1618-1624
Jareen was Varanis’ mentor at the Vingan training grounds and dormitories in Nochet, 1618-1624.
Jareen: first mentor, first love. All her curves lie in the definition of her finely toned muscles. She wears her hair closely cropped, emphasizing the sharp edges of her features. Her eyes are the dark blue of the midnight sky, but they carry the threats of Storm Season in their depths.
She doesn’t walk, she stalks like a shadowcat on the hunt. Air and movement runes encircle her wrists and ankles in ever-spiralling patterns of ink that seem to dance as she moves. To these she adds other runes. She favours truth, applying its stark lines to the planes of her face every week or so. Such is the power of Jareen’s gaze over those runes, that any apprentice caught at mischief finds the truth spilling across her lips even before she knows that she’s broken.
Jareen has an unexpectedly gentle side, as well. I have witnessed her easing the pain of the women who seek sanctuary in Vinga’s halls. With gentle arms, she holds them. With calming hands, she heals them. And with patience and banked fury, she teaches them how to seek their own justice.
Jareen was my first mentor and my first hopeless love. By the Siege of Nochet, she had become Vinga’s Daughter, and before the end of Penel Ford, she’d passed to Vinga’s Lodge and was lost to me.
