The oubliettes are empty and the cleansing is long since past, but sometimes if you listen right you can hear the echos. Even on the main walks when the sun is shining and the date trees sway in the cool breeze, sometimes over the smell of cardamom and cinnamon you can smell the stink of the charnal-squads as they go from house to house, trapped forever in their actions, their motions repeating always in memory. There are none who live today that were here for those long years that do not remember them always, even if they pretend they do not. Even the floor of the refiners furnaces are touched, places that burn away impurities every day still cannot burn away this impurity.

Surely, my brothers, you come to Ornus because it is a bastion. It is a haven. We are not scorned here nor treated with hatred. We are not the unwitting zealots of a god-kings army nor do we bow and scrape before any Great King like all in nearby Khepri. We do not keep slaves, Sworn or Unsworn, for such a thing would be tantamount to throwing away all the work we've done.

When the first noble son was born with budding horns, it all began. When babes who showed even the slightest sign of the markings of one of the Sworn were consigned to the flames, we knew our time was coming. How could it be any other way?

Yet, did we need those dark and stinking cells kept so far from the light? Did we need to encourage our youngest to "do their duty," no matter how abhorrent, so that no child of Ornus could ever say his lineage was Unsworn? Yes, our streets are broad and bright, and our people are happy enough. But still outsiders fear us and call us "City of Smoke," they call us "City of Smouldering Fires." Even though our avenues are clean and kept well tended, and the gardens always blooming.

No one can forget what we've done. Least of all, us. Least of all us.