Part V:
The True Heir Holds His Throne
Prelude to Part V:
Excerpt from Wise Man Tellorin’s
The Updated Histories of House Dorsa
It is said that there was once a thriving civilization surrounding the territory that eventually became known as the Kingdom of Persopos. The few explorers who visited the region and returned to tell the tale reported seeing the ruins of great cities, easily as great as any of the Empire’s greatest cities. But by the time the Empress Natasia stated her desire to take an army to Persopos to confront whatever people or peoples still lived there, the whole of the land had already supposedly been reclaimed by wilderness. Indeed, it is hard to think of Persopos as a “Kingdom” at all, given that every historical account agrees that there was but one city — Persopos itself — surrounded on all sides by untamed lands, lands without any hint of mankind save those crumbling husks of once-splendid cities.
Who lived in those cities? What became of their people? Why were they abandoned? These are questions scholars have never been conclusively answered, though many have speculated.