The countess keeps her personal retinue of bodyguards close about her and her late husband’s mother, Ilsya. The city’s rumormill tells that the soldiers are expert hand-to-hand fighters, capable of rending flesh with their bare hands. Ilsya is herself an enigmatic figure, said to be a seer or enchantress of some power who advises the countess and runs some of Tesyn’s personal errands. The truth is too awful for anyone to have even imagined it.
The charming countess of the ir’Lantar family has a way of making those around her at ease, unless she is put out. Her reputation as an arcanist of raw talent has served to keep her family safe. This is how it should be and always has been.
History states that the ir’Lantars are old blood in Fairhaven, but few accounts of how the family rose to count among the nobility are told. They descend from a noble knight, Kael Lantar, who rose up after the fall of the lord he served. That lord is largely forgotten, the infamy of his deeds making him unworthy of remembrance. Since then, though, the ir’Lantars have ever ascended on “noble” deeds until they sat just to the right of the royal throne.
Everything the family has gained, from the dark root of Kael Lantar, is due to its ties to the Lords of Dust. The thick veneer of nobility and civil service hides a rotten core. Each and every member, servants included, is cruel and calculating at heart, but careful in deed.
Countess Tesyn is no different. To outsiders, her life is beyond reproach. The only complaint some nobles have is that she is a widow and has never remarried. Those who discover her connection to any crimes are skilled indeed, more so if they ever manage to cut through the layers of obfuscation she has erected to confront her. Few survive that long, and none have survived Tesyn’s ire unleashed.