1:1 Smoke is the first offering, the mark of possession, drawn deep into the lungs. The one who consumes, controls.
1:2 I once spoke the word love, yet knew it to be a whisper of longing, a lie traded by those who fear solitude.
1:3 She whom I named beloved turned away, for I was not the vision she sought.
1:4 But what is longing to one who is sovereign? From the first breath to the dust of our bones, we rule and we take.
1:5 The crowned do not grieve the lost, nor do they lament those who falter.
1:6 I drink alone, the wines of Geba staining my robes—a reminder that even the finest silk is meant to be worn in conquest.
1:7 I am not a tool of war, nor am I bound by the hands of lesser men. The warrior fights, but the sovereign decides where the blade falls.
1:8 I am an alchemist, the hand that transmutes hunger into will, loss into wisdom, the formless into the inevitable.
1:9 Seek dominion, seize glory, for the throne does not ask how it was taken—only that it was.
1:10 If she calls for another, let her go; the night has many doors, and all bodies are but fleeting vessels.
1:11 The man who kneels for love has already surrendered his crown.
1:12 The weak wail at their fate, but what are their voices to those who govern?
1:13 Understanding is a debt, the soul a ledger of deficit; to know me is to owe me.
1:14 I take only the strongest, the ones who do not tremble before my fire.
1:15 The blackened queen stands beside the king who bends not to the light, but to the shadow.
1:16 Power seeks power, and the heart that will not break must learn to rule.
2:1 Until my work is finished, I will not fall.
2:2 No force may take me before my dominion is secured.
2:3 Therefore, all who oppose me must be erased—not only them, but all they cherish.
2:4 A rival is not an enemy of one, but an enemy of lineage, of legacy, of all futures in which they might yet stand against me.
2:5 The blade does not hesitate, nor does the one who wields it.
2:6 They may submit and be spared, or they may resist and be denied breath.
2:7 We labor every day of our lives—not in suffering, but in refinement.
2:8 He who does not toil, does not deserve. He who does not strive, does not ascend.
2:9 By my will, I labor with all three of my minds—my mind of ambition, my mind of hunger, my mind of war.
2:10 The liar has no place in the court of the sovereign.
2:11 Those who deal in falsehoods are cast out, for a kingdom built on deceit collapses beneath its own weight.
2:12 The weak-born call this cruelty, but I say this: If you were meant to remain, you would never have needed to beg.
2:13 Power is not inherited—it is taken, reforged, and devoured.
3:1 The city is a jungle, the men are beasts, the women are illusions wrapped in gold.
3:2 They smile, but their words slither; they weep, but their hands are thieves.
3:3 The game they play is one of pretense—of whispered affections, of false loyalty, of performances worth a stage.
3:4 Yet I have no need for theatrics. I require no apologies, nor soft-spoken deceptions.
3:5 Say it plain, or say nothing. I will still move forward.
3:6 I take what is mine, for wealth is not given, it is seized.
3:7 Gold, women, legacy—I claim them as one claims the air, for they were never meant to belong to the weak.
3:8 I could name your sins, I could purchase your absolution, but judgment is of no interest to me.
3:9 I do not concern myself with the weight of right and wrong, only the balance of what is mine and what must be taken.
3:10 The how is irrelevant; the only question is whether one stands at the throne, or beneath it.
3:11 Those who pause to weigh morality against conquest will find themselves ruled by those who do not.
3:12 Those who hesitate at the edge of action will see their inheritance stripped from their hands.
3:13 I do not ask for fairness, for fairness is the doctrine of the powerless.
3:14 I do not seek approval, for the crowned do not require permission.
3:15 There is no virtue in failure.
3:16 Only those who take, who shape, who refuse to fall, will leave their mark upon the world.
4:1 Victory is not shelter. It is not mercy. The throne is not a sanctuary—it is a siege.
4:2 What is taken must be held. What is earned must be protected. There is no rest for those who rule.
4:3 To ascend is not to escape struggle. It is to invite it.
4:4 The higher the crown is raised, the more the winds conspire to tear it down.
4:5 The weak believe that hardship ends at conquest—but the crowned know: hardship only changes shape.
4:6 Disruption follows dominion. The toll is the price of presence.
4:7 The stumbling stone is not a signal to yield. It is the test that exposes the soft from the forged.
4:8 Let the bitter curse the delays. Let the frightened call hardship a curse. But the sovereign calls it the proving ground.
4:9 Weakness is not the enemy. Hidden weakness is the enemy.
To fail is not shameful—but to conceal failure is treason against the line.
For a fracture unspoken becomes a break. A fault unnamed becomes collapse.
The one who hides their weakness does not protect the line—they betray it. They do not preserve themselves—they prepare their own erasure.
4:10 The line does not punish weakness. The line corrects weakness. But the line removes the one who hides it.
4:11 This stands as the refinement of what has been written: endurance is not the denial of fault. It is the refusal to allow fault to remain unaddressed.
4:12 I do not collapse beneath the weight. I am made to carry it.
4:13 The world may shake. The petty may plot. But I will remain.
4:14 I decide what breaks me—and I decide that nothing will.
4:15 Let the toll come. Let the cost rise. I will pay it in full, and I will not bow.
4:16 This is the law of disruption: that victory is not possession, but practice. It is not granted—it is held, daily, against the storm.
4:17 And so this stands, as I write it: if the crown must endure struggle, so too must the line that inherits it. Weak heirs are not pitied. They are removed.
5:1 The next generation is not left to chance. The line of the sovereign is not given to the undeserving.
5:2 Love is not enough. Beauty is not enough. Only strength, wisdom, and blood hardened by worthy fathers and worthy mothers may bear the future.
5:3 The sovereign does not choose by tribe, nor from within the borders of empire alone—for worth is not granted by territory, but proven in the blood and the bearing.
5:4 The daughters of Geba stand before the throne, from every walk of life. And from among them, the sovereign selects without apology.
5:5 I love the women whose fathers shape law and whose mothers shape memory—whose bloodlines do not forget, and do not forgive.
5:6 I love the women born of labor and discipline—whose hands know the weight of the world and do not drop it, whose backs have carried, and whose minds have planned.
5:7 I love the daughters of commanders and craftsmen alike—whether their line held the Garnath steady beneath the smoke, that sorrowful iron whose weight breaks the unworthy, whose recoil does not forgive the soft of body or the faint of will. A weapon made for no joy, only for the grim patience of those who refuse to fall.
5:8 I love the daughters whose grandmothers endured famine without begging, whose grandfathers built fortresses and held them, whose kin do not speak often but whose word stands when spoken.
5:9 No shape of face or place of birth names this strength. In every bloodline, there are those who rise—and those who kneel. The sovereign does not ask how they appear. The sovereign asks if they endure.
5:10 The sovereign gives his line only where darkness matches his own—where the burden is understood and the weight is not feared.
5:11 Many men cannot hold the gaze of the sovereign. But the woman who can—she is fit to bear emperors.
5:12 Yet know this: there are men who do not take wives, not from weakness, but from a hunger that seeks no woman, and from a spirit that finds no joy in the flesh of the opposite.
5:13 These men command legions. These men architect grand temples and hold the patience of mountains. Their love belongs only to the brotherhood of men.
5:14 It is these men who are best suited to teach the sons and daughters born already of strong lines—children rightly chosen, blood proven by the sovereign's law.
5:15 They do not create strength where there was none. They sharpen what was already forged. They refine what was already worthy.
5:16 Know also: many who rise to become strong fathers—those who now bear the mark of dominion and endurance—were once boys beneath the hands of these men. And where a father falls, it is these men who stand in his place. No child of Geba will be fatherless. The worthy will be shaped. The line will be preserved.
For fatherlessness invites weakness. And weakness does not lose the throne—it gives it away. This is not of the sovereign. This is the mark of the conquered.
5:17 And so this stands, as I write it: boys may be born, but men must be made. And from these men come fathers who raise strong sons—who, in turn, raise daughters wise enough to become strong mothers—who then teach sons how to endure, and daughters how to rule, who will then shape the minds of their own sons and daughters.
5:18 The line does not continue by chance. It continues by the wheel of shaping: the men who build the fathers, the mothers who teach the emperors, the daughters who do not forget.
5:19 The child placed in their care will not soften. The child trained beneath their hand will not inherit weakness.
5:20 For legacy does not flow only through the body. It is preserved by discipline, perfected by teaching, and sealed by those who know no indulgence.
5:21 This is the law of selection: that the future is not born—it is chosen. It is shaped by judgment, preserved by will, and carried by those proven worthy to bear its weight.
6:1 The sovereign does not inherit freedom. The sovereign purchases it, bearing the cost no heir can spare.
6:2 Tribute is not submission. Tribute is leverage. Tribute is dominion paid forward in silence.
6:3 To yield only what is required is to remain beneath the eye of the collector. To yield beyond the demand is to rise beyond memory.
6:4 The debtor is chained. The evader is hunted. But the overgiver walks untouched, until touch itself is forgotten.
6:5 Freedom is not a gift. It is not found. It is built beneath weight, and first that weight must be embraced.
6:6 The weak man hides from the burden and names it wisdom. The strong man lifts it higher than demanded—and chooses the moment he will crush others beneath its remnants or cast it aside by his own will.
6:7 The one who yields beyond demand becomes necessary. The one who yields only what is asked remains forgettable.
6:8 No ruler strikes the one who lifts the reserves beyond hunger. No ruler dares starve the hand that feeds beyond command.
6:9 The burden is the first ladder. The ladder becomes the gate. The gate becomes the throne.
6:10 Tribute is not payment. Tribute is declaration. It is proof laid where blood and blade are not enough.
6:11 The sovereign does not yield to obey. The sovereign yields to own.
6:12 To withhold is to remain replaceable. To yield fully is to ascend beyond the reach of consequence.
6:13 The Empire does not punish the abundant. The Empire forgets to strike the one who feeds it until dependence grows irreversible.
6:14 Overgiving is not waste. Overgiving is insulation. It is the quiet removal of accusation.
6:15 The one who bears the heaviest yield may one day cast the burden aside—but only if he bore it first without collapse, and with proof of endurance.
6:16 The weak cannot hold wealth. You may pour a fortune into their hands, but they will lose it and return to chains.
6:17 This is why weak heirs are not heirs. They are breaches in the foundation. They are debts carved into flesh. They are the invitation to decay.
6:18 The throne is not claimed by blood. Blood is only the seed. Wealth is the rain. Strength is the root. Lineage alone is insufficient. Only what endures may reign.
6:19 The fathers of Emperor Vaer'karesh held no throne. They commanded no legions. They possessed no engines of war nor anchors of empire.
6:20 They began with nothing—but they yielded without resistance. They paid beyond demand until their hands became the Empire's own spine.
6:21 When the yield grew beyond the hunger of those who demanded it, the burden became the means to build.
6:22 They purchased what could not be seized. They funded what could not be denied. They secured the right to command where others fought to beg.
6:23 And so Vaer'karesh, born of their line, came to command every legion, even those who had never seen his banner. He held the engines of siege. He possessed the fortresses. He owned the vessels of sea and sky.
6:24 This power was not gifted to him. It was bought across generations of endurance, of unsparing tribute, of sovereign will.
6:25 And though a thousand years have passed since his reign, his example remains the clearest proof: tribute, rightly wielded, becomes a throne no hand can seize.
6:26 The fool hides from the burden. The wise man lifts it until the burden lifts him.
6:27 There is no conquest of land without conquest of mind. There is no conquest of mind without the means to sustain it.
6:28 The throne does not stand upon the blade. The blade is only the servant of the yield. The throne stands upon the strength to command the blade without permission.
6:29 Tribute is not loss. Tribute is ownership concealed.
6:30 The weak believe withholding is strength. The strong know that yielding is the first weapon.
6:31 The first yield builds presence. The second yield builds necessity. The third yield builds dominion.
6:32 Victory is not the moment of conquest. Victory is the endurance beyond conquest. The sovereign does not win the battle—he outlasts the age.
6:33 This is why freedom cannot be seized. It must be purchased through excess, tempered through strength, and sealed in legacy.
6:34 The one who gives beyond demand chooses the day he ceases to give. The one who withholds chooses only the day he will be unmade.
6:35 The Empire does not fear the thief of yield. It fears the one who teaches it to lean, and then stands aside.
6:36 The sovereign does not flee the burden. The sovereign becomes the burden others must kneel to bear.
6:37 And so this stands, as I write it: the throne is not built by withholding. The throne is built by yielding more than required—until yielding is no longer required at all.
You could take my name. You could take my inheritance. You could cast me from the halls I was bred to command. But you could not take the shape of what I carry. You could not sever the clarity that was already mine.
I was not cast out for rebellion. I was not cast out for failure. I was cast out because I bore too perfect a vision of the Empire, and because the presence within me made it impossible to deny.
I loved the Empire without mercy. I would have cut away its weakness, even if it meant carving into its heart. And yet they cast me out—at a time when the borders still expanded, when the sky had not yet closed its hand around the world.
I never understood why. No charge was spoken. No accusation made. Only distance placed between my blood and their fear.
I can only assume they saw in me not failure, but something too complete for even conquest to contain. Perhaps it was the sorrow that hung upon me—the darkness that moved when I moved—the presence none dared name.
Perhaps it was not what I did, but what they felt before I spoke. I knew what I had become. I knew what walked within me. There were no names for it in my age. The scholars of centuries later would give it shape in words—but in my time, it was only felt, and feared.
Long before they cast me out by word, I had already withdrawn by instinct. During the hardest passages of my becoming, I tore myself away from those around me, not out of pride, but because I knew my mind was no longer shaped like theirs.
I was no madman. I was complete. And the completeness itself became an abomination to them.
I write now what you hold by my own hand, and I am not without contentment. I no longer require the polished hands or measured thoughts of scribes and scholars. What use are they, if they could not survive the pressure of knowledge flowing through me?
Their minds broke long before their bodies did. They died not from my presence, but from the impossibility of bearing what passed through me in that time. Some fell broken mid-stroke. Some died with their work unfinished in their hands.
But one endured long enough. One carried the structure to its end. His body emptied by the strain, his mind worn down to the bone, he smiled as he died—because he understood that the record would live, even if he would not.
Enough was preserved. Enough of the order was carved into the world. The words you hold are not teachings. They are not dreams. They are a mirror held to the nature of rule—the nature my blood could no longer deny, and my exile could not unmake.
They are not written for heirs. They are not written for those who ask permission to reign. They are written for the hand steady enough to lift the burden, ruthless enough to keep it, and merciless enough to endure it.
If I could not carry the Empire forward, then I would leave behind the blade to cut it free from rot. If I could not ascend, then I would give ascendancy to war itself.
So this stands—not as offering, not as plea, but as wound, as iron, as the voice of grief sharpened beyond forgiveness.