Elara Wynn

Backstory

A flower-seller in Soléra's lower markets, Elara lives with her grandfather Tomás in a small cottage outside the city walls. She is strikingly beautiful — the kind of beauty that makes people stop mid-sentence — but she has never cared for the attention it brings. Her parents died of fever when she was seven, and her grandfather raised her on soldier's stories and wildflower gardens. She is sharp-tongued, fiercely independent, and has turned down three marriage proposals from merchants' sons who saw her as a prize rather than a person. She can read — unusual for a commoner — because her grandfather insisted, and she devours every book she can borrow or barter for. When a young nobleman in a too-fine cloak appears at her stall one afternoon, flustered and clearly out of his depth in the lower markets, she doesn't recognize him as the prince. She treats him as she treats everyone: honestly. It is the first time in his life anyone has spoken to him without agenda, and it is the first time in hers that a man from the upper city has looked at her and seen more than a pretty face. She falls in love with the man, not the crown. When she discovers what he is, it nearly destroys them. When war reveals what he's becoming, it finishes the job.