To whoever finds this note,
It is easy for men to take sides.
But to take a side quickly with too little information leads to heedless death, and we need no more of that in this world. In reading this, my only request is that you hear me out. I wish for you to avoid my mistakes; I made many.
The burning of Hold Verim was not among them.
You should know of the High Lord Rello Verim. In all likeliness, he will be in your history books. You would know that he funded the Outer Cities, gave the people jobs, positions, and shelter. You have probably been told of his wife, Thelya, and her generosity to the tenants beneath her.
You do not know the countless deaths buried under their rule. Would it not be for my choices—my efforts—you would never know. But I survived while they burned alive. I do not regret a second of their pain.
Rello was a cruel man who overworked his tenants and crushed any that spoke back. His classist organization led to countless fights between the tenants, clawing at each other’s throats to achieve another rank in his program. Their reward? Enough food to last another week. I watched women disappear after his gaze fell on them, whisked away in the night. I saw boys barely old enough to work brought to the brink of death through exhaustion be hoisted up, faces dunked in water, and thrown out into the fields again.
I also remember Rello’s screams as he cried out to me for mercy. I sealed his cedar doors with an iron bar, trapping him and his wife in the Hold that would become their grave. I remember the horrified look in his wide, fat face as he burned.
Thelya seemed the better of the two at first. While Rello purposefully ignored suffering, she rode out into the construction sites with jars of water. That is what was recorded for future historians: the tragic tale of a lady kind enough to bring parched servants something to drink.
I will tell you the truth of it. Thelya found men deep in desperation, near death, thirsting for even a sip of water, and abused them. She played games, laughing with that shrill voice whenever they failed another one of her impossible tasks. She saw us as nothing but worms to be ground under her tailored slippers. Men will do anything if it purchases them repose. Thelya was merciless.
As was I. The water she kept from the servants, I repaid her in oil. I saturated their rugs, their rich clothes, their bathing halls, with the stuff. I forced it down their rich throats until they wept. And when I set it alight, Thelya finally felt some reflection of the pain known by my brethren for years. It was not enough.
I watched as the Hold burned. The flames are seared forever in my eyes and on my soul. Even as I write this letter, I see them still. Dancing. Burning. No one was left alive of their Hold. And after it, I turned to the servants and set them all free. I do not know if they have survived.
I will not deny my actions. I will not pretend they are wrong, or that I have any shame in them. I did what is right, and that is all any man could wish to do.
Von dan Bremmer,
Builder and destroyer of the Outer Cities.
This was another short story penned in my writing group! This letter is set in the world of Fate of a Failed Dragon (Hearth), though it's hard to tell from the chapters I've posted. Once you get Avis' perspective, it will start to make sense. But for the future, Von dan Bremmer (not to be confused with Bremmer the immortal from Ready for It) was a Caelish slave who used his Solid Vein to build the Outer Cities before he was put to death for his treasonous actions against the Arden Alliance.
This letter was written by him in prison minutes before his hanging.
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