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Darlene is the only daughter of the king and queen of Tarren, as well as the niece of the King of Yen. After the sudden death of her older brother Arlon she became a very close friend of her brother Herene, who was rather distraught over finding himself abruptly the heir of Tarren.
Her kindness was something Herene did not forget when he went to Yen to study. Every summer he returned to Tarren to be with his family, and when he came back to Yen he was full of tales of his adventures, and spoke with increasing fondness of Darlene.
One summer Janin accompanied his cousin back to Tarren, and met the rest of Herene's family for the first time, including Darlene. They spent the next several months as a trio, attending dances, getting into trouble, and riding about Tarren's countryside being generally cheerful. When Janin left for his own country he took Darlene's heart with him, and left his own behind.
Over the next several months they exchanged letters that would have equaled one of the twelve books of law, and Herene, while secretly pleased, tried not to be jealous of them both. Janin's parents figured out much, and invited the entire family of Tarren to Yen for Christmas, and Janin proposed.
Formal marriage negotiations began soon after, and a wedding date was set for late April. Marriage to the crown prince of Yen is a long and tedious process, and things came out, unpleasant things. Rumours of magic and prophecies. The wizard Wydyrr came down out of his mountains and shouted over the entire city that only doom would come of the match. No one listened to him, but Darlene was unsettled, and without telling anyone set out on her own quest to protect her future husband.
Darlene's gift was shapeshifting. She made the trip over the mountains to the mortal world with greater ease than most would have. She sought desperately for the answer Wydyrr promised her she alone could find, but Wydyrr was a liar, and she found nothing but a cold, bleak world with beyond the touch of the immortals. Disguised as a deer she was pursued by a royal hunting party. Confused and panicking she followed the instincts of a deer and ran, but an arrow from the prince shot her down. She died in the arms of her brother, who took her body back to Tarren and demanded veangence of the Prince of Yen, setting up the events that were all to follow.
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How does this fit into the novel?
Darlene is dead before the book begins. I consider her one of my main characters, but technically she's not even in it. Her death sets up the events of the entire story. It's a huge turning point for Janin, and his curse. Herene's demand for justice carries a lot of weight with his cousin, but over the course of his time in the mortal world Janin realizes that Darlene's killer had nothing to do with her death, but was only an instrument in a much more sinister plan.
Darlene's only appearance is in an unfinished story from "The Princeling". It is also untitled. In the novel she appears only as a historical figure, or in Janin's memory.
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Floyd was frozen where he stood. He struggled to breathe, but the air smelled of blood and death and guilt. He tried to formulate a name, to ask, but language was meaningless, and words would not come. He tried to scream but the sound got stuck in his heart, shattered into a million pieces, and scattered to the wind.
In a world without superheroes, who will stand against the forces of evil?
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