We live in prophetic times. I am sure every bard throughout history has said the same thing. Our age is different, more impactful. The destiny of our futures, and the legacy of our pasts hangs in the balance. Our heroes are mightier than all those who have come before. Our villains more devilish, sinister, destructive. The stakes are the highest they have ever been. The consequences more devastating.

What a pile of shit.

We are living in an apocalypse set in motion by my daughter. Sirileth brought one of our moons down on us. She killed thousands. But she saved the world. Yes, she also opened it to a new threat, but well… that is what the stories never tell you. There is no happy solution to every problem. There are actions, and there are consequences. Could Sirileth have done it another way? Maybe. But who is to say it would have turned out better? And who gets to decide what better means?

It was perhaps my fault. I will admit to that much, at least. I abandoned Sirileth when she needed me most. Left her, a young girl, to rule a queendom in my stead. To fight a war she never asked for. I ran away because I could not stop the momentum of my own reputation. The Corpse Queen could never die while I still lived, so I vanished. It was unfair of me. To heap such responsibility upon the shoulders of my daughter. My sister, Imiko, raised Sirileth as best she could in my stead, but Imiko was never one to take a firm hand. It was my fault. For not being there when I was needed. For not raising my daughter as I should have. And for shielding her from too much of the truth.

When someone started tearing open new scars in the reality of our world, Imiko came to find me. Of course Sirileth was the culprit. Forcing people into Source rejection so they would release a catastrophic combination of wild magics that ripped open holes in Ovaeris. If only I had understood at the time why my daughter was doing it, perhaps I could have found another way to… but no. Sirileth was always smarter than me. If she couldn’t find another way then there was no other way to be found.

I chased my youngest daughter across half of Ovaeris, desperate to find her, to stop her. I thought she was planning to rip open the great rift above the Polasian desert. To allow the Maker, the being that birthed our gods, to flop through and devour our world. I didn’t understand.

When I finally caught up with my daughter, it was too late. No. That is an excuse. I chose to take her side. I chose to believe in Sirileth. She assured me she was doing the right thing, and I trusted her. I had no idea, at the time, of what she was planning.

Sirileth ripped our twin moons apart, pulled Lursa down from her orbit and through the great rift. The Sourcery suppressing ore contained within the moon reset the rift, pushing the Maker back into its own realm. She saved us all. Then the moon crashed into Polasia and… well, I guess we still have to deal with the consequences of that.

I was not expecting Imiko to sacrifice herself. She swallowed an Impomancy Source and stepped into the reset rift. Her catastrophic breakdown redirected the giant portal to Sevorai, the Other World. The other half of our world. Two sides of the same coin, united at last. The first stable portal to Sevorai. And all it cost was my little sister’s life. The price was too fucking high.

Judgement is a pedestal held up by the twin pillars of context and perspective. I needed to start at the end of my story to provide you with the perspective. But I must also go back to the start, because without everything that led up to it, without understanding the decisions we made and those that were made for us, you will not have the context needed to pass judgement.

As has been made abundantly clear, I am not qualified, nor unbiased enough to render a verdict myself. And so, I give you everything you need. Context. Perspective. The truth as I see it, as I lived through it. I leave you to form your own opinion.

Did Sirileth do the right thing? The just thing? The conscionable thing? And know this, understand this. There is a difference between being on the right side of morality, and the right side of history.