• To those who seek to put this terrible event to record;

    My name is Felix. Count Felix Alran Malrais III. It was by my order that the Temple of Satreas was burned. I pen this letter now so that the reader may know my commitment to my actions. I wish not to apologize, nor to grovel and beg for my life; the noose that awaits me at first light will not deter me.

    My guards burned the temple at my order.

    The rumors that catch the wind like sparks from that fire spread lies and perversions, and if the last thing I do is quell those rumors with a shocking truth, then so be it. As if to say they rule the lives of those in devotion to the Great God, the priests of Satreas refused to perform a wedding ceremony for me and the one that I love.

    Loved.

    It wasn’t enough, this public humiliation and refusal. My intended was not befitting of my station, nor was he some vapid woman licking my mother’s shoes and fawning over trinkets to gain favor. He. Yes, he. ‘Let the rabble do as they please, but the Aristocracy must always set an example.’

    They called us impure. Should that have bothered me? It didn’t. Purity holds no weight with me.

    It was when the priests of Satreas assaulted the servants’ village of my father’s estate, dragging my help out one by one, combing every family for him, my Dacian, that I knew I would have to punish them, make an example of them. I thought they would only humiliate us further in some trivial way, but instead they took Dacian. For four days I hunted for him, interrogated every priest, tore apart the temple and the outlying buildings, ransacked every room….

    Dacian’s body was found on the fourth day in the pond, swollen and pale, floating in the weeds—I’ll never forget what he looked like when he was dragged out for as long as I live—incidentally, that won’t be very long, will it?

    I never thought that heartbreak could lead to such uncontrollable fury, and yet, I knew what I was doing. The order I gave to my guards was deliberate. I wanted the priests of Satreas to suffer as I had suffered—as I knew that Dacian had suffered.

    I knew that my request was unorthodox and would be met with disfavor, but such violence from the priests of a temple my father commissioned—I never thought….

    No. I never thought.

    The Temple of Satreas is now a pile of rubble and cinders, still smoking. I feel no remorse. Tomorrow I hang, hopeful to greet my Dacian in the next life—a better life.

    Signed,

    Count Felix Alran Malrais III