Ir Halak, Deathsinger

"And you, Ir Halak, you are a wizard too, as is the way of twins. I have been with Xivu Arath, who complains that you have made a song, and sung it in her throne world, and killed everyone who listened, quite irrevocably. Will we have songs instead of swords and boomers?"

- Oryx

Ir Halak, Deathsinger is one of Oryx, the Taken King's two daughters, created after Oryx cut a larvae in half. The Deathsinger sisters are first encountered in Last Rites, when the player is infiltrating Crota's death ceremony. They are found next to Crota's tomb and have to be avoided. Together with her twin sister Ir Anûk, Deathsinger, she is encountered and killed in the King's Fall Raid in Threshold.

Biography
Ir Halak and her sister Ir Anûk were created from the same larvae cleft in two by Oryx's sword, Willbreaker. He praised them for their cunning and intellect, especially Ir Halak, for creating the Deathsong, the signature weapon of the Deathsingers and which gave the twins their title. After telling her of her aunt's displeasure, he asked if they would be using songs instead of weapons to fight their wars.

Later, as Oryx wrestled with his worm, Ir Halak and Ir Anûk began to die repeatedly in a certain place, ostensibly for no reason. When asked what they were doing, they launched into a highly technical description that Oryx eventually forced them to conclude simply: "If we hide our deaths from ourselves, we become harder to kill." Thus came about the birth of the first prototype Oversoul. Oryx ordered his son Crota to watch his sisters, fearing they were trying to go to the Deep, and to learn cunning.

Unfortunately it was Crota who needed watching. He began to conspire with his sisters and thought rashly he too would seek for himself a power. Using his sword he cut a hole in the Ascendant Realm, and unwittingly let in the Vex, who mocked his attempts to contain them by simply Blinking away from him whenever he attacked. His sisters went to help him, Ir Halak called upon their fellow Deathsingers while Ir Anûk created an Annihilator Totem and they fought the Vex, who learned all too quickly how the Realm worked, and proved difficult to dislodge.

Later, in order to protect his Realm, Oryx built the Dreadnaught. Ir Halak and Ir Anûk built the weaponry and internal systems for the ship, allowing Oryx to concentrate his Ascendant power and obliterate any foe.

Finally, billions of years later, Ir Halak and Ir Anûk barred the way to their father by challenging the Guardians sent to kill him. As their father's last line of defense they used their Deathsongs to fight and unwrite the Guardians. They were eliminated, and the way to Oryx, the Taken King was clear.

Trivia

 * Ir Halak's Grimoire card can only be obtained by killing her in the Last Rites mission on the Moon without revealing your presence. It does not unlock in the King's Fall Raid. Despite the player being able to kill both Deathsingers in Last Rites, they can still be found in King's Fall. An explanation may be that they both have Oversouls, as they were the ones to discover them.


 * The second part of Ir Halak's name has two possible translations. The first is "Halak" translates to the Arabian word هلاك, which means destruction. The second is that "Halak" is both the name of a mountain mentioned in the Bible (Joshua 11:17, 12:7) and related to the adjective חלק (halaq), meaning smooth, from the verb חלק (halaq II), meaning to be smooth or slippery. The majority of Biblical translations posits it as a proper name.

List of appearances

 * Destiny
 * The Taken King