The Fates

Prologue

Prologue

Rhale’s deep blue eyes were staring back at him in the mirror, the only trait he had gotten from his mother, the one small brown fleck on his left iris just had to ruin the perfection that otherwise would have been. The brown came from his father. His constant sneer too, just like everything else, everything except the blue.

In his youth Rhale had been weak, so weak in fact that people had started to think that his appearance was the only thing he had inherited from his father. An overwhelming need to prove himself had consumed him, it had driven him to leave the only good thing in his life.

It had been a very long time since Rhale thought about her, his mother. Truth be told he just didn’t give a shit anymore, time had made him void of most feelings.
Rhale didn’t care that the world had been coming to its doom, he would have been glad to go down with it.

Would have...

There was something about the sleeping young woman behind him. Celia...
One look into Celia’s terrified eyes and disheveled appearance had stirred something deep within him. Something that had been lost to him. Something he did not want to feel.

Celia apparently believed that she was human. Rhale knew otherwise, he could smell it from miles away and he had been wearing a frown of confusion ever since he found her. Rhale knew what she smelled like but it didn’t make sense.

For one Celia looked nothing like they had and he clearly remembered the frightening form of the angels. They had been the most fearsome creatures there ever was, made by the Fates themselves to tip the scale of the ever ongoing war with the dark magical monsters that had roamed free, destroying anything in their path.

The second reason he was confused was that the angels had been made, not born. As far as he and everyone else knew they could not breed. And even if they somehow had found a way it was still impossible.

They were all dead.

But here Celia was, completely unaware of what she actually was and what that could mean. So far he had not seen that Celia had any power that the angels had possessed, unless you counted extraordinary beauty, which most certainly had not been bestowed upon them.

Celia was the most breathtaking thing Rhale had ever seen, the angels had had gruesome features. Celia had the opposite, her features were soft and delicate. The only thing he could see that Celia had in common with them was that her hair almost glowed, although theirs had glowed too much, on Celia it was perfection.

She seemed kind too, not the false kindness that everyone had when they first met someone, but true kindness, the kindness that only those that had not yet been sullied by life possessed.
Celia could not be real, a creature like her could simply not exist.

Rhale felt an overwhelming need to protect her, which was bad. Why after all these years did he have to start to actually care about something? The world was going downhill fast and all creatures would go down with it, even Celia.
But now that Rhale knew that Celia was in it, well...
He had to do something about that.

But how?

The problem was that he couldn’t, she was the only one that could, maybe.
Celia might smell like an angel but did that really mean anything? If Celia did not possess the same powers that the angels had then how the hell was he going to stop the monsters from taking over?
Rhale was only half a God, and even his father who was a full blooded God could not stop this madness, not that he would ever even try. Gods did not possess as much power as some people thought.

Gods also had a tendency to keep to themselves, not caring one bit what was happening outside their own land.

Celia stirred in her sleep, accidently pushing the blanket off herself and Rhale's eyes immediately went to her sleeping form.
He had the strange urge to walk over to her and cover her up again...
Damn it if he did not find himself actually doing it, he moved back a piece of stray hair as well, just for good measure he supposed.

The first thing he needed to do was to take Celia someplace safe. That was easy enough, he could take her to Amos. Amos had once been a wizard and as far as he knew the old spells that protected his property still held.

The second thing was that he needed to find out what Celia actually was, which was harder. He had an inkling that only the Fates themselves held the answers that he sought, but the Fates did not allow entry to just anyone.

And then he somehow needed to explain all of this to Celia. How the fuck was he going to do that? Celia had been through a lot already and he didn’t want to add to that, he really wasn’t used to caring about what someone was feeling.
Yet he couldn’t help but care, he wanted to spare Celia all of this, to protect her, to stick his sword into anyone or anything who might even try to hurt her.
And then he wanted to take her heart and keep it safe.

Fuck, Celia’s heart wasn’t his to protect.
He needed to lock down whatever this was and focus on the big picture. At the first break of day he needed to get her to Amos and once they were there he could figure out the rest.

Rhale sat himself down in one of the chairs and listened intently to the surroundings outside the small hunting cabin. They didn’t seem to have been followed here at least, a small blessing.
Rhale hoped that they could reach Amos' estate tomorrow without being detected.
The Fates only knew what would happen if they were.

Rhale’s eyes landed on Celia’s small form again.

What twisted Fate sent such a rare creature to be protected by the likes of him?

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