On a rest day between dives, Kaelira walked the joint halls under the dwarven mountain, where three races now worked one forge floor at her direction.
Half the benches were turning out enchanted plows and seed drills for the spring planting, the emperor's farming project made steel. The other half fitted dwarven plate to human and elven frames for the joint army.
A human journeyman and a dwarven smith were about to come to blows over a quenching trough on the plow row, and neither of them noticed the elf until she was already between them.
"You pulled the blade at the wrong color," Kaelira said to the human, taking the tongs out of his hand without asking. She turned to the dwarf. "And you let him, to prove a point. The steel paid for your pride."
The dwarf's beard bristled. "Girl, I've worked this floor six hundred years."
"Then you know I'm right."
"..."
Silence sat between them for a moment.
