That you loved me, you loved me still the same

I dreamt last night.

I am the most powerful man in the world.

When the time came for my apprenticeship, I was fifteen. My stepmother wanted a post for me in the crossbow regiments. My father would have none of it, and so I was thrown to the mercy of a distant member of the family that neither respected. He was Troaliss, and he was an heir of the Kumate Chorjish Iron Lion Legacy.

Troaliss tried to make me otherwise.

The first weapon I ever killed a man with was a rapier, delivered through the right ear. Since that time I've killed with many other weapons: daggers, bare hands, bows, tankards, words, spears, and shadows. Currently, I favor the naginata: unpretentious, and graceful in its use. But I still carry my rapier.

Cast adrift, an orphan of Kumate Chorjish, I've drifted through many styles of death. I fought with a buckler and a hatchet in blood-churned earth; I've fought in a fine mail shirt under the banner of various causes. I've flown my own banner - per pale sable and azure, a rose argent - and armies have marched under it.

There are more people trying to kill me than you'd imagine. My usual response is to shatter their weapon in their hand and offer them a chance to surrender. Some do.

I walk in the halls of power, like none of my kin before me. I speak in them, and the lords of this world listen to me. The echoes of my voice shake the world.