PRINCESS MEREET
Race: Silene
Eye color: Wine-red
Hair color: Black
Distinctions: Very curly hair in which she wears pearls or ribbons to keep it tamed
Once a rambunctious and pleasant young princess who embraced life, her fate would be a sad one. Shackled by chains of duty to an impossible marriage and an unrelenting, brutal feud, she gives the keys of her heart to a silver-haired myndling—a desperate act of fragile trust that ultimately sends two proud countries spiraling toward a dark demise.
~Story~
When her elder brother is named heir to the throne of Silon, Princess Mereet’s days of flirting with courtiers and stealing off to accompany her father’s ambassadors on political missions come to an abrupt end. She is given rule over Saberondan–a small, quiet isle with an imposing black castle–and betrothed against her will to the Thauron prince Iliauben, later to be known as the ‘mad prince’, with the intention of solidifying an uncertain alliance between Silon and Thauron. But Iliauben is a harsh and ill-tempered man, as trapped and resentful at the arrangement as she is. He does his very best to ignore her until the wedding, and afterward treats her with nothing but scorn and contempt, turning her island palace into a dark and stifling prison. Alienated from her people, Mereet struggles to maintain a sense of pride and control despite the demeaning and confusing lifestyle she must conform to.
But the seasonal visits of the wandering musician Semiyar, a man she once secretly courted in happier days, break through the incessant gloom and offer Mereet a small measure of reprieve. His captivating music and carefree manner reawaken the naïve girl within her that wants to roam the world, to have random insignificant adventures and sleep under the stars. But she cannot forget her promise to her people, her duty to uphold the alliance, and the desperate longing for another life that Semiyar inspires in her tempts her toward betrayal. With her guardians already suspicious and disapproving, Mereet has no choice but to resign herself as Semiyar is banished from the island. She instead doubles her efforts to be strong and to somehow earn the elusive affections of her frightening husband. But over the next few months Iliauben drifts further from her, lost in strange obsessions that his overindulgence in wine stimulates and worsens. As he deteriorates further into paranoia, claiming to hear imaginary plots against him, he becomes little more than a drunken, sallow-eyed creature, blundering along dim corridors and stumbling incoherently toward unattainable illusions of freedom.
Mereet finds new courage, however, when she discovers that she is pregnant. For a brief, blissful summer it is like a lovely dream, and she places all of her hopes upon the new life taking shape inside of her. But when the cold nights come and she is alone again, shunned and neglected, the tears return and her dreams fade back into sorrowful reality. It is a terrible world she must bring her child into. Sleep is her only refuge, but even that is taken from her one night when she receives nightmarish premonitions of attempted murder. Fearing for her unborn child, she flees the island in the grip of winter to seek protection on Silon’s mainland. Her journey is a hard one, and weak and feverish after her child is born, she awakes to find that Semiyar has hidden her away with him in the forest of Marcale, a place that could give her and her child the sanctuary she so desperately longs for. But her past haunts and condemns her with indignant voices that will not be ignored, and she knows that if she does not return, Iliauben will view her abduction as an act of war. Her noble return to Saberondan comes too late, however, and she discovers that her worst fears have already come to pass. Her last thread of hope unravels as her kingdom is plunged into war with Thauron, and she is forced to face both her furious husband and the inescapable consequences of their failed marriage.
There was no victor in this war–“The Great Tragedy,” as it would come to be known. Shattered by the ferocity of war, the isle of Saberondan broke in half and crumbled into the sea, drowning both armies, dashing the great ships against the cliffs of Silon and destroying coastal villages in the resulting tidal wave. Trapped on the remaining spit of land with a handful of survivors who later died of starvation or drowned in futile escape attempts, Mereet witnessed the death of her husband, her father, and her guardian Nanye, and withered away into silence. She never knew the fate of her lost son or her silver myndling, haunted in her isolation only by the ghosts of her memory. Like her tormented husband before her, she wandered the edge of the cliffs until her death, seeing only the endless sea and the jagged black spires of her broken castle.