August 11, 3906 Atesh-Gah, Haven Most Honored Maharani, I had not meant to write to you again this soon because I have not yet found out what happened to the Atlantean priestess who was missing. I got a promise from a friend who said that he might be able to tell me something about it but I have not been able to talk to him about it yet. But because of what happened today I thought that I should write to you anyway, to best obey your commands. When you honored me by permitting me to eat with you I remember that I told you about Lyre. I should write more about him now. His name is Lyre Talespinner and he is a Mongrel man and a bard. He named himself Lyre because that is the instrament he plays and Talespinner because he tells stories. I met him when I healed Empyreans and Mongrels in the tent city during the time of the great sickness and he was very kind to me. He has brown hair though the light of Ashur Masad has turned part of it gold and turned his skin brown as well though not as brown as a Varati. He has brown eyes and his voice is deep and rough and warm espeshally when he sings. He is older than me by about 11 years and has walked over much of the land. He took care of Kosha for me while I went to help Clan Behzad, and he rescued a child during the time of the earth-shake that hit the city after the storms of aether. I healed him because a wall fell on him and broke his leg. He has helped me make my writing better and my reading better too. And he has said to me lovely things that are the kinds of things a man says when he wishes to court a woman. He calls me dove and says that he loves me. He has always been kind and gentle and patient with me and behaved as a man of honor. I do not know much about such things but I do know that I feel a great warmth inside my heart when I think of him and a great terror because he is far away right now and may be in danger and so I think I love him too. I write about all of these things first because you bid me to write to you of all things that happen to me and second because he has sent me a letter and a box with a sword in it which shocked me very much. He has gone away into the north to look for his sister and her son because he wants to free them. I have prayed each day for his safety and tonight the box with the sword and the letter came to Atesh-Gah. Lyre wrote in the letter that the sword is special and that there are other men who want it and asked me to keep it safe for him. The guards at the gate must have looked in the box though because a guard came in to question me but the Imphadi Seraskier of the Agni-Haidar was also in the courtyard and when he saw the sword and the letter he took them and said that he would report them to the Imphada Shakir. He asked me who Lyre is and I told him that he is a Mongrel bard and my beloved. He permitted me to read the letter which is why I know that Lyre asked me to keep the sword safe for him but he took the letter away with the sword. (I mean that the Imphadi Seraskier took the letter.) There was a man there also who is an artisan and a woman I did not know but I think perhaps she was a dancer because I heard the noise of bells when she moved. They had been talking about making gifts to honor the Amir-al and the man Imphadi Saleem permitted me to suggest ideas to him but then the guard with the box came. They heard me say to the Imphadi Seraskier who Lyre was and they saw the sword and I do not think they wanted to talk to me very much after the Imphadi Seraskier left and so I left too. Before the Imphadi Seraskier left he told me that I would be watched and that I should not stray from the path and the protection of the Amir-al. That is all that happened but I will not stop my letter yet because you spoke of other things in your last letter and I do not want to forget them because what happened with the sword reminded me of your words. I do not think that I have expressed myself right when I have tried to speak of why I serve and hope that I can do better here because it is easier for me to write than to say. I think that I must have sinned greatly in a past life and that is why I have been born a halfbreed in this one. But I have also been born a healer and I know that I am a good one. I have healed many men and women and children. I cannot presume to know the minds of the Gods but my heart-mother once said that although I must have sinned in a past life I have a gift and can do great good in this one and so can atone for that sin. I know only that when I used to not heal people I felt sick inside and now than I do heal people I feel great joy when they are healthy and strong again. Sometimes they will even open their ears and listen with favor if I speak of the surahs and the Amir-al and His Holy Mother and Father. But sometimes I am very scared inside because it seems that even though I have a gift and it seems as if I would dishonor the Amir-al and His Mother and Father if I did not use it, the Varati people do not want me to use it for them because I am a halfbreed. It is known in Atesh-Gah that I am a halfbreed and although some of the Varati people honor me by allowing me to heal them most of them do not want to talk to me or permit me to touch them. Outside in the city Empyrean children throw rocks at me sometimes when they see my silks in the colors of Clan Khalida and one child even called me a demon like the Warlord Hashim used to do. Most of the Atlanteans I see are with Delphi and do not need me to heal them because Delphi has many healers. Most of the Sylvans I do not see at all except for the family of Imphada FallingStar and now my friend Prying Eagle but even the Sylvans seem to want Imphada FallingStar to heal them instead because she is Sylvan like them. I heal the Mongrels because there are not many people left besides them who want me to heal them. I must heal. The holy surahs and my heart and soul say so. But it is wrong for me to force my magic onto someone even if they are hurt or sick and besides being a halfbreed I am also only a woman and a servant. I said in my last letter that the Imphadi Warlord of Messala asked me who my people were and why. My heart is torn in half because all of the people who seem to behave as though I am their people and who welcome me with joy in their eyes live outside Atesh-Gah. Inside, not even Imphada Kiera can truly be my friend because I am only a shudra. I know that I should live as a good Varati does espeshally because my blood is tainted and I must atone for it. I say my prayers to the Most High and His Holy Mother each day. The Imphadi Warlord said that I am not so outside the lives of the Varati as I think but perhaps I am too foolish for I see nothing but contempt when most of the Children of Fire look upon me. Before you there was only my heart-mother who would speak to me of these things, and she died. I pray now that I have not stepped out of place to write to you as I have done here and I apologize for smearing the ink on the last line but I am almost out of ink and do not have enough to do the page over again. I humbly thank you for your words of wisdom and submit myself to your guidance if you can counsel me on how to ease this burden upon my heart so that I may serve you as best I can. In the Light of the Son of the Dawn Faanshi