House Resalia was a minor but respected noble house, known for loyalty to the Crown, careful oathkeeping, open-handed relief, and competent administration. Alenna's father governed with a strong sense of duty and compassion, though his work often kept him emotionally absent from his daughter. Alenna's mother died when she was young, leaving her with few memories beyond her father's recollections of her beauty, intelligence, and moral clarity. After Alenna's father died suddenly five years ago, Alenna was the only living heir. Odren, away on a long inspection with his ranger mentor, returned after the funeral. The death had been handled hastily, with no adequate postmortem examination or thorough inquiry. Odren and his mentor suspected foul play but found no proof. Soon afterward, a more powerful noble house claimed that weakened Resalia could no longer govern its domains properly. Through political maneuvering, House Resalia lost nearly all its lands. The Crown allowed it to retain Hengecarn, a strategically important town whose resources, steam-energy works, and engineering shops made it too valuable to abandon, but whose remote position, surrounding wilderness, and proximity to a hostile country made it costly to defend. The Crown-approved fiduciary administrator managed Hengecarn during Alenna's studies abroad. Alenna wrote to Odren that she would return in five years and expected him at her side. During that separation, Odren learned that his ranger mentor had once belonged to the Kais, a mystic knight order scattered after the last Dark War. The mentor trained him more severely, awakening abilities that seem beyond ordinary skill. At the final test, Odren refused to surrender the Resalia badge on which he had sworn loyalty. Instead, he burned his beloved first book. His mentor approved: the trial had tested whether he would give up his own identity merely to satisfy a command. Alenna and Jessa returned by ship through Guvian port and reunited with Odren. Their renewed oath felt effortless, though none of them was unchanged. On the road to Hengecarn, armed attackers struck their small convoy. Jessa and Odren defeated them, and Alenna revealed a measure of her own magical power. The circumstances suggested an attempted assassination disguised as robbery. The three resolved that Alenna would not travel unescorted. This ambush is the watershed that turned their childhood promise into an active struggle for the survival of House Resalia.

Their working headquarters is the Resalia residence in Hengecarn, a once-proud manor now strained by years of uncertain management. The Larks use a small map room for household decisions, a cramped records room to compare estate accounts, and a modest yard where Jessa drills anyone willing to learn basic defense. The old tree house from their childhood is not their base, but its location remains a private touchstone from which the friends take courage.