Myste

Full name	Myste Williger
Class	Herald
Nationality	Valdemar
Series	The Exiles of Valdemar
First appearance	Exile's Honor

Myste Williger was a middle-aged clerk and scribe before she was Chosen by Companion Aleirian to be a Herald.

To this very day, Myste occasionally unearths an official record providing more accurate information than was currently known.

Career

As a trainee, she needed little classroom instruction.

"Self-defense was the only skill she lacked to enter her Internship, for she’d known most of what a Trainee learned long before she was ever Chosen. There was nothing about the history of Valdemar and the Heralds that she didn’t know before she came here. She mastered the fine points of the law with the indifferent ease of someone who had spent years copying legal briefs. In fact, anything having to do with the written word, including no less than four languages, was of no difficulty to her."

However, she stymied Herald Alberich (Weaponsmaster's Second at the time) because of her complete ineptitude with weapons. She was also near-blind without corrective lenses, and any enemy would strike at those first, completely disabling her. She offered her own combat strategy: to run away. After realizing this was the best they could hope for, Alberich contributed some strategies and put her on an obstacle course and running training regimen to complete the requirement for getting her Whites.

Her skill at writing was her most obvious asset, and Dethor pointed out that a new Herald Chronicler was needed to free Elcarth to be Dean of the Collegium. Her persistent, inquisitive and challenging nature were a good fit. As a Companion Kantor said, ":She gets onto a story like a rat-terrier and won't let go of it until she's shaken it free of all the facts.:"

She didn't find Alberich intimidating, and being fluent in Karsite made it easy to converse with him. She became his occasional confidant, the two feeling that they need not wear their social masks with one another.

While preparing for the last battle of the Tedrel Wars, Myste consulted the histories to determine possible routes for the invading forces and wrote up daily reports, proving herself useful despite her lack of weapons skill. During the last battle, Myste broke her own ankle when she tackled Selenay out of her saddle and lay upon her, preventing the princess from engaging in combat with the Tedrels and likely saving her life.

During the three years after King Sendar's death, Myste continued to show her usefulness to Queen and country. She helped Selenay avoid an arranged marriage by disqualifying potential Valdemaran suitors. Myste then began to help Alberich with some reconnaissance in Haven simply by pretending to be her old clerk self. She was hired on by an acting troupe and helped uncover important information that led Alberich to realise Prince Karathanelan was not what he seemed to be. During this period, she and Alberich became much closer. Alberich was not particularly receptive to her flirtations, but this was because he simply didn't realize what they were. Eventually, he did notice what she was doing and they became a secret couple. Many of the Heralds shortly found out, but were all kind enough to keep the secret.

Companion

She was Chosen by the Companion Aleirian.

Gifts

She has Mindspeech, and an innate Truth-sense.

Internship

She interned in Haven at the city courts, with Selenay as her senior, and trained with Elcarth as Herald-Chronicler Second.

In the series

Myste appears in the following works:

• Exile's Honor, Exiles of Valdemar, volume 1
• Exile's Valor, Exiles of Valdemar, volume 2
• "Sun in Glory" by Mercedes Lackey, Sun in Glory and Other Tales of Valdemar, Valdemar Anthology, volume 2

Notes

Mercedes Lackey uses the nickname Misty, and has hinted that the character is partially based upon herself. She wrote of it in a non-universe story, "After Midnight", in which the author's characters confront her. The story was published in Fantasy : DAW 30th Anniversary, May 2002.