Whispers coiled through the Spire like smoke, carrying word that Councilwoman Noctis had been present at the Vernus Gala. Yet unlike the others who attended, she returned alone—and long after the rest. When she finally arrived, her gait was uneven, each step marked by a weary stiffness. Disheveled and hollow-eyed, she bore the look of someone who had not known sleep in days. Rumors surged in her wake: that she had evaded Imperial guards under cover of night, slipping past their grasp while her companions were seized and imprisoned. Some called it fortune. Others, the first thread in a scandal yet to unravel.

Days later, town-criers echoed through the alleys and squares, their voices raised in ceremonial tone:

“Graciously delivered by the Valkian Envoy to King-Emperor Rayan IV, on behalf of Councilwoman Noctis… the following letter is relayed to the people of the Spire."

TO THE IMPERIALS OF THE VALKIAN REALM,
AND TO THE GOOD PEOPLE OF THE SPIRE,

I write now not in protest alone, but in remembrance—and in resolve.

Of a night already fading from the memories of those who orchestrated it, yet one that must remain vivid in ours.

Five of our own were chosen by raffle: no merit, no mandate—only chance. They entered believing they had won hospitality; instead, they were drafted into spectacle. Draped in red and black, placed beneath chandeliers not their own, they were praised as proof that the frontier can be polished, paraded, and—if one squints just so—called civilized.

I stood at the margins that night and heard the King-Emperor speak of “history marching onwards,” of “new chains broken.”

But the truth revealed itself in the quiet cruelty that followed: our people were reduced not to guests, but to props. They were not presented to speak for themselves, but to affirm a narrative already written by the hand of the imperials.

It does not escape us that the Spire’s name has become a ready backdrop for imperial theater—leveraged whenever convenient to advance alliances, to justify crusades, and to lend weight to endeavors we were never asked to join.

A raffle ticket should never purchase the right to someone’s dignity. To the five who bore that burden: your worth was never the court’s to display. You stood with grace where none was owed. You carried a weight that should never have been placed upon you.

And to those who applauded: know this—the Spire endures not through imperial favor, but through our own unyielding will.

So let these words ring louder than the music that masked our humiliation:

With the recognition that the frontier does not need to be tamed:
It need only be respected.

The Spire remains.
We remember.
And we will not mistake the glitter of chandeliers for the light of genuine accord.

Signed,
Councilwoman Meriel Noctis
Councilor Ves'zeryn Kyr
Militia Captain Odokhi Kalibri
Militia Captain Umeneri Helara
Acting Head Physician Konrad Radziwill