He is Dead

"He is dead."

The Speaker flung out an arm angrily, sending the brazier on the small table flying, then pressed her palm flat against the warm, pale wood and let that arm support her as she leaned forward, covering her eyes with her free hand, struggling to calm the anger that had surged within. How had a child - not able to speak, let alone Speak - managed to kill an Azzeren?

The Speaker could not afford to let emotion control her actions, especially where the girl was concerned.

The Speaker drew a deep breath, raising her head to look into the Azzeren's eyes.

"Get out."

The man all but ran from the room, a quick "Yes, Speaker" left hanging in the air behind him.

The Speaker straightened and massaged her temples in small circles.

She thought how it would look to an unknowing onlooker...a large - well, huge would more accurately describe him, really - man cowering before as diminutive a woman as herself, and practically scampering through the door to escape her presence. But then, she thought how it go if she were caught with an Azzeren, and the smirk which had formed there only moments before slid from her face.

Sometimes, Thaela felt her power wearing her down.

She bent to retrieve the brazier.

"Cooler."

She grasped the metal in both hands and hoisted it onto the table again, then hurried to step on a cinder that had fallen and begun to burn a small hole into the inlaid pattern of the wood floor.
With a small poker, she stirred the contents of the brazier, making the coals glow red and billow heat up past her face. She rubbed her hands together and held them in the aura of warm air above the small brass bowl. She stared at the wrinkles that creased the backs of her hands.

Time. It was the true enemy, but how did one fight an enemy who always slipped past unnoticed and did such irrevocable damage?

A small bruise was blossoming on the side of her right hand where it had contacted the brazier in her fit of anger. She rubbed at it absentmindedly, her thoughts focused on the redhead whose hired assassination had backfired. The intended victim had managed to kill her assassin, a feat easy enough for any Speaker...a muttered word and the attacker would combust, suffocate, or their heart would simply cease beating...but this Speaker should not be Speaker. She lacked the gift of speech. A silent Speaker was as laughable as a blind Reader, a Writer without hands...
Yet, there she was...the enigma.

The Speaker sighed as once again the armies of her thoughts took up arms against one another on the battlefield of her conscience. There was no proof that the girl was dangerous, in fact, her silence would seem to render her harmless - but there was the Telling to take into account. A lone sentence, recorded in The Word a millennia before any man now living had drawn first breath.

The Speaker who cannot speak will draw together the water, the earth, the ice and the flame and, for the black of heart, shall call down death.

In the thousands of years since the Telling had been Spoken, no one had really taken note of it. Yes, it sounded gloomy and fateful, but so did the majority of The Word. The early Writers had put little in their precious book that didn't indicate disaster.