Elira Kethrel

Elira had meant to take the years under arms for her In Ikhtar and become a soldier. Alaric, whom she married, talked her out of it, and he has carried the guilt of that argument ever since: a mining collapse during their term left him with a spinal injury.

She gave Alaric the lute. The battered rapier was hers as well, and both came down to Mikhail, which is how one instrument ended up a keepsake of two parents.