Yes, I picked Amanda Seyfried as Sarah. Pretty, isn't she?

Sarah of Tremayne married Harold of Mattix when she was fourteen, and he seventeen. Alicia was born two months shy of Sarah's seventeenth birthday. Darius was plotting some funny business in the Lun Forest, and so it was only natural he would choose Alicia's mother from a woman living in the surrounding area. However, Sarah's not just any pretty young woman—she's the granddaughter of Prince Piran, the youngest son of Emperor Myghal. Emperor Trevelyan is actually Sarah's second cousin. Now, I don't know about you, but it seems like a pretty big coincidence that the emperor's second cousin just "happened" to meet Harold in Strider, just "happened" to fall in love with him, and he just "happened" to live on the edge of Lun Forest, where Darius is hiding out.

I think Mister Czuchry would make a good Harold, don't you?

I understand that I'm the author, so I should technically have all the answers, but I honestly only just discovered this weird little coincidence. And really, what better choice for Darius was there than the emperor's second cousin? If something were to happen to the rest of the royals, that would put Alicia in quite a good position. But Darius has a little problem, doesn't he? Strider's not a puddle jump away from Lun—it's a really long-ass journey, especially for someone like Harold. And speaking of Harold, what in the world do we know about him? Is it just coincidence that he's "all that's left" of his own family? We know he's some kind of farmer, and apparently an inventor of sorts. He's absolutely dirt poor, and a bit of a coward. But what are we thinking; is he a good guy, or a bad guy?

Let's think about this. What we know about Lun Province is that it is "normally green and beautiful," according to Mal in chapter one. In chapter two we find out that Lun in Harvest Moon (August) is usually "abundant with bright red tomatoes, green lettuce, miles and miles of wheat, yellow grass, apple trees, and a ridiculous amount of wildflowers." Now, it's dead, dry, barren, without even any grass or trees, save the forest. The forest, too, concerns Mal and Warwing. It seems to emanate a kind of darkness that it never had before. Lun Forest has always been a forest of mystery and secrets, but it never posed harm to anyone unless they sought the Lake and were impure. Now it's nesting giant ants with a clearly killer instinct. What we don't know is how long Lun has looked this bad, and how much the ants really have to do with it. My guess is it's been looking bad for over ten years. News is surprisingly slow, or maybe no one really even paid much attention. Maybe Darius was working an even bigger net of influence than we realize -- who knows?

Now let's think about Harold, and his situation. He was living in his "little hovel," as Sarah calls it, when she married him, so it may be the house he himself grew up in. We don't know what happened to Harold's family, or if they were even alive when he met Sarah. All we know is the place is a dump, and considerably less than what Sarah was used to. But Sarah loved Harold, so she didn't complain.

This brings up another question: What mother lets their fourteen-year-old daughter marry some random dude who lives on the other side of the West Empire and then move all the way over there? I know I wouldn't. Alicia points out in chapter 28 that fourteen is considerably young, even in a world where humans marry and die young, especially in rural areas. We don't really know what Alicia considers "young," but based on other humans we've seen, the trend seems to be that they marry anywhere between their late teens to their mid-twenties. And what in the world was Harold doing in Strider, anyway? Sarah said he was there "partly for work and partly with friends," and that they met "rather on accident" (ch28). I wasn't raised on a farm, but I'm pretty sure farmers don't generally travel across the country for work, especially poor farmers who can barely sustain a house or buy new clothes. Also, in a rural area like Mattix, it seems sort of strange for Harold to have friends that live so far away. Maybe they used to live in Mattix and moved, and he was going for a visit, or maybe they were in the process of moving and he was assisting them. We're assuming Harold probably traveled from Lun to Strider alone. How did he get there? Walking would have taken forever, and we've seen no sign that he ever had a horse or wagon. He couldn't possibly have afforded a car. So how the hell did he get from Lun to Strider, and then get his new bride from Strider back to Lun? Seems kind of nice, too, considering it's way too far away for Sarah's family to ever come visit.

Seriously, sounds like a promising match.

Let's go back to Sarah for a moment. Sarah is the youngest of four, and the only daughter of Corin and Merryn of Tremayne. Her older brother Corin is married to a man named Jack; Torpyn, the second oldest, married a woman named Eleanor of Lambrick, and after she died giving birth to their stillborn daughter, Berwinne, he killed himself with poison; William, the youngest son, drowned at thirteen. This leaves Sarah, rather conveniently, as the only descendent of Piran who can produce more royal blood descendents. Sarah is a pretty girl, and her excessive beauty is mentioned on several occasions by Darius. If you've ever been a fourteen-year-old girl, you know how stressful this time can be on your emotions and judgement. We have no reason to believe Harold was either attractive or unattractive, but let's just say he was a fairly good looker. Sarah claims it was "love at first sight" for the both of them, something I can believe a fourteen- and seventeen-year-old would think. We also have no idea how long Harold was in Strider, how long they courted (or if they courted at all), and when they married. Harold turned 17 on the 22nd day of Burning (July) in 1528, and Sarah was due to turn 15 the following Bear Moon (April). So, somewhere in between the very late summer to the following spring, Harold and Sarah met, fell in love, and married. I'm going to just assume it happened sometime in late summer or early autumn, since winter is not an ideal time to travel, and I don't see Harold leaving his home to stay with Sarah's family until spring. But that, again, is a lot of speculation, and there's no exact notion of how or when that all happened.

It seems a little weird to me that Harold wouldn't even question his wife's random disappearances, or her random changes in behavior. Sure, she was glamoured to look like she wasn't covered in bruises or whatever Darius did to her, but surely Harold would have thought something was up. Maybe he's just been a dummy for Darius all along. Though he did seem to care about Alicia and Daphne. He also was pretty distressed by Sarah's supposed death, too.

The point is, it's weird, and sketchy. What were the odds that this would happen so perfectly for Darius? Personally, I'd bet it had nothing to do with odds, and that Darius plotted it all along. She was pretty much the perfect candidate -- royal descent, but not formally recognized or known to the public; married to a man alongside the forest of Lun... too perfect, really.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.

The lovely but deadly Ly'ethil Gysse'lylth