Lord Fireheart's Letter
Ignis and Tigni,
In each of you burns a passion to seize the gears of the world and turn them to your will. I am not such a coldhearted man that I cannot recognize this, even if I do sincerely wish that Ignis’s ambition was not set on the dismantling of my own. I am sure that sending you to this place is stifling - no doubt I would have seethed at my own father for such an imposition.
One day, Tigni, by my will or by my passing you will inherit the mantle of the Council of Flame. My hope is that this day is not soon - you are young and need not be so burdened in your youth - but were it tomorrow I know you would be a fine and capable ruler. I have spent my lifetime atop this Empire, building it into a vast engine by which you can realize even grander dreams. I have faith that you will be a figure of legend in distant years where my name is but whispered.
Ignis. I doubted that you would be the heir the family needed, whether you were a youth in your books or a man in your cups. Of late I have feared that you may become a permanent stain upon my legacy, and by extension your sister’s reign. However, whatever kind of rebel, villain, or iconoclast you may be becoming, you are still my blood. I do not and will never wish you dead. I apologize for using you in my machinations of late - the “Windwatcher’s Keep Terrorists” were a useful pretext to lock down the city in preparation for the true battle to come. Perhaps when the threat has passed, we may speak as men rather than enemies.
I know little of the colossus, and that alone is enough to concern me. My advisors compare it to the weapons that heralded the end of the Aether Age centuries ago, but what few records survive of those days only trouble me further. I have many times taught you to be assured of victory before marching to battle, but today I betray my own hypocrisy. The Torch is a mighty force and Twinpyre a monument to its grandeur, yet I lie awake in the late hours contemplating their fragility against a force of perhaps unstoppable destruction. In truth, sending you to this place is a selfish act. I cannot wholeheartedly protect my people, my Empire, your birthright, with the weight of your lives hanging in the balance.
Your Father, Ragnus