Mordant's Princesses

[Cord Hurn]

Thank you for the encouragement, Skyweir! I would like to get started on quotes concerning Elega and Myste before too long...it's a big task, but the sooner I can start on it, the better.

[Skyweir]

Youre an incredible good sort Cord Hurn
Look forward to reading more

[Cord Hurn]

When I finally get a day off later this week, I promise I will return to adding quotes to this thread, Sky! I'm looking forward to talking about Elega and Myste!

[Skyweir]

[Cord Hurn]

The first time we see Elega, it is when Terisa, Geaden, and Eremis go to the king's tower to see why the Perdon has come to Orison, and we see Elega trying to persuade the Perdon to continue convincing Joyse to reinforce Perdon from the threat of Cadwal.

Her sky-blue gown and resplendent jewelry marked her as a high lady; but she moved as though she had no interest in the dignity of long dress or the good manners of necklaces or earrings. Framed by her pale skin and the short crop of her pale blonde hair, her violet eyes flashed vividly.

"My lord Perdon!" she protested, demanded, as she descended. "You must try again! You must not give up. Surely it is just a failure of understanding. You must explain it to him again. We must explain it to him until he grasps its importance. My lord!"

We've only known Elega for a moment at this point in the story, but it's enough information to know that she is a passionately serious character. She not often seen in a relaxed frame of mind, quite unlike Myste, who still seems relaxed even when she is serious.

[Cord Hurn]

Elega is probably polling so low in this thread because there is a disdainfulness about her that comes out at times that can make her character less endearing to readers than is the case with her two younger sisters. But I would defend her by saying that her disdainfulness doesn't decend to level of Eremis' mostly-hidden contempt for nearly everybody around him.

She [Elega] looked away. Cupping her hands about her elbows, she gripped them tightly. "I hate it when he [Master Eremis] looks at me like that. He smiles and jests, but all I see is scorn."

[Cord Hurn]

The disdainfulness that makes Elega less likeable to readers is on display when Terisa asks Elega if she and Geraden have known each other long.

"Apt Geraden?" Elega laughed, but her mirth souded brittle. "You will hardly believe it, but he and I were once betrothed."

"Betrothed?"

"Yes. Astonishing, is it not? But his father, the Domne, although no fighter--unlike the Perdon--is one of my father's oldest and most trusted friends. Because of"--a hitch in Elega's voice unexpectedly made Terisa think that the King's daughters might also have been warned against revealing too much--"of his wars, my father wed late. Though I am his eldest, I was born only a year before Geraden, who is the Domne's seventh son. Later, during a difficult period of his wars, my father sent all his family to the Care of Domne for safety. I spent several seasons in the Domne's house in Houseldon, and Geraden and I were natural playmates." The memory didn't amuse her. "For that reason, thinking us well suited, our parents arranged a match."

One flight of stairs took them to the level of the King's suite. Elega passed his high, carved door and took another stairway upward. "I would have been better pleased with one of his brothers," she continued. "All women seem to favor Artagel, and to see Wester is to love him. But both lack ambition. Nyle is more to my taste. Sadly, women are often given little say in these matters."

"What happened to your betrothal?"

"Oh, I flatly declined to marry him. He is quite impossible, Terisa." Elega made no effort now to conceal her scorn. "It is bad enough that he cannot be trusted to walk out of a room safely. But in addition he is such a failure. He has already been serving the Imagers for three years longer than any other Apt since the Congery was founded, and he is no nearer a Master's chasuble than he was when he began.

"His determination must be respected--and his desire to better himself. But I am the daughter of Mordant's King, and I do not mean to spend my life cleaning sheds in the Care of Domne, or sweeping broken glass after Geraden's disasters.

"Do you know?" She giggled suddenly. "the first time he was to be formally presented to my father--we had all ridden out to visit the Domne, some twelve or fourteen years ago now--he was so eager that he had no better sense than to attempt a shortcut across a log which spanned a pig wallow. When he reached us, he was carrying more filth on his person than he left in the wallow."

Terisa nearly laughed. She could imagine him as clearly as if she had been a witness: mud caked to his hair, his face, his clothes; water and fruit rinds dripping off him. He was exactly the sort of person to whom something like that would happen.

A second later, however, her emotions turned until she was close to tears. Poor guy, she murmured to herself. He deserves better.

"No, Terisa," Elega concluded. "Apt Geraden will make an honest husband for some dull woman with her mind in her belly, a strong passion for motherhood, and much tolerance for accidents. But I will not have him."

In silence, Terisa replied, That's your loss. She never said such things aloud.

We've probably gotten to like Greaden by this point, and such a passage as this puts us on notice that Elega is inclined to be harshly critical. Most of us find it difficult to warm to harsh critics, I feel safe in assuming.

[shadowbinding shoe]

Throughout the books I felt Elega's vision was too narrow. Joyce, Myste, most of the main actors are visionaries. (I include Eremis in this list though his is a dark and repulsive vision.) Elega on the other hand approaches things conventionally. While Myste is so caught up in her visions she almost loses touch with reality Elega is the exact opposite. And it shows. She was more tool than actor in the story.

[Cord Hurn]

Throughout the books I felt Elega's vision was too narrow. Joyce, Myste, most of the main actors are visionaries. (I include Eremis in this list though his is a dark and repulsive vision.) Elega on the other hand approaches things conventionally. While Myste is so caught up in her visions she almost loses touch with reality Elega is the exact opposite. And it shows. She was more tool than actor in the story.

Some support for this view is the fact that Myste grasps what her father is doing in driving both her and Elega away, getting them into positions of power, and Elega has to be told this by Myste. True, Myste doesn't understand this when she leaves Orison to seek the champion, but she's got it all figured out when she next meets Elega in Prince Kragen's tent.

"It is hard to say that I trust his decline. But I have come to trust the fact that he allowed the Congery to work this translation. I have even come to think that he did it for me-in the same way that he insulted Prince Kragen for you. Do you not see how he has made us powerful? I can guide Darsint's choices. I can ask his help. And you are in a place to affect the actions of Alend's entire army."

I am sure that my daughter Elega has acted for the best reasons. For her sake, as well as for my own, I hope that the best reasons will also produce the best results.

"Elega, we are doing what he intended us to do. He has plans for us. Perhaps his decline itself is only a goad to make us do what we can."

[Cord Hurn]

Our first time seeing Myste:

"Ah, Myste." The look Elega gave her sister was at once fond and a bit condescending, as if she loved Myste but didn't hold her in very high esteem. "I have brought a treat for us. This is Terisa--the lady Terisa of Morgan. She looks well in your gown, does she not? We will have lunch together. Terisa, may I introduce my sister, the lady Myste? She is perhaps the only person in Orison more avid"--she stressed the word humorously--"to make your acquaintance than I am."

This made Myste blush. She was, as both King Joyse and Saddith had observed, very nearly the same size as Terisa, although slimmer in certain dimensions. In much the same way, she very nearly resembled her sister, although she lacked the contrast between Elega's vivid eyes and her pale skin and hair. Standing together, they were outdoor and indoor versions of each other. The deeper blonde of Myste's hair might not have looked like fine gold by candlelight, but it would have a burnished richness in sunshine. The tone of her skin promised that it would tan well. At the same time, the less dramatic color of her eyes seemed suited to peering across distances under bright light in corners and conversations.

The faraway quality of Myste's gaze was apparent when she entered the room; her thoughts might have been in another world. But it was strangely emphasized when Elega introduced her to Terisa. All at once, she did look avid, so poised for wonder that she was almost trembling--and yet her eagerness seemed to pass through Terisa in order to fix itself on something behind her, some set of possibilities that she cast like a shadow. This impression was so strong that she instinctively looked around, half expecting to find someone at her back.

"My lady," Myste bowed to the floor in a pile of yellow silk, as if both to honor Terisa and to hide her blush.

Myste already seems like a person who is more likely to empathize with people, and less likely to judge them, than Elega.

[...]her eagerness seemed to pass through Terisa in order to fix itself on something behind her, some set of possibilities that she cast like a shadow. This impression was so strong that she instinctively looked around, half expecting to find someone at her back. I find this kind of funny.

I keep thinking there is likely some significance to SRD's regularly comparing Elega's visual element being artificial light, and Myste's visual element being natural light from the sun. I tend to think that it's meant to reflect upon their personality differences, but I'm not sure in what way it applies.

[Skyweir]

Elega is probably polling so low in this thread because there is a disdainfulness about her that comes out at times that can make her character less endearing to readers than is the case with her two younger sisters. But I would defend her by saying that her disdainfulness doesn't decend to level of Eremis' mostly-hidden contempt for nearly everybody around him.

She [Elega] looked away. Cupping her hands about her elbows, she gripped them tightly. "I hate it when he [Master Eremis] looks at me like that. He smiles and jests, but all I see is scorn."

I like this quote a lot. And I like Elega - she sees right through Eremis. Someone mentioned Teresa's fawning over Eremis, and we get why she does this .. she lacks the wordlyness of Elega .. even given the fantasy world she inhabits lol .. Elega has been schooled in her position, and she reads people well.

The fact that she holds herself is also telling. Eremis true intent is not only evident but I would suggest she is physically disturrbed by his demeanour as well.

[Cord Hurn]

Elega is probably polling so low in this thread because there is a disdainfulness about her that comes out at times that can make her character less endearing to readers than is the case with her two younger sisters. But I would defend her by saying that her disdainfulness doesn't decend to level of Eremis' mostly-hidden contempt for nearly everybody around him.

She [Elega] looked away. Cupping her hands about her elbows, she gripped them tightly. "I hate it when he [Master Eremis] looks at me like that. He smiles and jests, but all I see is scorn."

I like this quote a lot. And I like Elega - she sees right through Eremis. Someone mentioned Teresa's fawning over Eremis, and we get why she does this .. she lacks the wordlyness of Elega .. even given the fantasy world she inhabits lol .. Elega has been schooled in her position, and she reads people well.

The fact that she holds herself is also telling. Eremis true intent is not only evident but I would suggest she is physically disturrbed by his demeanour as well.

I think you're absolutely right! Elega, along with Geraden, is one of the few people in Orison that can see through Eremis, to some degree. (With Lebbick's disdain of Eremis, though, I think it's only jealousy.)

[Cord Hurn]

The lady Myste rose. Apparently her blush was a sign of excitement rather than embarrassment or self-consciousness. Her gaze, however, now seemed to be better focused on Terisa. "You are very welcome here, my lady," she said in a kind voice. "I am sure I will be able to call you Terisa in a moment--when I have calmed the beating of my heart." She laughed in a way that immediately reminded Terisa of King Joyse's smile. "Forgive me if I have discomfited you. Perhaps you do not realize the honor you do us. I have so much that I wish to ask you."

"It is an honor," Elega put in before Terisa could protest. "By the standards of Mordant, we are merely two women living with our father because he has found us unmarriagable. The lords and personages who pass through Orison do not feel obliged to call upon us or keep us informed. It was only by chance that I happened to be with the King when--"

More urgently, she went on, "Myste, you will not believe it. Father has outdone himself." In a few scathing sentences, she told her sister about the Person's audience with King Joyse. Then she concluded, "Fifteen thousand men, Myste. The Perdon has but three thousand. And yet Father will not reinforce him.

"He has gone too far. This must stop."

"Elega, he is our father," Myste demurred. "Of course we do not understand his intent. How can we, when we know so little of what he knows and fears?" Unlike Elega, she didn't complain of her ignorance; she was simply stating a fact. "But me must not be quick to judge him. High matters are abroad in Mordant. It appears war is near. A chaos of Imagery threatens us. And the lady--" She glanced at Terisa, blushed again momentarily, and forced herself to say, "Terisa." Then she gave Terisa a sweet grin. "Terisa has come to us out of a mirror. It is rumored that she comes in answer to augury. We must not be quick to judge."

""Myste, you are incurable." A small frown pinched Elega's forehead. "If the High King's Monomach broke in upon us, butchered me before your eyes, and raised your skirts with his sword, you would say that we must not be quick to judge him."

"I trust," the lady Myste said gravely, but without irritation, "that the High King's Monomach has more honor."

"Oh, you are a fool!" cried Elega softly. Her violet eyes flashed in her pale face. But at once she put her arms around her sister and hugged her until her own vexation faded. When she stepped back, her social graces were restored. "Yet even a fool and a great lady from another world"--she smiled to show she was playing--"must have lunch. I will summon it."

At first Myste seems overdramatic, talking about calming the beating of her heart at meeting Terisa. But it is soon apparent that it is Elega that really has that tendency, with her violent description of the High King's Monomach breaking in upon them, and with her quick loud pronouncement of judgment on her sister. It isn't yet clear if Myste's viewpoint of her father is realistic, but she seems to be at least a calm, thoughtful type.

[Cord Hurn]

So Elega orders their lunch, and Myste tells Terisa the story of King Joyse and Queen Madin. Then they explain why they remain in Orison when Madin and their sister Torrent left after King Joyse's inexplicable decline.

At once, Elega became apologetic. "Forgive me, Myste. I should not speak so harshly. His treatment of the Perdon has upset me. Perhaps the true reason you remain here is so that whatever happens he will have the comfort and company of at least one woman who loves him."

Or perhaps, Terisa thought, she does it because at least one member of his family ought to be willing to witness what happens to him. Her own mother had stayed with her father until her death, but there hadn't been any steadfastness in that. Steadfastness required decision. and her mother had been incapable of it. She had simply been chosen by her husband, and she had accepted his right to do so. That may have been the only way she knew how to believe in herself.

Then Elega turned to Terisa. "But we did not invite you here to tell you such stories." She forced herself to sound more good-humored. "As my sister has said, there is so much that we wish to know of you. And lunch has been set for us. Shall we eat as we talk?"

Almost without thinking, Terisa replied, "I really don't have much to tell you." The contrast between her own background and the story she had just heard shamed her somehow, like a demonstration of how insubstantial she had always been. Against the threat of violent death she had no reality at all. "You're being very kind. But I'm only here by accident. I'm not an Imager. We don't have Imagers--where I come from. Something went wrong when Geraden made his mirror. Or during his translation." Again, she found herself sounding like her mother. But what else could she say? "I don't know why I ever let him talk me into coming with him."

Then, so that it would all be said and done with, she concluded, "I would have gone back already. But the mirror changed somehow. He couldn't make it work anymore."

She stopped. Her heart beat in her throat as if she had just uttered something dangerous, and the strange desire to weep which had touched her when she thought of Geraden in the pig wallow returned.

Gaping through her as though someone a few rooms away were performing a prodigious feat, Myste breathed, "Is it possible? Oh, is it possible?" She seemed to think that what she had just heard was more marvelous than any other revelation could have been.

In contrast, Elega flung her head back as if a menial had slapped her face, and her eyes flared. Slowly, her voice under rigid control, she asked, "Do you mean to say, my lady, that you have no reason here? No purpose? That you have not come to play a part in Mordant's need? Do you wish us to believe that you are nothing more than an ordinary woman? That this 'accident,' as you call it, should not have happened to you?"

Terisa didn't want to answer. The thrust of Elega's demand was hurtful. She had created this situation for herself, however, and she mustered her courage to face it. In that way, at least, she could try not to be like her mother.

"I'm not a lady. I'm a secretary in a mission." She held her back straight and her head up. "They need me. Not many people can afford to work for what they pay me. But I'll lose my job if I don't get back soon. Reverend Thatcher can't take care of everything alone.

"That's all. I live in an apartment. I eat and sleep. I go to work. That's all."

For a moment, she thought that Elega would scorn her. Myste was whispering, "That's wonderful. It's wonderful." Her gaze was coming into better focus on Terisa. "I have always wished that such things were possible." But Elega's face was made feverish by the intensity of what she felt, and she had drawn herself up as if she meant to spit acid.

"You should have gone after the Perdon," Terisa said dully. "He and Master Eremis are the ones you want."

In response, the lady tried to smile.

It was a sickly expression at first, but Elega mastered her features and forced them to serve her. With an effort of will, she softened her posture. "My lady, this is unnecessary. We belong to none of the factions of the Congery. We have no secret allies among Mordant's enemies. We will not manipulate or betray you. We are women like yourself, not self-serving men hungry for power. We can be trusted. We are perhaps the only people in Orison whom you may safely trust. This pretense is unnecessary."

Myste looked at her sister at once. "Elega, Terisa has no reason to lie to us. I am sure that she has not. It is not a pretense."

With a savagery that would have done Castellan Lebbick credit, Elega flashed out, "It must be."

An instant later, she recollected herself. Once again, she tried to smile. Now, however, she looked like a woman bravely suppressing an urge to throw up.

"I'm sorry," Terisa said. "I'm sorry."

What a difference in reactions between Elega and Myste when they hear Terisa state she is an ordinary woman! I might have expected disappointment from them, but Elega acts as if she's being played for a fool, and Myste thinks she's heard some divine message of hope. Not what I expected from either of them.

Something else I wish to note from this passage: When Elega says We have no secret allies among Mordant's enemies, that's true at the moment, but it won't be true for too much longer, will it?

[Skyweir]

Poor, poor Teresa .. this must have been very difficult for her.

Yes Elega again shows herself to be a keen eye. She isn't really trying to be hurtful. She is genuinely taken aback by Teresas story.

Teresa is completely out of her depth, her experience not just with her real world environs but with women of the calibre of Elega and Myste .. being royalty and highly competent. But Teresa has lived a life of loneliness and mediocrity. She has been used to being overlooked and disregarded and now everyone wants to regard her and look at her, and know of her.

She's not quite ready for all that just yet. Poor love. And I hate to think of her enduring more abuse and manipulation.

[Cord Hurn]

Yes, in this case Terisa is doing the best that she can with the situation, telling the princesses the truth as she best understands it. To have people expecting abilities from you of which you are unaware has got to be stressful.

[Cord Hurn]

The next big scene with Myste is after the summoning of the champion has caused Terisa and Geraden to be rescued from the rubble caused by the champion's escape. It is soon after Terisa returns to her rooms that Myste visits her.

The latch lifted, and the lady Myste let herself into the room.

She bolted the door before she turned and saw Terisa.

She had on a bulky cloak the color of old snow, too heavy and warm to be worn around Orison. Held closed by her arms, it covered everything from her neck to the floor, and made her look like she was trying to conceal the embarrassment of having suddenly gained forty or fifty pounds. The flush of her cheeks and the perspiration on her forehead showed that she was in fact too warmly dressed. But she smiled, and her eyes seemed to sparkle with accuracy, as if she were seeing things in good focus for the first time in years.

"Terisa," she said, studying her quickly, "you are well. You need a bath"--she grimaced humorously--"but you ae well. I am pleased." Her pleasure was unmistakable. "All Orison knows what you have suffered today. Taking that into consideration, you are impossibly well. Have I not tried to tell you that you are more special than you realize?"

This reaction left Terisa nonplussed. She was sure that she wasn't special. On the other hand, she was glad to see Myste. Although several days had passed since their last conversation, she remembered that the King's daughter wanted to be her friend.

Awkwardly, she asked, "Would you like some wine?"

The lady's smile became laughter, then faded to seriousness. "I would love some wine. But first"--she faltered as if a touch of fear made her stumble--"you must agree to hide me."

Myste's request had me instantly interested, because I would not have expected a King's daughter asking someone as new to this world as Terisa to hide her, of all things.

[Cord Hurn]

It becomes apparent that Terisa is the logical choice for Myste to ask for help, because of the secret passage from her rooms, and because she's the inhabitant of Orison least likely to tell the guards where Myste has gone. Understandably, Terisa wants to understand what she's getting into, as I would when the last situation I had just gotten into had the consequence of a bunch of broken stones falling onto me and trapping me.

Her silence deepened the pain in Myste's face. "Forgive me," the lady [Myste] said softly. "I should not demand so much of you. Your own burdens are already severe. I will go at once."

"No!" Startled out of her own uncertainty, Terisa answered, "Don't do that. I won't tell anybody where you're going. I'll hide you. I just want an explanation.["]

Articulating each word precisely, like a woman controlling an impulse to rush, Myste said, "I mean to find that poor lost man the Masters call their champion. He needs help desperately."

"Help?" Terisa nearly choked. "He needs help?"

Myste made a warning gesture, urging Terisa to lower her voice.

"He could have burned this who place to the ground," she whispered intensely, He almost killed me, "and you think he needs help?"

He almost killed me. Even though he said, I don't shoot women.

"He could have," the lady returned promptly. "He could have killed us all. But he did not. Does that not say something important about him--something crucial to an understanding of him and his plight?"

"Yes!" Terisa hissed back. "It says he doesn't want to waste his power until he knows what kind of mess he's in--how many people he's going to have to slaughter to stay alive."

Suddenly, Myste was angry. She rose to her feet. "Perhaps you are right," she retorted. "Perhaps he seeks only to ration his capacity for slaughter. Do you think that Castellan Lebbick's soldiers will teach him restraint? No. they will harry him from murder to murder, searching for their opportunity to kill him in turn. If he is to be stopped, it will only be by someone who cannot harm him."

Thanks to Myste, for the second time in the story I am thinking of the champion as someone other than a symbol of destructive terror. (The first time being his, "I don't shoot women" remark.)

[Cord Hurn]

Myste reveals herself to be a deep thinker who can provide an astonishing display of logic. At least, until she gets to the reasons why she must be the rescuer of the champion.

While they ate, Terisa returned to the subject of Myste's intentions. "You were telling me why you think the champion needs your help. That's the point, isn't it? At least that's what I don't understand. You don't even know him. What difference does he make to you?"

The lady cleared her throat with a swallow of wine. "You ask several questions at once. The truth is probably nothing more profound than that when I heard of his plight it wrung my heart--and when I thought that I might help him the pain turned to gladness. But I will try to give you reasons.

"That he needs help is obvious. Consider."

Her gaze was fixed on something beyond the wall of the room. "He is a man of war, accustomed to hostility on all sides. Subjugation and destruction are his life. And now--suddenly, without explanation--he is alone in a world as surely as unfamiliar to him as any he has ever conquered.

"You are aware of the great debate of Imagery. Do the people, places, and creatures seen in mirrors have independent existence, or are they merely like reflections in a pool of water, unreal apart from the glass in which they have been cast? Is the champion a man, deserving the rights and respect of a man? Or is he, in effect, nothing more than an animal--a being like a horse that can be decently, even honorably, deprived of its own will?

"Terisa, by either standard he must have help."

Myste's excitement impelled her to her feet. She began to pace the rug. "If he is a man--as my father would surely insist he is--then what the Masters have done is abominable. We cannot judge whether he is a good man. Perhaps he is a foul enslaver--that lies outside our knowledge. But any man deserves better than to be wrenched out of life, away from world, home, family, purpose, and explanation, to serve what are essentially the whims of Imagers. Think of him! He knows no one here, understands nothing. He was not invited to cast his lot among us. To him we must appear simply as enemies. He will fight us until weapons, food, and hope fail him. Then he will die.

"If he is a man, his death will be murder--

"If he is less than a man," she continued after a long pause, "a being comparable to a horse or a hunting dog, then it is his right to have help. There is a responsibility which accompanies the service we impose on animals. In exchange for what we take away, we give food, shelter, healing, perhaps even kindness. If we do not, few will call us admirable. Does not a champion with the mind and needs and desires of a man deserve at least as much consideration as a beast? Even if he did not truly exist until the moment of his translation he is real now and should not be harried to death simply because, like an animal, he does not understand what we require of him."

Perhaps reaction to the day's events left Terisa punchy; perhaps her emotions were bouncing out of control. Whatever the cause, her heart lifted as she listened to the lady. She was glad that she had decided to help Myste, very glad. This was worth doing. Simply because she wanted confirmation, she said, "Maybe all that is true. But what does it have to do with you? Why do you think you have to sneak out of Orison and chase after him on foot in this weather?"

Myste frowned for a moment. Then she smiled self-deprecatingly. "There you touch me on my weakest point. I am a bundle of romantic ideas which defy common sense." As she spoke, however, she became stronger. "Yet I have always believed that problems should be solved by those who see them--that when a difficulty presents itself the person who becomes aware of it should answer it instead of trying to pass it to someone else." Her voice cast hints of passion like glints of gold in the firelight. "This is more true rather than less for a king's daughter. What is a king if not a man who accepts responsibility for problems when he sees them? And should his.daughter not do the same?"

Her eyes flashing like Elega's, she faced Terisa. "But the truth," she said as intensely as a cry, "is that I want to go. I am tired of waiting for my life to have some kind of purpose."

At once, however, she made an effort to tone down her manner. "'Romantic,' as I say." She laughed awkwardly. "But I cannot claim that I have been happy since the hall of audiences, since my father" she was uncomfortable mentioning him--"forced you to play hop-board against Prince Kragen. When my mother and Torrent left, I remained in Orison because I thought I had a purpose. I wanted there to be at least one person at the King's side who would believe him if he chose to explain himself. Perhaps I could not help him solve Mordant's problems, but I could offer him the company and support of my willingness.

"But when for a whim he insulted an ambassador of Alend to the point of war--for a whim, Terisa!--and I went after him, he refused to hear me."

She couldn't keep her emotions down. "'My daughter and that Kragen mean to betray me,' he snapped. 'They have already begun. Do not hover. I am tired of daughters.' Then he slammed his door."

Again, Myste was silent for a while. But then she shrugged, and that small gesture seemed to restore her balance, her excitement. "I am still enough his daughter to want to take action when I see a need. And I do not want to watch him continue as he is going,"

Terisa did the best she could to help. Slowly, she said, "When the champion first appeared, he nearly killed me. But he stopped himself. He said, 'I don't shoot women.'"

Myste smiled like a beam of sunshine through the storm piling snow over Orison.

Myste's "problems should be solved by those who see them" is one of my favorite Mordant's Need quotes, yet I could see that sometimes the person seeing the problem could find someone else better able to solve that problem. In this case, though, I don't think anybody but Myste would be willing to solve the problem of the champion by attempting to befriend him. So her belief rings true in this particular situation.

As for Terisa, here she comes up with the perfect response to strengthen Myste; she choses just the right information to give her.

[Cord Hurn]

That last quote is probably Myste's fines moment in the Mordant's Need story, with her passionately defending her decision to seek and aid the champion. Meanwhile, Terisa has to stay and be badgered by Myste's family, who can easily figure out Terisa has something to do with Myste's disappearance.

The snowfall began to lessen shortly after sunset. Because she didn't want to risk departing Orison under an open sky and a clear moon, across an expanse of new snow in which she would leave obvious tracks, Myste left Terisa's room promptly. Her supplies over her shoulder and under her cloak, a small oil lamp in one hand, she opened the hidden door and clambered through the wardrobe into the passage.

"Be careful," Terisa whispered after her. "If you get lost and Castellan Lebbick has to send a search party down there to find you, we're both going to look pretty silly."

"Do not let him bully you," replied the lady almost gaily. "He only does it because he loves my father. I thank you with all my heart. I think I have not been this happy for years."

As an afterthought, Terisa asked, "What shall I tell Elega?"

With the lamp in front of her, Myste seemed to be standing on the lip of a well of darkness. "Tell her nothing." Her voice carried a hollow sound like an echo. "Watch her. If she truly means to betray the King, stop her."

How do you expect me to do that? Terisa demanded. But she didn't speak aloud. Myste was already gone.

...And that's the last we hear of Myste in TMOHD.
The rest of the quotes I have to use for this thread from that book are all related to Elega.