The Fall of Five

My dearest Ella,

If you are reading this, then I dread the worst has already happened. Please know that I loved you as if you were my own daughter. I was never meant to be your Cêpan. The role was thrust upon me the night our planet fell, and it was not something I was prepared or trained for. All the same, I would not trade away these years with you for anything on Lorien or Earth. I hope I have done enough for you. I know you are destined for great things.

I hope that one day you can understand the things that I’ve done, the lies that I’ve told you, and find it within your heart to forgive me.

When you were small, I told you a lie. Soon, that one lie became many lies, and those lies became our life. I am sorry, Ella. I am a coward.

You are ten, in that only ten Garde survived the attack on Lorien, but you are not the Tenth. You were not a part of the Elders’ plan to preserve the Loric race, which is why you were not sent to Earth with the others. This is why you do not bear the same scars as Marina and Six. You were never under the protection of the Loric Charm.

The Elders did not select you. Your father did.

You hail from one of Lorien’s oldest and proudest families. Your great-grandfather was one of the ten Elders that used to govern our world. This was in the time before our home planet reached its full potential, before our people unlocked the power of Lorien and, by living in harmony with the planet, were gifted with Legacies. Our young planet was at a crossroads, caught between a desire for rapid development and a need to protect what is natural and life-sustaining.

It was a time of death, a time still shrouded in mystery even to our greatest historians. During these dark ages, war raged amongst our people. Many perished in needless conflict, but eventually the forces of peace prevailed. A new age dawned on Lorien—the golden time that you were born into, and that the Mogadorians so brutally ended.

Your great-grandfather was one of the casualties of the Secret Wars, the conflict between the Mogadorians and the Loric that was covered up by our government to preserve the illusions of a Lorien utopia.

As a young man, your father, Raylan, became obsessed with this war. You see, after the war, when the surviving Elders reconvened, they limited their number to nine rather than the original ten. Your father believed that the vacant place amongst the Elders belonged to your family. Our Elders had never been chosen by ancestry or heredity, yet your father still believed that your family’s house had somehow been wronged by history.

These obsessions made him into a bitter and distrustful man and Raylan became something of a recluse. He made a home for himself deep in the mountains—more a fortress than a home. For companions he kept a menagerie of Chimæra.

I was hired to tend your father’s beasts. He cared for little except his secret histories and his animals.

Until he met your mother.

Erina was Garde, assigned by the Elders to keep an eye on your father. Some believed that he was a danger to our people. Erina saw something else in him. She saw a man who could be rescued from himself.

Your mother was beautiful. You remind me of her more and more every day. She had Legacies of flight and Elecomun, the power to manipulate currents of electricity. So she would fly above your father’s home and create these brilliant displays, like fireworks made from lightning.

Your father distrusted Erina and openly challenged her reasons for coming to the mountains. Yet, night after night, he would come to the courtyard to watch your mother fly with the Chimæra.

One of your father’s Legacies allowed him to manipulate the spectrum of light. It seems a silly thing—like your Aeturnus—but it has many uses. He could darken the world around an enemy, making it hard for them to see. Or, in the case of his courtship of your mother, he could change the colors of her lightning strikes. Bright pinks and oranges ripped across the sky at night. Your father, for the first time in many years, was enjoying himself.

They fell in love and soon were married. And then, you came.

Erina had made many friends serving with the Garde and they would come to visit, welcomed by your parents. They are gone now.

The Mogadorians came. Our planet burned.

During his days as a recluse, your father had amassed a sizable collection of relics that once belonged to your family. He had even spent a large sum of money restoring an old fuel-powered spaceship that he believed was used by your great-grandfather in the last Loric war. When Erina moved in, she convinced your father to donate many of these items to a museum, the ship included. When the Mogadorians came, they first destroyed our ports, cutting off any conventional means of escape. Your father immediately thought of the old ship waiting dormant in the museum.

While others on our planet fought against the invasion, your father planned to escape. Somehow, he knew our people were doomed.

Your mother would not flee. She insisted that they go and join the fight. They argued, their most ferocious fight ever.

You were the compromise. Raylan promised to stay only if you were allowed to escape. I can still remember your mother’s tear-streaked face as she kissed you good- bye. Your father pressed you into my arms and I was ordered to make a run for the museum. Raylan’s menagerie of Chimæra joined us, acting as our bodyguards, many of them dying on the way.

This is how I became your Cêpan.

I watched our planet die through the portholes of a departing spaceship. I felt like a coward. The only time I ever stop feeling ashamed is when I look at you, Ella, and see what that cowardice saved.

What is done is done. You were not part of the Elders’ plan. That does not make you any less Loric, or any less a Garde. Numbers do not matter. You are capable of greatness, Ella. You are a survivor. One day, I know, you will make our people proud.

I love you.

Forever, your faithful servant,

Crayton