into comfort—but not privilege. The daughter of respected commoner alchemists, Liberty's childhood was one of gentle abundance. Her family’s success meant she rarely worried about food or safety, and with little obligation pressing upon her, she spent her early years wandering the warm fields and winding paths of her rural town.

It was during one of those wanderings that she met Lucian Helverin, and the course of her life quietly changed.

They met near the Helverin farm, on a late summer morning. Liberty had slipped through a wooden fence chasing a moth that sparkled like a lantern in the sun, only to trip in the dust. Lucian—quiet even at nine—watched her from the edge of the field before helping her up without a word. She offered him a dandelion. He didn't smile, but he didn’t let go of her hand for a long time.

From that day on, they were nearly inseparable.

They roamed the woods and streams together. Lucian would boost her into the trees so she could reach the branches, and she’d pluck the ripest fruit to split with him. They built forts in dry grass, whispered secrets in the shade, and once swore—on a pebble they buried beneath the Ember Oak—that they’d never leave each other behind.

But time, as always, was a crueler force than they understood.

When Lucian’s father, Rhalin Helverin, died of Cinderlung, Liberty watched her best friend vanish into the world of nobles and soldiers. No one explained it to her clearly, and she was too young to untangle words like “contract,” “debt,” and “duty.” All she knew was that one day he was there, and the next he was gone.

Two years later, a letter arrived. Then another. She wrote back. It became a quiet rhythm of her life—Lucian’s words arriving every few months like echoes from a different world. But when she turned twenty, the letters stopped. A year later, she wrote one last time. Told him she couldn’t keep waiting for ghosts. Then nothing.

Four years passed.

At twenty-four, Liberty’s family was targeted by House Lock’aihain. It was declared that alchemy—being magical in nature—was a forbidden craft for commoners, and the Lornmeres were given a “choice”: dissolve the business and face trial, or sign away Liberty’s future.

She married into the house in silence. Her family was spared, but the price was her name, her craft, and the soft, stubborn joy she once carried. Now she bears the Lock’aihain name—not with pride, but with the quiet composure of someone who knows what sacrifice tastes like.

Some call it irony.
Lucian might call it something else.

Though her letters stopped years ago, Liberty still visits the Helverin farm—bringing food in the winter, helping with harvest in the fall, laughing with Carmen and Helga as if nothing changed. But her eyes linger a little longer on the old paths. On the trees. On the ghost of the boy who held her hand in the dust.

And if she ever passes the Ember Oak, she doesn’t stop.
She keeps walking.