Your words reach me upon a wind now heavy with the clangour of forges and the creak of galley masts. You write of dreams, of empire, of voices that shape the world, and you ask what price might buy the Aalen's peace. Hear me plainly:

No sum in coin nor covenant can purchase a people from the soil that bore them before dwarves first learned to smelt or humans to charter a senate. The Aalen Tsol'aa are not a border to be surveyed, nor a timber stand to be logged at convenience. Our sovereign boughs are the graves of our eldest, the nursery of our newborn, and the loom upon which every story we tell is threaded. To "delineate" the village from the forest would be to sever hand from wrist and call the bleeding orderly.

Your offer strikes a deeper offence still. Rangers report Cyrenian officers discussing whether my mother might be replaced with a more pliant monarch. That such talk is entertained while you pen assurances of respect tells me more of your empire's character than any letter. Once, Cyrene stood here unbidden and kept its promise: shield, not master. Now you fly a tide-green standard, speak of dominion, and wonder why the Aalen braces its bowstrings.

I will not barter sovereignty for safety, nor cede ancient ground to spare the sensibilities of those who traded neutrality for a trident and a crown of foam. Guard your own conscience, Huntmaster, for the oath your city swore over my father's corpse remains unspent, and our memory is older than any ink that recorded it.

May you find wisdom before ambition spends you utterly.

- King Tu'eras

Penned by my hand on the 13th of Scarlatan, in the year 992 AF.