After so many pillars and halls, there she was, nestled on a brick sill in front of a wheat garden. Her glowing, crimson eyes kept straight for the grasslands afar, her silver hairs leaving her messy braid across her front bang. In the small space in front of her, I landed myself as she rolled her head over to my arrival.

"It's never going to get better, is it?" She said. I didn't say anything. A moment of silence allowed a wall of tears to gloss her eyes as he turned away from me. "I just want them to be free. I don't care if we have to work as slaves all day."

Her family, recent victims of Doson's research abductions, had been bothering her for a while. She happened to miss their capture with a light visitation to Cymel, to carry the guilt of not being there for them. No doubt the news devastated her. Cymel, Doson's worthy contender, was not to get involved with the fate of the Shol Tritausen any more — at least for rest of the Pure Season.

"It's hard to say," I said. "The King is focused on self-preservation right now." Hairy cattle minded their business in the long grasses afar. Shol auroras glistened over the stars. It would indeed be a long season. "But when the Pure Seson is over, then we can get to it and do what we can."

She said nothing, her eyes resting on the horizon ahead. Tritausen Blends walked down the halls behind us to their night duties. A few more defiant children rebelled from going to bed, crawling about hiding places. Beetles of violet wings wandered along brick tiles.

Then I remembered the Shol Tritausen's piercing glare once again, looking to the Mark of Shol, that square Moon symbol, etched onto Ri-El's wrist. "Hey," I said, "Do you know a Jerphel-El?"

She frowned, turning back to me. "A who?"

"Jerphel-El," I searched into her confused, toggling eyes. "Mmm, supposed to be some member with the Shol Elders?"

Her face lowering as she wiped a tear, she nodded. "It sounds like you're talking about Joreph-El of Shol-Et."

"Yes, I think that's him. Do you know him?"

"I don't know him personally, but I've heard of him. She sighed, looking away. "Why?"

"Well," I thought up a lie, "Someone asked me about him on my way here, and I couldn't really help them. Wondered if you knew."

"He and his whole family got captured in Shol-Et... Just..." Another tear fell from her eye. "... Just why is this all happening?"

I knew exactly why: the Doson Demon, Dictator Ven Glauss of Doson, wished to harness Shol power so he could distribute it to non-Shol users. Of course, that required research on those who possessed Shol power, including Joreph-El's family, Ri-El's family. And the captures grew by the minute. I worried at times if my father would be next, that my mother would betray him. Yet, I had to acknowledge the Dictator's somewhat sound reasoning, to control power and take authority from the reckless Shol Great Elders desiring to harm much with little benefit.

"All things happen for a cause," I said, standing up and rolling my shoulders. "It's up to us to find out what cause we'll work toward." I tucked my lips for a moment then turned. "Ri-El, please know that I'm here for you and will do what I can to bring proper resolve. Please, rest easy tonight." I went ahead, her silent crying starting behind. I walled my emotions with a straight face, heading to my bedroom upstairs.

So, it was true; Joreph-El was a slave. But something seemed off. This Joreph-El walked as a slave from Shol-Et, a city on the Eltreisian Moon, Traudes. I expected this at first. Yet, he showed up in seeming free condition at the Justices Residences. I even asked him if he needed my assistance, and he said no. If he was a slave for sure, he had to have escaped.

At the end of a walk down an empty hall and several closed doors, I made it to a wooden door. It wasn't locked, so I entered, meeting the empty room's sole features: the square window, a made-up bed, and an empty desk. Home sweet home. Keeping nothing but the essentials summarized my young memories best. When I left to stay in Morgaul for higher education, there was no need to keep this room decorated after all, and I'm glad I didn't. The door wasn't even locked.

Outside the window the auroras still shined. People ambled about the plains and readied for a good night's rest. Ri-El probably still cried somewhere down below, hoping the Cymerian government would change its mind overnight.

Knock, knock. The door went. I turned to my father peeping in.

"Oh," he blinked. "There you are. Kinda pulled out on us back there."

"Yeah. Had to," I said. "Needed a break from all the intensive interrogations."

He pursed his thin lips, his eyes falling to the wooden floor. From the edge of my straightened bed covers to the wall, he set his face on me again. "And I see you're still honest as ever." He clicked on a torch beside him. "And it's dark in here."

The violet flame waddled on its stick inside the bounding lamp, lighting only part of the pale room. My childhood was this room most of this time, if I wasn't outside with friends or working at the tavern as a waitress. By then the Justices Residence's sound architecture and shadow-slaying lights spoiled me, leaving me in the lifeless room so wistful for the Cymerian capital again. I leaned back, watching my father's face lower in the silence.

"I came to tell you that your mom's coming to visit for the Caruah festivals. Got a letter from her a few days ago."

Every anti-Tritausen thinking that my mother conceived revived resentment in me, infecting my imagination of a peaceful Caruah holiday. I rolled my eyes for the window again. "Is she now?"

"Yep." His voice chopped. "So... make sure you're ready for more politics. She might really bring it this time."

As many family dynamics on Eltreis, mine was rather confusing. My Dosonite mom once loved a Tritausen Blend like my dad, straying away from her parents' rejection. Unless it was my childlike innocence protecting my view of them, my parents did not mind working together on dad's farm, and mom made a lot of Blended friends. After she had so many visits back to her home in Doson, a gradual disease called prejudice transformed her as "intolerant to Tritausen kind" as my dad put it one day. And still, my mother continued to visit me and my father with her rude presence in hope to keep a relationship with me. What always confused me was why my father persisted on entertaining it. Even if she woke up on a random morning with an unquenchable love for him again, the damage would still be there: an angry daughter taking up against her own mother in political warfare.

"I might not even come for the festivals," I said. "It depends on how the King's feeling about the feast."

"Oh, that's right," he suddenly remembered my duty as Justice. "He is planning to have a feast, isn't he?"

"He is."

Again, more silence broke between us until my father said, "Harper, I want you to remember that despite what happens to us, I love you. I don't want you worrying about pleasing everyone. I know you've got a full plate being the first Blend in the system and all, but remember that if you stay true to yourself, it'll work out for you. Can't say for everyone else, but it'll work out for you."

"Stay true..." I said to myself. My father admonished me when I first became Justice that I should had stayed as High Commander, and now he was saying something different. "... As it shall be."

"And honest you are," he backed out. "G'night."

"Good night, dad." At the shut of the door, I looked up to the auroras again, hoping to find how to stay true to myself after all. Like how I let a fence tower my soul, so did the Cymerian government. I would have had to start there on the morrow.