Interlude: Tiana (Patreon)

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Her brother had been right.

She hated to admit it. Well…she always hated to admit when Cayden was right. But this time was especially painful, because of the consequences of his being right.

At first, it had been great. Valtane was everything she had imagined and more. Until she’d had the chance to explore the capital, she never realized how small and confining Avernon had felt.

Aside from the size, it wasn’t exactly easy to pinpoint what was different. The quality of the shops and buildings wasn’t any better than what she could find in Avernon – while she was sure shops of a higher quality existed in Valtane, the vast majority of those she visited were just like the ones she might find exploring Avernon with the twins. But for some reason, everything felt so much brighter and more vibrant than it had in her hometown.

In hindsight, that probably reflected more on her attitude than on the respective towns.

She’d only had a week to explore the capital before she was moved into the compound for training, which was where the first of her worries started. All her life, she’d been constantly surrounded by Cayden or her friends. And while she relished the excitement of living and learning in the compound, it only took a few days in the sectioned-off building for loneliness to set in. So she had written a long letter to be delivered back home.

The responses, when they had come, had been…disheartening. She had sent letters to the twins, Elise, and Cayden, and each of their responses had been disappointingly short. It had already been a few weeks since she’d been admitted to the compound, and she wasted no time composing return messages. She wanted to cut down as much as she could on the time between correspondences.

But their responses to the second set of letters had been even slower to come, the contents even more sparse.

Tiana was ashamed to admit how many tears had been shed in those days, thinking her friends had all but forgotten her. The twins, she had to admit, wasn’t entirely unexpected. They would have gone through their own changes and were likely each involved in their new apprenticeships. She loved and missed them, but she could understand that they were busy. And Elise Tiana could also understand. She had been a good friend, but she had always been closer to Cayden than she had been to Tiana. Four years, after all, was a large age gap for a sixteen-year-old.

But Cayden? Her big brother?

His letters were kind, and friendly, and concerned, penned in his recognizably messy handwriting. But also…distant. They were short and to the point, written without the love and care Tiana was looking for in the communications. They read as if their writing was a chore.

It broke her heart at a time when she felt so alone.

And so she dove into her lessons instead.

There were eight of them in the classes, all fateweavers, from the ages of twelve to sixteen. Tiana was the youngest, obviously, and the next closest was an aloof boy by the name of Jerome, who was thirteen.

She didn’t clash with any of her classmates, but neither did she click with them in the same way that she had with the twins. They were cordial, and occasionally even laughed and joked with one another, but for the most part only spent time together to learn and review their lessons.

Which were the one bright point of her time in the compound. Every day she learned so much, from the politics of the kingdom and its neighbors, to the history and background of the royal family, to different classes that were popular at all levels of society. She learned lists and lists of different races, classes, and their respective skills – information she was sure Elise would love but was unfortunately listed as ‘classified’ – along with the weaknesses and strengths of each of them. She learned etiquette and dancing and the proper modes of address for anyone she may meet.

But most importantly, and most interestingly to Tiana, she learned about fate.

Fateweaver, the race with such an amazing and mystical description, had only three boring-sounding skills: [See Fate], [Strengthen Fate], and [Weaken Fate].

See Fate (active): See the threads of fate which bind. Minimal mana cost.

Strengthen Fate (active): Strengthen a thread of fate. Variable mana cost.

Weaken Fate (active): Weaken a thread of fate. Variable mana cost.

The descriptions were just as boring as the names of the skills. But the skills’ effects…

Well, they were less than boring.

[See Fate] was the most interesting of the three, and the one which required the most time and training to perfect. The first time she had used it, she had been completely overwhelmed by the innumerable lines of color that overlaid her vision, so many that it was impossible to actually discern anything useful from the skill.

With time, though, she had learned how to ignore extraneous threads, letting her grasp the significance of what she was seeing.

Threads of fate.

Everything and everyone had threads of fate. Any interaction, no matter how big or small, created a thread of fate that stretched out into the past and future, threads that, as a fateweaver, Tiana could see and manipulate. From the threads tying herself to her hairbrush she’d used that morning to the threads between her teachers and the rest of the students in the class – everyone had thousands upon thousands of threads of different colors extending from them, creating a beautiful collage of fate that only a select few could see.

Those relationships of more importance, that were likely to last for years and years, like the ones between herself and her fellow fateweavers? They were thick ropes, representing a likely lifelong interaction. Those fleeting relationships of happenstance, like the ones between her and a random shopkeeper she had met when exploring the streets of Valtane? They were spider-web thin, so thin as to be almost invisible, representing a relationship that had existed for but a moment and would likely never exist again.

Unless a fateweaver meddled, of course.

[Strengthen Fate] and [Weaken Fate] did exactly what they described: they would either strengthen or weaken a specific thread of fate. The amount of mana required would vary depending on the relationship and how much she intended to strengthen or weaken the thread. But even with a mana pool and magic power ten times larger than her own, nothing was guaranteed. No thread could be truly broken, and no thread could be strengthened so much as to truly ‘control’ fate. The threads didn’t work like that.

All the threads represented were reflections and possibilities. Reflections of the past and possibilities of the future. A thicker thread meant it was more likely for those at either end to cross paths in the future, for their relationship to build – but it was never guaranteed. Fateweavers dealt in probabilities and hopes, not in certainties.

[Strengthen Fate] and [Weaken Fate] were easy enough to learn. There was little nuance with those skills, simply the ability to choose a thread and then dedicate the mana and focus to reach the desired outcome. [See Fate] was where the difficulty arose.

With thousands upon thousands of threads crisscrossing to and from every person and object, the difference between a skilled and unskilled fateweaver lay in their ability to recognize threads. It took her a number of weeks before she grasped even the basics of it amid the clutter of the overall weave, but it turned out that fateweavers were able to recognize threads that connected to anything or anyone they were familiar with. It wasn’t anything specific with the thread, or at least nothing that Tiana could recognize with her conscious mind. But after a few weeks in the compound, she could see one of the ropes coming from her etiquette teacher and somehow instinctively know that it was the connection to her classmate, Jerome. From there, it was just a matter of better recognizing and dismissing those threads that were irrelevant from her view of the overall weave.

This was why it was often so difficult for fateweavers to affect their own threads of fate. There were thousands of threads extending from her, and every one of them she recognized and was significant in its own way. She couldn’t just dismiss any she didn’t recognize in the way she did when looking at others’ threads.

But she was determined. It took almost the entirety of her off-day, going through each of her threads one by one, knowing that to take a break would mean losing track of those threads she’d already examined and having to start over completely.

And what she saw almost broke her heart.

Her brother’s thread, so large in comparison to some of the others, yet so much thinner than it could have been. For how much they had interacted in the past, the only way it could be so weak…

Was if their future fate was practically nonexistent.

She had panicked a bit, in that moment, emptying her entire mana pool in a desperate attempt to [Strengthen Fate]. And it had helped, the thread connecting her to her brother widening noticeably…but not enough. She memorized the shape and feel of the thread, making sure she’d be able to find it easier the next time. And she resolved to return and keep strengthening their fates.

That was her first hint that everything might not have been what it seemed.

A week later she came back, locating her brother’s thread after an hour rather than all day, only to find the thread was just as thin as it had previously been, as if she hadn’t used [Strengthen Fate] at all.

She frowned, concerned. What had she done to weaken their fates? Threads of fate would naturally shrink and grow based on decisions made, whether someone had naturally chosen a path that would lead them down one path or another. But what could Tiana have done in the last week that might weaken her fate with her brother? It had simply been a normal week of classes, nothing of particular note learned – at least not compared to other weeks.

But if it wasn’t something she had done…that could only mean it was the result of another fateweaver’s intervention.

She attempted to calm her suddenly racing heart. That wasn’t entirely true – there was always the possibility that Cayden had chosen a path that would lead them further apart. She wouldn’t jump to conclusions.

But neither would she blindly trust the words of those teaching and caring for her.

She used [Strengthen Fate] again and resolved to monitor the thread for further changes. And a week later, she once again found that her brother’s thread was weaker than it should be. So, once again, she poured her mana into the thread.

It became a ritual of hers, emptying her mana into her brother’s thread on a weekly basis, increasing to bi-weekly and then daily as her proficiency in locating the thread grew. Not every day would the thread appear weakened. Some weeks she would return each day to find it slowly strengthening, and she’d hold out hope that this time the strengthened fate would linger. But she was always inevitably disappointed.

For a while, she tried to identify the fateweaver who was weakening the thread but quickly gave that up as a fool’s effort. Half of their teachers were fateweavers, and the weakening of her fate with her brother followed no pattern she could identify. Besides, she was told that a strong enough fateweaver could strengthen or weaken a known thread even if they couldn’t see either end.

Weeks turned to months, and the walls of the compound, which she had been told were there to protect her and the secrets of the kingdom looked more and more like the walls of a prison. She still sent letters out, but the replies stopped coming – though she refused to believe that was the fault of her friends. She knew her brother, had complained enough about his overbearing and protective nature while growing up, that she couldn’t believe he would stop sending her letters even if she’d demanded it. And she refused to believe the lie that her friends and family abandoned her the same way all other fateweavers-in-training believed about their own families.

She’d voiced a few minor suspicions to her fellows, only to be met with scoffs and ridicule. She wasn’t sure if they were accomplices or fellow victims, but from then on she kept her worries and suspicious to herself.

Her loneliness and feelings of isolation increased. Outwardly, she forced herself to smile and act like she enjoyed the lessons and company. But inwardly, she spent every waking moment, and quite a few that should have been devoted to sleep, to finding a way to escape or contact her brother. A task that was made even harder by her attempts to keep her discontent secret from those in authority.

She didn’t know what they would do if they realized she wasn’t as content or loyal as she acted. But when one of the older fateweavers, a chubbier girl by the name of Payton, disappeared from their classes without warning, Tiana resolved to maintain her facade.

But as the months passed, her resolve faltered. The claim of her increased freedom after the first year of lessons was looking more and more like a lie, and she could find no weaknesses in the security of the compound. She still strengthened her fate with Cayden on the daily, despite the risk it posed of a fateweaver in charge identifying her discontent through her use of the skill, but she could think of nothing else to do.

Until an opportunity presented itself.

It was a momentous day for the fateweavers-in-training. A large portion of their training revolved around serving and supporting the royal family, and today was the day they would meet Princess Valeria for the first time. It was by no means guaranteed, but it had been hinted that Tiana was being groomed as a future lady-in-waiting for the fifth princess.

That was the primary use of fateweavers: they were to be attached to the court and various members of the royal family in subtle roles where they could monitor the threads of fate that bound the royals and members of the nobility. With their undetectable and irresistable skills, they could act as spies that would secretly see, push, and pull the hidden connections of the court.

The seven fateweavers stood in a line with their heads respectfully bowed. While the princess was royal, she was seventh in line for the throne, and so according to Tiana’s lessons wasn’t yet deserving of a full kneel. While the fateweavers often played the parts of servants, their role was so much more important to the kingdom than that of a simple maid, and at least in private earned respect even from the royal family.

The princess cleared her throat, and, with the rest of the fateweavers, Tiana lifted her head and looked at the princess.

She was young, younger than Tiana had expected, though not nearly as young as Tiana herself. If she had to guess, the princess looked to be about the same age as Elise. Though that was hard to determine with any precision given the princess’ race.

Like many of the royal family, she was a phoenix. The skills of the phoenix race were closely guarded secrets, much more classified than the usual information that was taught within the compound, but Tiana knew at least one of the skills was related to rebirth and longevity, meaning the princess could be anywhere from fourteen to fifty. Fifty was unlikely, though, considering she was the fifth princess and her father had only been king for the last thirty years.

The princess was a beautiful girl, marred only somewhat by her stern frown, and had curly red hair reminiscent of flames trailing down to the small of her back. For a moment, after seeing the princess’ apparent youth and beauty, Tiana felt the sudden urge to confess her worries and imprisonment. The princess was obviously aware of fateweavers and the compound, but perhaps she didn’t know about the more nefarious aspects? But a moment later Tiana shook away the urge, dismissing it as folly.

Perhaps the princess was oblivious to her all-but-imprisonment and isolation, but that didn’t mean she’d be inclined to help. And even if she was, if the princess had been kept in the dark about the true nature of the compound by those leading it, what were the odds she’d have the power to act against them? If there was one thing Tiana had learned from her study of politics and the history of the kingdom, it was that the power of the royal family was not absolute, no matter how they might try to convince the general populace otherwise.

Tiana only had a second to take in the princess’ appearance before her training kicked in and she activated [See Fate].

So many threads, more than any she had ever seen originating from one person before, exploded into her sight. Tiana suspected that there must have been as many threads as there were people in the kingdom – which now that she thought of it, made a certain amount of sense for a member of the royal family.

One thread, however, stood out to her.

It was different from the one she now so easily recognized. After all, only one end of this thread was a match to the one connecting herself to her brother. But after so much time searching for, strengthening, and staring at the tenuous bond of fate with her sibling, she would recognize the fingerprint of his fate anywhere.

It was thicker than the vast majority of threads connected to Princess Valeria, indicating a relationship more significant than just that of a citizen and their sovereign. But it wasn’t so large as those ropes that tied the fates of those who were inevitably and intrinsically bound.

If she had to guess from her experience in judging the threads of fate, it was a thread of potential. One that could grow to something much more significant, but could just as easily fade into nothing by the whims of choice. And as Tiana looked at the young girl who she might one day directly serve, she realized something else.

It was an opportunity.

Hoping that she wasn’t making a mistake and praying that Cayden would forgive her the consequences of her choice, she cast [Strengthen Fate].

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