Thalena

Overview

Thalena Xenith is a human temporal and aether mage who bears the title Archon of Spacetime and directs political, military, and research work across Thalassai. Cassian holds the formal office of archon of time in Chronasis, while Thalena retains her title, assumes his duties during his absences, and exercises political authority at the Valrindor Council.

She was born Helena Hyperion, the daughter of Aurelia and Ozaith. Before her human birth, Ozaith absorbed the dying essence of an earlier essence-born goddess named Helena Hyperion and later used it to create Helena within Aurelia. Thalena recovered the earlier Helena's memories later in life, and she and Isandro regard the two lives as distinct women.

Thalena survived the Order of Thalion Zenith, engineered the rise of modern Thalassai, and spent four centuries shaping Xalmyrra under the persona Arcanis. After her restoration from the void, she chooses to remain human.

Appearance and Personality

Thalena has violet eyes and maintains a young-adult body through an always-active immortality spell and temporal shield. She was born with blond hair, which gradually became silver during her long life. A Xalmyrran cycle shift once realigned her body as a blond child streaked with silver. She then aged herself forward and stopped at a younger adult form with silver-blond hair.

Thalena is playful, theatrical, secretive, and strategic. She conceals plans, engineers political outcomes, and calls selected people her collection. She adopts and protects children and trains selected mages. She uses deception, coercion, killing, and historical erasure to achieve her goals.

Magic and Skills

Thalena's temporal perception awakened when she was seven. Her mature temporal magic includes blinks, timerifts, temporal shields, and control over physical aging. She was the only member of the ancient Order of Thalion Zenith who could cast timerifts.

Her aether magic collapses gravity for flight, redirects objects, restrains bodies, and shapes fine flows of essence. She also uses aether inside her body to regulate an essence load that would otherwise overwhelm it. Her star shard holds reserve essence in her palm and responds to her will. She learned a black-hole spell from Zero and used its singularity to trap Pyrathalor.

Helena inherited Aurelia's copied essence reversal. Its abyss episodes released blue strands, sounded ticking and gongs, drained color from the affected space, and reset a bounded sequence of events. A prototype star shard merged into Helena's palm and stabilized her body while aether regulated her essence. The final reversal emptied the star shard and exhausted the abyss completely.

Ozaith later restored the star shard along with Thalena's body. Its crystal circuit uses shape as code, follows Thalena's will, and replenishes itself from essence, belief, and the surrounding world.

History

Helena Hyperion and the Order

Aurelia offered Ozaith a child who would combine his power with the stolen magic she carried. She accelerated the pregnancy and gave birth to a blond, violet-eyed girl whom Viviana named Helena and Ozaith surnamed Hyperion. Nadun raised Helena in the Council Citadel among Ozaith's other children.

Alistair Toss became Helena's teacher after her temporal perception awakened. He physically and sexually abused her, healed the evidence, and tried to take her away. Sariel intervened and took Helena to safety. Alistair survived through an illusion and a reassembled body.

Helena grew up convinced that Ozaith had discarded her as weak, and this belief fed her later revenge. During their reunion, Ozaith learned of Alistair's abuse and denied having abandoned her.

At seventeen, Helena passed Haverloch's symmetry trials and entered the Axial Concord. Jarin Jassaro trusted her with his true identity. Helena then met Thalion Zenith, swore the Order's oath, and joined its campaign against Malverand's guardians.

Thalion became her commander, first love, and closest friend. He deliberately deepened the dependent seventeen-year-old's attachment and began a sexual relationship with her while commanding her. Helena later formed the name Thalena Xenith in memory of Thalion Zenith.

The rise of Thalena Xenith

After Kira and Frederick died, Helena entered Thalassai in 2121 AX and destroyed records of Malverand and Ozaith region by region. She later lived with Flavian and gave birth to their son Ignatius. She outlived both of them.

In 4332 AX, Helena returned to Chronasis, killed its officials, Pyrrhus, and Kairessa, and destroyed the final guarded book. She framed the regions for one another's crimes and prolonged the Internal Thalassai War. She drained essence from the dead and killed people who could expose her.

Helena recruited powerful survivors into a force organized through imperators, legati, centurions, and legions. She used that force to end the war, vanished again, and later returned to campaign openly in Terranova. In 4836 AX, she publicly adopted the name Thalena Xenith, became archon of time, and declared herself Archon of Space and Time.

Thalena rebuilt Chronasis around Stella Aeterna, established the chronarcs, and founded the Nexus Research Center. Thalassai's archons remained formally equal, though they deferred to Thalena's judgment and allowed her to direct shared projects.

Earth, Xalmyrra, and Arcanis

After staging her death, Thalena became stranded in Earth's past. She saved the infant Deylin, guided him through disguised teachers, and spent more than a century on Earth before reaching Xalmyrra.

In Xalmyrra, Thalena worked with Hrzai and Glin to shape the events needed to break Jorhan's cycles. She borrowed the name Arcanis from Arcanis, an ancient male Malverand inventor, and created the Xalmyrran persona called the Conqueror of Heaven so Jareth could find her. Riding Glin during the War of Scars, she immobilized both armies and forced an end to the fighting.

Thalena wrote the first forms of The Eleven Stories of Old herself. She gave one book to Hrzai and placed another in Irrathis. When a cycle shift altered her body, she aged herself back to adulthood and recreated the War of Scars intervention.

Thalena coordinated the final attack on Jorhan and nearly killed him before her reserves failed. After spending four centuries in Xalmyrra, she returned to Chronasis when the cycles ended. Cassian had received the office of archon of time during her presumed death, and Thalena allowed him to retain it.

The void and current era

During the fight with Azarion and Eliona at Arcanis Village, Thalena crushed a gate activator Jareth had made for her and escaped into the void with the injured Deylin. She reunited there with Lunorax, Sigurd, and Silas, led them in casting the timerifts that sent the people needed to preserve their history into Varnhallow, and waited with them near Chronasis's gate for three years. The original Thalena used star-shard essence and a timerift to create an exact essence copy charged with rescuing the group. The copy reached Maraveth, where Rafe shot it while protecting Isandro. Mike and Rafe collected its dissolving particles in a capsule.

Amos separately recovered the original Thalena and her companions from the void. Ozaith reconstituted the original in Chronasis, and the copy's memories were restored to her.

At Cassian's request, Thalena asked Xarion, who had lived as Thalion Zenith, to father a child with her. Their daughter Leonora was born in Chronasis, where Cassian chose her name and became her co-parent. Xarion also seeks a continuing place in Leonora's life.

Hyperion wondered whether Thalena's restored body could ascend beyond humanity because he believed she could. Thalena rejected that possibility, wrote that she would remain human forever, and signed herself Archon of Spacetime. Thalena remains alive and human in Chronasis, where she raises Leonora with Cassian.

Relationships

• Aurelia and Ozaith: Aurelia is Thalena's human mother, and Ozaith is her father and creator. Ozaith used the earlier Helena Hyperion's essence in Thalena's conception, and Thalena later recovered that woman's memories.
• Nadun: Nadun raised Helena during her childhood in the Council Citadel.
• Sariel, Zayren, and Svanhild: Sariel removed Helena from Alistair's control and later mentored her while rejecting the role of her father. Zayren and Svanhild were later teachers within her Order life.
• Thalion Zenith: Thalion was Helena's commander, first love, closest friend, and namesake. He cultivated her dependence at seventeen; at Cassian's request, Thalena later asked him to father Leonora with her.
• Cassian: Cassian is Thalena's long-term partner, the formal archon of time, and Leonora's co-parent.
• Arinella: Arinella is Cassian's partner and shares his household with Thalena through their separate relationships with him; Thalena trusts her with Cassian's safety.
• Flavian and Ignatius: Flavian was Thalena's partner and the father of their son Ignatius.
• Jin and Thalia: Jin studied aether magic under Thalena and fathered their daughter Thalia; Thalia also carries Tianlei's essence.
• Zephyra and Aelius: Thalena adopted both children and raised them in Stella Aeterna.
• Leonora: Leonora is the daughter of Thalena and Xarion, with Cassian as her co-parent.
• Jarin Jassaro: Jareth was an early confidant and later a research collaborator.
• Isandriel: Isandriel is a recurring ally from the Order of Thalion Zenith.
• Lunorax: Lunorax is Thalena's ward, student, confidant, and second-in-command.
• Eira and Kaelion: Thalena trains both mages and places them within her long plans for Thalassai and Xalmyrra.
• Hrzai and Glin: Hrzai collaborated with Thalena across Xalmyrra's cycles; Glin is Thalena's astragon companion and carried her into battle.
• Deylin: Thalena saved Deylin as an infant and guided him for more than a century.
• Alistair Toss: Alistair abused Helena during childhood until Sariel removed her from his control; he survived their confrontation through an illusion and a reassembled body.
• Jorhan and Pyrathalor: Jorhan is Thalena's recurring Xalmyrran enemy, and Pyrathalor is the god she trapped with a singularity.