Theodora was just sitting down to her breakfast when a servant knocked on her chamber door, “my Lady, news comes from the front at Uttarakuru, your mother asks that you join her in the dining room immediately.”

Theodora’s heart sank as she answered the servant and said: “Thank you, Arjun, I will be down after I am dressed”.

Her mind raced: “my father! the news must be about my father!”, she thought as tears began to spill out of her eyes.

“Set save him! let it be news of a different sort,” she muttered as she began to sob and get dressed, “he is not dead, it cannot be.”

But the news was true.  Sadar Rajni Rajna had been slain by a terrorist who did not wish to be under the yoke of the Kshatriyans.

The terrorist who slew the Sadar is called Garan Johdahr, a wizard of the Uttara Kuru nobility– Garan suddenly appeared inside the command tent and pierced Rajni through the neck with his arcane sorcerer’s blade.  Poor Rajni died instantly, and before the guards could take hold of Garan, he vanished into the mist and was never seen again.

Theodora dried her face, opened the door, walked down the hall, down the spiral stairs, and then into the dining room where she found her mother in tears and surrounded by attendants.

Upon seeing her mother in this condition she fainted in grief and fell to the floor unconscious.

When Theodora awoke in her bed she thought that she had been having a nightmare.  That is until she opened her eyes and saw her handmaiden, red-faced from crying, at her side.

“Beloved Pia, tell me what I know is not true, save me!”, said Theodora in her grief as she rose from her bed and collapsed into the arms of her servant.

Pia started to cry again and said, “I am sorry my beloved Theodora, your sadness is real and your father is dead, but I am with you, now and forever my Lady.”

“Sweet Pia, what will become of us now!?”, asked Theodora as she sobbed.

Pia said nothing as she enfolded her broken mistress into her arms.