Ketria Halweyn





Ketria is a small slender girl of about fifteen, although she acts older. She is barely 5ft tall and has dark eyes, dark hair and pale skin. Ketria is a girl who has inherited her mother’s shrewdness and sense of superiority. She is always on the watch for an advantage. A typical Cairhienin, she is adept at Daes Dae’mar. However she really does not want to be in the tower and this makes her vulnerable, until she realises how to turn this to her advantage.

She was born and brought up in the capital city Cairhien. Her parents Beren and Loria owned the Golden Crown Inn in the southwest quarter of the city, not far from the south gate. Her father ran the inn whilst her mother, whose family had been minor nobles before the civil war, ran the kitchens. It was a large inn and the food and choice of beverages attracted a wide range of visitors.
Loria wanted more for her only child and so Ketria had the best tutors, the best clothes albeit in dark colours, that money could provide. Her mother’s ambition for her daughter soon rubbed off onto the young Ketria. Ketria had just started being introduced to an array of young men her mother thought were suitable potential husbands for an ambitious pretty, Cairhienin girl, some wealthy, some of minor noble families in need of a good dowry, when the inn received a strange visit.

A strange old woman, ‘Mistress Kepple’, with plenty of money to spend took a suite of rooms at the inn. She claimed to be an Aes Sedai and was often heard muttering to herself. One day when Ketria encountered her on the stairs, ‘Mistress Kepple’ started shouting about the spark and how Ketria was gifted with a great potential. Ketria was scared. Loria Halweyn eventually calmed their guest down, but was aware that many of the inn’s patrons had heard the old woman.

Shrewd as ever, Loria realised she could play on her husband’s fears and send Ketria to the white tower, for if her daughter became Aes Sedai – she would be in a more advantageous position than any marriage alliance would put her in. So it was that a very unhappy Ketria was packed off to the tower as fast as possible.