Salvation (poem)
This summit, as we crown our newest Throne, Let us commemorate the First Empress.
Why are we still ten nations and not one? Because the First Empress, in Loyalty, Met her old foes as equals of the soul, No way of living raised above the rest.
Why does the Empire seek to span the world? The Jotun go to war for love of war. The Grendel go to war for love of power. The Druj make war to burn, and rule the ash. The First Empress dreamed war to bring salvation, Marked not in land secured, but souls made free.
In Ossium we did this. You did this. Brought Pride, Ambition and Prosperity To people cowed by fear, and made them strong. In Mournwold, vile, hateful things were done, And still, with time, with Wisdom and with work, The Mournwold folk are loyal Marchers now.
To fight the Druj without becoming them - It can be done. You all have seen it done. To make amends to lands half drowned in blood - Far harder. But this we have done as well.
The Barrens folk are folk like any other, Battered and broken by their years of war, But not beyond salvation. No-one is.
To say “This place - this place unlike all others - Must be laid waste. There is no other way.” - Those words are where Ambition goes to die. The Empire tilts upon the razor’s edge: One more false step and all may fall in blood. “The Barrens is one front of many -" No. Our other wars - are wars. They will be hard, But all of them are foes that we can fight.
But in the Barrens - there, the foe is us. Our old mistakes, our broken oaths, our shame. Sharper those cut than mere barbarian steel; But, faced with Courage, can be overcome.
Emperor-Elect, these words I leave for you. Some say already Vesna of the Hearth. And you have said that, when you wore the crown, All would live safe in lands that they called home. Whose hearth, then, is worth warding, and whose soul Is worth salvation? Virtue answers: all.