The Duke of Wellborn was the greatest Discreet of his generation, and for years served as personal advisor to Emperor Tortaalik I. Wellborn was inspired to the study of the Arts of Discretion, when, as a youth, he learned that A'jo, Discreet to Emperor Zerik II, advised the latter in a plot against A'jo's own family without revealing it. According to Paarfi's account in The Phoenix Guards, it was Wellborn's astute questioning of Tortaalik that allowed Tortaalik to discover that Garland was driving a wedge between the Emperor and his consort at the beginning of His Majesty's reign.