"We decided then and there that no one man should ever again have the kind of power that king did. We took his kingdom and split it into nine parts for the Nine, with strips of land for our allying kingdoms. I did not want to rule, but I saw their wisdom, and so I took the smallest kingdom for myself: some tracts of land and forest, and a large island in the middle of a river.

"There I built a humble capitol, and brought my family to live out our days in peace and joy. Though my father and younger brother had died in the war, my sisters and their families, mother, and youngest and eldest brother lived still. I thought everything would be for the better then.

"In only five short years everything was gone, my people dead and enslaved, and I -- I was murdered by she whom I trusted. That, and no less, is how I came to be what thou see-est before thee."