Ancilia, the Phas's capital:

The Phas, a race that left its signs in the history of Tellor in more ways than one, a race that against all odds continued to fight and struggle for its position in the world.

After the great war against the phas's queen and how the Pact of Ten defeated this enemy that was almost able to control the entirety of Tellor, everyone thought that it won't be long before this race faced extinction, joining the many other forgotten races in the river of time, but, to everyone's surprise, that didn't happen.

This race remained at the edge of the big stage, being a part of many important events and refusing to disappear.

Many historians link the reason for their survival after the great war against the phas queen to the first Alpha, who took the phas's next queen as his wife, and how for years after that, he continued to protect the race as a whole.

The phas's castle was an enormous one with an appearance that would generate fear and astonishment in the hearts of whoever laid eyes on it. But in one corner of this great castle, there was a small unassuming plain garden in contrast to the rest of it.

At that moment, in that small garden, there were two young women, one of them was clearly a maid, she was standing next to the other girl and she had a complicated expression as she glanced at her from time to time.

Her features were pretty and gentle, she also had weird coloured hair, it was light green and it gave the feeling as if it was shining a bit. On her forehead, there were what seemed to be five gems, forming the shape of a spread up and upside down V.

The other girl was sitting on a simple wooden bench while she gazed at the flowers and roses and different plants in the garden. She seemed a bit similar to the maid standing next to her, but she was clearly prettier, and not by just a bit.

But different from the maid next to her, there were no gems on her forehead and the colour of her hair was a normal black and it had no radiance, she was like a normal human, but she had this strange air around her, as if she would never be mistaken as one, it was a feeling that would sprout from the heart of whoever laid eyes on her.

"Miss... Don't worry, I'm sure that nothing bad will happen to you, don't worry, don't worry..." Finally, and after a long period of silence, the maid couldn't hold herself anymore and said.

"Simlith, you seem to be the one who's worried here," the young girl said with a smile on her face as she looked at the maid next to her, before turning her head to look at the garden again, "We've always known that this would happen, you can't run from somethings, no matter what..."

"But..." The maid started.

"Simlith," interrupted the sitting girl, "believe me, I've since accepted that this is going to be my fate, and also, I've heard that this will help Lura, that's already better than me getting thrown away for some absurd deal."

The maid tried to speak again but her eyes fell on the sitting young woman's hands and she noticed how they were clenched into fists till her knuckles whitened, Simlith couldn't say what she wanted to and all she did was move her eyes away and murmur in a voice the sitting young woman was able to hear:

"I'll always be with you, miss..."

All the sitting girl did was smile and nod her head faintly. After that, she lifted her head and looked at the sky.

Above in the blue sky, there were forks of bright multicoloured light which appeared like heavenly rivers, they had different mixed colours but the brightest and the most obvious was the glowing green.

***

In another place in the castle, Amathira Eytherdlues, the phas's current queen, was inside the meeting room with the higher-ups of the phas while they studied what they had to do and how to react in the coming meeting in Lupri

Amathira appeared as a woman in her late twenties, she, like all phas, had a breathtaking beauty and had a calming, scholarly, collected air around her, she wore a tall green dress and a big headpiece on her head.

Dong! Dong! Dong!

While she was still amidst an argument with the other members, a loud knocking was heard, hearing that, Amathira frowned lightly as she glanced at the door. She had especially asked to not be disturbed if nothing too important happened because of the nature of the meeting.

She sighed as she looked at the female guard beside the door and nodded lightly.

The female guard bowed and turned to open the door, standing there was a phas wearing a long robe with gentle facial features, it was clear that he had ran to the hall from his fast breaths and red face, but he was trying to control his breathing and to appear calm as much as possible.

"I... Sorry for the interruption your Highness, but... But you have to know this," After he advanced till he was standing in front of the queen and the others, he bowed and said.

"It's alright, speak, what happened?" Amathira waved her hand as she ordered.

Hearing Amathira's words, the phas lifted his head, took a deep breath and said:

"The... The Luminous Rivers above the beasts' forest have... Have appeared," His voice as he said that was stuttering and trembling, showing how nervous and unbelieving he was of what he was saying.

The reactions of the people in the hall to what he said were different, some of them showed mild surprise, others just frowned as if they thought that something like that wasn't important enough and didn't need him to react how he did, while the last group, the one which Amathira was part of, showed serious expressions as they looked at each other.

"But isn't there still around half a year before their next appearance in that area...?" A female phas wearing a battle armour asked.

"Yes, and- and that's the problem, they appeared before their time, that's..." The phas started in a fluster before he was interrupted by Amathira:

"Lars!" She called in a calm but authoritative voice, "thank you for what you have shared, you can come to me and we will talk about this later, you can leave now."

Realising what he was just about to say, Lars apologised hurriedly before bowing and turning around to leave.

It was at that moment that everyone present realised that the appearance of the Luminous Rivers before their time had a higher importance than what was seen, with that, the already heavy atmosphere inside the hall became even heavier.

Changes were happening everywhere.

***

Lupri, the First's Castle:

In one of the castle's many gardens, one that held trees, flowers and plants from all over Tellor, and also plants and flowers that weren't supposed to be flowering at that time of the year at all, an ordinary-looking man was sitting.

He had the appearance and features of an ordinary man, short black hair with black coloured eyes that seemed to be the only thing special and different about him, they were deep and serene, as if nothing would be able to make him change his expression. He had the exact appearance of an average human being, if not for the oppressive and fearsome feeling that radiated from him from time to time.

At that moment, the man was looking at a little butterfly that had landed on a pure white flower, he had all his attention on that small butterfly as he watched it flap its wings.

Suddenly, as if he got shocked, he lifted his head and looked at the sky, high up in the sky, there was a scene all people in Lupri were familiar with, numerous forks of what appeared as heavenly rivers of bright multicoloured light filled the sky and extended to beyonde the horizon, those forks had different twisting colours, yet, the brightest colour was a white almost transparent one.

After the man looked at the sky for a while, he finally released a light sigh before lowering and shaking his head.

After quite a bit of time passed, he heard the sound of footsteps coming from afar, after the steps reached the door that led to the garden, they stopped there before the door was opened and a guard entered:

"Your Highness, the vodico Lexand is here, he said that he has important news for you."

The guard was weird and different from the castle's usual guards, he wasn't wearing the fancy armour or holding the long spear seen on the other guards, instead, he was wearing a dark cloak that covered most of his body, the majority of his face included, leaving only a bit of space for his eyes, and from that, two shining yellow pupils were seen.

Without turning his head or giving it much attention, the man nodded lightly and said in a calm tone:

"Let him enter."

After bowing, the guard went out, and Lexand entered while bowing his head and trying as much as he could to keep his trembling under control:

"Your Highness," he bowed.

"What are the news you have? What happened?" Asked the man.

Lexand stood up and said in a trembling voice as if he didn't know if he should say what he was going to say or not, actually, he really didn't know, the news he got, if it was a bit weird, didn't seem too important to him, but, when he told Ethren, that damned old fart, he insisted that it was something their new king should know.

"Your highness, I just got a piece of information and... And Ethren, our highest scholar, said that I should come and tell you straight away," the first thing Lexand did was putting Ethren's name on the table, to save himself in the case of any problems happening later, after he had dealt with that, he continued, "The Luminous Rivers have appeared in several places they weren't supposed to be appearing in yet, that started with the Beasts' Forest and then in the Forgotten Desert, and for some reason, Ethren thinks that they are going to appear on other different places, also they are showing no signs of disappearing again."

The ordinary-looking man remains silent for a bit after hearing Lexand's words before sighing as he murmured to himself:

"This is not supposed to be happening yet..."

***

The Beasts' Forest:

The sun had already set, Adam and Susan had stopped moving for a while, and they were preparing simple tents Adam had on him in a small clearing amidst the forest.

Suddenly, while he was busy lighting the fire, Adam lifted his head and looked at the sky with an obvious frown on his face.

Seeing that, Susan followed his eyes as she lifted her head and looked at the sky, but she didn't see anything there, just the stars and some scattered clouds.

When she wanted to turn to Adam and ask him about what was it that he was looking at, she saw from the east a scene that she was familiar with.

Far from the east, glowing multicoloured spots were moving closer, and the closer they got, the clearer it was that they weren't just some spots, they were more like advancing rivers heading to the west, branching from time to time to forks with the same size as the main body without affecting the latter's size.

"The Luminous Rivers...? But how? There's still around half a year before their next appearance..." Said Susan in disbelief.

"I don't know..." Murmured Adam in confusion, it was clear that this kind of thing was out of the limits of his knowledge.