Threads of Fate

Chapter 2 ~ A Clashing Welcome

    The drizzle was letting up, Tissaia noticed as she tipped her head back to let the rain sprinkle against her cheeks once more. This was the second morning it had rained during their journey, but despite riding on horseback, she remained relatively dry beneath her thick cloak and the magical shield she'd erected around herself.

    Every half hour or so though, she'd been letting it down to feel the moisture. The rains in the Forest of Vidar were always gentle and cool as opposed to the coastal storms they received back home in Lochren. Tissaia gave a small sigh and didn't bother restoring her shield this time. The rain would be gone within the hour and they would arrive in Arcan soon after.

    She slid one boot free of the stirrup and stretched her leg as far as she dared without attracting the attention of her parents, who were riding in the carriage ahead of her, and were undoubtedly keeping keen eyes on her and her brother. Tissaia secured her foot once more and proceeded to stretch her other leg.

    "Looking forward to arriving?" Talarion teased beside her.

    "The answer is yes and no in equal measures," she replied, turning to face him. She couldn't hold back a laugh at the sight of the damp and frizzy braid hanging down to his waist. A few stray tendrils of ebony hair were plastered to his face and Talarion brushed them aside before sticking his tongue out at her. "Why didn't you put a shield up?"

    "For the same reason you keep letting yours down. And you don't look much better, by the way."

    Tissaia smoothed a hand across her own hair. Some of the drizzle had collected on it, but she could already tell it hadn't become nearly as unkempt as Talarion's. Her own equally long braid remained safely tucked beneath her cloak while his was out in the open. Talarion faced forward and she glanced at his mouth with narrowed eyes.

    Only a few days ago, his top lip had been torn open and part of his face bruised. Thankfully both seemed to be mended now. "Is my face back to its usual beauty?" Talarion asked, having noted her lingering stare.

    Tissaia smiled and shifted her gaze back to the carriage. "Yes. I don't even see a scar."

    "Well, that's good news."

    "You'll be perfectly presentable and pleasing to any whose eye you seek, not to worry," she laughed. Talarion only rolled his eyes. "Do you think Kaius will be there?" She couldn't even recall the last time they'd seen the wanderer, which was unusual. Normally they never went more than a few months without running into him at least once.

    "I'm sure," her brother replied. "I don't see why they wouldn't invite the Phoenix."

    Tissaia inclined her head, recognizing the sense in his words. As the mortal incarnation of the power of the god Hadeon, Kaius Kaellar was arguably the second most important person in the kingdom, next to the King.

    Out of the god-bloodlines of the four deities who had once dwelled in Asterria, Hadeon was the only one whose power had to follow limitations, and understandably so. He was the god of chaos, destruction, and war. Tissaia had witnessed Kaius wield his magic very rarely, but enough to know why the god's power was returned to only one of his descendents at a time.

    It never went to a random descendent either. There were very specific circumstances that had to occur for the Phoenix to be born. Their lineage was unquestionable, their god-blood a pure line directly from Hadeon and his first heirs.

    They were born under a blood moon eclipse, a rare feat that happened once every one-thousand years, when a blood moon rose in the west and traveled backwards across the sky to eclipse the rising sun at dawn. Kaius had been born under such an eclipse three-hundred years prior, following the death of the last Phoenix.