A Brother Lost

[Attano]

Iriene had been busy. She was constantly trying to write a missive to her family, as they did not know about Salion's death, but she was always smearing the ink or ruining the parchment with free flowing tears. The fire in her tavern room roared due to the sheer number of failed letters. She was writing, thinking about how to word the sentence when ink ran down her quill and blotted the paper. She screamed in rage, crying, and threw it in the fire before resting her head in her hands.

The scream could be heard from downstairs, in the common room, where two of her men were off-duty. Most of the people were too busy drowning their sorrows to notice but they looked up. "Must be 'ard on her Ladyship. Learnin' that her brother was being used as a shield by some heartless Daimon who-" "Watch yer mouth, Nathan!" the other interjected. "Whatever John," he paused to take a sip of ale before continuing, "in all my years of servin' her Ladyship, I never seen her with such a temper." John sighed gravely and said "Yer heard the rumours?" Nathan asked "What that her Ladyship is bein' turned to some bloody Daimon like Aletha was, only drunks and people smokin' too much ikrif be sayin' that! Don't tell me yer goin' daft? She lost her eldest brother!" John sighed "Yer know what? Ferget I said anything. Another mug quickly now!"