They always tell it wrong.
To the bards, I'm a villain. A footnote. Or a martyr—just vague enough to keep taverns humming.
I'll tell it right even if the bards' song twist it.
This is Solari's story, mine, carved in Thoringard's shadow.
No hero's journey. No epic clash of good and evil. Just a life—tangled, remade, and shadow stained.
I was born nobody, raised under Thoringard's mountain, where torchlight carved suspicion into every stare. Red eyes. Dark skin. Sharp ears. Marked from birth. King Tolgarn took me in, mercy or madness, no one knows.
His people, stubborn as stone, taught me to wield silence like a blade. They were family, or close enough.
But questions clawed at me, whispers of a past I couldn't trace. Who am I, beneath this curse?
So I left. Not for courage, for the hunger wouldn't let me stay.
I joined the Shadow Hand—not mere assassins, not really. They called it balance, but it was more like controlled chaos. One regime topples, another rises—we made sure the scales tipped just enough to keep the world guessing. Joining meant a blade in one hand and a secret in the other. No kings. No nations. Just the work.
I watched 'justice' burn a village to avenge a lie. I watched an 'honor poison' a well for pride. Honor and justice? Nice words. Make better epitaphs then oaths.
This is how I stopped being naive—and became something more.
Remember this for what it is. Not the myth or the song. Just the truth you never heard.
"Solari, wake up. We've got work."
Torglel's voice carved through the haze—thick, gruff, and anchored by the weight of someone who's kicked doors down before breakfast. His hand landed on my shoulder like a forge-hammer, shaking me like I owed him blood and a favor. That grin hadn't aged a day—wide, reckless, carved from trouble. Bronze clasps tangled in his beard caught the torchlight like smirking stars.
I jolted upright. Reflex. Instinct. The drills drilled too deep. Grit in my eyes. Heart slamming against my ribs like it was life or death. Sleep peeled off like dead skin—useless, unwelcome. In the Shadow Hand sleep was a luxury. Every nerve already scanning for danger, like my body knew the world didn't wait.
Torglel nudged me, clasps clinking. "Bet you dreamed of glory again, eh?" His grin dared me to lie.
"Only if glory's sand in my boots," I muttered.
Torglel was the kind of dwarf you didn't forget. Dark hair. Long beard. Half menace, half momentum. His clasps clinked with every swaggering step, like he'd weaponized charm. Scars mapped his skin like tally marks—history written in skin. He'd tell you the funny ones: a tavern stool to the face, an exploding alchemy crate. The others? The ones that mattered? He left those to silence.
His eyes were bright blue, full of mischief and challenge in equal measure. Daring the world to keep up or get out of the way.
He wasn't just the only dwarf in the Shadow Hand—he was the best damn pickpocket we had. Fingers like whispers. Grin like bait. Hands faster than regret. He could lift your coin purse, steal your lunch, and leave you wondering where the applause came from.
He loved playing the fool—and anyone who bought the act didn't live long enough to learn the truth. That hammer of his swung faster than a bad idea and hit twice as hard.
Seventh son of King Tolgarn of Thoringard. Six brothers before him—each chasing legacy and title. Torglel? He got freedom. Freedom to drink. To brawl. To live like he was already dead and wringing every coin out of the afterparty.
When I left Thoringard, stone dust still clinging to my boots, he came with me. No hesitation. No questions.
That's the kind of friend he was. Loyalty forged in silence, tempered in fire—hot at the core, cool on the surface.
"Telegarani's waiting," he said, clapping me on the back—his hand landing like a drum and twice as loud. "Mission brief." Grin already loaded like a punchline waiting to swing.
I groaned, rubbing grit from my eyes, fingers dragging across stubble. Telegarani—second-in-command of the Shadow Hand. Carved from discipline and disappointment, he moved like a man allergic to mistakes. Gray eyes like cracked glass, always watching, always weighing. His silver hair was pulled back so tight it looked ready to snap—or strangle.
A face cut from the world itself, all lines and angles, with a voice as sharp as the knives he kept hidden everywhere.
He could stomach almost anything: blood, betrayal, the weight of impossible orders.
Except Torglel.
Torglel made his eye twitch. Which was, honestly, the only sign he was still human.
We walked the tunnels in silence. Red sandstone pressed close, damp and sweating in the heat. Torchlight painted the walls in gold and shadow—flickering, shifting. The air smelled like salt and sulfur. I didn't need to think to walk those halls. I'd bled here. Fought here. Buried more than blades. Buried names. Buried truths. And not everything stayed buried.
The meeting room was quiet—cool stone, thick air. Telegarani stood at the map table, arms crossed like he was holding the whole room together by will. His eyes flicked up. Steel beneath stormcloud brows.
"What's cooking, good-looking?" Torglel said, too loud, and smug.
Telegarani's glare could've melted his hammer. "You've got an assassination to stop," he said, voice flat, slicing past Torglel like he wasn't even part of the air. Cold steel wrapped in the cloth of clipped words.
He unfurled the map—parchment cracking like a whip. "Confirmed attempt on King Tolgarn's life," he said, finger tracing the borders of Thoringard like they might bleed. "Intel says it's imminent."
The name hit like a thrown axe—familiar, royal, always just out of reach. By now, nothing that wore a crown surprised me. They all came with targets already stitched between their shoulder blades. In Thoringard, assassination wasn't scandal. It was tradition. This wouldn't be the first, nor the last.
"Do we know who hired the assassin?" I asked, scanning the ink-stained terrain.
Telegarani shook his head. "Doesn't matter. Priority's the king. Stop the assassin. Alive if you can. Dead if you must."
He let silence handle the rest.
Torglel shrugged. "So, when do we leave?"
"As soon as this briefing ends," Telegarani snapped. "Gear up. Time bleeds faster every second."
He always said that. Every mission. Big or small. Like urgency was stitched into the seams beneath our armor. Most of the time? Noise. But sometimes? It wasn't. And that's when the stains never washed out.
We made our way to the armory, the tunnels tightening around us with every step. Shadows pooled in the corners, stretching out along the stone like something alive. Heat pressed in close, every breath tinged with the scent of oil and iron. Torchlight painted the walls in streaks of gold and smoke, blurring the edges of old memories.
I reached for my swords. Celerius was swift—clean arcs, no drag, like wind made steel. Mors was the quieter one—heavier, slower, but when it landed, it ended things. Together, they didn't sing. They whispered.
A parting gift from King Tolgarn, back when my name still meant something clean. Not just weapons—legacy. Burden. Stone. Blood. Memory. My hands tightened around the hilts—old habits, remembering violence before I did.
My armor slid on like second skin—black leather, snug and silent. Throwing knives found their sheaths. The teleportation runes we'd carved ourselves thrummed quietly against my hip. It wasn't for readiness. It was for the lie of it. Not for battle. For control.
We lingered at the armory longer than we should've. Torglel stood by the wall, adjusting the clasps on his breastplate with the care of a man polishing a heirloom instead of armor. Torchlight wavered over the sigil—a phoenix with wings outstretched, talons gripping an anvil, frozen in that wild, impossible moment between falling and flight. Brilliant. Defiant. Utterly unsubtle.
"Father gave me this before I left," he said, tapping the crest like it might answer. "Said, 'Let them know whose blood runs through your veins, even if they can't see your crown.'" He smiled—not his usual reckless grin. This one held weight. Pride, maybe. Or memory worn smooth by time. "He didn't send me away. He let me go. Big difference."
He looked down, brushing dust from the bronze. Like it mattered. "He said the world needed to see that Thoringard doesn't just hide in its mountains. That we stand for something, even in the places no one else wants to go."
Then he glanced at me, grin curling back into place. "And also, I think he hoped I'd punch someone important. For diplomacy."
He slung the hammer over his shoulder, and with that, the moment was gone—swallowed by motion, swagger, and a very loud sense of purpose. He flashed me that familiar, mischievous look—the same spark I'd seen a hundred times before. Smug. Ready. Trouble with a heartbeat.
"Hey, Torglel," I muttered, tightening my gauntlet like it might keep the question from slipping out. "Any idea who wants Dad dead this time?"
I said it easy—Dad—like it didn't carry the weight of a crown or the mountain it sat on. Because for me, it never had. He wasn't 'The King' in my head. He was the man who taught me how to hold a sword without flinching. The one who let me stay—no questions, no conditions. Just grow. But there's always a little truth curled inside the jokes you throw too fast.
He chuckled. Clasps chiming like tavern bells before a fight breaks out. "No idea," he said—calm as sin, easy as breath. Then the grin—sharp, reckless, like chaos was his native tongue. "For all I know, mum finally got tired of his skarn and hired the assassin herself."
I snorted. "That'd be one way to settle a royal dispute."
"Wouldn't put it past her," he muttered, adjusting his gauntlets. His fingers moved like war was a coat you shrugged on before breakfast.
His laugh echoed—low, warm, unflinching. The sound of a man who knew the stakes. Who'd watched the world burn, more than once. And smiled anyway—not from joy, just because he didn't know how to stop.
He followed me out of Thoringard—but somehow, it always felt like he was leading. Not with orders—with presence. With volume. With gravity. He made space around him without asking. Filled silence with laughter. Filled gaps with trouble.
Torglel could take exile and call it adventure—even when it wasn't his. He wore survival like it was a story already told. I never told him what that meant to me. Didn't have to. He already knew.
This seemed like another tremor in the Osirian Desert's bones. I should've known better than to call anything routine. But hindsight's a whisper—quiet during, smug after. Back then, it felt like another op—clean, contained, predictable. That's the danger with routine. It makes you look the wrong way—just long enough to get gutted.
Even the torches burned wrong—too low, like they knew something we didn't. Something was off. Something watching. It wasn't paranoia. It was prophecy.
We weren't just chasing shadows—we were dragging them where they didn't belong. Into the light. And something was going to burn.
This wasn't routine. Never was.