It's been only two months since her sixteenth birthday, and the constant visits from "well-wishers" has her annoyed and tired. She knows that nearly all of them could care less about her as a person; rather, the sons of the country's nobles come to the castle to try to land the only eligible teyrn's daughter in the country. She suspects that this is made worse by the fact that her father was nearly voted to be king, due to his popularity and leadership skill, only the previous year. The young men who share their parents' ambitions are the worst, leaving her with a slimy feeling every time she meets with one of them. The worst of these is her father's good friend from the war and his son Thomas. Every time she talks to the Arl she feels like she needs to take a bath afterward. Thomas used to be a nice boy, but every time she sees him (which is frequently), he starts to act more and more like the elder Howe. To top things off, she has caught him sneaking liquor from her parents' wine cellars. Seeing as he is only thirteen, she wants nothing to do with the boy. He is nothing but trouble. She remains polite to him only because of her father's relationship with the Arl.
She spends additional time training with her bow, and has picked up some convenient skills such as lock-picking and sneaking around. Mostly this is to get away from the constant marriage-seekers, but it serves her purposes well when meeting with her best friend. Rory Gilmore understands her and has always treated her with respect, but he also speaks to her like a person. He's the only non-family member she knows who does not act like a sycophant. They talk and laugh, and train together a lot. Finally, she decides to learn what all the fuss is about and asks her best friend to stay the night with her. With some gentle persuasion, he agrees. Neither of them knows what to do, it being the first time for each of them, so the encounter is nothing special. She decides that she would rather wait until she finds someone that she loves, instead of merely likes, to try it again.
He can finally wear the leather armor that has been in his family for generations. During the past year, he has grown from a boy to a man and no longer stares at peoples' collarbones. Instead, he has grown taller than the knight for whom he squires. This causes him to have to adjust his stealth skills while hunting and scouting, but he still retains his lightness of step and his quickness. He has worked hard over the past few years, increasing his strength beyond even some of the swordsmen that he trains with, which serves him well when shooting arrows. His Antivan archery and scouting instructor gives him an improved longbow. He starts practicing with it immediately.
Praise from his instructors has increased his self-confidence tremendously. His sister writes him letters continuously, as she has done for years. He receives fewer letters from his father, but it's just as well. Most of the time his father writes it's to tell him how well his brother has been doing. His brother doesn't write at all. He still hopes to make his father proud, so he tells him of his accomplishments and continues to try to learn new things that could be useful.
One of the servants at the castle approaches him. She flirts with him. She flatters him and tells him he is handsome as she runs her hand up his arm. It doesn't take long before she finds his room in the middle of the night and teaches him how to please her.
Now that the smokeless fuel is perfected, Branka has started researching golem construction. The darkspawn continue to plague the Deep Roads, and she wants to make a real difference for dwarven defense. Her research takes her to longer and longer work days and she spends most of her time with her books. What time she does not spend trying to discover Caridin's secrets, she spends building the House of Branka. The captain of her guard, Hespith, helps her. The two begin working long into the nights.
He is lonely. He drinks. He misses his wife. He drinks some more. He starts to notice bystanders whispering when he walks by. He drinks more to be able to ignore them. When he is called to fight, as is a warrior's job, he throws himself fully into the work. When the job is done, he has a drink to congratulate himself.
Their wedding anniversary comes and goes. Neither of them notices.
The next time, he reasons, he will figure out a way to get out of the tower and stay out. He has just been released from punishment for his fourth escape attempt. The templars give him his things back. The first thing he puts on is the pendant that Bann Ferrenly gave him for saving his life. The gift means a lot to him, as it reminds him that his talents are useful out in the world, if only he could be given a chance. The problem, of course, is that he keeps getting caught because he always manages to stumble upon someone in trouble. By the time he helps whoever has the problem, the templars catch up to him again and toss him into a cell, for increasingly longer periods of time. This time was a month, but he is informed that if he tries again it will be three months of solitary confinement.
He behaves himself for two months straight before the walls close in on him beyond what he can bear. Quick trysts with other willing mages only provide temporary reprieve, and he is not the type of person to abuse potions or wine to forget that he is caged. He starts to plan another escape attempt, this time focusing on trying to find and destroy his phylactery so that one day he will be really and truly free.
