BEFORE

Through the thicket lay a crying child. Stuck in time though she was, the child was no more than three years of age. Her black hair flowed over her golden-brown skin; her knees tucked into her chest to hide her eternally tear-stained cheeks from a harsh world. The child could no longer cry for her parents, who she had forgotten long ago, and still she sobbed over a future lost far too soon. Just a little thing, with only the missai birds to watch over her, until a kind hand reached out and awakened her to a new world.

NOSSOA

ONE

Tair lay in the grassy green hills of Mirte, her unruly black hair a halo around her. Airy blue cloth draped her form, which she soon discovered was a serious miscalculation as great gusts of wind rippled over her body. Mirte’s late-winter, early-spring days were quite warm, but the temperature swiftly dropped as night set in. Tair wondered how much time she had left before the cold forced her inside. Unperturbed by the weather, the Elven children around her danced a well-known choreography and sang the same songs they had for the past fourteen years Tair had lived in the land. Songs that reminded her of childhood and innocence and, unfortunately, alienation. After all, she was the only Human in Mirte, the last valley under solely Elven control. It had been that way since she had first arrived when she was five years old, and it had stayed that way her entire life.

The days were shorter that time of year and the skies grew darker earlier. That day in particular, a storm rumbled in the distance. This only sent new life into the Elven children, who squealed and skipped alongside one another, a Northern Elvish tune of thunder and lightning on their tongues. She took this as a sign to head back inside: while Elves were particularly fond of rain, Tair preferred observation from indoors. Two Elven children followed as she started back for her cabin in the distance, picking at her clothes all the while. They giggled when she smiled down at them, almost half her size already and bound to tower above her in their years to come. Even now, she felt herself an outsider; though they had grown up with her in their community, she was still an unusual sighting.

The children remained at her heels as she neared her front door. As an offering, she pulled out a small silver taper candle. The little Elves gasped, grabbed hold of the candle together, and happily set off on their way to show their friends what they had received. The Elves of Mirte exchanged and accepted gifts for all kinds of occasions, and they particularly enjoyed gifts that symbolized fire. A silver candle like Tair’s was a clear request for privacy when she knew her words would not do the trick. Tair had learned at an early age to carry offerings with her, if only to avoid a negative reputation among the Northern Elves, who already had a rather low opinion of Humans.

As did all other races, and rightfully so.

Upon opening the door to her cabin, a glass stein shattered next to Tair’s head. She shrunk back, shielding her eyes on instinct. It had just started to rain now, and a bit trickled down her back as she stood on the threshold between the cabin and the stormy valley.

Silaa laughed as Shianna pulled Tair inside and shut the door behind her. “Oh, Tair! Are you okay?” Shianna cooed, in her most loving tone.

Shianna was, perhaps, one of the only beings in Mirte who understood Tair’s racial isolation. Being a Dwarf, she stood out not only in height—only meeting some of the eldest and tallest Elves’ waistlines—but also in build. Not all Dwarves, she often bragged, could have achieved her immense size. She took up as much space as physically possible, and then even more in personality. Her dark skin glowed with the light of the fire burning in the hearth. It was as though wherever Shianna was, light followed. She wore a thick quilted top and pants, both of which had been worn by her grandparent during the Doman War.

In her early years, Tair looked to Shianna as a guardian, and then as a sibling as she grew older. By then, she was better equipped to recognize the Dwarf’s faults. Nonetheless, Tair held plenty of respect and admiration for Shianna. She cradled Tair’s face in her strong, warm hands and checked for any nicks or cuts, even as Tair reassured her that she was not hurt. The Dwarf was admittedly overprotective.

After seemingly satisfied with her inspection, Shianna let go of Tair. Silaa teased, “We have to be more careful with her. You know how fragile Humans are.”

Tair huffed. She hated to think of herself as fragile, a word Elves like Silaa loved to use in reference to her and her kind. Then again, as far as anyone knew, Humans possessed no magic to defend themselves with—Tair included.

Shianna frowned. “I didn’t know she was coming back so soon. I wouldn’t have thrown it.” Why Shianna had thrown a stein in the first place, Tair did not know. One thing was for certain, though: Shianna and Silaa were never truly violent with one another, but the two did play some childish games that resulted in an inordinate amount of destruction. It was not uncommon for them to spar, break delicate things, and start (somewhat) mild fires, if only because they were bored.

“I’m fine,” Tair mumbled. She toed around the shards of glass in the entryway as she headed to the kitchen to get herself a shot of Elven arne.

Something was telling her it would be a long night.

Silaa was almost a foot taller than both Shianna and Tair, and her light brown skin radiated just as much firelight as Shianna’s. The Elf had been one of the first to greet Shianna upon her arrival all those years ago, when Tair was around seven years of age, and the two had been nearly inseparable ever since. That was how it went with mates, Shianna had explained to a rather intrigued young Tair who had not quite understood what it meant to be someone’s mate. It was undeniable that the two made a beautiful pair. In contrast to Shianna’s tight-fitting battle wear, Silaa always wore loose clothing that nicely suited her curves. Truthfully, if Tair had been attracted to anyone in her youth, it was that older Elf. She had, on occasion, had to draw her eyes away; mating was a serious thing in any realm and, though it never demanded monogamy nor eternity, more dependent on a deep feeling of connection than on a particular style of relationship, Tair would have never challenged Shianna to be with Silaa. After all, Tair was only a child when her infatuation began, so she would not have had a chance; as she grew older, Silaa became less attractive to Tair, if only because she began to feel more like family.

Still, Silaa’s knowledge of Tair’s childhood crush was something she loved to lord over the younger Human. As such, Tair often stayed out of Silaa’s way as best as she could. Tonight, arms wrapped around Shianna from behind as she watched Tair down a second shot of arne, Silaa winked at Tair. She teased, “Hope you can control yourself after all that.”

Tair huffed and went for a third shot out of spite. Her tolerance was not usually so strong, but that night she barely felt the alcohol’s effects.

Only a week before Silaa had moved in with them, Tair had expressed her childhood crush to the Elf, a declaration she later regretted. A two-centuries-old Elf calmly explaining to a Human child why they would not be mates, why they would never be mates, and why that confession would one day be a great source of embarrassment still humiliated Tair. It was a moment that, she discovered as she grew older, she could never quite outlive. As though it heard her frustration, thunder clapped outside.

Shianna chuckled, full-bellied, at something Silaa whispered in her ear, and the two collapsed on the cushions in front of the fire. Tair set about looking for a snack. Just in time, Alyn arrived back, soaked in rain and a bundle of food in his arms.

Tair helped him carry all the foodstuffs into the kitchen. When he laid eyes upon Shianna and Silaa, who may as well have already taken each other’s clothes off, he gagged. “Must I ask again that you two not to integrate in common areas?” Tair could hear the shiver in his voice.

After one final kiss, Silaa sighed, “You ruined the fun.” They both sat up and straightened out their clothes.

“Well, I’d rather that than have to witness your private relations,” Alyn muttered. Alyn was Fel, the result of a Faery and an Elf mating. As he explained it, Elves and Faeries had a whole slew of physical differences that required they reproduce in other, more creative, and more magical ways than other races, in the rare cases they reproduced at all. Alyn claimed that all Fel grew up with a natural misunderstanding or otherwise an aversion to the overt nakedness and sexuality of others. At the very least, they believed such acts were meant to be confined to private settings between consenting adults. That could not have been true for all Fel, Silaa once argued, because those that had passed through Mirte in the past were some of their most overtly promiscuous visitors. Alyn himself had many partners with whom he strictly avoided emotional bonding; unlike the Fel Silaa spoke of, though, Alyn shared only the vaguest details. Silaa liked to tease him by asking where he had been all night, or where he was going at the end of a long day, and Alyn would only mutter something indistinct and hurry away. Though they all had a pretty clear idea of who his three or four partners in Mirte were, they still relished in feigning ignorance, which always turned his pale cheeks the shade of a ripe tomato.

Fel were immediately recognizable—which was perhaps why they were the only mixed race that had their own defined identity term. Alyn, like all Fel, was the same height and build as any average Human. Unlike Humans’, however, were Fels’ sharp features; their ears came to a piercing point, their jawlines and chins were severe, and their skin was devoid of melanin, no matter the complexion of their parents. Most other Fels’ additional features were also blanched of color, but Alyn was distinct with his black hair and dark brown eyes. And, though almost five times younger than Alyn, Tair often thought herself his rival in intelligence and maturity, as Fel developed at a slower rate than any other race.

In Northern Elvish, a language only employed by the Elves of Mirte, Tair asked Alyn how he was feeling: “Eesu-mapii shon?”

Alyn simply nodded and sent the question back to Tair, to which the Human responded with a similar nod, though a little more enthusiastic than her counterpart. The question often did not warrant nor necessitate a verbal response, but that night Tair found Alyn rather curt. Usually, he had at least one story for her: a conversation he’d had in passing, a new type of bird he had observed, the changing in the weather, or some other mundane topic he had spun into a poem or a song or tale. He was an adventurer, after all; he loved to indulge in the little things that made each land, and all his experiences in those lands, unique.

Tair took a step back as Alyn set to chopping up the vegetables for their dinner. As much as—or perhaps more than—he loved adventures, he adored cooking. And, because the rest of them thought themselves more suited to eating, they let him. Tair asked, “What do you have planned for tonight?”

“Some sort of stew,” Alyn answered absentmindedly.

“Some sort of stew?”

Alyn nodded.

Tair folded her arms across her chest. She could sense that his mind was elsewhere. Perhaps his favorite part of preparing meals was the opportunity to obsess over all the ingredients and spices involved, as well as divulge his inspirations. Alyn had been almost everywhere on the continent of Gosso, save Sossoa (though he still wanted to venture to the land, no matter if it would cost him his life); as such, he had tasted thousands of different kinds of food from countless cultures. Still, the best recipes, in Tair’s opinion, were the ones that came to Alyn in a dream, often beautiful to look at and consume all the same, and rich both in texture and in flavor. Tair’s mouth watered just thinking about it.

However, her hunger was not enough to distract her from Alyn’s unnerving behavior. Come to think of it, he had been more detached the previous couple of weeks, but that night he seemed particularly removed.

Tair did not want to push him. Instead, she asked, “Need any help?”

Alyn nodded, handing her some spi, a leafy vegetable native to Mirte, and potatoes to cut up for the contents of the stew while he worked on the broth. He usually started with a water base as it was the quickest and most accessible broth base in Mirte but, if he wanted to treat his housemates, he went with something thicker. They all particularly enjoyed camiit, a type of root that, when cooked down, produced a thick texture that tasted like childhood to Tair. Apparently, that night was a special occasion; Alyn placed a few ripe camiits, their bitter skin peeled and even more bitter core pitted, into boiling water.

When the broth was ready and Alyn and Tair had both finished cutting up the vegetables, they placed each of the components in the pot. Alyn softly sang one of his many original songs as he went about spicing the dish. This song was not about joy and love, which he often sang when cooking so as to put the supposed “right energy” into the cuisine he fed his friends, but rather one of sorrow:

Upon first light,

The water raged,

And the world was bright—

Hear, now, the songs of old,

Those of time disturbed, of a world scourged,

Before you returned,

And after we foretold…

Tair could not place why this particular tune had come to him. His rhyme verse was usually much more consistent, so this song sounded like it had been lazily translated from a language unknown—as though he wanted to ensure that Tair could fully understand it. As though he was trying to send an unspoken message that spoken word would not be able to accurately express.

Even more disturbing, Silaa and Shianna were typically excitable—if not rambunctious—as they waited for dinner. That day, though, they sat (mostly) in silence, finding far too much interest in the bowls of stew being set down in front of them. With the food dished out and distributed, the four of them gathered around the low table in front of the now-dim fire and began eating. In between bites, Shianna, Silaa, and Alyn all kept glancing at one another, on the cusp of blurting out whatever they were hiding. Their strange behavior unnerving her, Tair’s heart started to beat rapidly in her chest. As delicious as the stew smelled, as much as it filled her with nostalgia, as loudly as her stomach growled, she could not will herself to eat it. Finally, when she could not take it any longer, Tair asked, “What’s going on?”

Alyn tentatively met her eyes. He swallowed his last bite of stew and spun a little cloud of smoke from the tip of his finger—one of his nervous ticks. With a slight hitch in his voice, he said, “We have to leave tomorrow before dawn. I wasn’t—we weren’t sure how to tell you.”

Tair laughed. In a wave of relief, she took a bite of food. What a comfort Alyn’s ridiculous words were! It must have been part of some elaborate joke, which she believed until, after a few spoonsful of her stew, she realized that everyone else in the room remained silent. They had not found Alyn’s statement nearly as funny as she had. She forced herself to swallow before she asked, “What are you talking about?”

“We’re leaving tomorrow before the Red Sun rises,” Alyn repeated, casting his eyes into his lap.

Now, Tair did not laugh; now, Tair wanted to vomit. Or, she was about to vomit, the desire and the instinct muddled. Her skin felt clammy when she balled up her fists. Alyn was not joking. And, as much as she had accepted that she would have to leave Mirte at some point in the near future, she never expected that she would have to leave on such short notice. Nor did she expect that Alyn, of all beings, would inform her in such an abrupt, careless way.

She did not know what to say. Shock was an overwhelming emotion, so all-consuming that any verbal reaction felt wholly inappropriate. As such, the next words that came out of Tair’s mouth surprised her, if only because they had never come to mind before that moment: “How am I meant to say goodbye?”

Shianna and Silaa sat still and silent as they watched Alyn and Tair. They were not surprised by Alyn’s statement. Indeed, it seemed everyone in the room was more familiar with the trajectory of Tair’s life than her. Noticing Alyn’s struggle for an amicable answer, and confirming Tair’s fears, Silaa stated, “You’re not.”

“But I…” Tair leaned forward onto her knees and gripped the small table situated in the center of it all—the table that they had eaten at and laughed around and danced over for years. The table that she had carved her name into the underside of when she was young—she felt the ridges of her name in their Northern Elvish characters even now. The table that she would have to say goodbye to, too. She welcomed the splinters in her palms, the only things grounding her in a reality she was having a hard time accepting. If she had known this was her last day, she may have relished in the children singing, or sat out in the rain despite her aversion to it, or requested that they eat in the common hall amongst the Elves she would have to leave in a matter of hours. She might have savored this land and its community for all they were to her.

All they were ever going to be, apparently.

Unable to come up with anything coherent to say, Tair stuttered out, “This is the only home I remember, the only home I know. They have—Silaa, you know—there are specific traditions for saying goodbye, all of the rituals and celebrations and…I was supposed to get all of that. Now—”

Alyn gently cut her off. “It’s for the best, Tair. We don’t have three weeks to say goodbye, not as you would like to. If we don’t leave now—”

Silaa found coddling unproductive. Exasperated, she interjected, “You always knew this was coming.”

“And that’s supposed to make it less painful?” Tair snapped. Silaa’s mouth hung open, looking for the words, while Alyn shifted in his seat on the floor across from Tair, uncomfortable and unsteady.

Good, Tair thought to herself, I hope this hurts you as much as it hurts me. She asked aloud, “How long have you all known today would be my last day?”

“That’s not important—”

“How long?” Tair shouted. She never raised her voice, especially not with these three that she considered family, but she felt it warranted given the circumstances.

“We always knew,” Alyn admitted slowly, “that today would be your last. We had always planned on it being this way.”

Always…fourteen years they had known they would tear her from what she had come to see as her homeland? From what they had told her to adopt as her homeland? Indeed, Mirte was more of a home to her than Sossoa. Sossoa, founded in the aftermath of the Doman War about five hundred years prior, and founded on the genocide of all non-Humans who had once inhabited the lands south of the Darkwoods, had been and was still a homogenous nation of Humans. It was where the majority of contemporary Humans resided and, unfortunately, where Tair had originated. She had had no memory of nor connection to Sossoa—and she did not want to be connected to the land, knowing its history and what had been done to create the nation. Tair, feeling both hatred toward and abandonment from her technical homeland, had come to see Mirte as a naturalized homeland—but even within the safety of Mirte, her family had planned to cause her undue pain. Planned to betray her. Her chest tightened and her eyes blurred over, though from rage or sorrow, she could not tell. She stood, paced back to the kitchen, and took another shot of arne to dull it all. Apathy was much easier to control than the crushing panic that threatened to overtake her.

Silaa, in her own way, tried to console Tair. “We know this is difficult—”

“Difficult?” Tair spat. “What if I told you that you have to leave the only home you’ve ever known within hours, not knowing what would become of you in the days and months to come? Not knowing why?”

Shianna paused, bit her lip. Tair knew she had crossed a line when the Dwarf whispered, “Tair, you know both Alyn and I have gone through exactly that, and for you, no less. All of you—all of us, too, have been kept in the dark about all the reasons why, but we also know the importance of what we must do. We know it is difficult, yes, but we only know that because we have been through precisely what you are going through.”

Tair winced. They had always taught her that she was no more “chosen” than anyone else, for everyone had been chosen in their own mind, for better or worse. Tair was no stranger to worse. After all, much of her life had been shaped by some still unknown, incomprehensible greater duty to a land and a kin that had once abandoned her. She had only rarely admitted it to herself, but she knew too that Sossoa would demand her eventual return—for what and why, she still did not know. No matter the secrecy, she had been told that she was not unique in her responsibilities, her path, her life, but that she was precious all the same. It was a dizzying mindset to grapple with. Nevertheless, Alyn, Shianna, and Silaa had all had to make sacrifices for what they believed to be a higher cause, had to make sacrifices for Tair, especially. In fact, Tair was the only one in the room who did not know what true sacrifice felt like. Not yet, anyway. Not until today, thunder echoing outside and rain pounding at the walls of the cabin.

Tair knew hers was not a fair question, not when she had a moment to reflect back on it. But if they knew the true pain of sacrifice, why not prepare her for it? Why inflict upon her any pain at all? Tair would never be able to comprehend the pain of their losses, but this was undoubtedly a betrayal. She managed a quivering, “Why?”

So much for not appearing fragile.

Forever able to switch between compassion and diplomacy at a moment’s notice, Shianna said, “You know what we three are here to do. We’re your protectors, Tair. If the specific moment of our departure from Mirte had been widely known, it may have compromised your safety—our safety. Then what would all of these years of isolation and hiding have been for?”

“So you decided to protect me from myself?”

After a moment, Shianna gently nodded and explained, “We were the only ones in possession of this information. Had you known, even a day earlier, you may have inadvertently compromised your safety—by saying goodbye prematurely, or perhaps by handing out a disproportionate number of gifts. Someone would have caught on.”

Alyn, in his silence, did not seem as sure of their choice to lie to Tair. Clearly, though, he had agreed, which hurt Tair more deeply than she could have said.

“I could have been smart,” Tair managed. She felt like a child again, explaining why she was accountable enough to gather that week’s food supplies on her own. She continued, “I’m”—she cleared her throat, squared her shoulders—“I’m responsible, and you all are supposed to trust that—trust me, just as I am supposed to trust you. How am I meant to trust you after this?”

Shianna hated hurting Tair. Apparently, that still held true; she winced at Tair’s pointed words.

As the Dwarf fumbled, it was Alyn’s turn to take over again: “We decided that perhaps this minor pain could have spared you further harm. There are Humans who have wanted you dead for a long time, Tair—Humans who have known what you represent and want that destroyed. You still have so much more life to live, so much more to give and to do.”

“Yet I do not remember consenting to give any more than I already have, or do anything more than live. Now, this homeland I have come to claim as my own, this culture that feels like my own, this community I am most familiar with—you’re telling me I must leave all of that so suddenly, without regard for who might be hurt in the process?”

“Elves will undoubtedly be hurt by any way you choose to leave,” Silaa offered. Her tone was softer than Tair had ever heard. As if speaking to an inconsolable child. Tair blinked back tears. “Even with goodbye rituals, there is always a great deal of pain—and plenty of concentrated attempts to convince the being who wishes to leave of all the reasons that they should stay instead. I know you are aware of the ways in which they might convince you to do so?”

Of course, Tair was aware. She had only ever witnessed one departure ritual in all her time in Mirte, which had lasted five weeks and had resulted in the Elf staying in Mirte after all. Following that, there had been another five weeks of celebration and joy—all of which was terribly exciting for a ten-year-old Tair to witness. Yes, Tair was conscious of the ways that the Elves of Mirte maintained a strong, insular community through bombarding their members with an almost suffocating degree of love…

But she had wanted all of those ceremonies and rituals, too, if only as proof that she was loved and needed by the community she had grown up in. A community that she had always felt herself an outsider to. Now that she was apparently leaving for an undefined amount of time, she wanted to feel important to them. She deserved to feel important to them.

Tair clutched her stomach. The stew was coming up. Her nausea was overwhelming—a mixture of the heavy food, the alcohol, the nerves. She squatted down on the floor. She heard Shianna rush over to her; the Dwarf placed a tentative hand on Tair’s back, which Tair swatted off before realizing she needed Shianna’s help to stand up again. A bead of sweat rolled down her forehead as she stood and sighed, “Tomorrow morning?”

Through blurry eyes, she saw both Alyn and Shianna nod. Silaa was in her own world, her back turned to Tair.

“Where?”

“Oh, Tair!” Shianna exclaimed, far too joyful for a night Tair knew would always haunt her. She said, “That is the best part, if there can be one. Everything may feel awful right now, but I promise you it will all be resolved when we arrive back home—to Doman!”

The true ancestral homeland to all kind—now, a homeland to only Dwarves—or so the creation legend went. Doman was ruled by Dwarves, for the vast majority-Dwarf population, and located just north of the Darkwoods. According to Elven lore, Doman was a place of great magic and impossibility. True or not, Elves often spoke of Dwarves as mythical creatures, perceived to be so entirely separate from their kind that Dwarves were deified. It was commonly agreed that, at the dawn of creation, Doman birthed the First Five Dwarves, then the Second Five Faeries, the Third Five Elves, and then the Fourth Five Humans; eventually, as they grew in population and became distinctive in identity, Fel. With that tale in mind, the Elves of Mirte believed that Dwarves, being the closest to the dawn of creation, possessed spiritual and magical abilities that later creations either felt an echo of (amplified, in the case of the Faeries; dulled, in the case of the Elves; and somewhere in between, in the case of the Fel), or could not grasp at all (in the case of Humans). There were plenty of lies and plenty of truths out there concerning Dwarven capabilities but, ever since the trauma of the Doman War, their kind had been secretive of their magic, only daring to use it in the presence of other Dwarves within Doman. Even under the most comfortable conditions, their use of magic was infrequent and fearful, which made it less potent than it would have been prior to their pain. All this magical secrecy led to a variety of responses: from the capture, imprisonment, and torture of Dwarves who had wandered too far south into Sossoa; to the assumptions of Dwarven wisdom and magic that made them into celestial beings amongst the Northern Elves of Mirte, and then everything in between. In Mirte, it was common advice to seek out a Dwarf for answers to existential and spiritual questions. At that point in time, that Dwarf was unfortunately Shianna. For better or for worse, the resident Dwarf of Mirte was expected to provide an appropriate answer.

This, of course, was a great source of stress and frustration for Shianna, who did not have the solutions to all of life’s problems and did not feel as though she possessed any greater spiritual knowledge than anyone else, particularly the Elves of Mirte. In fact, she had told Tair once that she had little to no connection to her magic, having been trained since she was young to suppress it or otherwise hide it if only to keep herself and those she loved safe. Tair wondered how true that was. Either way, even though she did not have most of the answers that Elves sought, Shianna was still expected to answer—honesty a gift of its own among the Northern Elves—but all her answers were careful and cryptic. She never knew whether or not her response would be perceived as fact, thus altering the course of Elven spirituality for the considerable future. Worse yet, the mythology surrounding Dwarves often created strife between Shianna and her mate. Silaa, though conscious of the inaccuracies of such stereotypes, sometimes slipped and turned to Shianna to solve her deepest troubles, beyond what a traditional mate would ask of their partner. Throughout the years, Silaa had gotten better about listening more to Shianna and her needs but, whenever the challenges proved too great to bear, Shianna requested distance. Silaa respected this, of course, and Tair had witnessed their partnership grow stronger because of it. That did not downplay the great emotional fatigue it caused Shianna, though.

The second legend that pervaded Elven perception of Domani Dwarves was that of war. In any non-Dwarf culture, there came differing tales of Dwarves’ tendencies toward conflict. As allegedly the most magical beings in all the realms and then as producers of some of the most innovative weaponry, Dwarves had been posed as quick to prove themselves, quick to fight. In attempt to dispel this myth, Shianna had explained many times to Tair and any curious Elves who gave her audience that Dwarves did indeed have plenty of weapons, but that did not necessitate that they wield them. There were plenty of false tales circulating in Mirte, but the most common one Elven children learned was that the Doman War had begun when a Human spilled cold water onto a Dwarven bladesmith’s axe as he was in the middle of crafting it. The reality was far more complicated, as reality often was, Shianna had told Tair. Truth was, Dwarves and Humans had peacefully coexisted in Doman for three centuries, after the mountains had birthed the Fourth Five, Humans, into the world. The exact incendiary moment was unknown, but after so much peace and seemingly without cause, Dwarven children began disappearing in the middle of the night. When they were later found, Domani Dwarves discovered that Humans had been extracting magic from their stolen children, and then indoctrinating those children into a Domani Human lifestyle. The Dwarves confronted their Human kin, their community members, and families, but many Humans claimed no wrongdoing by fault of having been given no magic to begin with and so needing it to survive. Thus, the Doman War began. Thousands dead but, ultimately, Dwarven authority over Doman had persevered. Knowing now the repercussions of softness and laxity, it was only right that Dwarves innovated in the fields of battle and self-protection.

They did not seek to destroy, but to preserve.

Even then, Shianna still would not have been considered a pacifist, not unlike many other Dwarves. Besides herself, Tair had never met anyone who she would have truly considered a pacifist; where she would have let herself die before she took up arms against another, Shianna would have instead caused great harm to anyone who would try to hurt her, hurt those she loved, or even hurt a passing stranger. Shianna had said it was the same for many Dwarves; they would not consciously allow for injustice to continue. Shianna herself was rather averse to complacency, often saying that nonparticipation could have far worse effects than active participation. It is in the refusal to defend others that one loses their ability to defend themself, she had said on occasion.

Now, Tair saw in the Dwarf a wicked duplicity. Shianna had not decided to defend Tair; instead, she had knowingly caused harm. Tair had once accredited all her sense of trust in the world to Shianna, but clearly that trust had been misplaced. She winced when she realized that anything she might have shared with Shianna throughout the course of her life could have very well been knowledge to Silaa and Alyn as well. They knew more of her and her own life than she did, so it was safe to assume that their horrible secret necessitated a breach of her privacy as well. Here was the culmination of their long-conceived betrayal, feeling deeper and more invasive with every moment that Tair thought. And thought.

It was not Shianna alone who bore the brunt of her anger, acute as the pain of that betrayal was. Silaa was to blame, too. Her usual passivity meant that she knew what was bound to happen, but saw no reason to question it, no reason to stop it. Silaa was one of theory over practice, words over action, which had caused some struggle between her and Shianna in the past. Even still, it hurt Tair to think that Silaa did not question her usual apathy for her sake.

And then there was Alyn, who only sat and anxiously wrang his hands, probably to keep himself from spinning another wisp of smoke from nothingness. Alyn had always said that he had taken Tair on as his responsibility to protect her. She was three years of age when she was found in the Darkwoods and five years of age when they both arrived in Mirte, after a couple years in Doman where they carefully deliberated her safety as a Human outside of Sossoa. Ultimately, it was Alyn’s honor, he claimed, to take responsibility for Tair. He taught her how to communicate with the Elves, taught her which gifts would be best received; he cooked and cleaned for her; he bathed her, despite his aversion to nudity; he made spoken and unspoken sacrifices for her; he loved her.

Or, at least, he was supposed to love her—like a child, like a sibling, like a friend. Now, though, Tair feared Alyn only viewed her as the first; an irresponsible child, incapable of understanding the weight of her own life and too stupid, apparently, to be worth the effort of explanation. He was meant to protect her, and yet he hurt her all the same. Maybe he should have been protecting her from himself.

Shianna still awaited Tair’s response, but when Tair looked to the older Dwarf she could not convince herself to feel excitement. Yes, there was a dull sense of childlike wonder for the places she would see along the way, the beings she would meet, and the experiences she would be able to call her own; like she had dreamed when she was a child, she would now have her own stories, just like Alyn. And, besides, she supposed a journey to Doman was a return for her, too, in a way, having apparently spent ages four and five there before Alyn brought her to Mirte. True as that was, she never would have dreamed of adventure had she known it would come to this. She never would have thought of home in Doman, home in Sossoa, had she known it would mean a violent uprooting from Mirte. Try as she did for words, she had nothing to say to those she considered family but who had betrayed her all the same. She soundlessly left the kitchen and shut her bedroom door behind her.

In the silence of her sparsely decorated room, Tair realized that much of her maturation had invited a kind of push-and-pull of knowledge, a push-and-pull of relations and reality. In Mirte, she was raised to believe the same truths Elven children believed. Then, at the end of the day, Shianna would ask Tair what she had learned and proceed to alter or undo much of that education. In her early years, Tair wondered why Shianna did not just remove Tair from general education in Mirte and teach the young Human herself, which Tair had privately hoped for so that she would not stick out so sorely amongst the Elven children; in her later years, Tair understood that it was Shianna’s way of ensuring that Tair always challenged what was portrayed as truth. Tair was ultimately grateful for this, but she often found herself confused over what to believe—or, rather, who to believe. Doman was a land of magic and spirituality, according to the Elves of Mirte; Doman was also Shianna’s home, a nostalgic land of peace and bounty. Ultimately, Doman was a land for the Dwarves. Yet again, she would be an unusual sight, alienated amongst those she desperately wanted to connect to but who probably had far worse perceptions of Humans than the Elves she had grown up around.

And why Doman? What new betrayals awaited her there? So much of Tair’s life remained hidden from her, and so what laid before her was life not yet lived, a life that she did not know if she could ever confidently claim as her own. Whether she liked it or not, that life was about to begin—just as life in Mirte died.