Letters
My dearest Wren,
You compared hope to a blade without a handle in one of your entries. Oh how acutely I feel that with each day that passes. I am clutching that Tides-cursed blade. Bleeding ink over these pages, believing with what little optimism I possess that you might be reading them.
As I was reading your entries again, a question occurred to me: Do you know that what happened to you wasn’t your fault?
Because it wasn’t, Wren. You were a child. You didn’t ask to be hurt in the way that you were, and though it was on your behalf, you didn’t cause your brother to commit murder.
If you do not speak to me ever again, if you doubt every word I write for eternity, please let these words remain separate from your suspicion: You are innocent. Pure. Free of guilt and shame.
There is no black mark upon your soul. Not once in our exchanges have I ever seen you as anything other than the remarkably beautiful and intelligent woman who possesses my heart and mind.
I love you,
Castien