So this is what it amounts to.

Cyrene spends pages teaching the realm how to think of Cyrene. Cyrene announces itself with trumpets, with slogans, with declarations about honourable conflict and the boldness of Imperial armies. Cyrene speaks of protection, of betterment, of gentle stewardship beneath an Emperor's waters. Cyrene assures us it asks for no slaves, demands no obedience, changes no laws, harms no worship, and only hopes to help each village grow.

Then Mhaldor curses the Tsol'aa, and the hourglass turns over.

And suddenly there is nothing. No Senate voice. No Chancellor's resolve. No Commander's reassurance. No grand, courteous conquerors arriving with remedy, relief, or even a public acknowledgement that their newest jewel has been plunged into calamity. I have heard the soft concern of a few Cyrenians, scattered and private, like prayers whispered into a storm. Yet from those who speak so loudly of policy, empire, and purpose, there is only silence, as if crisis is a foreign tongue and compassion an optional tax.

Do not mistake me. I do not ask Cyrene for salvation. I do not beg the thief to bandage the wound they admire. I simply hold up the mirror they keep trying to rip from everyone else's hands.

Elmer tells the world Cyrene will make conquered villages "better with us". Truax Diaboli poetises about tides and understanding, and how shame does not take root on presiding waters. Lord Abstain finds time to call me a petulant child, to threaten forests, to offer prophecy like a bribe, and to promise submergence as mercy. Crixos declares that Cyrene belongs to Cyrenians and that outsiders have no right to speak of its conduct, as if an empire may stride across borders and then demand privacy when its boots are noticed. Akri tells the realm to speak less and act more, which is almost comical, given how swiftly Cyrene grows verbose whenever conquest needs a perfume.

Yet when its subjects are strangled by a curse and time becomes a blade against the throat, the only thing Cyrene proves is this: its vaunted strength is pageantry, and its vaunted courtesy is conditional. It can threaten. It can posture. It can lecture. It can demand roads be carved to feed its influence "direct, unfiltered", as if the world is a canal system awaiting its engineers.

But it cannot, or will not, stand as guardian to the territories it claims it improves.

That is the truth worth carrying beyond the fate of the Aalen. Not because it surprises any who have watched empires long enough, but because Cyrene sells itself as the exception. It dresses the wolf in civic language and calls the bite protection. It calls domination betterment. It calls submission clarity. It calls dissent whining.

If you are a village with a border. If you are a city with ambitions. If you are a wanderer who thinks conquest is merely a change of flag and a few new patrols, look at the hourglass and remember what happens when the sand starts to run.

They will be loud when they are taking. They will be silent when you are dying.

- King Tu'eras

Penned by my hand on the 12th of Sarapin, in the year 993 AF.