Everyone knows who caused the fall of King Jupiter The Great.

I should, most of all.
My name is Sabine, and Garten Longtreader was my father.

Like I said before, we all know who caused The Fall. But do they know why? No. Only me. Here I lie, far, far underneath Natalia, on the very edge of the country. The year is seven years after The Fall. I think I was eight when it happened. I've lost track. I barely even remember my mother, and the only memories I have left of my father are filled with anger, fear, and pain. I'm sure I had some good ones before, but if I did, they're gone now. But I'm wasting paper talking about me. Here's what you need to understand:

1: I don't have any solid evidence. You'll have to take my word for it.

2: I hate my father as much as anyone else. Any sympathy I had before has dissipated.

3: This is what I think happened. He never told me why.

It was my Aunt Sween's rejection that tipped him off the edge. No one actually told me this, but just because I was a kid doesn't mean I was stupid. I was about seven when I started to notice how tense it was between them, and how my father's temper was always considerably shorter whenever Uncle Whittle was around. So I did some snooping, and this is what I came up with: My father proposed to Sween, but she was already engaged to Whittle. And it was close to that time that something inside him snapped. The anger had been building for years. The pain started to flood back when my mother passed away; because the best doctors in Natalia couldn't do anything. He had a difficult childhood, as did my uncles Wilfred and Whittle. I wasn't supposed to know this, but I heard whispers when I was supposed to be in bed. Here was when I started to realize that the world wasn't the perfect, sheltered little bubble the grown–ups pretended it was. After my mother passed on, he disappeared for a while. A long, long, while. Three months, to be exact.

I was six years old. This is one of my worst memories. He told me to stay in the house, and left. And then I was alone for two days, until my Aunt Sween came to check on Garten and I, and found me alone in the kitchen, standing on a chair to reach the fruit bowl on the counter. I didn't understand just what he had done wrong. When he finally returned, there was shouting. I remember that it scared me, hearing my aunt shout like that. She never shouted. After this, I have a blur of confused memories, of hiding when my father came home from work, of hearing that I was going to have a little cousin, of terrified whispers that Morbin Blackhawk was massing his forces, and King Jupiter's army was preparing. I have one memory of the king. It's so pale now that I'm not sure if it's real or if I imagined it. In this memory, I am very small, and he looks so tall that he scares me a bit. But then he smiles, and it feels as though every bit of kindness the world has to offer is channeled into that smile. I think I reached out my arms, and he lifted me into his lap. Then there's a little blue book, something about a dinosaur, and the memory ends.

I've tried to understand why my father went to Morbin when my mother died. I'm sure it was during those three months he was gone that he made his alliance. I can't understand, and I don't think I ever will. But years and years of bitter anger were built up, and he allowed it to take over him. He hated me after my mother died. I think it was because I looked just like her. I don't even remember her name. Maybe he'd been thinking about going to Morbin for years, and the fear that he would be killed on sight was blocked out by the grief, the anger, and the bitterness. This is my best guess on why he went to Morbin. When I was eleven, I tried to console myself by saying that he didn't know that Jupiter was going to die. But I know now that this was a lie. A happy lie, but a lie all the same. Now I'm going to tell you about The Fall itself. It hurts so much, the last memory of my father. He's holding a sword, a sword covered in blood. His face is twisted, bitter, and angry, but that's not what stands out the most. It's his eyes. Stone eyes, that's what I've come to call them. They're boring a hole right through me, and even though I'm sobbing, I can see them quite clearly. He's not shouting anymore, his voice has risen to an insane, angry scream. I've tried to erase the memory of what he was saying. I cried everytime I thought of it for three years afterward. I'm inside a hut on the edge of Jupiter's Crossing, so close, yet so far away. This is how it has to be. He's saying. It will be better this way. Stop crying, tears are for the weak. You are a Longtreader. You are not weak.

Stop it! I wanted to scream. You're wrong. But I couldn't. I was just a terrified little doe, confused and afraid, maybe a bit mad. Garten Longtreader betrayed King Jupiter The Great because he let the anger get to him, boiling into jealousy, resentment, every single word for anger. This is my explanation.

My name is Sabine Longtreader, and if you're reading this, then you are either someone I trust with my life, or I've been killed and you are completely the wrong person.

Believe it or don't. I don't care anymore.