Jurn,

  I don’t know how to start this. I know you’ll read it. But I guess that doesn’t matter. I’m writing it anyway, so bear with me in a poor layout of penmanship. I’ve never been much for letters. Never had much to say to anyone that needed to be written down. But I find myself thinking about you more these days, and I don’t know what that means. Maybe I’m just trying to make sense of things, or maybe it’s something more.

  I figure the best way to start is with where I am now. Sela, port south of Braid. It’s not home, but it’s where we’ve landed. The Order of the Lark, my knighthood, my damn fool idea that we can be something better than just another Free Company, actually exists now. Not just words, not just thoughts rattling in my head, but something real. I don’t know if it’ll last. I don’t know if I have what it takes to build something permanent. But I’m trying.

  I’ve spent too long following other people’s orders. Fighting someone else’s wars. I’ve seen what the world looks like when men fight for nothing but coin and survival. I’ve been that man more times than I care to count. But I want more than that. I don’t mean glory, or titles, or having my name sung in halls of men who never knew me. I mean meaning. I mean waking up and knowing that what I do that day actually matters.

  So I’ve got my books, the old axioms of the Order of the Lion, the lessons I took from the Freebooters, from the warriors I’ve fought beside and against. I’ve got steel, and I’ve got people willing to stand beside me. But the rest? That’s uncharted ground. I won’t lie, I’m nervous, father. I’ve always been good at fighting, good at surviving, but leading? Building something? Holding to a code that I set for myself, instead of one I borrowed from someone else? That’s different. That’s something I never planned for. And yet, here I am. Trying.

  I suppose I should say it plainly. I’m done with the Freebooters. You probably already heard that from someone. Maybe from Elise, I imagine she’s got a list of spies, maybe from some trader passing through Aragon. I don’t know how much of the truth made it to you, so I’ll lay it out here. Eruch tortured and killed a man. A prisoner. Not in battle, not in the heat of a fight, afterward. Tied up, helpless. Eruch made him suffer, and he didn’t regret it. Lines were drawn that day. And one of them, I won’t cross.

  I fought him for it. I won. Not that it mattered. He’s still alive. Maybe you’d say that means I didn’t really win at all. But I couldn’t bring myself to kill him. I thought I could, for a moment. When I saw what he’d done. When I saw how far he had fallen, how far we had all fallen. I thought I could do it. But I couldn’t. Because for all his flaws, for all his cruelty, he was my brother once, hell, for a bit, my father in a manner. I think some part of me still sees him that way, even if I don’t stand with him anymore. But I won’t follow him. I won’t follow the Freebooters. Not anymore, not with who I want to be.

  I know what they are. Good men, good women, most of them. But they are something I can’t be anymore. They take their justice with fire and blade, and I won’t tell you they’re wrong for it. But it’s not my way, not anymore. I’ll fight, I’ll kill, I’ll do what needs to be done. But I’ll do it on my terms. I will not become a man I despise in the process.

  Since I left the Booters, I’ve had people standing beside me. Not a company, not a crew, brothers and sisters in arms, ones I chose, ones who chose me. I’ll tell you about them.

  First, there’s Gaulhammer. Escaped slave, fighter, and the closest thing I’ve got to a right hand when it comes to sheer strength. He doesn’t say much, but when he does, you listen. I trust him. you met him in Aragon, but I don’t think you all talked. You should have. You Raakonians turn your noses up to orcs. You shouldn’t. Gaul is as stalwart as they come. There aren’t many people I can say that about without thinking twice, but Gaul? He’s solid. Never hesitates, never questions the work if it’s the right thing to do. He’s not a knight yet, but he’s walking that road with his head high, and I don’t doubt he’ll get there.

  Then there’s Bassion. I don’t know what to make of him half the time. Quiet. Watchful. A killer through and through, but one who wants to be better. For some reason, when I left the Freebooters, he came with us. Maybe he’s looking for something, or maybe he just doesn’t know where else to go. Either way, he’s here, and he fights for us. That’s enough for now.

  Lucius. My best friend. The only man I’d ever trust to tell me when I’m wrong and expect me to listen. You’d like him, I think, even if long ago his blood made him Holstamp Tomas. Doesn’t matter. Too clever by half, smarter than any of us, but never arrogant about it. He followed me when I left the Booters, not because he had to, but because he wanted to. Because he believes in what we’re doing. I don’t think I deserve a friend like him, but I have him, and I’m damn lucky for it.

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  Then there’s Rema. Yeah. Fucking Rema. She’s still paying her penance, even though I let her off her leash early. Still sticking around, still working her way toward something I don’t think she even understands yet. She was a slaver, Jurn. You know what I think about that. But she was a slave first. And I see the way she’s trying to be something else. I don’t know if I’ll ever fully trust her, but I’ll tell you this, she’s never walked away when things got hard.

  And then there’s Genna. But I’ll say more about her later.

  For now, this is my crew. My order. My family. I don’t know if they’ll all be there at the end, and I don’t know if we’ll even get the ending we want. But they’re here, they believe, and we’re trying. That’s more than I ever thought I’d have. I’ve committed myself to this. Fully. I told you about the Order, about the people standing with me, but I didn’t tell you why. Not really.

  I need this. I need to believe in something. I spent my life fighting for other people’s causes, for captains, for criminals, for coin. I’ve cut down men whose names I never knew, whose deaths meant nothing outside the battlefield we stood on. I’ve taken orders from men I respected, and from men I despised, and most days, I never stopped to ask if what I was doing was right. I just did it. That doesn’t work for me anymore. That’s not who I want to be. I’m not saying I’m better than Eruch, or better than the Freebooters, or better than anyone still living by steel and contract. I’m not arrogant enough to think that. But this is the life I’m choosing. I want to leave the world better than I found it. That doesn’t mean I won’t fight. I will. I’ll kill when I have to, take contracts when the cause is just, and spill blood when blood is owed. But not for coin alone. Not just because someone paid me well enough to do it.

  I won’t be just another sellsword, just another blade-for-hire, living and dying without meaning beyond the battlefield. I want more than that. I think I deserve more than that.

  And I won’t do it, beholden to some damn lord. Because Lords and Ladies, like your wife, they fucked that idea in my head from jump. The Order of the Lark serves the good, not the lords.

  But I’ve forgiven Elise. I don’t know if that surprises you or not. Maybe it does. Maybe you expected me to carry that grudge until the end of my days, until I found a way to make her pay for what she did to me. And don’t get me wrong, I wanted to. Gods, I wanted to. She lied to me. She used me. She made me her weapon and pointed me straight at Cyrus, knowing exactly what she was doing. She played me like a fool, knowing I would take the bait because I thought I was making my own choice. I killed him. I don’t regret that. But I regret how it happened. What it meant. I was just the tool she used to swing the blade. I hated her for it. For taking that moment from me. For making me part of her war without telling me what I was really fighting for. I get it now. I get why she did it.

  She’s a bitch. Sorry, Dad, but she is. She’s cold, she’s ruthless, and she plays the game better than anyone I’ve ever met. But I see her for what she is now, a woman who’s willing to do whatever it takes to win. That’s why I’ve forgiven her. I don’t like her. I don’t trust her. And if this civil war you all seem to be crawling toward ever happens, I hope you win.

  I don’t hate her anymore. She did what she thought she had to do. I’ll never be on her side again. She used me once. She won’t get another chance.

  On to happier thoughts, and better women. (Sorry father).

  Genna. I don’t even know how to start talking about her. It’s weird. It’s unexpected. And I don’t know if I’m doing it right, but I think I’m ready again. I miss Danni. I always will. That won’t change. But I’m not carrying her ghost like I thought I would. I think she’d tell me to move on. To live. I hope she would, anyway. And Genna… gods, she’s everything. I’ve known her for years now. Watched her come from nothing, claw her way out of chains, earn her way into the Freebooters, and then leave it all behind when I did. She could have stayed. She had a place there. She was one of them, and they would have fought to keep her. She walked away. For me, for this. She didn’t just follow. She’s leading.

  We lead this, as a pair. She’s the one who makes me stop and think when I want to act, and the one who’s standing beside me when the moment finally comes. I didn’t see it for a long time. Maybe I didn’t want to. Maybe I wasn’t ready. But I see it now. And I don’t want it to be weird. I don’t want it to feel like I’m replacing something that can’t be replaced. But I want her. I don’t know how far this goes, or where it leads. I’m walking that road now. And I’m not looking back.

  I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again. I hope, one day, I see you again. I hope I see Marcus too. He’s my brother, even if I don’t know him. Even if he doesn’t know me. I think about that sometimes, what it would be like if things had been different, if you had been different. If I had grown up knowing you, instead of just knowing your name. I don’t hold it against you. that times passed, and we’re on solid ground, you, and me.

  I wish you both well. I don’t know what’s coming in Aragon, but I hope you keep your head, and I hope you make it through whatever is waiting on the other side of it. If you ever want to write me back, leave word with the dockmaster in Sela. I’ll check in from time to time. If not, well, at least you know where I stand now.

  Wish me luck on this endeavor. Hopefully, I can make something good and lasting.

  

  
• Sir Jael Lyonheart, Knight of the Order of the Lark