THE ARCHON

[Daeut]

Out from the factitious winds of Unreality as they sweep gently across the uniform furrows of a ripening grain, a lone figure peers into the benighted horizon cast over its hilly plain. Inexplicable is the self-refusal of this yield to wither in the bounty of this seemingly false earth, thriving when all common precepts may suggest otherwise. In her hand of heavy chitin pens the word on parchment to a special man beyond this gloomy, defiant expanse.

An open letter addressed to Sabathiel Caewynn carries into the light.

When I first launched the Crusade, we shared a vision. Fifty years later, that vision has finally been realized, and now you spoil to spoil it with what can only be described as abandoned bloodlust.

Ever since you were a child, I watched you grow with a leery concern for where your life might lead. Your lofty aspirations of redeeming your family name and undoing the damage inflicted by your father; there was something picturesque about your journey that couldn't help captivate. There was something romantic to your quest of breaking a cycle by absconding the path lain by your father. Yet I remember clearly how you spurned our Pontifice for not being a man of the sword, and not at the fore of our armies leading and inspiring blades, as though that were his designation. Your worldview has not changed to be any less violent since.

You are a hammer desperate to find its next nail.

It is a shame that you have embarked on his same trajectory, determined to breed discontent and chaos where none is required. I often pray in gratitude you were not born an Occultist, for you make one better than most I have met. It is perplexing how the peace we have all desperately striven to attain now risks its undoing at the whim and will of one supposed holy man and his longing for senseless revenge.

You were robbed of your destiny in killing Lyseroth. You were robbed of a deed and opportunity that rightfully belonged to you.

For that, I am sincerely apologetic, and I have no remedy for the valor stolen from you.

Murdering Na'ria will not resolve that.

I do not want for anyone to believe this is anything more than a farce for you to pilfer the Spire Shard that I imbued into Na'ria as though it was your birthright. That this is anything more than your ambition and interest thinly veiled under the banner of justice. If you cared at all for a just treatment of the accused, you might have established a tribunal under more equable terms as I once did decades ago. Instead, you arranged for a trial in secret, far from an audience that could bear witness to the bad faith with which you conducted yourself throughout the whole ordeal.

You refused Martyr's Vigil and Fortune a seat at the jury, despite their constituents and their sacrifices during the Crusade being every bit as great, if not greater, than ours. Knowing that their call would weigh in favor of life.

For that reason alone, we reserve every right to anull and void your verdict.

You preordained the trial and its outcome well before it, and well after it to justify your need for bloodshed. There is nothing in its factual development that paints you in a positive or righteous light.

Your invocation of Edward and Palade's deaths is morally repugnant. Using their sacrifice as a platform to further your agenda is nothing short of reprehensible. The parties most affected by their loss have all spoken and made their peace with Na'ria.

I was there when it happened; you were not.

Azalea and Carnation forgave Na'ria.

When their closest of kin have chosen magnanimity and healing over retribution, it should astound any that you could suffuse yourself with the audacity to claim authority on the exaction of their justice and speak on their behalf. If you truly cared for justice:

Where is the 500,000 bounty on Xarxes?

If you desire to be an insidious little whelp, so be it. Do not expect this escapade of yours to enjoy the recognition of those with the eyes and mind to spare. Aphros and her allies will not acknowledge your misplaced quest for vengeance in any official capacity. Of that I will personally ensure. Win or lose by perpetuating this crusade past its due, the truth is inalienable and conspicuous to the souls that care for it; history will remember you as the tyrant that tried to kill promise and progress to make up for his own individual failings. Seek contentment in your achievements, your real heroic deeds, before you blacken them in the books with this nonsense. The world will despise you, and unlike myself: they will be right for it.

These words I do not anticipate will reach you well. I write this not in a bid to sway your haywire heart or your mind, but for the third parties to whom this may concern and be exposed. But if you have ever set store by the value of my judgment, heed me now:

Look inwards and bring pause to this foolish forlorn romp. Rear your dragons, father your children. Boast the world for which the blood of our kin was sown, and reap of the brilliant fruits your refuse to appraise. Learn to live and love the family you have created--that so much you have earned.

Keep mine out of it.

You will not like me if I am forced to act.

Yours with compassion,
L. E