From the Tower of Scabia
To Dyan Halvest, Stranger of Glavendell
Sealed with white wax and the Archmage's sigil.
Dearest Master,
I read your letter in the solitude of the high chamber, on a night when the wind tore at the curtains as if it wished to enter and listen to your words with me. I recognized it by your handwriting, by its calm, by the pause between sentences. I took the time to read it twice before deciding to reply. The first time I cried. The second... also, though less.
To say that your absence is felt in every stone of this tower would be an understatement. The light changed when you left, and not just in the lamps. The corridors are still full of magic, yes, but not of presence. The Inner Council, in confirming me as Archmage, was ceremonial, dry. None dared to say what you said with a stone and a letter. Thank you for that gesture. I keep it on my desk. Sometimes, I hold it as if it could answer me.
The new title feels too big for me on some days, like a cloak inherited from someone taller, wiser. And yet, I wear it. I inhabit it. Because you taught me that sometimes power is just a promise held with trembling hands. I am learning not to tremble so much.
The Tower keeps turning, as always. But without you, there are more echoes than voices. The decisions that once rested on your gaze now fall on mine, and there are days when I feel it's not enough. I have tried to uphold the teachings, yours, even when others whisper that the new Archmage is young, sentimental, unorthodox. I ignore it. I learned from you that orthodoxy without compassion is just arrogance in a robe.
Now... let me tell you what I didn't tell you the night you left. What I wanted to tell you when I saw you for the last time, standing on the threshold of my chamber, your face still marked by the humiliation Eleanor inflicted upon you. You left in silence. I also remained silent, out of cowardice. But no more.
I saw. I saw the way she broke you. I saw your dignity shattered that night in the Tower hall, when you tried to defend what you believed was right. I also saw how no one supported you, not even I. And for that, Master, I ask for your forgiveness. Not for her. For me.
I failed you in that hour. I should have followed you to the door, at least to tell you that you weren't alone. That to me, you are still the man who taught us to see the fabric of reality as more than just threads and formulas. The one who taught us that magic can also heal.
Do not think, however, that I am anchored to the past. Not entirely. I know you chose to leave not out of defeat, but out of self-preservation. Glavendell sounds like a good place to breathe, to rebuild, as you say. It comforts me to imagine you there, far from the palatial venom, walking among ruins that can still be a home.
If someday Edictus's house needs a protective rune or a steadfast enchantment, send me a sign. It would do me good to help you, even from a distance. And if at any point you decide to return, even if only for tea in the tower garden—which I now tend—you will find a chair waiting for you. And it won't be courtesy: it will be necessity. Your voice still guides me. Sometimes more than my own.
Thank you for not closing yourself off. For continuing to write. For continuing to be my master, even when you are no longer here.
With eternal gratitude, Finia
Archmage of the Tower of Scabia
—who still believes kindness is a form of spell—