Tyrion

Tyrion was born to a threadbare branch of the line of Aenarion, twin to a frail, brilliant brother named Teclis, in a house whose glory lay an age behind it. The blood told anyway. Where Teclis inherited the bloodline's affinity for magic along with its frailties, Tyrion received every other gift it hoards: a swordsman's genius that masters could refine but never claim credit for, a horseman's balance, a general's eye, and the effortless, sunlit charisma of Aenarion himself. He arrived at the court of Lothern an unknown provincial cousin; within a season the princes and fleet-masters were telling stories about him, and they have never stopped.

His legend is a chain of impossible afternoons. As chosen champion of the Everqueen Alarielle, he carried her through the burning glades of Avelorn while druchii hunters scoured the forest for her, fighting a running war of ambush and evasion that should have killed him twenty times over. At Finuval Plain he met Urian Poisonblade, the Witch King's bred-for-murder champion, and slew him before the assembled armies of both peoples. He rides Malhandir, last and swiftest of the line of Korhandir, father of horses; he bears Sunfang, whose edge carries captive fire; he wears the Dragon Armour of Aenarion, and unlike every other prince who invokes the first Phoenix King, when Tyrion wears Aenarion's heirlooms, the resemblance frightens people.

For the resemblance is the point, and the problem. Aenarion drew the Sword of Khaine, and the shadow of that drawing lies upon all his descendants: a heat in the blood, a door in the soul that the god of murder keeps unlocked. Ulthuan adores Tyrion: he is the asur as they wish to see themselves, valiant, beautiful, unbeaten. And Ulthuan watches him, the way one watches a beloved lamp burning very close to a curtain. On the Blighted Isle the Widowmaker waits in its black altar, patient as winter, and those who love Tyrion best fear that every victory walks him one step nearer the day the sword calls him by name. The curse of Aenarion's line was never weakness. It is greatness, with the bill unpaid.