Proctor Luciana's journal
Vol 4
... When I reached the Throne Aligned, I found Sotha Sil sitting on the stairs leading to his seat of power. He didn't even look up.
"I know why you're here," he said.
I was so naive then, I smiled and rushed toward him like a child. "Good!" I cried. "We have to move quickly. Marius is near to passing."
But Sotha Sil didn't stand up. He didn't even look me in the eye. "I am sorry," he said. "I cannot give you what you seek."
I stumbled over my words, trying to understand what he was saying. I just repeated myself like an idiot, thinking perhaps that he hadn't heard me. "Marius is dying. We have to get back to him as soon as possible!"
He stood up and pursed his lips before speaking. "I'm sorry," was his only reply.
Seht approached, placed a brass hand on my shoulder and said,
I looked up and there were tears in his eyes.
I felt a great rage rise up within me. I reached for my hammer, and lifted it above my head just before Seht whispered a banishing word and sent me hurtling back toward the surface.
Marius died two days later. Sotha Sil remains in the Cogitum Centralis to this day.
The other apostles offered the same trite consolations I used to give to the grieving parents of men who died under my command in the Imperial Legion. "It was his time." "He lived a good and honorable life." On and on. But in my heart, I will never forgive Sotha Sil. Never. I will remain a proctor of the apostles. I will always safeguard the city I love, and uphold the laws and traditions of the order. But my adoration for the Clockwork God has shriveled and starved.
