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By My Own Hand - A Belated Introduction
I am Juvela Van Leuwin, daughter of Inger Van Leuwin, and granddaughter of a woman burnt at the stake for being a witch. It seems that misfortune and tragedy are as common to my blood as its colour – and I assure you, it is red. By my own hand I write this record using the skills that they forbade us to learn. For them, the ruling order of Ossard, such things as reading and writing were reserved for the mercantile-noblemen, most especially if they were of Heletian birth. In that, you see, is my failing, for I am both not a man, nor Heletian. The Inquisition may have been expelled from the city after the riots, but the Church of Baimiopia and its prejudices were not. My Flet parents taught me, their beloved only daughter, what they thought adequate. They showed me the basics of letters and numbers, but no more, worried if I learnt too much I’d be caught out. Needless to say, I’ve since improved my talents.Today, with the skills they forbade me to have, I sit down to tell the tale of how their mighty city, the city-state of Ossard, fell. It all started about six years before my coming of age. The first signs were subtle, hidden amidst unrelated events and missed by most. It was eyes further afield that had spied the beginnings of the corruption. Those same eyes, Lae Velsanan eyes, imparted a warning that would save me. For that, despite their terrible part in the coming catastrophe, I will forever be grateful. We begin in the late summer of the year 509 Encarnigo Krienta (seventeen years after the Burnings). I had just entered my teens… |
