Uleyna,

Please be reasonable.

The law is complex. Under the Monastery’s rule of ‘No Intervention’, I am not even permitted to speak to the boy, let alone interrogate him as you would like. No one is, least of all you. To even move him to the North required extensive discussions and assurances that it solely be for his education and for nothing else. They will know if their rule is breached, and you know just as I do that it would damn us all to breach Monastery law.

As far as I am aware, he is nothing to worry about. Manon Cotillard’s reports paint him to be mildly more advanced than other boys his age, and I have heard no concerns of his behaviour from Xandel. I doubt they would deceive me. You know I would never deceive you. Truly, he just seems to be a boy who narrowly avoided being sent to an orphanage due to Delphia’s maternal sympathies. Before her passing, she handed off custody to a court bureaucrat – the aforementioned Cotillard. I read the letter that Delphia sent, and it betrays nothing but parental affection. Cotillard was only chosen because she was ‘young’ and ‘of good character’. Delphia only handed off custody because she was sure her ‘successors’ would rather ‘send him to an orphanage than raise him in Nature’s steps’. I am lifting these quotes from the letter directly. That is all. The Monastery is wary of the State but had no other recourse than to enforce this ‘No Intervention’ rule. All I have heard of the boy has been middling. It is in everyone’s best interest to tell me the truth, and so I take this assessment of mediocrity as fact.

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If this changes, you will be the first to know. You always are. Please, drop this needless worry. Consider other more important matters. My brother does not have many years left. We must work fast to secure the succession, and we must do so together.

Your favourite,

Athelardus.