Aries

A/N: Hope you can find a few answers.

Total word count as of now: 17,646

Dark night. Restless winds. Shattered stillness.

The night was exactly as it had appeared in her vision. It was so perfect that Xylah did not know if this was a nightmare of her vision or her reality.

Her mother had a bundle in her hand. The birth of her brother had taken considerable energy from her and she was still healing from this. And those who pursued their family relentlessly had not given her any time to take a break.

“Why?” Xylah asked again. “Why can’t I call my sisters or my brother? Won’t they help?”

Her mother touched her face lovingly. Despite the swirling mess of her life, her mother managed to give her daughter a smile.

“They will,” her mother said. “They will definitely help. But asking their help is like asking them to die for us. They… are stars. Not hybrids.”

“Megrez is!” Xylah protested. “Polaris and Seren’s daughter, Megrez is. Polaris… he was your first consort, wasn’t he? He won’t help?”

She sighed. “He might. But the ones who chase us, they will kill him.”

“Mama!” the eighteen-year-old hybrid protested. “You won’t ask the Warriors to help you, neither will papa ask the Knights to help us. But you say you were a part of a ‘family’. In that case, they should help you, right?”

“My dear,” Ursa said, heaving heavily. “If only you knew who are hunting us.”

“Then tell me!” Xylah screamed. “Tell me, mama.” Tears streamed down her face. “You say… I am old enough to take care of my brother, then tell me whom I should protect him from!”

Xylah was not helpless. If she thought, she could have her way with anything in this universe and get away with it. She was powerful and she knew it. But her mother being a Warrior and her father a Knight, they suppressed her powers. Only if they were gravely injured, could she access her powers. Ursa had put such a lock on her power.

This… whoever was hunting them was tearing her family apart. After seeing those humans with their families, was it too much to ask for a family with no one trying to kill them?

She just wanted a father who would smile at his family after he finished working at night. A mother who would cook the dinner, happily bantering with her family and a brother who would fight with her for everything, yet stand for her at the time of need. She just wanted a family.

“We… we are doing this to protect you,” her father said as he came through the door of the small cottage, they currently stayed in. “If you even know who are hunting us, they will begin to hunt you.”

“Aren’t they hunting me now?” she fired at him. “At least I can protect my brother better. Didn’t you say that Alioth was searching for me? Her sister? Would it be so bad if I reconcile with her?”

Ursa shook her head. “Megrez… she is Qamar’s niece. They will obviously protect her. But you… you are not like that. Once a glimpse of your powers is seen by others, they won’t let you live.”

“I don’t know the extent of my own powers,” she mumbled.

Her father ruffled her hair. “I hope you don’t.”

She sniffed and then jerked her head towards the bundle. “What of him?”

Ursa smiled sadly. “He… he is born with every essence of what I and your father is made up of. At least, you don’t have all my and your father’s powers. But your brother… he has them all.”

Xylah inhaled sharply. “If… If I am powerful enough to even usurper Qamar, how powerful would he be?”

The windows rattled against the storm that held the coast. The screens fluttered and the rain sprayed into the house through the tiny openings. Of all places on earth, why did her parents choose the place prone for storms?

Her father went up and bolted the windows and drew the screens. The kettle steamed gently against the wailing squalls out. The baby let out a sudden cry after which he subsided.

“I hope no one finds out,” Ursa said. “I hope, he himself does not know about it.”

“Mama?” she asked.

Her father returned back. “Your mother is right, Xylah. I can navigate the space between spaces and your mother creates space. She can create worlds. And your brother… he ended up having both the traits. He can control aether for all you know.”

“That’s far-fetched,” Xylah snorted, folding her arms. “The ones who control aether are under the quasars’ control. That race is nearly dead. Hardly hundred is left in the universe.”

Her father chuckled. “That’s right. But your brother showed the potential to do so. The surprising fact, he is born to a first-generation star and a first-generation pulsar. He is not… as you can put it tainted by the energy of that dying race who can control aether.”

“Ecthos,” Xylah whispered. “The ones who control these mighty aspects of the universe. The ones who are hardly a hundred more. The ones… Cosmos and Chaos suppress. The ones who are hunting us.”

Ursa nodded. “Yes. They are.”

“By what you say is true,” she began. “I… I am an Ecthos. I… I see the future and… control it. I control the time. To me… time is a physical world. That’s why you have suppressed me.”

Her parents’ silence was enough for her.

“But…” she began again. “Megrez is not like me. Her mother was a quasar and her father a star. They are not so pure souled like you both. So untainted energies like you both.”

They remained in silence.

Xylah let out a string of colourful words. Her parents were right to conceal this sort of things from her. One word got out and she would be killed by Cosmos herself. Her mother had once believed her creator to be an embodiment of goodness. Now she understood why at times Ursa called Cosmos out.

Xylah closed her eyes. “Is… is Cosmos afraid of my brother?”

Ursa gave her a rare smile. “She ought to be.”

“That’s why you did not want to include the Warriors or the Knights,” she implored. “As much as they would help you, they are still under Cosmos and Chaos’ control.”

Her father nodded.

Xylah took in a deep breath. “Will you hide my brother from everyone?”

Ursa nodded. “He will be hidden. Only we three know who he is. And we have to keep it that way if we want to save him.”

She stared right into her mother’s eyes.

“if something happens to your father or me,” Ursa began. “You will get your powers back. Remember to conceal yourself and your brother. In my absence, if my comrades find you, they might think you are an Ecthos and they will kill you both.”

Xylah nodded. “I… I can’t meet Alioth, Dubhe or Mizar? Ever?”

“Can’t you see?” her father asked.

She scowled at him. “You suppressed my powers, remember?”

He gave her a grin. “Fun, isn’t it? Not knowing your future?”

She growled at him.

Ignoring her laughing father, she saw her mother. “What have you named him?”

A smile rippled across her parents’ face as they proudly said, “Zyon.”

A/N: Anything interesting about Zyon?

Can you guess who is Ursa’s Soul-Bound?

Until the next bonus content,

~Quill