REVEALED: A Forbidden Affair in Rorei’s Court
Love Letter to Alexi, Consort of Rorei the Young
In 784 AE, Emperor Rorei the Young unexpectedly announced the treason of his Consort, Alexi, and the Binder Helia. Beyond the official announcement, neither name was ever uttered again during Rorei’s reign. It has long been believed that these two women must have humiliated the aging Emperor.
Only now, in the discovery of a single fragmentary letter, have we begun to piece together the true relationship between the Imperial Consort and the Binder Helia. This document holds startling implications on the nature of magic, which has, for the first time, escaped the hands of the mages.
[…]cannot, or so the thinking goes. Must not, or so I have been commanded. Imperious. Impervious. Our Lord Emperor in his thirst for youth drinks us dry of our own.
But you. Radiant you. Happily would I cut through a thousand youthful throats to give you back your years with him. All those years without me. All those years he kept you hidden away from the world. Covetous of your bloom. Of your shine.
Do you remember?
That morning in your chambers when first we met changed me utterly. Blasted away the person I believed myself to be. Your radiance scorched the past away and all the gods fell from me, leaving only you.
It’s embarrassing to admit, even now, how I took your comb that first meeting. The plain ivory one you later told me was your favorite. I keep it always with me. A way to keep you always close.
I can hear you already, “You mustn’t dare!”
But I must.
“You go too fast!”
I have but finite moments of this life and I cannot bear to spend them without you.
“You reach too far!”
Would that my arms could grow still longer. I do not care who finds this or what punishment may follow, for my heart belongs to you. Has always belonged to you, from its first beat to its last. If they find us, let them come. Let them know our hearts!
I will not deny you. Cannot deny you.
I know you fear. I hear your doubts echoing in my head whenever I’m away from you. But trust in me. Believe in me, I beg you.
[The following page is lost.]
[…]your touch, your blush, is simply too much. Alexi, dear Alexi. My heart and my soul, Alexi. I belong to you and will not deny you. Cannot deny you.
I have studied and mapped the stars, given shape and name to the firmament, and there in the eternal expanse of the heavens have I written your name. Alexi. Alexi. Alexi. The simple joy and pleasure of your name, Alexi.
There is a theory, though named grey and ungodly, of two Binding their hearts together as one. To make two hearts into a single soul. Dangerous, for all believe — or would have us believe — the result is mutual death. A shared suicide. A romanticism in that, to be sure.
But I believe there is a deeper Binding possible. For two to become one, entwined together round the molten core of our shared soul, may cost the bodies. Will likely cost the bodies. But we are not simply meat and sinew and blood and bone. We, like the stars above, are children of the Meridian, and that is where I believe we return when our bodies fail and dissolve.
And so, were we to Bind our hearts and souls as one, we would[…]
[The text becomes illegible for the remainder of the page. The text may have been magically obscured, making its recovery impossible at this time.]
[…]cannot give him any more. He has had enough. Far too much. More than any man — let alone this man — deserves. Let him use the others as he has used you. Let him age and die like all else. If anyone ever deserved to live forever, it was not our great Emperor, Rorei the Fool, Rorei the Young.
But you, Radiant You — I could give you more years. Give you youth. All that was taken from you while you suffered in his empty palaces can be returned. The price is steep and it is paid in blood. But what is blood to love?
And what is this life shared in secret to an eternity spent in a single soul, washed together against the Meridian’s eternal shores?
