Malach V

It could not last.

Mayhap in some way I knew that even then. But I, I could hope. And fool myself. All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself. Surely a curious thing. It started out innocent enough though. I had been in Kamadan several weeks at that moment - I sent the ship back to the Battle Isles with a message for father I would stay in Istan for a while - and never more than an hour apart from Malikat. We travelled everywhere on Istan - from the Astralarium to the Mehtani Keys.

Unbeknowst to me, she was a novice Sunspear, one of that ancient order dedicated to protecting the three realms of Elona. Truthfully, it wouldn't have made any difference to me, had I known - but it did to someone else. Someone didn't like the fact that a Sunspear was getting so close to a member of a strange House, with whatever resources or troops these could muster.

So.

They.

Had.

Her.

Killed.

I came across her body on the plains we had been planning to meet again. Several electrified corpses around her, clearly she had gone down fighting... Her skin was pale and bloodless as she lay there, in a pool of her own blood - with arcane symbols written in it. I know you, my siblings, would think that resurrections, though outside the means of the ordinary peasant, are easy enough for us. Yes. But whatever magic I did, whomever I turned to, nothing could be done. Her soul had been banished to the Mists and could not be recalled to her body.

For anyone else, this would have been the end, but I had knowledge of magic and necromantic rituals far beyond theirs. I retrieved the body from the Sunspear mausoleum, and took it with me to Blacktide Den. There I slipped further into the swamps of Lahtenda Bog. Here, in the gloom and away from prying eyes, I started the ritual. Using necromantic knowledge I've gotten from father, magic from Ascalon, and finally some of the the Mists-tearing power of the Canthan Ritualists, I succeeded.

And I failed.

I managed to liberate her soul from the shackles of the Mists, but I could not resurrect her. She could manifest in this world for short amounts of time, before having to go back to the real life after. She did smile at me with the same smile as in the beginning, as she said her goodbyes. To my prying questions she did tell me who her assailant had been, as she faded out.

A Kournan operative in Istan. I managed to locate this operative and... persuaded him to give me the name of the one giving the orders. The Warmarshal of Kourna herself, Varesh. She had given the orders, not only to kill Malikat, but apparently also me - I had just reached the plains too late.

I had to run from Elona now, since more Kournan operatives were tracking me down. I left then, but I made an Oath as I spilled some of my blood on the lands there. I will be back there, when I am strong enough.

And when I return Varesh will burn. Even if I have to destroy all of Kourna to get to her.