The Letter from Alduun

[Ferd0207 204]

 

The Letter from Alduun

 

 

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The upper floor of the Acaln’sae Manor was quiet, blanketed in the soft stillness of a city that was struggling to remember how to breathe. The Okarir’sil sat alone in his office, a single oil lamp casting a faint glow across the wooden, carpeted floor. Shelves of old tomes and neatly written reports lined the desk, piled in columns on chairs and couches, stood in neat stacks across the floor and overflowed from shelves, their order a reflection of the man who maintained them. He was bent over his desk, quill in hand, reviewing an unfinished collection of documentation- observations on patrol readiness, drafts of civic memoranda, reflections on the state he believed he still served. Even now, long after the Motherland had begun to fracture, much akin to the Starland he used to call home, he kept his discipline alive through sheer force of habit. His script was elegant, mercilessly precise, and the silence that surrounded it seemed carved into the room.

A knock sounded - soft and hesitant. It broke the air like a thin crack through glass, and made a meek attempt at summoning the Elven warrior’s attention.

Antelian did not lift his gaze. “Enter.” Was the only laconic command he issued to his intruder.

The door creaked open. The ‘thill used to lock it when he worked late in the night, but the barbarous raid the Imperials conducted over his abode had broken the lock. Hesitant footsteps approached with the kind of careful cadence that betrayed the messenger’s dread. A folded letter was extended toward him, held by a single, trembling hand. Its broken seal caught the light - a clean fracture across the wax which featured the Antler Crest of Haelun’or. Someone, perhaps many someones, had already acquainted themselves with the contents of what it contained before daring to bring it here.

He took the letter without any word or comment. The paper was worn where others had touched it, creased faintly at the edges, the marks of hurried fingers. Antelian unfolded it with the same measured composure he gave to everything, though a faint tension tightened beneath his stillness.

He read.

And the world inside the room shifted.

The words described the scene in Alduun in cold, factual strokes: the delegation, officials and civilians alike, ushered into the grand hall under the pretense of trial, the doors barred and guarded, the sudden ring of steel as Idunian and Imperial soldiers alike drew their blades. The execution had been public, merciless, audacious - an orchestrated spectacle, a planned massacre carried out before a roaring, cheering, bloodthirsty human crowd. No mercy was extended. No exception granted. Every Mali who had attended the trial, which never in fact took place, had been put to death as the audience cheered their barbarous troops on.

The Sohaer was dead.
The Silver Council was dead.
Haelun’or, in the laws of men, was dead.

Antelian stared at the page long after finishing it. The room was so silent that the flame of the oil lamp seemed unnaturally loud as it flickered. His expression remained composed - no break, no gasp, no outward sign of the cold blow that had struck him. But behind that still mask, something tight coiled inward, constricting beneath his ribs until breath itself felt like an intrusion.

He placed the letter down with little care, as if it was just another patrol report. Then he leaned back slightly in his chair, not from weakness but from the weight of thought descending upon him. His gaze wandered to the window. In the dark reflection of the glass, he saw his own figure drawn in the faint lamplight - tall, rigid, a poised silhouette stretched thin over something hollow. His amber eyes met themselves, contrasted greatly so by his flowing maroon hair.

Images rose unbidden, hurried on by his imagination. Acalmaehr Calith standing with calm dignity to the last. Councilors he had advised, corrected, argued with - cut down one by one. The banners of the Silver State torn from their posts, trampled under human boots. The crowd’s laughter ringing out over elven blood spilling across polished stone. Those he hated, those he despised. Those he loved, and those he protected. None among the Mali’thill were people to which the Patriarch of the Acaln’sae Talonnii was indifferent, for even whilst he did not show it, he was a deeply emotional creature. All of them were now dead. Worse - they were humiliated, they were made an example. That no Mali may rise above the human, that when the Mali outdo the Valah, the barbarians shall strike, and mercilessly they shall murder. Animals. Creatures of low cunning and ill-conceit. He was right to hate them. Right from the start.

Then came the questions. The man began to interrogate himself in the silence that surrounded his environment. What happened to Aurelith ? That woman he despised, for she was too merciful for her own good. And Hymnal, the drunkard who had begun to glimpse the right ways just before the slaughter ? What had become of Adorellan, that maddeningly cheerful creature ? Of Evelyn, the child that had drawn blade against his cousin ? Of Soris, that quiet statue of a woman who had served the Motherland for centuries ? Were they too strung by their guts, their corpses desecrated and laughed at by those despicable demons that dared call themselves holy ? Those were all people he had sworn to protect.

The footman had already left.

A tide of emotion rolled through him - grief first, sharp and strangling, for despite all his coldness, these had been his colleagues. His rivals. His responsibilities. His people. He allowed the grief to move through him, disciplined even in mourning, letting it settle without consuming him. It was not loud. It did not overwhelm. It crystallized.

And in that crystallization, another realization followed, as inevitable as dawn:

The Silver State had been dissolved de jure.
But only de jure.

Haelun’or’s Charter could be burned.
Its Council could be butchered.
Its government could be struck down in a spectacle meant to humiliate, to demonstrate superiority, to terrify an entire people into submission.

But Haelun’or itself - the true Haelun’or - was not parchment.

It was the people. It was the language. It was the tradition. No. It is the people. It is the language. It is the tradition.

Millions of small, indestructible things:
the cadence of ancient speech,
the quiet pride in the curve of an elven brow,
the elegant script etched in classrooms,
the memory carried in every elder’s gaze.
These could not be executed in Alduun’s hall.

As he stood slowly from his chair, Antelian felt the truth settle deep in his bones: the humans had killed a government, not a nation. The soul of Haelun’or still lived, smothered but intact. And perhaps - perhaps this was the only thing that could finally awaken it.

The massacre was not merely a tragedy. It was a revelation.

The Rot of Complacency had led them here - the belief that procedure would protect them, that diplomacy could appease men, that humility could purchase safety. Complacency had killed the Silver Council, massacred Mali children, gutted the Sillumir long before the humans sought fit to draw their blades.

Now the Mali’thill would see it.
Now they could not ignore it.
Now they would understand what softness had cost them.

In that, Antelian felt the first true certainty he had known since the fall of the Star Land: Haelun’or would rise again. Not in the shape it had been - not as the gentle council Calith had shepherded - but as something sharper, purer, freed of illusion. The people would demand it. They would mend their mistakes. They would rebuild not out of hope, but out of necessity.

He stood before the window, the dark city reflecting faintly in the glass.

“They killed our state,” he thought. “But they have not killed us.”

The idea warmed in him with a slow, terrible clarity.

In the silence of his dim office, Antelian Acaln’sae felt something shift - a line crossed, a future forming.

Haelun’or was not dead.

It was waking.

And he would be there when it rose.

And thence came the second emotion. Sharp, cutting like steel through flesh. Searing like fire. Anger. Vengeance. Revanche. The Imperials, and their Idunian lapdogs, would pay.

And so Antelian returned to his desk, produced fresh parchment and dipped his quill. For before he drew his blade, he would mark his thoughts in the only way he knew since childhood.

Poetry.

 

Maehr’sae Hiylun’eyha