Chapter 25: The Blockade Tightens and the Beacon Burns Brighter

Queen Sera Amidari's Personal Chronicle, Volume Four, Entry Twenty-Four.

Written at the water-throne's lower observatory, second hour past meridian, on the fifth day of full interdiction.

I will record the administrative facts first, because the administrative facts are what I have been trained to record, and because the discipline of recording them sequentially has served, across the preceding days, as the only reliable method I possess for continuing to function with anything resembling competence.