The Great Helianthuses - Pt. 2

King Aldrich Helianthus, was the only son of the late Empress Celia Helianthus.

After Aldrich's betrothal to Agnes, the daughter of Marquis Barnadot, The high priest of the temple received a message from the deities;

"The next sun wielder will possess the greatest strength of all the generations, even exceeding the great Celia Helianthus. The child must be able to contain it, a test that will take up most of their upbringing. If they succeed, the Kingdom will always be illuminated with Ravindra's blessings."

However, after years of trying to conceive, the baby inside Agnes turned out to be a baby girl who had a weak body.

Bestowed with an incredible amount of Ravindra's powers, the baby took away Agnes' life force and slowly killed her from the inside out.

In her last moments she was still able to hold her daughter; a healthy baby girl who cried non-stop at the sight of the world. With that, she was able to let herself go knowing she had done her duty as the Queen.

She was named "Reyna", a child born under the protection of the divine - in hopes she would be the strongest fire wielder in the history of Helios.

The King held onto Reyna like she was a trophy, presenting her to the Kingdom on the day of her birth. She was the shining light that promised Helios the throne; a return to their glory days.

*

Reyna scoffed at the painting of her father, then made her way to the next one - a lone woman with hair and eyes that matched Reyna exactly, wearing the finest fabric that was dyed in a deep maroon red signifying Helios royalty.

With crinkles that framed her eyes and smile, it was none other than her Grandmother, the late matriarch of the Helianthus family, Celia Helianthus, a fierce fire wielder who had unanimously won the throne of Zion over her incredible mastery, intelligence, and popularity.

Reyna had always looked up to her Grandmother, hoping that one day she could shine as bright as she did. Reyna had always walked inside her enormous shadow, with the pressure of having to master her powers pressuring her.

Her grandmother was regarded as the fiercest fire wielder to ever rule Zion, so it was a shock to everyone across the four kingdoms when she was defeated by Ostreaux Blackwell.

An anomaly of Zion, the textbooks would say. He was Zion's previous ruler, the one who managed to take away the throne from Helios. Born with elemental abilities that weren't out of the ordinary like Celia or Reyna. Yet when the time came to fight for the throne, Celia Helianthus withered like an extinguished flame.

Ostreaux left her bedridden for days, unable to manifest her elemental power - her head stuck in a trance, losing her mind slowly until her life ended.

With this, Helios had always been wary of the cunning Rivelians.

'What could they have done to be able to defeat the strongest hero in the history of Helios?'

Surely, they must have questionable means to be able to win the throne.

Although everyone had forgotten the history, they still held onto their own assumptions - resulting in the two Kingdoms being enemies in a cold war.

Reyna, too, had never forgiven the Blackwells for taking the only person who believed in her.