The Eagle Knight Haroun squired for — not a blood relation. His death is the news Haroun received in Session 2, and he was of House al-Akram, the house that leads the Conservatives and produced both Haroun’s nemesis and his ex-betrothed.
What We Know
- He was an Eagle Knight — confirmed. Which branch is not yet established. (Aaron)
- Haroun squired for him, training under him toward knighthood — and not as a relative. The Session 2 note’s phrase “death in the family” does not mean kinship. (Aaron)
- He was often assigned to protect Crown Prince Awad — royal protection duty, repeatedly. (Aaron)
- He is dead. Haroun learned of it during the funeral-season weeks in the capital — i.e. during the mourning for the prince Naqi had so often guarded. Whether the two deaths are connected is not established. (S2)
- Of House al-Akram by name. He does not appear on the house roster in the gazetteer (Zahir, his wife, Hamid, Ikram, Lutfi, Afzal), so his exact place in the family is unrecorded. (Gazetteer)
How He Died — Answered (S6)
From Sadiq, the elven Eagle quartermaster who also squired for Naqi, over wine in the capital:
- He was supposed to accompany Prince Awad to the dwarfhold.
- He begged off, because his sister had died.
- He went to his family’s estate, took ill there, and passed.
ANSWERED (S6): he was not in the ruins
The wiki has run the “either he was in those ruins, or he conspicuously wasn’t” fork since S2. He wasn’t — and he was supposed to be. The boring branch turned out to be the interesting one. See The Death of Naqi al-Akram.
And Sadiq is holding something back. Haroun read it, pushed gently, and got nowhere. They agreed to meet again within the month.
His household (S6): wife Rashida al-Sabri, son Sajid, daughter Rim. Not of the main al-Akram line — Hazadi clans run far larger than Imperial families, which is why he never appears on the gazetteer’s house roster. Haroun could find no decent way to investigate the death and sent a note of condolence instead.
Still unknown: what his sister died of and when, what the illness was, who attended him, and which branch of the Eagle he served in.
The Sequence
| 1 | Naqi’s sister dies — cause and date unrecorded |
| 2 | Naqi begs off the Crown Prince’s expedition to the dwarfhold |
| 3 | Naqi reaches the family estate, falls ill, and dies |
| 4 | Crown Prince Awad dies in the dwarven ruins — days before the campaign begins |
Three deaths, one household, one season. See The Death of Naqi al-Akram.
Wiki note
Session 2 recorded only “death in the family (details TBD)” — Justin hadn’t worked the thread out yet. The knight, the Eagle service, and the absence of kinship were all settled afterward and supersede the original wording. The S2 bullet is annotated rather than rewritten.
Relationships
- Haroun al-Affan — his squire; not kin
- Sadiq — an elf who also squired for him; the party’s source on his death, and not saying everything (S6)
- Rashida al-Sabri — his widow; children Sajid and Rim (S6)
- His sister, unnamed — died shortly before him, and her death took him off Awad’s detail (S6)
- Order of the Eagle — his order
- House al-Akram — his house, distant branch
Speculation
Speculation
Either he was in those ruins, or he conspicuously wasn’t.Resolved (S6): he wasn’t. The man who usually guarded Awad was pulled off the one trip that killed him — by a death in his own family — and then died himself. That is “its own kind of answer,” as the wiki put it, and the answer is worse than the alternative. See The Death of Naqi al-Akram.- This is almost certainly where Haroun’s Eagle contacts come from. The wiki has recorded since S2 that he “has friends and contacts in the Eagle he’s been re-cultivating” without explaining how a Separatist al-Affan acquired them. Squiring under an Eagle knight explains it entirely. Unconfirmed, but hard to beat.
- Which branch matters a great deal. If Naqi served with the Eyes — the half-secret police who monitor orthodoxy and the elven communities — then Haroun trained in the shadow of the one institution most dangerous to Ari, the ring, and everything the party is now carrying. If he was a line knight, it’s merely a good contact list.
- The politics stay uncomfortable. Haroun’s nemesis and ex-betrothed both come from House al-Akram (S2), and he was trained by a knight of that same house. Whatever broke between them happened around a man he owed his training to.
- A death reaching him during a state funeral, in a season when every faction is maneuvering, may not be a natural one. Nothing suggests foul play; nothing rules it out.