Part 1: The Boy King and the Witch Queen
Cassander was born in 697 as the only child and thus heir of Adele Renault, née Luther and Stephen Renault, the Queen and King of Rynmere. He was groomed to rule from an early age on. He was taught a lot about politics, he learned the Ancient Language and even to use a sword. It was important that he make exactly the right decisions and that nobody dare to touch him. There were people that took issue with him not being a member of the seven families even though his great-grandmother, Queen Vanessa Luther, had in fact been born an Andaris, and he thus had Andaris blood in his veins, no matter how diluted it might be.
In 710, Queen Adele and King Stephen went on a journey, sailing along the coast of what had once been the Kingdom of Sheor, the place that the founders of Rynmere had come from. They wanted to explore the old world – and visit the Eastern Territories where the Luther family still lived – but they were set upon by pirates, and their ship sank. They didn’t survive, and Cassander found himself on the throne.
In spite of his education, he felt extremely out of his depth. He was a child and thus lacked the wisdom and foresight of older people. Almost from the beginning, people manipulated him. There were people that thought it would be easy to take advantage of him due to his age.
He was surrounded by enemies.
One of the people that helped Cassander keep his head and his throne in the early trials – and in the arcs that followed – was Gavin Andaris, the youngest son of Duke Thomas Andaris.
Gavin believed that the boy could potentially make a fine king, if only someone guided him, fostered what was good about him and stamped out certain negative behaviors. He taught him a lot about leadership, about rhetoric and even the art of disguise, for he believed that some things could only be found out if people didn’t know who you really were. At times, their relationship was cordial.
Gavin’s loyalty didn’t extend to Cassander’s wife Freya, a Biqaj woman that Cassander married in early 716 though. In fact, he actively worked to have Freya replaced by someone who would be better for both Rynmere and Cassander, by whatever means he felt he had to use.
The city guard had to be doubled on the trial of the wedding. In spite of her great beauty, people believed Freya to be a stain upon the royal family. She was even called a witch at times. What nobody knew was that Freya had been replaced by the Imposter, one of the Prime Histrionics that had been sent to Rynmere. They began to plant the seeds of rage and madness in Cassander and fostered them to further their goals.
Cassander for his part was deeply in love with his new wife, at least at first, but that love eventually turned into suspicion and displeasure. Still, he continued the marriage, for the time being.
In Ashan 716, Cassander was hurt during a trip overseas, one of several that he undertook during his reign, for diplomatic purposes. When he returned, he had to be rushed to the Infirmary in order to be treated for “burn wounds”. The incident also left him with a leg injury that caused him to walk with a limp and require a cane for seasons to come.
It was around that time that he considered looking for a new wife and sent people abroad to look for suitable brides. He had come to the decision that the status quo was unacceptable.
Things came to a head when Freya was caught in bed with Thomas Endor, the former leader of the King’s Army. Cassander was absolutely outraged. The Dukes and Duchesses of the noble houses assigned to advise him saw to it that Thomas was swiftly stripped of his titles and made to fight in the arena, alongside Malcom Krome. Cassander forced his queen to watch the fights even though she wished to leave. He wanted her to see what happened to traitors.
“Freya” for her part had secretly asked Thomas Endor to kill Cassander. There was an attempt to free Thomas, but his rescuers arrived too late. Thomas lost his life. Some of the people that had come to rescue him fired arrows into the crowd to cause a distraction so that the rest of them could vacate the arena. One of the arrows hit Freya, injuring her badly.
In Saun, she succumbed to her injuries. Her body was burned on a pyre beside the sea, one of her favourite places in Rynmere, and the Imposter … the Imposter decided to wear a new face. They weren’t done with Rynmere yet. In fact, their assignment had only just begun.
Catastrophe after catastrophe followed, and Cassander’s descent into madness truly began as the manipulations grew more frequent, although some of his actions remained purely his own.
Part 2: Rebellion
Soon after Queen Freya’s death, Veljorn Burhan and the Qe’Dreki started their rebellion, backed by a large army. They opposed Cassander and considered his blood to be diluted. Veljorn saw himself as the future King of Rynmere. Three of the seven noble houses supported him. A civil war broke out.
Cassander had Lazuli Warrick who had been engaged to Veljorn before he had married Zvezdana Venora tortured for information.
On the 25th of Saun, in the 716th arc, Veljorn arrived in Andaris, forcing the city into lockdown. The gates between Midtown and Lowtown were closed and reinforced which caused hundreds of the city’s poor to be slaughtered like lambs, their houses now occupied by Veljorn’s men. But a trial later, Qe’Dreki fortified the western gate and locked Gawyne’s forces from the city.
Negotiation talks started. Cassander decided to meet with Veljorn for parlay on the 26th of Saun. The lives lost in the siege weighed heavy on his heart.
Cassander entered the camp in disguise. While Alistair Venora took his place, the young king pulled a trick on Veljorn. He disguised himself as a slave and mingled with Veljorn’s servants. When the Jacadons arrived, Faith Augustin held his hand and comforted him, not knowing who he was – for he only revealed his true identity afterwards.
His little trick allowed Cassander to study his enemies up close. Cassander told Veljorn that he would accept nothing less than total surrender. Veljorn’s forces would be escorted from the city, his wife, the Lady Zvezdana Venora would return to Burhan, and Veljorn himself would hang for his crimes and the innocent lives forfeited in the name of lust and greed.
Veljorn refused to accept those terms though.
It was then that Elyna Burhan killed Veljorn, perhaps in order to prevent a greater tragedy. Jacadons attacked Veljorn’s camp and decimated a lot of it while Cassander and his allies fled across the sky. Veljorn’s bones were dried and fired by a Jacadon. They were then coated in gold and given to noble houses in each region to scatter. According to the beliefs of Rynmere, a person whose bones have been scattered will never rest, and their soul can never move on from this world.
There would be no peace for Veljorn, even in death.
For a time, Cassander felt that he had regained control. He had triumphed over his enemies and shown that he was the true king of Rynmere, in spite of his name and his blood, and hadn’t Veljorn’s death, hadn’t all those deaths in the Qe’Dreki’s camp ultimately been unavoidable?
Sometimes, you had to kill a certain number of people in order to save even more.
But a few trials after Veljorn’s death, Andaris was troubled by shadow beasts that took the form of any living being. The city gates were locked for a certain amount of time, but that threat passed quickly, and in Vhalar, when it truly seemed as if the worst was over, Cassander decided to hold an event that was open to the public. He reassured the citizens of Andaris of the security of his throne and of the city. All drinks were half price in the taverns that trial.
The remaining Qe’Dreki rebels would be hunted down and sold into slavery, along with their wives and children.
Unknown to Cassander, the Imposter was already working on the next step of their plan. Cassander and Emerson, the Empress, the holiest woman in the kingdom who had accompanied Cassander to Veljorn’s camp, slowly became closer, closer than many people considered to be appropriate.
At the end of Vhalar, Cassander decided to travel to Nashaki where he looked to set up stronger trade negotiations. Emerson Sands, or rather the Imposter, was left to run the kingdom in his head. Cassander thought that he would lead Rynmere into a new age of prosperity – or was that simply what the Imposter and his advisors assured him would be the case?
Part 3: Prelude to the Fall
Following the civil war and the shadow beast attacks, the guards were stretched to their limits. Nobles frequently found themselves the target of attacks. The Rynmere Citizens Alliance quickly started to gain popularity. They called nobles decadent, a drain on resources and largely absent in times of strife. Anti-noble sentiments reached a crescendo in late Cylus 717 as a riot broke out. Cassander who had recently returned from his trip to Nashaki ordered the guards to take control and end the riot. There would be no more rebellions.
He would prevail.
Citizens spoke out against the heavy-handed nature of how the guards handled things though.
Cassander called a meeting of his Dukes and Duchesses to demand answers, amid safety concerns. He wanted to know which actions had been taken in response to the growing anti-noble sentiments. Emerson herself met with the Rynmere Citizens Alliance. Despite the rumors that major changes to the structure of Rynmere nobility were afoot, the Rynmere Citizens Alliance gained more and more support with every passing trial. A second civil war seemed imminent, and the Imposter continued to sow the seeds of rage and discontent.
Amidst all those new threats, Cassander’s wedding to Emerson was finally announced. They were facing difficult times with an increase in violence against the state and the nobility that formed the pillars of society, the Empress said during the announcement that took place during a masquerade while Cassander stood by her side. They had agreed upon a course of action that would lead Rynmere into a new era, an era of Church and State in unity, an era of increased sovereignty and growing ties between the nobility and the people.
At the time, Cassander was convinced that everything his betrothed said would come true, that he would lead his kingdom into a new, glorious era. In truth, his engagement upset a lot of people. Was Emerson not a holy woman? Were men not permitted to so much as glance at her?
The outlawing of all magic – Cassander’s answer to attacks on himself and the Iron Hand, and innocent citizens – was a step in the right direction as well. At least he thought so at the time. Licensing requirements had obviously not worked. The mages of Rynmere too would burn.
Still, he didn’t attend the fights in the arena, for the first time.
The young king who was slowly succumbing to the madness within him, sacrificed a lot of possible – and much needed - support even though he didn’t have enough support in other places to make up for it. His rule wasn’t truly strong enough to survive that kind of move.
Cassander did feel a certain amount of loneliness and strange melancholia on the trial of the wedding – he couldn’t help but wonder if his love for Emerson was indeed real, or if he had just been convinced of such – but as he finally addressed his subjects, with his new wife by his side, he regained his composure and spoke of love, and of forgiveness for those that had rebelled against him, in spite of the noticeable absence of several prominent nobles.
There was no doubt in his mind anymore.
And the fact that he nearly risked a war with Scalvoris over the Eclipse Portals but an arc later … was he not right, were his actions not justified?
Such things could not be trusted after all.
Part 4: The Last King of Rynmere
In the Rebirth Cycle of 719, the Rynmere Plague wiped out 60 % of Rynmere’s population on the island and 20 % of the population in the territories. It was highly aggressive and took merely three trials to kill. Any efforts to stop or slow it turned out to be futile. Nobody who contracted it was ever cured of it or recovered naturally, although a few just didn’t become ill.
In the beginning Cassander tried to get the situation under control.
Already on Cylus 1st, a strict quarantine was imposed on Rynmere. Nobody was allowed to leave or enter the island or the territories. Burhan naval forces as well as the various flying forces guarded the island, killing anybody that dared to enter or leave. The territories maintained their own quarantine lines, although they appeared to be much less effective.
Cassander’s efforts soon turned out to be futile though. He realized that not only his throne, but his very life was at risk. He hadn’t caught the plague yet, but that didn’t mean anything. It might only be matter of time. Those closest to him, those few that were still loyal to him after the catastrophes of the previous three arcs urged him to go into hiding. At first, he was reluctant, but when “Emerson” seemed to succumb to the plague, he finally gave in.
He was worried that his subjects would take him for a coward that was abandoning his kingdom again, but a king that died from a plague, without heirs, would be even worse, they assured him.
He stayed outside the capital, in a relatively secluded area where there were few people. Perhaps, his personal doctor that had accompanied him, said, the plague could be avoided if you avoided any contact with other people. Perhaps, you just needed to keep your distance.
By the middle of Ymiden, the plague stopped increasing in victims, but it wasn’t shrinking either, holding steady at the 60 %. No cause could be discovered. At the same time, the territories declared themselves plague-free, after purging enough of the population by fire.
Eventually, Faith Augustin cured the plague, but Rynmere had become a very different kingdom by then. Many members of the noble houses were dead or missing. Many had adopted a “fend for themselves” mindset over their own lands. When Cassander finally emerged from his secret hideout, he realized that he would likely be the last one. The last king of Rynmere.
He wouldn’t go out with a bang, but with a whimper. He had made too many wrong decisions and run the kingdom that he had wanted to lead into a glorious new era once upon a time into the ground. There were times when he could see a bit more clearly now, but arcs of manipulation had left their mark.
There are things that it’s almost impossible to recover from.
Part 5: Artere Awakens
In Saun 721, the dragons woke, and Artere escaped from the labyrinth.
This time, Cassander refused to flee. He wanted to do what he should have done all along. At the very end, when all hope seemed to be lost, he wanted to stand by his subjects’ side. He would not bow down, and he would not give in, he would not be weak, but look death in the eye, like a true king so that those that were around him would be less afraid when the dragon came for them.
It was Cassander’s first moment of true clarity since he had lain in the Imposter’s embrace, so many arcs before, and it would be his final act of courage, and perhaps his greatest one. He would finally be the kind of king that his late parents and his old mentor, Gavin Andaris, would have wanted him to be.
The same people that had urged him to go into hiding during the plague dragged him from his home and onto a ship that was already waiting for them in a secret location. He was the symbol of the Rynmere of old. He could not die. He would not die. They would go into exile where they would figure out how to reclaim the kingdom, or at least their power.
Cassander realized that his life would never truly be his own. They didn’t even let him pick the date and place of his death. There would always be someone, watching, pulling the strings.
They made their way towards the territories, towards Welles, a shoreline settlement where some of the Luthers, Adele Renault’s relatives, still lived. They had owned most of the land there once and been respected. Cassander’s loyalists hoped that the territories would at least accept them, if not welcome them, and allow them time to think about their next steps before they moved on.
Everything that could go wrong ended up going wrong. They were set upon by pirates, like Cassander’s parents so many arcs before, and when they finally reached the shore, things only continued to get worse. Cassander’s loyalists died one by one. There was chaos everywhere.
Eventually, Cassander alone was left. He had been holding it together so far, against all odds, had even begun to recover a fraction of his sanity. There was nothing left now though.
What happened in the territories was the final straw.
All the traumata and all the suffering of the previous arcs finally caught up with him for good, and the consequences were dramatic and severe. Cassander would frequently dissociate and suffer from panic attacks, there were times when he was nearly catatonic, and he slowly lost his memory and all sense of self, the final consequence of the Imposter’s manipulation, Artere and the plague, or maybe the last, desperate attempt of his mind to protect itself.
It was due to sheer luck that he didn’t die there, somewhere on the mainland. A healer from the Order of the Adunih that had managed to escape from Rynmere as well found him by accident and took care of him. By that time, he couldn’t tell her who he really was anymore and was a gibbering wreck most of the time. She took him for one of the many traumatized refugees that were in the area during that time and tried to help him. She tried to heal him.
He was still so young. He deserved a chance in her opinion.
When it became obvious that Cassander wouldn’t recover, at least not for a long time, the healer who had found other members of the Order, decided to have him moved to the headquarter in Rharne where she would serve from now on and where they would have better resources to deal with him.
He made little progress nevertheless though. At the beginning of 724, Cassander who had been one of the most powerful men in the world once upon a time, was still with the Order, a lost soul that was pitied, but treated with kindness.
It seemed as if that would be his fate, until he took his last breath.
And then, as one of the world’s greatest heroines died, things suddenly started to make sense again.
