Rycar Stone

Rycar Stone is the illegitimate son of Fleur du Varlyr and Eron Teshiney, the latter a minor Valtan lord, and the former the daughter of Riven du Varlyr, King of Brinn until his assassination by the usurper Lothan du Varlyr. His birth was kept secret, inadvertently aided by the slaughter of his mother and her handmaidens during the Siege of Anagor (1189), among the only ones who would have known.

Eron Teshiney was a young squire at the time, attached to the horselord Agrik Ashik, part of the house guard of Ibram IX Aslaney, the King of Valte. Fleur, along with her brother Tristan du Varlyr, had been taken in by the king for the sake of his wife Amandine du Lythe, when her sister Éliane was slain during the usurper's rebellion in Brinn. She was of an age with Eron, just a year or two younger, and caught his eye when she began to bud into womanhood. They had a single dalliance in her thirteenth year, which perchance produced a child. He was banished from the castle when his shame was found out.

Fleur kept her pregnancy a secret, known only to her closest handmaidens and her aunt, citing sickness as a reason to stay cloistered in her chamber for several months near the end. The child was born healthy, and masqueraded as a common servant's whelp for a few years.

When the Grand Caliph attacked Valte in 1189 GC, the defenders of the castle were caught off guard. Prior to the Ahrimid invasion, a small force of assassins infiltrated the keep and assassinated Fleur and her

aunt, but had seemingly been unaware of her issue. The child was spirited away shortly thereafter, in time to escape the reach of the invading armies.

Rycar, at age three, was delivered to his father at Task'kule along with news of his mother's death. Eron took the boy as his own, to the dismay of his wife Yreni Safik, and raised him as a Valtan, without ever speaking of his heritage to anyone.

Now (as of 1199 GC), Rycar is of age to squire, and has gained the sponsorship of one Honn Brunhamr, a dwarf knight in service to Gjor Mennos of Menendras.