Solvana Shadowbane

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Solvana is thirteen months old and looks almost entirely like her mother decided to make a smaller version of herself and then let Xaneborr contribute only the parts that are not yet visible. Her hair is the same vivid copper-auburn as Hana's, already growing in full and curly and completely resistant to being organized, a bright halo of ringlets that frames a round, rosy face and will clearly be magnificent when she is older and somewhat chaotic between now and then. Her eyes are a wide, clear blue, Hana's blue, the kind that catches light easily and currently uses this power exclusively to look delighted at everything in arm's reach. Freckles are already appearing at the bridge of her small nose and across her cheeks, faint but present and clearly intending to stay. She wears a blue daisy-embroidered dress that she has no opinions about yet, and she carries a princess doll with copper curls, blue eyes, a tiny silver crown, and a green gown that the palace seamstress made specifically to look like its owner. Solvana holds this doll the way she holds most things she has decided belong to her: very firmly, and with no intention of letting go.

The strength is the thing that keeps surprising people. Solvana is thirteen months old, the size of a very small child, and she has a grip that nursery staff have stopped trying to break when she has decided to hold something. She pulls herself to standing with a speed and ease that reads as effortless rather than labored, and when she has decided to go somewhere she moves with a directness of purpose that does not account for furniture, distance, or anyone standing in between. Her father watches this with an expression that people who know him well recognize as deeply, privately pleased. Her mother watches it with the expression of someone who is already planning ahead. The Shadowbane blood is in there, under all the copper curls and the blue eyes and the general delightfulness of her. It has simply not fully declared itself yet.

Solvana was born on Goldenleaf 14, 1305, the daughter of Xaneborr Shadowbane, King of Haven, Dragon's Voice, 35,000-year-old half-giant barbarian of extraordinary renown, and Hana. She arrived into a household that contains more history, more power, and more complicated emotion than most people encounter in a lifetime, and she arrived into it as the most uncomplicated thing in the building: a small copper-haired baby who wanted to be held and was hungry. Xaneborr held her for two hours without putting her down, which those who know him found entirely predictable and quietly affecting.

The doll appeared in her hands at approximately four months old, a gift from someone who had made it with copper curls, blue button eyes, a tiny silver crown, and a green gown. The resemblance to its owner was deliberate and immediately noted by everyone who saw them together. Solvana accepted the doll with the focused attention she gives to things she has decided are hers, and has not voluntarily released it since. She introduces it to people. She holds it up for inspection. She presents it with the gravity of someone making a formal declaration. Hana has quietly commissioned a second identical doll for emergencies, which she keeps in a drawer and does not discuss openly.

It started showing at around eight months. The grip first, stronger than it should be for her size, the kind of grip that makes you adjust your expectations when she takes hold of something. Then the pulling-to-standing, which she did earlier than expected and with less effort than any of the nursery staff had seen at that age. Then the movement, purposeful and direct, toward whatever she has decided she is going toward. By thirteen months she has pulled a small bookcase forward by its lower shelf, climbed out of a containment pen twice, and on one occasion picked up a decorative stone urn that should have been beyond her. Nobody is panicking about this. Her father is a half-giant who has been fighting since before most civilizations existed. Her mother held the line at Verdant Hold. The strength was always coming. It has simply arrived a little early, wearing copper curls and carrying a doll.

Solvana's world is Haven and the Geodegazer estate and the warmth of a household that contains more aunties, uncles, brothers, sisters, and extended family than she will be able to fully count for some years. She knows Malgrum, who she follows. She knows the Geodegazer children by their energy and their voices. She knows Queen Arties and Queen Salia as presences that produce the specific quality of atmosphere that makes the adults in a room stand up a little straighter. She does not know yet that she is a princess, that her father is a king, that her aunties are queens, that the doll's tiny crown is a reflection of something real and significant in her actual life. She knows the doll is hers and the curls are warm and her mother's voice means everything is all right. At thirteen months, this is more than enough.

There is a shelf in the hall that Solvana has identified as interesting. It is too high for her current reach. She has assessed this problem from multiple angles on multiple occasions and has not resolved it yet, but the assessment continues. This is her most pressing immediate goal and she approaches it with the methodical patience of someone who has time and no competing priorities.

Malgrum goes places and does things, and Solvana has decided that she should also go those places and do those things. He is faster than her currently, which she finds unacceptable and is working on. She follows him with the focused determination she applies to everything she has decided to do, which is considerable, and Malgrum has taken to checking behind him as a matter of habit.

Solvana is thirteen months old. She is a Titanforged Dwarf, the daughter of a half-giant king and a dwarven queen, born at the intersection of two extraordinary bloodlines in a world that has just finished one of the most significant conflicts in its recent history. The strength is already there, early and unmistakable. The warmth and the social ease are already there too, her mother's gifts worn openly. What she will do with all of it has not yet declared itself. She is not in a hurry. She has the doll. She has the curls. She has a family that fills every room she is in. She will figure out the rest when she is ready, and probably earlier than anyone expects.