At first, Iliana thought she might really be dreaming.

But, the world of white that consumed everything around her was unmistakable. As were the red thread that seemed tethered to reality only by the charms of Iliana's anklet. Like every time before, they seemingly stretched into the realm's endless void. Without prompting, her mind provided the mental image of the silhouettes at the end of the two she had followed.

Almost unconsciously, she caught a thread with her fingers. Should she follow another? Was that why she was here? Trepidation and anticipation flooded her mind with equal weight. Who would she find at the end?

What person in her life was there not by chance or choice, but the will of the gods?

Did she truly want to know?

"Finally."

The voice hit her like a brick.

The red thread fell from her fingers as fierce anger stilled her frame. The knowledge of who she would see when she turned was heavy. Unwelcome, even.

But also an impossible relief.

The gods had not abandoned her. Not fully.

Her knees trembled as she spun to face him. "Koun."

Koun was exactly as Iliana remembered him last. His soft black hair framed his face to his ears in unkept abandon, his golden eyes gleaming with what might've been relief, or triumph. The god of tricksters served near-impossible to read at the best of times, and Iliana's connection to him had never felt thinner.

He towered over her with a lean, sun-kissed frame that, despite everything, read as relaxed as any other uninvited visit he'd graced her.

"Casual as ever, Iliana," he replied. There was no hint of insult in his smooth voice. Instead, the familiar, roguish confidence was edged with amusement. It seemed time had not dulled his bemusement with her attitude.

A burning question unfurled in her mind, and Iliana's tongue moved before logical thought formed. "How are you here? I thought the gods held no power in Reotak."

"We are never powerless," Koun scoffed. "The people of Chuteros may have abandoned their temples, but they cannot detach themselves from those who created them. They can't seal away the sun or the moon, nor can they stop time. As long as the seconds still turn into hours, I will exist."

Words failed Iliana in that moment.

Somehow, despite encountering him frequently and even disrespecting him occasionally, it had never truly sunk in just how powerful Koun truly was. He may have been a god, but in all appearances he was also just a man who gave cryptic advice.

But, he was also time. He was luck and medicine.

Koun was dreams.

And try as he might, she doubted even Zuher could fully escape that aspect of Koun's domain.

"You can reach me because I am asleep. I'm in your realm, not Kikin's," she realized.

"She thinks, on occasion," Koun observed with an insulting amount of surprise. It stroked the embers of irritation warming her chest.

But, it wouldn't due to anger a god, so she drew a deep breath, ignored his comment, and focused her mind.

"I can't use the anklet."

Koun frowned and reached towards her. Despite the feet between them, Iliana stepped back. His lips twitched in what might have been amusement, but he said nothing as his fingers caught something unseen. They tugged through the air, sparking a golden glow over previously invisible, crimson threads.

And, suddenly, the white world was alive with color.

An intricate cocoon of strings, each with a faint, golden glimmer, blocked her view of the god. Midnight blue hung limp over her shoulders, coated in thick amber. Gold threads coated the charms of her anklet, as well as the air around her eyes. Lavender encased the red stretching into the void. Forest green gathered around her heart and her neck, looping around her skin with a strength that left Iliana baffled about how she had never noticed it before.

But the most prevalent color, one that infested the air, and coated each length of string to a near suffocating degree, was a bright, heart-racing crimson.

Before Iliana could find the words to question what she saw, the gold faded, and so did her ability to see the unsettling strings.

"Fate still surrounds you," Koun mused. Something sparked in his gaze even as his eyes appeared to look beyond her at a world only he could see. "More prevalently than ever, actually. There is no reason you should not be able to reach them, just as there is no reason it should have taken me this long to reach you. Even Kikin could not overrule the Fates if they tried, and I doubt they are making an effort. It is beyond them to interfere with the branches of time."

"Because Kikin knows how to stay within the bounds of their domains," a new, yet familiar voice mused.

Between the breath of one second and the next, an impossible figure bloomed into existence. Their arms wrapped tightly around Koun's shoulders from behind, crimson eyes digging deep into Iliana's own.

Where Koun resembled a human, the new god was unsettlingly more.

Their hair, a bright shade of teal Iliana had never experienced before, hung to their chin in perfectly straight locks. Not a strand felt out of place. The color contrasted starkly with the deep, tan shade of their skin. Their face, and their delicate frame were perfect to an unsettling degree, and androgenous to the point that if Iliana hadn't been able to instantly ascertain their identity, she would've had no dream of guessing a gender.

It was the massive, yet delicate wings that flitted through the air behind them that screamed their name for her. No other gods' wings resembled the thin, veined membrane and structure of a dragonfly.

Aion smiled, and Iliana's heart seemed to stop.

Aion, creator of the faeries and god of bonds, thoughts, and emotions, was more than any depictions of him had ever portrayed. No art could capture the lavender aura that emanated from his entire being, nor could it depict the ethereal otherness that consumed every aspect of his being.

"I wasn't acting outside the realm of my domains," Koun refuted.

The denial felt oddly hollow, and Aion laughed as his wings paused their near-invisible fluttering. Koun's hands reached up to lay lightly over the back of Aion's, but made no effort to remove the clinging god.

"If you weren't, I wouldn't have had to correct her bonds in Eol," Aion said. "And you are lucky I did, Love. Humans and their like cannot remove their souls as easily as us. You need a true bond, not just bare strings of fate, to offer the pull she needed to reach your realm."

Koun frowned, but did not argue. Instead, one of his hands dropped from Aion's to play with invisible strings. The familiar gold glow took over his fingers, but this time the threads were not revealed.

"No, my additions have not failed," Aion mused, as if answering an unspoken question. "I'm appalled you would doubt me."

Fates. Iliana had forgotten that Aion could read minds. She was dead. He would hear her think something disrespectful and curse her, and she would die.

"She cannot use them," Koun retorted aloud.

"She is right here," Iliana interrupted. Actually, it would be her mouth that got her killed. No mind reading necessary. "And would like to be included in the conversation."

But, if it got her answers, perhaps it would be worth it.

Aion laughed, nudging Koun's head with his own. "I see why you like her. We're keeping her." He paused when Koun shook his head. Perhaps he heard something Iliana could not, because his expression turned thoughtful. "I don't believe Inna can claim her when she isn't here, so she is ours. And maybe Tai's. We'll bring her next time and ask."

"Tai is busy."

Aion frowned, then groaned. "Sol. I had forgotten. Next, next time, then."

Koun's fingers seemed to release an invisible thread, his eyes staring beyond Iliana. Aion, too, appeared to look at nothing for a moment as the golden color around Koun's hands grew stronger.

"Oh, perfect. If you cannot see her, then she must be free to join us then. A few months it is."

Overwhelming confusion began to fray Iliana's nerves. One cryptic god had been enough. Two were headache inducing.

"The anklet," Iliana pressed.

"Oh, right," Aion's wings perked to attention as the god seemed to focus. "Let me..."

He released Koun, before stepping around the god and approaching Iliana. She resisted the urge to step back as he plucked the red thread from the air and lit it with a lavender glow. After a second, he clicked his tongue and glanced at Koun.

"It has gone farther than you have seen, Love. They need not wish to interfere, as the power itself is too much. Their realm is deeper, and our temples are lacking. A thin connection is not enough. If Inna's green was weaved in, it may work, as she has enough of Inna. But, she has near nothing of me, and not enough of you. The bridge you created is smothered by black."

"I...what?" Iliana asked.

They ignored her.

Aion dropped the thread. His wings stilled their flitting once again. As silence encompassed them, Iliana could only assume he was listening to something she could not hear.

"You," Aion said after a moment. "It is the realm of dreams you have tied this to. You would be better."

Koun nodded, and glanced at Iliana. Bemusement curled his lips. "It would seem, little siren, we have reached a solution to your problem."

"Were you planning on sharing it?" Iliana demanded when he fell silent.

He waved her off, and between one second and the next, the distance between them had disappeared. Reality seemed to shift as the god's hand brushed the base of her neck, sending Iliana stumbling back in her haste to escape the sudden, and unwelcome touch.

"What the fuck?"

Koun made no effort to approach her again. His attention had entirely shifted to Aion, who was studying her neck with a thoughtful smile.

"Yes, that should do."

His words prompted the sudden realization that there was a weight against her skin that hadn't existed before. From it spread a pleasant, but unwelcome warmth. She looked down to find a golden gem that had been carved into the shape of a fox. Her hand leapt to the new pendant, fingers feeling along the seamless, lace choker holding it to her throat.

"My priests and favorites all wear the same charm. While anyone can see theirs, only they will be able to see yours," Koun explained. As he spoke, Iliana's fingers traced the gem with unplaceable emotion. "It is a mark of my favor, but also a gift of power. When you need this realm, touch it and think of me. I will know, and lend you what you need to cross."

The weightless charm seemed to form an anchor at her throat. Iliana couldn't breathe through the sudden, nonexistent pressure that suffocated her chest.

A mark of his favor.

Somehow, this was the feather that broke her. It had no right to, but it did.

"Why?"

The word escaped despite the lack of air in her lungs. Why? Why her? Why this much?

When he had first offered her the ability to see others through the charm, Koun had called it a gift. A kindness in the face of their alterations to her fate. It was not a requirement for whatever schemes the gods were following. From what she had begun to gather from the crumbs of information that fell her way, she wasn't needed.

Iliana wasn't a hero.

She was a pawn.

It was in the way Aatami had talked of the champions, and of life-altering fate, but nothing of Iliana herself. Then there was Inna's dismissal, and their certainty she would not come to Iliana's aid.

Koun's favor was not necessary.

But, he was offering it.

Her fingers clinched the charm as something shifted within her. Her eyes burned.

"Why?"

The whisper was followed by a moment of silence. Then, Koun smiled.

"Because, Iliana, you are worth it."

With those world-altering words, the gods vanished.

Iliana's knees gave out. Her hand never left the charm even as pain from the harsh impact laced her legs.

It felt wrong.

It matched nothing she knew of herself, yet, she could no longer deny it. Whatever role she played in what was to come, it wasn't nothing.

In the Trickster god's eyes, at least, Iliana was not nothing.

┈♔◦𓇣◦☽◦❤◦☾◦𓇣◦♔┈

Time passed differently in Koun's realm.

The minutes she spent collecting her shattered self might have been hours.

Eventually, Iliana stood. Numbness caked her frayed nerves, as did an awareness that no matter how odd the passage of time was in Koun's realm, the night was not forever. If she wanted to take advantage of the connection the god had offered her, then she needed to move.

Her eyes fell to the anklet's charms. What thread should she follow?

The serpent charm called to her. Beyond the silhouette it would guide her towards laid Kain. Every drop of her being ached to know what had occurred to him and the others after the mess at the pass.

The silence charm was tempting in its own way. Iliana may have been able to care for Del and ensure his survival, but he was only one side of the endless duel Zuher had forced. Following the silence charm held a chance of easing her guilt and fear when it came to Lykos.

And the others--they were mysteries. Solving who laid at the end of their respective threads would either heal or break something within her. She knelt, grasping the feather between her fingers. While she had the vaguest of hints about the owner of the triskele, she knew nothing about the feather beyond their despair. And, now, fear.

The emotion seemed to pulse through the metal and into Iliana's veins. Whomever it belonged to was scared and...guilty?

'That decides it,' Iliana concluded. She would follow the feather. With the strength of the foreign emotions emanating from it, something interesting had to be occurring to the owner. And, if the opposite was true, at least she would finally have a name for whatever silhouette she found.

She stood, and with her fingers tracing the thread, Iliana began to walk. Time bound forward and staggered back, endless and finite in the oddest way. Hours turned to seconds as she followed the endless path to its eventual conclusion.

For the first time, the blackened figure at the end of the crimson thread was feminine in stature. Their height was akin to Iliana's own, as were the loose curls that tumbled to their shoulders. They could have been anyone.

And so, with her heart in her throat, Iliana stepped close to the figure. Her fingers ghosted over the glowing feather in the center of the figure's chest, hesitation holding her back. There was no reason for her to be scared, but gods how her fingers trembled in those seconds.

'Just do it,' she urged herself. 'This changes nothing. Whomever it is, it changes nothing that you were fated to meet them.'

The second her palm touched the symbol reality snapped into place.

"--I cannot! It is not fair, none of this is fair!"

"Melitta, please--!"

Even before her eyes found the owners of the voices, Iliana knew who she would see. The realization turned her blood to ice, and made her body itself feel like a sick joke.

Still, she looked.

Standing a foot from Melitta's familiar figure was a woman Iliana desperately wished to deny as the owner of the charm. Her hair had been trimmed to her ears and dyed, but it did nothing to hide the siren's true identity.

"Rhode."

A/N: 

Dundundun. 

As a side note, I realize I've forgotten to add the timestamps to the chapters ever since I began posting again. So, as a reminder, Iliana's storyline is two weeks ahead of Kain's. I'm gonna go back and add those to the last chapters as soon as I post this. 

Anyways, I'm curious. Did this come as a surprise, or had some of you anticipated that Rhode would be one of the four charms? 

Any guesses on who is left? 

Until next week! <3