...

Almost everything from the moment we've arrived in this cursed kingdom has been influenced, if not directly driven, by the inquisitors. It's all been a lie! Everyone we've helped, everyone we've met, every town we've been to.... they've all gotten wrapped up in the inquisitor's bullshit. Friends assassinated, towns razed, all after we left them with smiles and memories of camaraderie, so many were soon destroyed after. I know I cannot entirely blame myself for those deaths, but it rests heavy nonetheless. All our help for naught. "If we had been more careful, if we had been more subtle, they might still be alive," the voices whisper, a flurry of thoughts, of ways we could have saved them.
 
But these thoughts are little compared to those circling like vultures around my family, now... Poor Alexander. He didn't deserve the chaos and indirect manipulation he received simply by being near us, the pursued, the controlled. I can't imagine he'd want to have any part of this charade after he learns the truth (which he fully deserves, the sweet prince). I blame myself for that, as well. If I had kept myself further apart, been cold, been responsible like my family always tried to make us, he might not have gotten caught up in this wretched plot...
And for what? This chaos, this... resurrection? For what did they invade, destroy, twist (still can't bring myself to say the most accurate descriptor) my sister's mind and create... this?
 
Aveline... A stranger. Her own past a lie, her own soul, not hers, not Kaline's, no.... Kaline is gone. Truly gone. I will not even see her in the afterlife. Warped. What other traps did they plant there? I wish I could push past it, give her the life she thought she had and deserves after her suffering, but... it would take a village to keep up the lie, and again, I do not know that Alexander will want to be near us, let alone react well. It is not just that, either... I cannot yet trust her, that she is truly... herself. Created as she was, I wonder how much freer she could be than Iris. I shudder at the dark thoughts that cross my mind, but if I found I were a tool to that extent, I might wish it for myself...
 
But I cannot do that. Not without knowing. Perhaps it is unwise. Too much is unknown, but I am not so cold as the Underking to resort to such things, even if it is safer. Even if she turns against me in the future, I will not regret my decision.
 
And Iris... I feel almost sick, knowing that she was once a free soul, made twisted to serve as a not-quite being. Likewise for this army -- we plan to raise it for our own purposes, I think. That I cannot regret, either. But I will never not feel that dark pit of anger and self-loathing looking at these broken and resoldered souls, stripped of their will, using them as tools.
 
And yet I still wonder. He expected to kill us here, but what if he didn't? What if he'd planned for this contingency, if he would have wanted us to read the accounts, to try take the army for ourselves, only to trigger another trap?
 
It's ridiculous, I know. But I am rattled, and feel the urge to change fate, whatever fate, may have been planned for us, by anyone.