Alethea and Ciaran

Alethea and Ciaran were a married couple in Betrayal in Antara. Their history is told through letters in Chapter 4.

Biographies
Alethea, the daughter of a noble House whose father had a personal army, was fostered in the Temple of Senaedrin in Isten. Upon maturity, she secretly married a man named Ciaran, and the two shared one year of true happiness.

After a conversation with either his purported best friend Marcus or with Alethea's father, Ciaran, convinced that Alethea was lost to him, rode out of the city and joined the Brothers of Kor. Later that night, Alethea's father falsely told her that Ciaran had accepted an insultingly small sum of money to leave her. When Alethea protested that Ciaran wouldn't do that, her father beat her unconscious.

Upon waking, Alethea fled to Isten, taking with her the secret of her marriage and Ciaran's unborn child. Marcus, to further separate the two for his own purposes, told her that Ciaran had died after leaving the city. In gratitude to the Sisters after the birth of her child, Anna, Alethea took her vows.

Seven years later, in the third year of the reign of Emperor Justin Valorian V, the wounded of a battalion of Brothers were brought to the temple at Isten after defending the city from Montari raiders. Ciaran, temporarily blinded, was unknowingly tended by Alethea. Afterwards, she wrote to him, and the truth came out. Still in love, the two were bound by their vows and so could not cohabit, but found peace in knowing their love had endured.

In the ninth year of the Emperor's reign, Alethea's mother secretly visited the Temple and met her granddaughter while her husband was away with his army. In the tenth year, Alethea, having just been made Sister of Novices and contracted a mysterious illness, wrote to Ciaran that her father had died, leaving Anna the heir to her House's land and fortune. She suggested sending Anna to live with her grandmother, who loved the child and would give her every advantage. However, this last letter arrived as an enclosure with news from Sister Senena of the Isten Temple, reporting with sorrow that Alethea had died and that the Temple would respect the couple's plan for their child.

In a subsequent letter, Senena confirmed Ciaran's intentions to take Anna to her grandmother, expressing surprise that he intended to escort her himself but agreeing to tell the girl nothing until his arrival the following month.

At the beginning of the next month, the Feeblepox swept through Isten. Along with many others, thirteen-year-old Anna died of the plague. Senena sorrowfully awaited Ciaran with the news.

The party can find Ciaran's body on the road southeast of Isten, bearing Rations, gold, and the packet of Letters from his wife and Sister Senena, telling in piecemeal the couple's story. If they bring Senena the letters, along with the news that Ciaran was killed by jaegers, she sadly gives them the 73% Ruby sent to her by Anna's grandmother for the expenses of the child's trip.

Trivia

 * Through the dates of the couple's letters, it can be learned that the game takes place during the First Moon of Senaedrin, in the tenth year of the Emperor's reign, and that the Antaran year consists of twelve months divided into three groups of four, each group named after a Face of the Triune.


 * "Marcus" is also the name of the absent soldier betrothed to a woman in Elona. It is unclear whether the two are the same.