Aelia Dorlani
Aelia Dorlani is the matriarch of the Dorlani guild-family. She is a member of the Inner Assembly, making her one of the most powerful women in Ossa. She is widely considered a sadist with a reputation of killing her own enemies rather than having an underling do it. She is grandmother to Churian Dorlani.
Aelia is in her seventies, two years younger that Father Vorcien, though she tries to hide her age with a heavy application of make up.
STORY
When the Inner Assembly asks Demir Grappo to take command of the Ossan military to defeat Grent, Aelia Dorlani is one of the members obviously against this decision, though she tries to hide her disdain. When Gregori Kirkovik blames Sammi Stavri for being the reason they did not win the bid for Kerite's Drakes, Aelia snaps at him for revealing the Inner Assembly's disunity in front of Demir. However, Gregori laughs it off, saying Demir is surely smart enough to know that the Inner Assembly bickers. During that meeting, Demir looks at Aelia, wondering she knew that he knew about her involvement in his mother's murder, but her cool, distracted gaze suggested she does not. He almost accuses her of the murder right there, but thinks better of it since it would accomplish nothing.
Aelia later orders a contingent of her enforcers to attack the Hyacinth Hotel and steal Thessa Foleer's phoenix channel. With the help of a traitor who leaves the door open for them, the enforcers infiltrate the hotel and manage to drug Baby Montego's tea so he cannot interfere. Thessa manages to wake Montego because they did not give him a high enough drug dosage, and he slaughters all of them in retaliation.
During Kissandra Vorcien's investigation into Adriana Grappo's death, Churian Dorlani admits that his grandmother Aelia gave him the command to kill Adriana. He does not know why, but he knows his grandmother did not command the other participants, only him. Kizzie tells Demir about Aelia's involvement, but both of them know they cannot directly go after her because of her power. This forces Kizzie to go ask Montego for help. They devise a plan to capture Aelia as her carriage leaves the Assembly and drives through Waterside Park. As a distraction, Kizzie drops the bodies of her dead enforcers from the failed hotel attack onto her carriage, which allows her and Montego to kill her retinue of guards. They then break into Aelia's carriage and question her about her involvement in Adriana's murder. Aelia does not cooperate at first, only content with spitting insults and ignoring Kizzie's attempts to reasonably negotiate, so Montego threatens to use shackleglass on her. She exclaims the Inner Assembly would hunt him down for such an offense since she is privy to so much confidential information, so he threatens to drown her in the river to leave no witnesses. Seeing he is serious, Aelia admits that she was involved in the murder. She does not give up the last two names of the killers, but she admits that Aristanes orchestrated the murder plot. She does not know why he wanted Adriana dead; she was merely following orders. She then tells Kizzie and Montego that they can find Aristanes at the Zorlian Mansion. Montego then threatens to crush her entire guild-family if he discovers she lied to them, and they leave Aelia there alone. Kizzie worries for Montego, knowing that Aelia has hundreds of enforcers at her command, but he simply says he would give them a good go at it.
