Chapter Text
Guardian 14, 9:31
I do not know if this will make it to you. I do not know if you are even alive, and the thought that you might not be out there breathing fresh air and arguing about dog hair on your pillow and pocketing spare scones fills me with dread. I have had no word from Kinloch in ages, though that’s not saying much. I’ve had no word at all. Even the mages I had written to on Theodoptera’s behalf in Ostwick and Orlais have fallen silent. There are a host of new mages here, fresh survivors of some blood-soaked massacre in Starkhaven. They are wary and mostly keep to themselves. They are right to be. You were right. Our Circle is rife with Tranquil and they were not here when last I went beneath the Tower. You were right and I was wrong. Perhaps I have always been wrong. It isn’t safe. We are not safe. Do not come. Do not come here. If you are alive- If you live still, please go on. Remember our promises? You like to break them, I know, but I need this, my heart. Stay far away and safe and- yes, even silent. Perhaps silent is best. Only live. Live and be free and stay the same secret-keeping vault that I have always known you to be. Take this from me and stow it in your mind. Remember the cave and the time Duke farted loud enough to startle us from it. Remember those last nights that I could touch your skin; you smiled in your sleep and I couldn’t bear to close my eyes and miss a moment of it. You have the softest skin, right there inside your elbow and at the curve of your neck. Remember those things. Find someone you trust, someone who can protect you when you can’t go on, someone who will remind you to eat and love your cats and tell you every day how miraculous you are. Find them and live and love and be whole somewhere far away. Don’t let them get you. Don’t go back, never again. Not for me. Not for anyone. Whatever you have to do. Don’t come here and don’t ever go back to the Circles. They’ll kill you. They mean to kill us all, I think.
They are right to try. It is us or them.