Overview
Thalena Xenith, born Helena Hyperion, is the former archon of Chronasis, the archon of Space and Time, and a ruler and strategist of Thalassai. She is the daughter of Aurelia and Ozaith, a survivor of the Order of Thalion Zenith, and a millennia-old temporal and aether mage who later works in Xalmyrra as Arcanis.
Thalena builds her public rule after killing Kairessa, destroying Chronasis records, manipulating the Internal Thalassai War, recruiting powerful survivors, and returning as a reformer. She rebuilds the Palace of Time into Stella Aeterna, establishes the chronarcs and Nexus Research Center, and centralizes Thalassai politics in Chronasis.
Appearance and Personality
Thalena keeps a young-adult body through temporal magic across her millennia-long life.
- Helena in Thalion's Order: Helena is blond, with violet eyes and youthful features. During her years with Thalion Zenith and the Order of Thalion Zenith, she slows her aging with temporal magic.
- Early Thalassai exile and rise: After the Order, Helena's blond hair starts turning silver. The change comes from constant temporal use, especially the immortality spell and temporal shield she keeps active. By her long rule in Chronasis, she has iridescent silver hair and the ageless beauty of archon Thalena.
- Xalmyrra cycles and Arcanis: When Thalena holds a blink through the Xalmyrran cycle shift, her body realigns inside Xalmyrra and she de-ages into a child. Her hair returns to a blond base with silver streaks. As she lets time shape her body forward again and stops at a younger adult form, the post-cycle look remains silver-golden blond; afterward, her hair is silver-blonde, half-silver-blond, or split into golden-blond and silver sections.
Thalena is secretive, possessive, and strategic. Her affection for her chosen family is real, and she protects them by controlling information, arranging outcomes, and withholding painful truths. She kills, manipulates history, rebuilds Chronasis into Thalassai's government seat, and plans Xalmyrra's release from Jorhan's cycles to protect the timeline, Thalassai, and selected people.
Magic and Skills
Thalena's main trained schools are temporal and aether magic. Her temporal magic awakens when she is seven, sharpening her perception before formal spell training. As Helena, she is the only member of the Order of Thalion Zenith able to cast timerifts. Her early use is unstable and difficult to teach. In later life, she uses blinks, temporal shields, age-slowing magic, timerift sensing, and spell analysis around temporal effects.
Her aether magic controls movement, gravity, and fine essence flow. She teaches Jin its foundations, uses it to lift people and objects, flies by collapsing gravity ahead of herself, redirects weapons, pins opponents, and crushes targets with focused gravity. Her unusually high essence load depends on constant aether manipulation inside her own body, which keeps her from overloading.
Thalena also uses divine and cosmic shields, the hidden star shard, and her silver sword. During the battle near Chronasis, she combines temporal shielding, aether gravity, essence cores, and a black-hole-like singularity to pin Nahm until Cyrena's divine shield, Naryon's water, and Calythos's earth contain the destruction.
The abyss inside Helena comes from the reversal spell Aurelia copied and passed into Helena before birth. Its effects include blue strands that freeze the surrounding world, drain color from reality, and reset events. Helena spends years suppressing it and training control. The star shard stabilizes her body and magic.
History
Helena Hyperion
Helena Hyperion is born to Aurelia and Ozaith after Aurelia accelerates the pregnancy and passes the copied reversal spell and excess power into the child. Nadun raises Helena in the Council Citadel of Ulzathir, where she grows up among Ozaith's children and awakens temporal magic early. Alistair Toss becomes her teacher and abuses her under the cover of training until Sariel intervenes and takes her away.
At seventeen, Helena lives near Axanaxa with Sariel, passes Haverloch's symmetry trials, and enters the Axial Concord. Jarin Jassaro gives Helena his real name and teaches her about the atraxi, Jorhan, the Varnhallow temporal bubble, his illness, and his hope that Helena's temporal magic can release him from it. Helena then joins Thalion Zenith and the Order of Thalion Zenith. Her chosen name, Thalena Xenith, preserves Thalion Zenith's name after Thalion orders the Order's Malverand history hidden.
Rise in Thalassai
After her years with the Order of Thalion Zenith, Helena destroys surviving Malverand and Ozaith records across Thalassai. In Chronasis, she kills Kairessa, Pyrrhus, and the officials guarding knowledge of her earlier sabotage, destroys the book preserved in the vault, and spreads false blame among the regions. The deception ignites the Internal Thalassai War. Helena drains essence from the dead, kills people who can expose her, and secretly gathers powerful survivors who become the basis for the legions.
In 4836 AX, she publicly takes the name Thalena Xenith and later becomes archon of time. She declares herself the archon of Space and Time and rebuilds Chronasis around Stella Aeterna, chronarcs, observatories, a colosseum, waterways, and the Nexus Research Center. The other archons remain formally equal, but Thalassai follows Chronasis as its government seat.
Xalmyrra and Arcanis
Thalena enters Xalmyrra's cycles as Arcanis and spends four centuries there. During the War of Scars, Arcanis descends and forces a peace.
As Arcanis, Thalena writes The Eleven Stories of Old and leaves most of it as fragments. She and Hrzai enlist Xoh'Tenol to strengthen Kaelion for the challenge against Jorhan and the gate. Before the final break, she trains with Glin, plans Xoh'Tenol's descent, and prepares for her past self to be gone when the cycles break. At the final break, Kaelion destroys the gate, Xoh'Tenol descends, Glin carries Thalena into battle, and Thalena fights Jorhan. After Xalmyrra is freed, she returns to Chronasis after four centuries away.
Thalassai Rule and Maraveth
Thalena is a ruler, mentor, author, mother, lover, and secret planner. She trains and directs Eira, Kaelion, Lunorax, and Thalassai mages; raises Aelius and Zephyra under her protection; has Ignatius with Flavian and Thalia with Jin; and shares a romantic household with Cassian and Arinella.
During Thalena's presumed-dead absence, the archons and regional leaders choose Cassian as archon of time. After Thalena returns, she lets Cassian keep the office and continues advising and training people around Chronasis, her household, and her allies. In the Malverand Intergalactic Empire, she reaches Maraveth, confronts Isandro, and is shot by Rafe. She is Helena Hyperion, and her body is essence-heavy and unstable; Mike, Rafe, Isandro, Eamon, and Amos preserve her remaining particles in capsules as allies seek to take the capsule-bound group home for restoration.
Relationships
- Family: Aurelia is Thalena's mother, and Ozaith is her father. Nadun raises her during her early years in Ulzathir. Flavian is the father of her son Ignatius, and Jin is the father of her daughter Thalia. Zephyra is her adopted daughter, and Aelius is a child she raises under her protection.
- Thalion and the Order: Xarion as Thalion Zenith is Thalena's first love, formative leader, and namesake. Isandriel, Zayren, Aelius, Svanhild, Silas, and Jareth are part of her history with the Order of Thalion Zenith.
- Thalassai household: Cassian is Thalena's lover. Arinella shares the same romantic household, and Thalena trusts her with Cassian's safety.
- Students and allies: Eira, Kaelion, Lunorax, Jareth, Hrzai, Glin, Jin, Deylin, Hadrian, and Aelius carry out her long plans across Thalassai and Xalmyrra.
- Enemies: Alistair Toss abuses Helena during childhood. Pyrathalor, Jorhan, and Kairessa's Chronasis leadership become targets of Thalena's strategies.