Kara's Diary

Throughout her life, Kara A. Ehrveil wrote about significant life events in her personal diary.

Undated - Coronations and Funerals

I wasn’t there for the battle. They told me it was too dangerous, that Mother wouldn’t allow it. So I waited. In the old observatory, behind locked doors and guards who wouldn't look me in the eye.

I heard the cannon fire all night. The screams. The palace shook, and I kept thinking maybe this time it would be the floor that gave out beneath me. I thought, maybe that would be easier.

When they finally came for me just before dawn, I thought it meant we lost. But we hadn’t. We'd avenged Uncle Porter.

They said the fighting was over. That Sovarre was broken. That Amelie du Roscarte was dead but no one knows who struck her down. It was chaos. Screaming. Blood everywhere. The throne room floor is black with it now. They had to carry me across it to where she fell.

Mama...

She made it to the dais. She gave a speech- our speech, the one she used to rehearse with me in secret when we’d pretend everything would be okay someday. And just as she said her final line… the throne blew apart.

They killed her. Right at the moment she won.

Nordvik met me outside the wreckage. He didn’t even try to say sorry. Just handed me the crown. And I put it on. I didn’t cry. Not then. It was such a profound moment. I was broken, but so were we all. I spoke briefly with Nordvik and shortly after, my first act, or my first order, was to end it all. The pain. The games. The broken pieces of what Saludo and Ehrengard used to be. I merged them and we are Lilaris now.

Maybe it will mean something. Maybe it won’t. All I know is: I never wanted to be Empress like this. Not soaked in ash. Not without her. But I am, and I will not let them erase her again.

-- Kara

Year 64, Lilaren 27 - For All His Flaws, He Was Still Mine

My father is dead.

Isaac Acentino... loud, brilliant, maddening... was carved down like a traitor in his own chambers. An “S” marked into his skin like he was nothing but a message. I am told he didn’t scream. That he welcomed it, or was too drunk to fight. I don’t know which is worse. He's seemed so hollow since losing mother.

He died alongside the rest of them: Exo, Louis, Kevinus, Zack... They were fools, yes, and dangerous ones. But Father... Father was mine. He named me Kara before the crown did. Taught me how to outtalk generals and laugh in the face of pretense. He also taught me chaos. Rage. And too often, shame.

I watched him unravel in that courtroom. Drunk on ego, wine, and whatever righteousness he thought he was owed. I should have stopped him. Should have intervened when he started citing cult doctrine as law. But I was too afraid of making him look small. Now he's just gone.

There will be no verdict. No justice. Seraphine saw to that. A single night, eight corpses, and a city blanketed in fear. And I... I am left with silence where a reckoning should have been.

I have stepped away from court. Nordvik handles the reins. The people believe I am grieving, and I suppose that is true. But what I grieve is not just the man who raised me. It is the hope that he might one day return to himself. That he could be proud of the woman I’ve become. The Empress. The daughter.

Instead, he died a defendant in my own Imperial Court.

I lit a candle for him tonight. Just one. No grand pyre. No Imperial rites. He would’ve hated that. I let the wax run until it burned my skin.

K.A.E.

Year 71, Ehrvalis 17 - Porter's Voice

I heard a soldier shout at drills today, sharp and certain just like Porter used to. For a moment, I turned, expecting to see him.

Of course I didn’t, but I stood there anyway, pretending it was him. Pretending he’d nod at me like nothing had changed. Pretending I didn’t still need him.

K.A.E.

Year 72, Fortavris 18 - Ehrvellian Torment

I can no longer pretend it is simple diplomacy.

We interact only in official capacity; she, draped in formal silks and authority, I, armored in poise and duty. But I confess, behind every glint of her ceremonial brooch, I imagine what her collarbone looks like bathed in firelight. My gaze lingers far too long on her mouth when she speaks and I fear she will notice. Her lips appear so soft, so impossibly soft, like they were meant to whisper sins against my skin.

I imagine her in a slip dress, barefoot in my chambers, her hair down... god, her hair down... and the fire crackling beside us. We’d sip from the finest bottle of Idesian red, the one I keep locked away for peace talks or... other ventures. I always see us there, on that velvet couch Mother imported from the Fellsong Valley. Sometimes we’re on the palace steps instead, dusk falling around us, feeding each other berries like foolish teenagers in love. And yet, I’ve never even touched her hand.

It’s laughable, really. No Ehrvellian sovereign has failed to bear (or at least initiate) the continuation of the line. It is a matter of state, of legacy, of blood. My blood. And Mother, for all her tenderness, would never forgive me for appearing soft. For failing the line she fought and died so brutally for.

Irony is cruel and sharp. For it was Mother herself who once stood in my position; smitten, sovereign, bound by obligation, and found herself undone by a man not unlike my muse, and in precisely the same capacity as she. Stoic. Visionary. Dangerous to the heart. It is no longer a joke to me, for I understand the torment.

Today I quietly hand-painted the rainbow crosswalk painted in New Terranova Proper. Officially, it’s to honor diversity and kinship across the Empire. Unofficially, it’s a thread I’ve cast into the wind, hoping she’ll catch it. Hoping she’ll know (somehow) that it’s meant for her. If she recoils… if she does not walk across it… if she is not ours in the way I crave, then I suppose I’ll spend my life composing diplomatic communiqués with a trembling hand and dreaming of a love I was never meant to taste. Alas, if I am honest, it is more for I than her. At least for the moment, I can pretend there's a world where this works.

If only duty did not demand so much.
If only desire did not ask for more.

K.A.E.

Year 73, Ehrvalis 15 - They Called Me Avery

A child called me “Empress Avery” today. Their mother corrected them in a whisper, embarrassed. I wanted to cry. Not because they were wrong, but because in some part of me, I wish they were right.

K.A.E.

Year 74, Lilaren 23 - The Sovereign's Mirror

Tonight I stared into the mirror far too long. Not out of vanity. Not even out of grief. Just... searching.

The candles were low, barely more than ghosts, dancing across my features like they didn’t recognize me. I could barely hold my own gaze. I used to see Avery in me. The jaw. The eyes. That steady flame she had even in her final hour. But now I just see someone trying to remember how she used to look brave.

I sat on the edge of the washbasin, still in my council robes, face streaked with something between sweat and salt. I asked the woman in the mirror, “Are you leading? Or are you just holding the walls up until they stop shaking?”

She didn’t answer, and why would she? For maybe she is simply treading water and praying for a shore.

Sometimes I think the Empire is running on memory alone. On ritual. On my mother’s blood soaked into the foundation. The nobles bow. The guards salute. The people cheer on command. But it all feels like a performance we’re afraid to stop, like if we ever broke character, the whole world would fall apart.

I’ve learned to say the right things. I’ve learned how to fold my hands just so, how to keep my voice level even when I want to scream. I’ve learned how to make eye contact when I lie. They call it poise, but it is merely survival.

And what happens when the mask becomes the face? What happens when I can’t remember where Kara ends and Empress begins?

Mother once told me, "The throne is not a reward. It’s a lens." I think I understand that now. It doesn't show you power, it shows you what power costs. It shows you the parts of yourself that must be carved away to hold the world in place.

Tonight I saw all the parts I’ve carved. I do not know if I’m proud of what remains, but I am still here, and tomorrow I will rise again.

K.A.E.