Burning Shadows (Page 24)
Text of a letter from Ragoczy Sanct' Germain Franciscus at Salonae in the Province of Illyricum to Atta Olivia Clemens at Arae Flaviae in Noricum, written in Imperial Latin with fixed ink on vellum, carried by private courier, and delivered ten weeks after being dispatched.
To my much-loved Olivia, the greetings of Ragoczy Sanct' Germain Franciscus, or as I am still currently styled in this part of the Empire, Dom Feranescus Rakoczy Sanctu-Germainios:
I offered to provide her with a villa and servants, but she said she would not accept either from me, for that would seem to her as if I were paying her for her companionship at Sanctu-Eustachios the Hermit, which would cheapen our passion in her memory. That is also the reason she says that she intends to end her undead life: she has no desire to remain in her current state, dependent on the passion and generosity of spirit from others. She has said she did not mind supplying my needs as she did, but that she does not want to be the one requiring the blood and the intimacy it corroborates.
Nicoris has told me that she wishes to return to her native earth, near Serdica, where her father was garrisoned with other Hunnic mercenaries, and where she and her brothers and sisters were born. Her mother and father are dead and she has no knowledge of what became of the rest of her family, yet she feels the pull of her native earth as all of us do who come to this life, and it is her desire to Truly Die there. Rogerian, or if you prefer, Rugierus has offered to escort her home, for there is a great deal of fighting between this city and Serdica, and a woman alone is at great risk. So far, Nicoris has declined his generous tender of service, and has flatly told me that she does not want to have to refuse a similar proposal from me, so prefers that I not make one, sparing us both the mortification of her declination.
Your invitation to join you and Niklos Aulirios in Arae Flaviae, or any of your other estates, is truly magnanimous of you, and were things otherwise, I would accept with grateful alacrity, but for now, I believe I must withdraw for a time, to reconcile myself to the loss of Nicoris, and to resign myself to the calamitous turn that has blighted the world around us. Whatever good I may gain from my seclusion, know that your compassion will be a large factor in it, and your ongoing undead life will bring me consolation. You may rest assured that wherever I go, you will learn of it as quickly as my couriers can find you. And until that time when we once again see each other, remember that my love continues and deepens.