The daughter of Starrin’s second wife, Elsabet, Jorlanna takes a diplomatic approach to the struggle for control of the house. Merrix promises new creations; Jorlanna promises better relations with the Five Nations and the other dragon marked houses. Her detractors say those better relations are exactly the problem. In her youth, Jorlanna fell in love with an heir of House Deneith and might have borne a child. (Marriage and interbreeding between members of different houses has been forbidden since after the War of the Mark.) Many scorn her for that romance, and find her too accommodating of the other houses.