Lords of Earth and Lords of Fire

The Princes of Amber


Deirdre

Daughter of Oberon and Faiella

Deceased

... and then there was a black-haired girl with the same blue eyes, and her hair hung long and she was dressed all in black, with a girdle of silver about her waist.

 

Deirdre was the last of Faiella's children; the Queen died in childbirth. As if in some twisted joke, those who knew them both murmured that Faiella's one daughter did not merely favor her, but was nearly identical to her mother, in spirit and personality as well as in body. Perhaps this accounts for the unusual favor Oberon showed his eldest daughter - and for that Deirdre, of all the Princesses, was never, never discounted in the matter of the succession by any of her brothers.

Deirdre's personality, like Eric's and Corwin's, was divided: upon one hand the willful, morbid battle-maid, called by Random (and not entirely inaccurately) a bitch; upon the other, the gentle, diplomatic woman who was perhaps the most beloved of the royal family by kin and commoner alike. She died in the last battle of the Patternfall War: taken hostage by Brand, she fought back and gave Caine the opening he needed to slay their renegade brother, but was unable to escape Brand's hold and was pulled by his dying weight into the abyss where even Chaos fails.

In the mythology surrounding the royals' Trumps and the Tarot in Amber, Deirdre is frequently depicted as Strength: either in her black-and-silver armor and wielding blade or axe, or sitting beneath a tree in a dark gown and stroking the mane of a sleeping lion.

 


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The quote above is from Nine Princes in Amber, by Roger Zelazny.