Lyara Cousland was a bastard, and everyone in Highever knew it. Well, almost. While many took to calling her Bryce's Bastard, the young woman only bared the Cousland name by decree, not blood. Bryce Cousland was not her father, no more than Eleanor Cousland was her mother or Fergus her brother. She wasn't a true bastard, but that didn't make things any better for her.
It had only been a few weeks after Fergus's ninth name day that Bryce Cousland came home in the dead of night with a squalling babe in his arms. Eleanor had not been pleased with the unexpected guest, and even less so with her husband's lack of explanation for her or her coming. It was as if Andraste herself had simply dropped the child into the castle halls. In fact, that was the story a delighted Fergus told anyone he could find once he realized he had a "little sister." If word didn't spread quickly through the servants' quarters before, the young boy's comments had quickly hastened it.
At first, they had tried claiming her as a niece or nephew (after Bryce spent months convincing Eleanor and the rest of the "damned castle" that he did not sire the child.) Then, a relative from across the sea. But no matter their efforts, it was quickly realized that such a ruse would not stand as the little girl grew alongside her brother. The differences were so stark that even a tranquil would have flinched at the notion that the children were related.
While Fergus and his parents stood fair-skinned, and even paled in their aging, Lyara's skin darkened as she grew into a young woman, a deep bronze complexion she tried to desperately fade. But no matter how much the young girl scraped at her skin under the bath waters, the only thing she managed to do was scrape her flesh raw.
Flowing ebony hair grew as she did: free and wild, and every time Lyara was brought outside the castle, a new tale would surface about her striking, dark eyes, and how easy one became lost in them. Even as a girl. Some named them beautiful, others, pathways into the fade, to the demons. Those were the tales the teyrnir covered her ears for, and prayed that she would not take them to heart.
Fergus did not mind any of such tales, nor the opinions of those who told them. For all he was concerned, Lyara was his sister, blood or not, and he would treat her as such, even when their mother would not. In time, it would by Fergus that would teach her to ride the great stallions in the stables, Fergus that snuck her into the kitchen and larder for midnight snacks, Fergus that acted out their father's tales when she awoke screaming about the monsters under her bed, Fergus to teach her how to wield a sword. Fergus, to bring her the wriggling runt of a mabari litter on her 18th name day with a note saying "Kennelmaster didn't want him… He reminded me of you." Eleanor thought it was offensive. Lyara loved it. Loved the newly named Xander. Loved her brother.
And it was with that love that Bryce Cousland took a risk that could haunt the Cousland name for centuries: On that day, he named Lyara his own, a successor to the Cousland family. But while such a title quieted some of the questions surrounding her legitimacy, the whispers only grew louder in concern with Bryce's Bastard.
Little did any one of them know that those whispers were just the beginning.