O Divine Flame, O Eternal Radiance who sees all things in truth, I do not raise this prayer with pride in my voice, nor with bitterness in my heart, only with the ache of a man who has seen too much, and yet still wishes to see more, if only to understand.
I walked among the last, Lord. Your last sons in this place. Forty men, bruised, broken, unbending. We did not pray for rescue. We pray for clarity. And if we are to die, let it be knowing what fire we carried, and why You lit it in our souls.
Was it Your will that brought us here, to this wall, to this ruin, to this silence that falls heavy after the screaming ends?
If so, I do not question. But I confess: I do not understand.
I saw them, Lord. Each one, Your servants, Your anointed, Your chosen. I saw them kneel, not in submission, but in dignity.
King Loghain I, silent, as if he saw a glory beyond this world. Countess Saoirse Cousland Teare in white, ready as a bride, but for the grave. Bishopess Rhiannon Cousland, who spoke Your name with cracked lips, and with that last word sanctified the ground.
Margrave Tristan von Rivacheg and Baron Lucian von Rivacheg, Lord Alaric von Rivacheg, Baron Erak Ulfsverd, Baron Aldric von Talmberg, Cecilia Elizabeth McCaffery, Veronica Santangelo… All felled like oxen at the block. Lady Adeli von Halmar and Sir Halt von Talmberg, mother and son, united unto the end. Lady Quinn Quelius… None wept. None begged. Even when the blade came down like a butcher’s tool.
They killed them, Lord, they killed them like pigs. But I swear to You, they died like heroes. I know that there are more prisoners, and I know that they will meet the same fate.
But I stood, above it all, a priest with no pulpit, a staff in my hand, dust in my lungs, and I asked You: Why?
Why give them such courage, if not to change the ending?
Why light their hearts with fire, only to let them fall alone in darkness?
Or is that, perhaps, the point? That the fire is not for victory, but for witness?
You saw him, Lord, the boy who calls himself Emperor.
He sends others to do what he will not. He hides behind numbers, behind silk tents and ink-stained fingers, plotting on maps with little carved soldiers like a child, as if the lives of men were a game.
He has no queen. No child. No friend. Only walls. Only echoes. And yet he dares call the Caorrani cowards?
He led not from the front. He struck not a single blow. And yet he claims triumph. He only joined the battle when it was already won.
Is this, too, Your plan?
Is it Your will that a boy’s ego should drown nations? That because the Araluani denied him, because Caorran would not bow, he should drag his own empire and people into damnation?
He has built nothing, Lord. And in his hunger to possess what was not his, he has destroyed what was never his to judge.
They cheer now. They call it peace. But the peace of ash is not peace. It is absence.
And yet, You kept me alive. Why?
Not for glory. Not for vengeance. Not for some late triumph.
But perhaps to speak.
Perhaps to kneel here, in soot and ruin, and offer You these words.
So I say now, not to men, but to You, my Divine:
The Covenant is not stone. It is not name. It is not noble blood.
It is flame.
And even now, even here, it burns. Within me. Within the memory of those who died.
Let them forget our names. But do not let them forget the fire.
Let the ghosts of Caorran haunt not in hatred, but in holy remembrance.
Let the dreams of the conquerors be troubled by the eyes of the just.
And when the pillars of this empire crack, and when the worms eat through the marble, and when no songs remain in their cities…
Then, raise up a new flame, born from this night.
If this was Your plan, then let me be part of it, though I do not understand it.
If this is the crucible, then let me burn rightly within it.
If this is the end, then let it be a holy end.
Let me die, Lord, not as a shepard, not as a leader, but as a servant whose light was not snuffed out by fear.
And if I must fall, then let my fall carry the whisper: The Light remains.