META — Nyraela Seastar & Belaro Rogare.
Belaro Rogare occupies a complicated, corrosive place in Nyraela’s memory — because before he was the man who betrayed her, he was the man who raised her. As a child in Lys, Nyraela did not understand the politics surrounding her birth. What she knew was simple: Belaro Rogare had taken her in when she had nowhere else to go. His household became the closest thing she had ever known to stability. She was educated under his roof, dressed as a noble ward rather than a servant, and permitted a life that most bastard children of Lys would never see. To the young Nyraela, Belaro was not an opportunist.
He was her patron. Her protector. In some ways, her father in all but blood. She admired him. She listened when he spoke about trade, influence, the delicate politics of the Narrow Sea. His ambition impressed her rather than frightened her. Even when she grew old enough to realize he expected something in return — legitimacy, recognition, a Velaryon connection — she did not resent him for it. In her mind at the time, the two goals were not incompatible. If she were acknowledged by House Velaryon, Belaro’s standing would rise, and Nyraela herself would finally belong somewhere. For a time, their ambitions ran parallel.
The journey to Driftmark shattered that illusion. When the Velaryons rejected her, Belaro’s fury revealed a truth Nyraela had never fully confronted: he had never truly cared about her. What he valued was the opportunity she represented. She was not a daughter. She was an investment that had failed. Nyraela’s heartbreak came not only from her father’s rejection, but from the quiet realization that the man who had raised her had never truly seen her as anything more than leverage. Still, even after the humiliation at Driftmark, some part of her believed Belaro would continue protecting her. She had lived in his household for nearly two decades. Surely that meant something. It did not.
When she learned he intended to sell her into slavery — into the very life she had narrowly avoided as a child — the betrayal cut deeper than the Velaryon refusal ever could. That moment is the one that changed Nyraela permanently. The grief did not linger long. It hardened. For a time, vengeance became her first and clearest desire. Not wealth, not recognition, not even freedom. Belaro Rogare’s death. She imagined it often in the early years after her escape — the confrontation, the blade, the moment he would finally understand that the girl he had tried to sell had become something far more dangerous than he anticipated. It is the only dream of violence Nyraela has ever allowed herself to nurture.
Even now, years later, when the sea has softened many of her angers, Belaro remains the one name that can still stir that old fire. Not because she hates him. But because he taught her a lesson she will never forget. Never belong to a man who sees you as property. And never forget the face of the man who tried to sell you.
