The House of Galahar

[ferdaboy 3472]

 

VE DENLICHTE NIKIRALA OE TRIEK

THE HOUSE OF GALAHAR

 

 

“And Owyn recanted the Askanites, ‘Do you not remember the words of your sire, that none shall ever take the north without the favor of your Maker?’”

The Confessions of Eldreden (3:21)

 

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THE NORTH FALLS. These are the words of Marius I, the namesake of my brother, your father, written some four-hundred years past in the wake of the Great Northern War. He and his armies were routed first at Elba, then from Vasiland by the Courlanders. His loss was total, yet he fought with honour. He led all his people into the lands of Marna, where they licked their wounds as one. I presume this to be your intent with this “Karoslund.”

 

Know that there is no shame in defeat. It was not long ago that the children of Edel laid low the Heartlandic Empire beneath the banners of Sigismund III. And it was his son, Karl III, who crushed the Royalist Orenians on the fields of Acre. Aleksandr II destroyed the Burgundyist host utterly in his campaigns in the Midden. Had the sons of the sons of the sons of our enemies drowned in their guilt, Hanseti and Ruska would stand a thousand years more. But it was not to be. They maintained their dignity, their faith, and their will to fight.

 

Yet you, unlike our enemies and our forefathers, have forfeit the honour of your great house and the spirit of your people. You have yielded the ancestral styles of our dynasty. You have sworn yourself and our house to apostates enthralled by wicked gods. You betray the faith of our fathers by tarnishing our sacred lineage with the unspeakable act of apostasy. It was our honoured ancestor, Saint King Otto II, who marched in crusade against the Nordlings and their Red Faith. And now it seems his efforts were in vain. But these acts, you did with no crown.

 

Know that as I write this, there is no feud between us. You fought, and you lost. It is the way of things. You shall forever be my kin, but I cannot bring myself to follow you into the waste. I am the eldest of our line, and I shall not kneel to a Nordling. I shall not swear oaths in the absence of my GOD, and I shall forever sing the praise of the Prince in Black. 

 

And so I have chosen to remain in the land of my birth. On this day I name myself Josef Stanimar, patriarch of the House Barbanov-Bihar-Galahar. I make no claims to the titles yielded by the House of Barbanov-Bihar. I shall be styled Baron of Ghaestenwald, the holding of my mother, and I shall rule from my seat on the Isle of Maenvestiyaeo beneath the banner of Burgundy. Upon my death, all I hold shall be given unto Vasilia, whom I hereby name my legitimate daughter and heir.

 

In some ways you are a better man than I, Joren. You have endured the greatest of hardships. You have spilled blood, and bled for our kingdom. For this I shall always respect you. But I shall never again be ruled by you. 

 

GODAN BLESS THE HOUSE OF GALAHAR.

GODAN PRESERVE THE KINGDOM OF BURGUNDY.

 

SAINT KARL PRAY FOR US.

THE DARK NIKIRALA IS COME. 

 

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HIS LORDSHIP, Josef Galahar, 

Baron of Ghaestenwald, Lord of the Isle of Maenvestiyaeo

 

On this month of,

VZMEY AG HYFF, 

577 EHR SIGMUNDA.

 

[indiana105 5126]

"A worthy lord in wicked times," Jan of Radovanic proclaimed upon receiving the missive. "I shall serve this Galahar until my last."

[kaylacita 1317]

In her chambers at Maenvestiyaeo, Vasilia Galahar clutched the missive to her chest. For 29 years she was Barrow. A bastard. No longer. Now she would be a lady, as she dreamed of when she was but a girl.