Seneschal of the Crown,

For near a century, the children of the West have safeguarded your home
against the Qashar and Holy Church, those pernicious vermin of the East.
Conceived by Dethea de Soulis and signed by Merik D'Ischai, the
Hashan-Mhaldor Non-Aggression Treaty served as a foundation for mutual
respect and cooperation - financially, culturally, and militarily.

Vicious bloodletting in recent years should have clarified how Hashani
interests are best served by engagement, not isolationism. A city of
thieves and ritualists, merchants and scholars must know that complete
neutrality is impossible, a pleasant fiction that exists only in a world
wherein thieves do not steal, knowledge does not threaten, and interests
do not collide.

Your latest post equates my people, so often sacrificed for your
security, with heathen foes struck down on your behalf. Rather than
sharpen blades against those people, you have sharpened tongues against
mine - casting dispersions on the motives of honest men and women so
often dead in your defense.

This was the final insult. If you will secure the Crown of the Ithmia
against Her enemies, you shall do so alone.


Regretfully,

Father Coldraven
Tyrannus, Mhaldor



Penned by my hand on the 20th of Ero, in the year 540 AF.