"Don't move."
The voice was low, pleasant, female, and Elwen, but it was not viaquia. It came from almost directly in front of them, and the grass did not seem so much to part as melt aside as a land Elwen woman in the colors of the Plains came out from it. She fixed her polite, determined golden gaze on Peranor and held out her hand.
"I am the Lady Estalchin Lafoxbane. I have come for the swords that you stole from me."
--Quester.
The Lady Estalchin is generally considered to be the Flowering of the Lafoxbane line and the most powerful Elwen in the Changed World. She was the most powerful Councilmaster of Rowan since Herran Turnlong, and her determination is sometimes thought to have been all that held her people together.
Born into a world dominated by vespels, the Lady Estalchin never knew the great high blood lines in their pre-Change glory. However, unlike many of her people, the Lady Estalchin did not spend a lot of time lamenting this. Instead, she studied the vespels' dominance and came to the conclusion that it stifled Elwens' freedom. Therefore, she decided she would like to destroy the Defense.
She became Councilmaster early, and caused so much trouble that the Kaleina agreed to meet with her and try to settle the dispute. Thus she became part of the Questing of Peranor Lightfoot at the end of the Age of Change, and wound up accepting wild magic into her own body, as well as allying with the city of Tamlura. Rowan became a great and powerful city under her reign, and some say that it echoed the greatest achievements of the Lady Eleriad.
Rowan did engage in some wars once the vespels had fallen, and at times it was whispered that the Lady Estalchin was involved in despicable politics. But such ties were never proven, and when she was killed fighting in one of the wars, she went to her pyre in honor.
Lady Estalchin was by all accounts a fierce and determined fighter, but she also brought that determination to being an aristocrat and leader to her people. She would not accept defeat in any field she had chosen, and apparent defeat only made her circle and come back in harder. She proved eminently flexible in accepting the wild magic and the aftermath of the Defense's destruction, and was perhaps the best leader her people could have had in the Changed World.
Any taint that might still rest on the Lafoxbane line has been excised by the Lady Estalchin's bravery and splendor.
