From the hidden papers of Leandros Hieron, Scholar of the Ancient Library. For the eyes of himself and if fate should someday have it, the eyes of the True Princess Elara.
First Year of No Kings
Year of Accord 3785
My official occupation now is to write dictations for the occupying Hesan government. But here in these papers, in the small hours within a quiet spot in the Ancient Library, I wright my own thoughts. Today I was asked to draft yet another proclamation by the magistrate—this one extolling the virtues of “Unified Governance” and the “Shared Prosperity of the Provinces.” The language is polished, the tone imperial, and the intent unmistakable: to present the Hesan occupation as inevitable, benevolent, and unanimous.
But the more I write, the more I suspect that none of those things are true.
The Hesan Empire is vast, and like all empires, it is not a single mind but a chorus of competing voices. The edicts I pen bear the seal of consensus, but behind that seal I sense friction. I have heard whispers—quiet ones, traded over wine or scribbled in the margins of intercepted letters—that nobles from the northern provinces were baffled by the invasion of Alendria. They saw no strategic value, no cultural affinity, and certainly no economic urgency. To them, Alendria is a distant, poetic land, full of ruins and riddles, not coin.
So why invade?
Some say it was the ambition of a single figure—Chancellor to the Emperor, Lord Valerius Caelum, perhaps. Or the Emperor’s ambitious cousin, Frau Balthild zu Fichtenhain—who saw Alendria as a career jewel or a stepping stone. A conquest to be remembered. A province to be reshaped in their image. The kind of legacy that earns statues and songs.
Others point to economics. The war machine does not run on glory alone. It requires steel, grain, and gold. And Alendria, for all its fragility, still holds marble, amber, copper, and veins of silver in its hills. Trade routes that touch the goblin enclaves of the eastern marches. The goblins, for their part, despised the Landons—King Theodor, for all that can be said about his rule, kept the goblins out of Alendria. With the Landons scattered and Alendria subdued, new arrangements may have been struck. Goblins hoard treasure and cause mayhem, yes, but they also trade in secrets. Perhaps the empire bought more than coin.
And then there is the Vault of Ginomai. Always the Vault. Chloe Iphimedeia guards it with a quiet intensity that suggests more than duty. I do not know what lies within, but I know that its existence has shaped policy. Whether it holds a relic, a record, or a ruin, it has become a symbol. A justification. A prize.
I do not believe the empire moves as one. I believe it moves as many—some eager, some reluctant, some merely swept along. The magistrate I serve is no zealot. He is a functionary. He reads reports, signs orders, and asks me to make them sound noble. I do so, because I must. But I also write these notes, because I cannot help but wonder:
What if the invasion of Alendria was not a grand strategy, but a gamble? And what if, in that uncertainty, there is still room for Alendria to shape its own fate? I, for one, still hold a pen.
But this is merely speculation of a desperate, half mad, romantic. I write this in stolen hours, between edicts and inspections. I think of Princess Elara often. If she lives, I hope she knows that not all voices have been silenced. That some of us still remember the old songs, even if we dare not sing them aloud.
And if she returns—whether in shadow or in light—I hope she finds allies not only in rebels and warriors, but in scribes and skeptics. In those who have seen the machinery of empire from within, and still choose to believe in something gentler.