Docent Othn,
I place in your keeping a child born of Lady Shando Vernius and of my blood. He must be kept far from Kaitain, and farther still from the ruinous knowledge of what such blood may invite. I do not send him as claimant, nor as instrument, but as child.
He is entrusted to House Taligari, and to your judgment, because you can form character without breeding appetite. Raise him well. Let him know comfort, learning, and beauty. Let him become disciplined without hardness, cultivated without pride, gifted without ambition. Above all, let him live beyond the fever of succession.
If he asks, give him a life before you give him answers.
The throne makes poor fathers of men such as I. See that it does not also make a victim of him.
— Elrood IX