Aharet Kazic

Aharet Kazic was a female Tantaari noble from Daispin. She was a member of the Kazic family, a cadet branch of the royal Kazraiin dynasty, and was the mother of Queen Aria Nikina.

Wanted woman
Aharet was born in 86 ABY, when her people were already on the defensive against the revolutionary Tristarian Zelon and his conquering army. When she was six years old, Zelon and his army conquered the capital city of Enkhara Na'wen and massacred the Kazraiin royal family. Believing they would be targeted as relatives of the Kazraiin, many Kazics, including Aharet's parents, went into hiding with adopted names or false identities.

Aharet was raised to respect Tantaari customs and culture, though discreetly, as Zelon had been succeeded by his protégé Genera Seithe, who sought to suppress Tantaari culture as a way of controlling the populace. Aharet openly worked as an importation clerk in Enkhara Na'wen's harbor, but secretly used her position to serve as an information funnel for Tantaari resistance groups throughout Daispin.

The dictator's prisoner
In 116 ABY, Seithe's spies and loyalists managed to track down Aharet's connection to the Kazics and arrested her, presenting her to Seithe for execution. Instead, however, the dictator was enticed by her beauty at the same time he saw an opportunity to degrade the Tantaari further, and he took Aharet as a concubine. She hoped to find an opportunity to assassinate him, but though enamored of her body, Seithe was no fool; he had Aharet stripped before she was brought to him to prevent her smuggling weapons into his bedchamber, and never allowed her to spend the entire night with him lest she smother him in his sleep. Aharet spent long hours in solitude in the royal palace, gazing out at the sea, never allowed to leave the grounds.

Hope for the future
Aharet bore Seithe two children: a son, Kaiel, and a daughter who, to Aharet's fury, Seithe named Tristaria Zelona. Aharet loathed Seithe's elder Human sons, Tristan and Zavio, but saw some potential in Kiryn, who was only a few years older than Kaiel and had not adopted his father and brothers' loathing for Tantaari. She allowed Kiryn to play with her children. She also sang both Kaiel and Tristaria traditional Tantaari songs and told them old stories, hoping her children would remember their heritage.

Because Aharet was a Kazic, she had as good a claim as any to the throne of Daispin, and she thought of her son and daughter as potential heirs to the throne. In keeping with Tantaari custom, she gave Kaiel a title as the hypothetical heir to the throne: "Lament of the Fallen". However, moved by, she took the unusual step of giving Tristaria a title as well: "Wrath of the Tantaari".

Death
The year of Tristaria's birth, Genera Seithe found his intoxication with his Tantaari concubine waning and his distrust of her influence on his children (including Kiryn) mounting. He arranged for his men to throw her off the tower of the palace from which she often watched the sea, then spread the story that she had committed suicide.

Appearance and personality
Aharet had a slender, athletic build, and dark olive skin. Due to a genetic anomaly, she had red hair, which was almost unknown among Tantaari, and bright copper eyes. Seithe did not allow her to wear her head-tails tied in a Tantaari warrior's braid, but she occasionally styled them that way when she was alone.

Aharet was deeply in touch with her Tantaari heritage, and knew many myths, legends, stories, songs, and proverbs of her people. She was committed to the Tantaari resistance against the Human government, and even after her capture refused to share information with Seithe's agents. Though she loathed Seithe, she loved her children and did her best to raise them to respect their heritage in the short time they had together.