Jamis,

            Do not let them persuade you into believing what you know in your heart is false. You are the strongest, most intelligent man I have ever known. One day you will make a fine king, a fair king. I hope that you will take that fairness in stride in the days to come. They will test your strength and kill your soul.

            Before you consider what they tell you as truth, trust your instincts and search your heart. I need you to understand a few things. I never doubted your love for me. It shines from your eyes like stars in the night sky every time you look at me. Never doubt my love for you. Just the thought of your arms around me makes my heart race and my soul rest. It is not distrust or doubt that has brought me to this day. Please understand that my heart beats for you and every breath I take is because of you. You saved me from execution and showed me that not all of your people have strayed from the Light. It shines directly down upon you.

            When I arrived in Mordelic two years ago to negotiate peace between the Dau Rosiera and the Cevians, as well as beg for the life of my father, I knew that I was walking to my death. The headsman's ax was likely to fall on me just as quickly as it was scheduled for my father. My kind are no longer looked upon kindly by your people.

            As the soldiers seized me the moment I entered the onyx gates of your city and dragged me to the palace with an escort of more than one hundred, I knew that I would fail the negotiation the rosiero (my peoples king, as your people see him) sent me across the ocean to execute. Upon the steps of the palace they threw me at the feet of a dozen clerics who were to take me to the dungeons. I heard the same hard word that condemned my father. Treason. Treason against a king I did not follow. Perhaps that was my crime.

            Knowing that my chance to speak with the king was rapidly slipping away, I begged. I pleaded. I was kicked and beaten with steel toes in the face, chest, and everywhere else their boots could reach, for speaking out of turn to the clerics. When I raised my eyes and scanned the faces around me as they beat me I began to believe the Light had deserted me. Every eye was cold and every expression hard. Tears rolled down my cheeks. It was then that I heard the very voice of the Light.

            “Cease or be thrown in a cell beside her.”

            When I turned my head my breath caught, not from the kick that met my chest, but from the sight of you.

            Since the day you saved me, your kindness and generosity have given me hope. Perhaps the future is not as dark as I feared it would be. Regardless, I cannot walk free as your wife while my father rots beneath my feet, awaiting his execution. I know that it is your love for me and your persistence alone that keep him alive, and I love you even more for that, but it still eats at my spirit with every breath I take. He deserves a chance to live in the Light just as I have these past two years. Though I know he would gladly die in order for me to live out my days so blessed as I am, it is not fair or right. I know that you know all of this. I know that you understand how I feel.

            If tonight transpires as I fear it will these could well be my last words to you. You suspect something. I saw it in your eyes when you looked at me before going to meet with the king. Yes, I am going to free my father and sneak him out of the city under the cloak of night. He will return to the rosiero and assure him that peace is coming. Your father has little time remaining in him. Once he passes on and you take his place, the threat of war will die. I know the rosiero well. He will see hope and wait for the day to come.

            Please understand I am doing this for all of our people. I have never before or ever will betray your trust. It is that alone that brought us together and in that we must remain strong in the days to come.

            If I am taken prisoner and marked as a traitor do not come to see me. There will be other matters you must attend, and seeing me will only raise suspicion against you. Once you have taken care of your matters, I will be freed. I have faith in you.

            If I should die please, I beg of you, do not curse your king and abandon your people to avenge me. Though I know in my heart that you love me and would be willing to sacrifice yourself in my name, your people will need you. Without you they will abandon hope. This is larger than the two of us, and we knew it the moment we fell in love.

            I still remember what you said to me when you asked me to marry you.

            Do not doubt that the Light has brought us together for a purpose.

            I never have. I never will. This I vow to you again as I did the day we married. In this act I am bathed in the Light as my soul is bathed in you.

            Into the Light I favor peace and pray for my soul eternal. Eternal in life. Eternal in death. Eternal in love. In that I shall be born again.

Caynon Lightbringer of the Royal House of Gurcius