These are the last wishes of Nylarn Baxtyrnus Lamanbhurg

Raina kept checking the gates of Glory Point. Nothing. It had been three days since she arrived. Three days since her father passed. Three days since Hyrman and Leytyrn left to track down the assassin. They hadn't returned yet. And that terrified her.

Raina had obsessively checked on the castle's servants. None were missing. But she knew the killer had to be someone she knew. Someone angry at Ervin's execution. She just didn't know who.

She was having trouble sleeping. Every night, she was tortured with nightmares of her own death. She wanted to confess to someone but hadn't worked up the courage yet.

But now was hardly the time for her worries. It was her father's funeral. Raina walked among the guests, saying hellos and accepting condolences.

Thousands had come. Noblemen filled the castle's halls while commoners crowded into tents outside. Some had come to mourn Nylarn Lamanbhurg. Others had come to ascertain he was truly dead.

Others came out of morbid curiosity. Everywhere she went, Raina heard whispers. "Killed by a woman." "Killed with a magic crossbow." "Killed like a dog, with dog poison."

Raina was shocked to hear of the glee with which some, especially noblemen, treated her father's death. She knew Lord Nylarn had never been popular but he had been feared. That fear became tough to maintain once his heart stopped beating.

People said condolences to her face and yet when Raina would eavesdrop on a conversation through a wall, she would hear the most horrible things. The nicknames they had come up with for her father were the worst: Nylarn the Usurper, Nylarn the Overmighty, and Nylarn the Stiff. But the most popular one so far was Nylarn the Sonless.

Raina tried not to think too much of it. Lord Nylarn had never cared what people thought of him as long as they obeyed him. He killed those who got too disobedient and the rest had enough sense to do as he wished. Mostly. I will be a better lord than my father, Raina promised herself.

But that itself was a tall order. She was hearing rumors about her marriage and few were good. She had heard the most egregious one the previous day, "Sir Willarn wouldn't touch her with a ten-foot pole. Her cunt stinks of rotten fish."

They all knew her marriage was a sham and were openly speculating on when Willy would set her aside now that her father wasn't alive to oppose an annulment.

Raina had also discovered that Laman had far more support among her father's bannermen than she had ever thought. Most of it was motivated by hatred of her father rather than the love of Laman but still...

And Willy… She tried not to think about him. "My deepest condolences, Raina," a familiar voice said from behind her.

Raina knew whose voice it was before she turned. "Laman," she said. It was half a question, half a statement. "What are you doing here?"

"What do you mean? This is my home. Your father may have usurped my birthright but he was still my kinsman. Blood is thicker than water, eh?"

"My father never—"

"Now is hardly the time or place for it, Raina," Laman said. "I am here to give you a shoulder to cry on."

"I don't need it."

"Are you sure, Raina? I have heard that your husband isn't the attentive type. He never even had the decency to consummate the marriage I hear."

"My marriage is none of your business," Raina hissed.

"But it is, Raina. As lord of our family, it is."

"You're not the lord of our family," Raina asserted.

"But I am," Laman said. "Your father is gone, I'm next in line. I just want you to know that as lord of our family, I will not oppose it if you seek an annulment from your half-barbarian husband. I will even institute the proceedings on your behalf if you so wish."

"How generous of you," Raina said evenly.

"No need to be hostile to me, cousin," Laman said. "I will be gentler to you than your father ever was to me. I have always loved you. Did you know that?"

It wasn't the first time Raina was hearing of Laman's enduring love for her. And her birthright. It was ostensibly the reason why he had never wed despite pushing thirty. He sought to win with a marriage what his father had failed to win with the sword. She said nothing.

Laman took her silence as a sign to proceed. "It is the custom. And the proper form," he said. "It is what my father suggested to yours a long time ago. But Nylarn was too full of spite. He chose war. Marry me, Raina. We don't need to inherit the squabbles of our fathers. Let us unite the two branches of our house. We don't need to be rivals. We have never needed to be rivals. I don't even care if that brute has soiled you. I will take you as you are. That is how much I love you."

Willy joined them before Raina could respond. "Sir Laman," he greeted.

"Sir Willarn," Laman returned the greeting. "My condolences for your loss."

"Lord Nylarn was your kinsman long before he was anything to me. I should be saying condolences to you," Willy said.

"It is a great tragedy when peasants kill noblemen but Nylarn wasn't a very good kinsman. Or a good man. He usurped my father and then killed him. I came here to console Raina, not to mourn her father. You would understand if I don't weep for him, Sir Willarn, wouldn't you?"

Willy nodded. "Sure."

"He didn't kill your father," Raina protested.

Laman shrugged. "Of course not. I suppose it's just a coincidence that Nylarn's archers focused all their arrow volleys on the exact section of the battlefield my father was standing on."

Raina could only glare at him. That Lord Nylarn had ordered his archers to slay his cousin, Sherhor Lamanbhurg, on the battlefield was an old rumor.

Raina had heard so many conflicting versions of the tale that she didn't know which one was true anymore. The tale had spawned the short-lived Nylarn the Kinslayer moniker but a few ripped-out tongues had seen it vanish into the ether.

"But I don't hold grudges, Raina," Laman said with a smile. "I would never hold you responsible for your father's sins. You are blameless. I could never hate you even if I wanted to. I will leave you and Sir Willarn alone. Think about my offer, will you?"

Raina forced herself to be as still and calm as possible. After a long moment of awkward silence, Laman squeezed her hand, gave her a small smile, and walked away. "What offer is he talking about?" Willy asked.

"He thinks I should pursue a dissolution of this marriage," Raina said.

Willy smiled. "And I suppose chivalrous Sir Laman has proposed himself as an alternative husband?"

Raina tried to maintain a neutral expression. "As a matter of fact, he has."

"How convenient," Willy observed. "But what makes him think our marriage can be annulled? Lots of people heard you squeal on our wedding night."

"He knows it was a sham. Everybody knows, Willy."

Willy looked surprised. "How? I've never told anyone."

"People gossip. Just because you ignore it doesn't mean it doesn't happen."

"Do you want an annulment?" Willy asked.

"Sir Willarn, Lady Raina," a servant called. "It's time for the cremation."

Raina and Willy exchanged a look. We'll continue this later, Willy's eyes seemed to say. Raina nodded in agreement. They found Nylarn Lamanbhurg laid out in the great hall. He was dressed in white with a sword across his chest.

A mortician had skillfully turned the tortured expression he had on when he died into a tranquil one. Raina's mother sat on a chair by the bier sobbing quietly. Her sister Mariana held her.

Willy took one corner of the bier. Three other men, long-term friends, and confidants of Lord Nylarn took the other three corners. This was to be a family affair but the only other Lamanbhurg man was Laman and they didn't want him as a pallbearer.

They all left the hall in a solemn procession, the men carrying the bier and the women marching behind them. They set the bier of a pyre outside the castle walls. After a long sermon from a priest, the pyre was lit and they all watched Nylarn Lamanbhurg's body burn.

Many dispersed after the flames flagged but Raina and her mother kept vigil by the pyre all night. They watched the pyre turn into red coals, watched those red coals turn into ash, and watched that ash cool.

Come morning, they collected Nylarn Lamanbhurg's ashes in a bronze urn. They carried the urn to the family shrine where the walls were lined with urns of hundreds of Lamanbhurgs spanning more than fifty generations.

The deposition of the urn called for a whole other ceremony and Raina endured it with grace. They set her father's ashes next to those of his father and brothers. After this came the will reading. Only those who mattered were invited, which was the family and Lord Nylarn's bannermen.

These were the men Raina watched most carefully. There were close to a hundred of them— a dozen lesser lords and seven times as many landed knights.

Some of the men's families had been sworn to the House of Sherhor for five hundred years, others for less than ten. Laman showed up as well. He was a landed knight but not a bannerman of her father. He received a few hostile glances but there were just as many friendly ones.

"These are the last wishes of Nylarn Baxtyrnus Lamanbhurg, son of Baxtyrn Parnylus Lamanbhurg, Lord of the House of Sherhor and a knight of the Order of the Purple Hat," the priest began. "Last updated on the day he died and witnessed by myself, his wife, Lady Carla Sylarus Reesbhurg Lamanbhurg, and His Honor Lord Sylar Sylarus Reesbhurg."

The priest then passed the sealed document around for everyone to confirm. Then he resumed reading a list of Lord Nylarn's titles, "Master of Lamania, First Fork, Sherhor's Hold, Glory Point… Overlord of all the lands from River Kara in the east to the Khars Sea in the west. From the Reesi Hills in the north to the mouth of the First Fork in the south. "

After the titles, the priest read what everyone was interested in. First were a series of bequests to some of Lord Nylarn's favorite servants, most notably to Hyrman and Big Roror. He split his gold and all livestock in excess of what he had inherited between Raina and her mother. This surprised no one.

Then came the sledgehammer. "All my titles, my name, my position as Lord of the House of Sherhor and the possessions of that house, all the oaths sworn to me, my father before me, his father before him, and all my forefathers, going back to Sherhor the Shearer, all my lands and my claims, all my uncollected and unpaid debts, in blood and in gold, every last thing I own that hasn't been willed to others, I leave to my legal son, Willarn Nylarnus Lamanbhurg, previously known as Willarn Bramyrlus Karkbhurg."