They sat in silence.

They sat in silence and alone. In their office, no one moved. Not one critter disturbed them, and even the fire had been put out.

Nothing to disturb them while they sat and waited, searched, listened.

Outside, Lexon stood perfectly still. His tense muscles did not twitch, his snout did no move. He, like them, made no sound of his own. While their body was still because it was not inhabited, his was tense with urgency, ready to protect them if the need arose.

In the adjacent room, Tegilbor was sitting. His thoughts were clouded with all the tasks he had, while he puzzled over a letter, trying to determine whether he could handle that matter or needed to grant that person an audience with Telassi.

In the library, Heskra tried to read about the First Vandrainor while their skin itched terribly. Their scales blistered on her forearms and chin line, and not clawing into them took up all the little one's focus. Beneath the suffering from the itch, there was excitement. Their first burst would come soon, and with that their first choice. Who would they be? Were they already that person?

Telassi drew away from these personal thoughts, making a mental note to invite the child's parents.

They could feel Renor in his room, walking up and down. Puzzled, they drew closer. He was bending down and picking things up. It took them a moment to understand, that he was actually cleaning up his room. His mind, like always, was shielded. Curiosity satisfied, they left him alone. No good spying on an old friend.

Hilde stood in the kitchen, but without entering her mind, they could not determine what she was doing. The movement was too unfamiliar. And her mind, Telassi would not touch for several reasons.

Ilandi was in their room, pacing up and down. Their agitation almost filled the next two rooms, as well. They had been like this, ever since those rumors had reached them. Poor creature. Telassi had taken them on because they had resonated with each other; in the teenager's mind they had seen believes and ideals they shared, and a struggle not unfamiliar to them. It had felt right. Not for a second, they had stopped to think about what that decision might entail for the student. Not, that Ilandi had to struggle to do as well as they were expected. They never had to do that. And letting them go, filled Telassi with pride and love and pain. But right now, seeing them this messed up was all the more worse.

Telassi?

Telassi stopped. They had almost moved past the mind, but having dwelled so long, Ilandi's senses must have picked up on their presence.

Yes?

What are you doing?

Meditating.

Huh.

They felt pressure as something rose between them, and forced their mind away. Ilandi had put up walls around their mind. It had nothing to do with mistrust but with the longing for some privacy. Telassi continued on.

I'll miss them, Lexon said, they are smart.

Telassi's body let out a sigh. They had meant to find someone specific, but there was an urgency in Lexon's mind he could not stifle.

Conspiracies, rumors, threats had to wait for now, if they were really there they wouldn't vanish in a few hours. Returning to their body was all the more unpleasant with the task lingering at the back of their mind. The tips of their fingers burned and tickled, and two fingers of their left hand burned. Their toes twitched inside their boots and for a second, their eye sockets burned. Shaking their hands, and waggling their toes helped to ease these sensations a bit against the pain in the hands and feet. The feeling in their skull however would just vanish. It always did.

'So, you think we should send them to Agshraf?', they asked after regaining their posture.

Lexon's mind was not very clear on the matter. Right now, his focus was set on walking but they could tell by the way it was done, that he did it on purpose. They could hear him step into the office; his hooves made a familiar clacking sound on the stones and were muffled by the rugs as he stepped on them. 'I think we should try to distribute our forces more evenly', he said when he reached them. He treated lightly.

Uncharacteristically so. His heavy conscience almost overwhelming them, they tried to locate that feeling without success.

'What did you do?'

'I have no idea what you're talking about.'

'Bullshit.'

Lexon huffed, his lips flapped audibly in the air he exhaled.

'Lexon.'

'Telassi.'

They felt their patience dwindling. Whatever he had done, he had locked it away from them thoroughly. They pushed nonetheless. If he wasn't going to tell them, how else would they find out?

'I can tell you did something', they said. 'Stop being ridiculous and talk to me.'

'You are paranoid, you know? People claimed that for decades and now it started.'

'You act like an infant trying to hide their excrements.'

'Infants don't do that. They are proud of what they produce.'

Telassi let out a short laugh. 'That is not the point, Lexon.'

'I think it should be, though.'

They drew in a very long, weary breath. 'Enough', they said emphatically.

Lexon's mood sobered. His forced playfulness vanished and left only gray thoughts, as he focused on the thing he had hidden from them. A ripple ran through his mind, indicating a greater shift in a place they could not sense right now.

'I told Tishian and Ilandi about the ritual', he said. Fast, almost hastily.

For a second, they couldn't react. There was only coldness in their veins, pumping blood too slowly. He had told someone. Was everything lost already? Should they even bother?

'Telassi', Lexon said, his voice pushing through the chaos in their mind, 'Telassi, let me be clear: I talked to them because everybody knows something is up. You are summoning Vandrainor from all over the continent, Shadow, you are summoning them from the islands. This doesn't even happen when we elect a new Andrush Vandrainor. It doesn't even happen for the ascension. Don't you think we should tell our family why we are doing that? If we can't trust them… then what's the point?'

They sucked on their teeth. 'We've been over that, Lexon. We will tell them once everything's in place.’

Not yet. Too much could go wrong right now.

Lexon whinnied long and shrill and high-pitched.

Telassi sighed, stretching out their hand in his direction, gently petting his fur coat. 'I know you don't like it', they said. 'But we… we need to be careful about that.'

He shuffled and came closer. They could feel his fur on their cheek, his teeth grinding together. Telassi leaned against him and felt his snout resting on top of their head.

'You are paranoid', Lexon said.

'I am careful', they answered.

He tugged on their hair with his teeth and they laughed. He had always been able to make them laugh, no matter what had clouded their mind. He was their laughter, their smile. Sometimes, though, they wished being serious wouldn't be so hard for him. Really, utterly serious. When it came to plans, risks. He struggled with that, his nature all the more inclined to make a stupid comment or derail them completely. Being the Andrush Vandrainor was far more natural for them than for him, and for now, he had accepted that. He had set aside his needs for now, but the day would come when they would have to do the same for him.

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And he got impatient, as the years grew longer, and for them, it got harder to ignore.

Telassi sighed and pulled his mind closer into their own, incorporating him partially. Not deep enough to lose themselves in him and vice versa but deep enough to let him see what they thought about. All the reasons why they had to be so careful. In a way, he hadn't been privy to just yet. Not to all of them, anyway. Because these memories were visited so rarely, he only knew that one he had been present for himself.

A lesson in history surfaced: A history lesson. A hard bench, cold winds rocking window frames. Harsh, sharp clicking of footsteps. A distant voice, not preserved well enough, warped from all the bygone time: "A hundred years ago, the Silent King allowed the dwarven people to settle on both sides of the Dead Mountains. He was — and is — a pioneer in doing so. He also granted them Sapient Rights, forbidding the capture and selling of dwarves into slavery. All they have to do in return is to remain loyal citizens and pay the Freedom Tax once a year."

Whatever else they had learned that day, was lost to the ages. But what was more important was, what had not been said: The dwarven settlements had been planned by the crown in advance — far enough away from the greater passes that merchants could still pretend they didn't exist. And like all citizens of the Nightlands, dwarves could end up as slaves if they couldn't pay their taxes. And that Freedom Tax was one of the reasons why dwarves ended up in slavery more often than other people.

Dwarves were great magicians but nobody wanted to buy their artifacts, or if they did, people tried to haggle for as long as possible, so that a dwarf would only gain a small profit. Nobody trusted them enough to hire them as scribes, even though they were the best. So they ended up as farmhands, servants, construction workers. Paid enough to survive and pay the taxes but sooner or later, almost every dwarven family had at least one loved one back in the shackles.

By the time Telassi was born, the Silent Prince - a man not of age but next in line — changed the laws again. The Nightlands struggled with ill weather, failed harvests, floods. So he declared that dwarves could no longer regain freedom after entering slavery once. And neither could their offspring.

With more free labor, the country flourished once again. And the people forgot the blood on their hands. But even before that, they had found ways to justify that: The dwarves were strange. Different. Alien. They had come after the Change, they had not heard of the Shadow or the Regent before the other species taught them. Yet they had known of the Emperor — the Usurper — and spoken of him. They had to be responsible for the Change. Their eyes held no souls, only stone and greed.

Telassi remembered the children's tales. They remembered nights spent in fear and horror, the blanket covering their head. Strange noises outside the window and the belief that, if they only held as still as stone themselves, they could evade the dwarves who had come to claim them.

The second memory was different from that: Rough, cold, marcid hands on their shoulders. Their face and tiny body pressed tightly against a frame that was little more than bone and rough clothes; some patches feel sticky and different from the rest as if something dried on the cloth. Then, the smell. Sweat, and dirt, sickness. The stench of people who sleep in their clothes and in the dirt.

They had gotten separated from their older sibling's wedding party, a nine-year-old child, wandering through the city they had never been in. Hot tears had started to run down their cheeks, and those hands had grabbed them, yanked them out of the way from a cart that had come up behind them. Their tiny, trembling body was held safe and steady by those stranger's hands and thin, cold arms. Cold, bony fingers had dried their tears away. A hushed, coarse voice had whispered words in their ear, told them that nothing would happen, they were safe now. "Little one", they remembered. "It is okay, little one. Come… come I bring you to a safe place." And they had followed, mindless and relieved, not bothering that this was a dwarven voice, that this was the dwarven tongue. Because that person, that woman, had been the first one to offer any help to them.

The woman had helped them, found a stick they could use as a cane as soon as possible, and even offered to carry them. They had gone through alleys filled with obstacles, shards of glass, and rubble. The woman's home had been cold, and wet. And rough. There had been splinters in their hands and rubble under their feet. A bit of warmth, when the woman led them to stand next to the fireplace. A tiny fire, no stones around it. She had given them soup. Lukewarm, thin, and bland. And apologized for it. She had allowed them to touch her face, so they could see. Bruised, brittle skin. A hollow face. Dirt. But a smile so wide Telassi imagined it to be nice.

She had waited until they had eaten the soup, then told them to stay put. She had been away a long time, so long, the little child had started to feel uneasy again. But eventually, she had come back with a guard, who had taken Telassi home.

She had followed them to the palace, one hand on Telassi's shoulder until the gates closed behind them.

In the palace, they had never spoken of that incident and their parents hadn't let them leave the grounds again.

It had taken Telassi a long time to realize just how lucky they must have been. The woman had of course known who they were. Or at least what family, if they might not have known their name. And she had nonetheless decided to do the right thing. Even more, she had endangered herself by going to a guard. Law enforcement was never the friend of marginalized people. Not ever. She probably had been beaten on the spot for telling such a lie. And she had known that beforehand. But rather than dragging a blind child through the city, she had decided to endanger herself to help.

And Telassi had never learned her name.

The last memory was not a moment in time; it was a fight over months. After their ascension, they had decided to hire Tegilbor. It was a deliberate decision, a symbol for the change they wanted to bring to the Order and the continent. He was the first dwarf to ever work in the Great Stable, and he was not a lowly servant or a scullion. He was their scribe and secretary. They would need more help than Andrush Vandrainor before them, so they relayed on the best in that profession. And by that time, and to this day, that were dwarves.

The nobility, and the commoners, had been outraged. They had been called a traitor. Not only to their species but to the Order. People had tried to get the chance to re-elect. A thing that had never happened before. Nahandrain's leading nobility had refused to work for them so long, they had been forced to give up the position of leadership, the Andrush Vandrainor traditionally held in the city. After that, after their official retreat from that, the nobles had formed a council of rulers. But that hadn't been enough.

They asked the Vandrainor — all of them — if they agreed with what Telassi was doing. If they wanted a new vote. This time, Telassi had agreed to a vote of no-confidence but won. Vandrainor were traditionalists in many ways. Especially in their own. And outsiders asking them to vote against their Andrush Vandrainor was something they could not stand. Even if they had to overlook a dwarf for that.

Then, assassins had come. For them, for the scribe, for their closest friends. They had lost loved ones in that war. Until they decided to move the Great Stable out of Nahandrain, declaring the Vandrainor a truly neutral component of the world.

It had taken an enormous act of strength but it had worked. With the threat of the Vandrainor removed, the nobles finally left them alone. And Telassi continued to lead the Order in the way they saw fit.