Diary Entry, Ninth of September

The evening passes slowly, and my mind is awash with many conflicting emotions. The conversation with my cousin Chalce earlier repeats over and over in my thoughts. It warms my heart that she is here, that she has returned from the north and that she supports me. Without someone like her, I do not think I could carry on. Though my will is strong, the addiction is so hard at times to control, so difficult to fight. It is a mental discipline the likes of which I have never faced before, but I believe my mind is sharp enough to be up to the task. With Chalce here, I know I will succeed. I will become Quel'dorei once more.

The thoughts of family make my mind drift back to my memories. I think of Selun'athiel and Tel'athar. My mother and father. What would they think of their little Biar'athiel now? Would they be proud of her? Would they know Biara the Scion when they saw her? It has been long since I have spoken my birth name, since I have even thought about it. The pain of losing my parents, of having this heavy burden of leadership thrust upon me, has been difficult these many years. I was only sixty when they died, and I still cannot forget that fateful day.

I remember well how Tel'athar had gone into the outer city to oversee the construction of the statue of the huntress. How the workers there had been protesting their conditions, even though he was kind and just and had paid them well for their service to the city. I remember Selun'athiel as she told me to stay put, as she approached the mob that had gathered around my father to try and soothe the situation.

The assassins hidden within the crowd, the ones who had riled up the workers in the first place, had chosen their timing well. My father never saw the blades that flew towards him. No one did. They were concealed by the rocks hurled by the enraged mob. Only little Biar'athiel saw them, only me, his loving daughter saw the look in his eyes as he realized what his enemies had done, how they had tricked him.

My mother's grieving was brief indeed. She was a powerful magistrix, and that fateful day all learned just how powerful. I had always looked up to her, had always admired both her power and her restraint. As she held my dying father in her arms I saw the rage building. I saw the look she gave me, almost apologetic, as if to say she was sorry for abandoning me, sorry for what she was about to do. Even as the guards dragged me away to safety from the ever increasing mob I knew it would be the last time I saw Selun'athiel.

I became Scion that day. Hours after the magical explosions had torn the mob to shreds, had slain the assassins and their innocent pawns alike. I never had a chance to bury my parents, to mourn for them. There was nothing left to bury, no hint that their physical forms had ever existed, and no time for a young Scion to pause to grieve those who had passed on. Never again was I Biar'athiel. Always and forever more would I be Biara, the nickname that Kyliska had given me as children and that my parents affectionately called me from time to time. I could never have Selun'athiel's name within my own; the reminder would have driven me mad day by day.

I know not why I write these things now, why I dwell on them. Maybe Chalce has brought back these memories. Her own family lost much during the scourge invasion, and I see now that we are akin to one another in many ways. I shall give my heart to my own flesh and blood, and never fight with her again. She is all I have now, she and her sisters. Without them, who would remember little Biar'athiel? Who would remember that once upon a time I was innocent, and my hands were not stained with the blood of innocents like my mother's own hands?

Maybe I have grown to be everything that she WAS, rather than everything that she would have wanted me to be. I will never know, I can only hope that becoming Quel'dorei, as we once were, will take me down a different path. Perhaps my end will not be as my mother's. One can hope.

I go now to meditate.