"May the Gods help me, but I cannot recognize my mother any longer. I can only see the monster that has killed so many. Ruined so many. Stolen so much. She breaks the spines of tens of thousands of slaves just to build her temples, her roads, her walls, where once she and my father eagerly discussed shattering the slave markets of Kislev entirely. She molds her niece as an instrument, and they continue to take and take and take. Where just and sound reasoning cannot suffice, they manufacture evidence, or proceed without it. She...hoards...like a dragon does. Power. People. Wealth. Land. All the proud lines of nobility since the time of Miska herself are being shackled, winnowed down, or shut out into the Oblast. Those that defy her die...horribly. Always. Impaled and left to see if they will die of their wounds or from the weather upon the walls. Burned. Tortured. Crushed. Any who do not conform to her desires has their lives and soul forfeit. She thinks to dictate even to the Gods themselves. It cannot stand. My mother guided me to walk the path of Tor, to stand up as the unbroken mountain upon whom the lightning cannot but illuminate. And if I must be the thunder that shatters the monster that wears her face, then so be it."
