Fate. Destiny. Sud'ba. Kismet.

A hundred words that mean the same, all boiling down to one irrefutable truth of life.

No matter where and how far one runs, one cannot escape their destiny.

Fate cannot be challenged; not by gods, not by men, not by kings and not by beggars.

Unchanged, unconquered, and unbeatable it remains.

Until one day, a boy digs his heels in the ground and dares to challenge fate, thus rewriting his destiny.

                             ~~~~~

Iliana Nóvikova is two years old, asleep in her mother's arms, unaware of the celebration happening around her, heedless to the fact that her life, her future is being traded at the very moment.

A boy, fourteen perhaps fifteen-years-old, clasps little silver anklets around her feet to the scattered applause of the few adults that are present to witness the sacred ceremony.

He smiles at the mother, cold and venomous, hands itching for blood, itching to wrap them around her neck and squeeze the life out of her before he calms himself, glances down at the child in the woman's arms, a mockery of a gift that fate delivered to him, and feels fury consume his very being, setting his heart on fire.

Later that night, he stands at the highest point of his fortress, a cigarette on his lips and his head raised towards the starless sky,

There is a storm raging around him

(a visual depiction of what resides in his heart, painted by the universe for the world to witness in all its glory)

But he stands fearless, a prayer, no, a demand on his lips, for kings do not pray, do not kneel and beg, not even to gods.

And Azriel Ilyas Romanov was born a King, born to rule, and rule he would, even over gods.

"You mock me with her presence." Azriel snarls, eyes spitting fire. "Take her, take her back cause I have no need for her. Fucking take her back before I kill her," he roars.

Thunder seems to strike the ground at that moment, noise loud and deafening as if the skies itself are bearing witness to the boy's proclamation.

There is something terribly tragic in the air around him, the heavens crying, full of grief and a deep ache, a sorrowful lament.

Fate simply looks down at him, holding aloft a string and entwining it with his firmly, weaving the threads until they become one, before cutting them from the loom, a mocking whisper on her lips

"as you command, my king."

Iliana Nóvikova is three years old when her parents die in a foreign country, far away from home.

The little girl is found at the crash site, a miraculous sole survivor, crying and wailing while fire consumes her parents bodies behind her, leaving behind no trace of their identities, no trace of her identity.

She will not remember any of it for many years to come. There will be nothing that binds her to her previous life except for a half burnt pink bag with the name Ana stitched on it with beautiful expensive thread embroidery and a silver anklet on her left foot, the other half of the pair not to be found.

Iliana is three when she becomes Ana Winters, a resident of Winters Orphanage, a children's shelter in the small town of Oklahoma.

Thousands of miles away a young boy stares down at the man kneeling before him.

"delo sdelano, milord." The man whispers.

"What about—"

"Nikto iz nikh ne vyzhil."

The boy turns his back towards the still kneeling man, opens his bloodied palm and stares at the silver trinket, an ache in his chest, a hollowness that would remain with him for years to come, reminding him of what he had lost.

Time passes, and Ana Winters blossoms into a lovely child.

Her beauty becomes distinct from a very small age, setting her apart from the other kids who become jealous of the way parents always coo at the sight of the adorable child with her blonde hair, hazel eyes, pink cheeks and missing baby teeth.

She is four, sprawled across the playground, red cheeked, dirt on her face and arms, fat tears rolling down her eyes as she picks up the broken plastic doll which is missing an arm and clutches it to herself.

Ana has no friends, only broken toys.

She is five, beaming at her new mother, while her new father completes the formalities of her adoption.

Her new mother's pinched expressions are hidden behind a polite mask and untrue smile, too quiet, but Ana is too young to understand any of it .

She has a mother now. A mother and a father. A family. It is all that matters

.

.

.

Until it doesn't.

Ana is eight when she returns to the orphanage.

She cries and cries, clinging tightly to Miss. Jennie's skirt, the Matron being the only maternal figure she had ever had in her short life, burrowing herself as close to her as possible while the sweet man who had brought her back to her home speaks in a hushed whisper

"It was horrible...locked her in for days... downright monsters to do that to a child..."

Later that night as Ms. Jennie tucks her in bed, she folds herself up as small as she can, used to tiny spaces, and in a voice as quiet as the spiders that slink along the floorboards of the room, she tells the older woman —

"Ms Jennie, I don't ever want parents. Please don't send me away again."

The woman kisses her forehead, a wet I promise breathed in her skin but Ana finds no peace, has known adults to lie and betray, already knows the horrors of a broken promise and the pain of shattered dreams.

Next morning she wakes up to excitement in the house, the kind associated with the arrival of potential parents.

She creeps down the stairs on her toes, quiet, finds a young couple in the living room, cooing at the sight of the ten or so orphan children who have arranged themselves in a single line, heads bowed with shyness, hope in their eyes.

Ms. Jennie is making the introductions, and Ana squeaks, hiding behind the wall when the older woman glances in her direction.

"Are we left to meet any other child?"

Ana's lips wobble, tears in her eyes and fear in her heart, unhealed wounds stinging her little body

No. No . No

Ms. Jennie smiles politely, shakes her head, "No, you've met them all."

Ana is ten. She is not the youngest of the twenty children currently residing in the house but she is not the oldest either.

"What is wrong with her?" Thirteen year old Jack drawls while she sits under the tree with her favoured colouring book.

"She is a freak," comes the mocking reply, "even her new parents did not want her and returned her back to this shit hole."

Her only source of support comes from the Matron- Jennie Becker, a motherly figure to all the orphans. She sees Ana's struggles and takes the little girl under her wing, teaching her, guiding her and encouraging her, when her talent with art makes itself known.

Ana is thirteen and Ms. Jennie forbids her from ever visiting the grocery store down the lane by herself.

The teenager is glad. She has never liked the old man with his beady eyes who would always greet her with a pat on her shoulders, fingers lingering, his beady eyes following her every step.

Ana is fifteen and she stands apart from the group of girls giggling and laughing amongst themselves. Friends.

It is a cold and dreary day when Ana turns seventeen.

The little children at the orphanage sing Happy Birthday Anaaa in their sweet voice and she allows them to attack the cake, the one Ms. Jennie makes only when it is someone's birthday, and they do so with no delay, fingers covered with melted chocolate, licking the taste off, savouring the flavour.

She receives her gift nearly eight months later when Ms. Jennie bursts into her room  (the older girls whom she used to share it with having moved out once they turned eighteen), a colourful leaflet clenched tightly in her fist, crinkling in between the fat press of her fingers.

Ms. Jennie is vibrating with excitement as she allows Ana to have a look at the printed sheet.

It is a leaflet she remembers seeing plastered on a wall outside some high end store in the rich side of the town as she walked past it with Ms. Jennie.

It is a leaflet of an Arts Competition calling all artists to showcase their talent.

"Happy early 18th, my child," the older woman murmurs, presenting her with an entry pass to the competition along with a bus ticket to New York.

Ana simply stares back, too stunned to reply before she throws her arms against the matron in a joyful embrace.

Later that night when she climbs onto the bed, she pulls out the bus ticket from under her pillow, folds herself, cross-legged, right in the middle of the bed, a glowing feeling in her heart,  butterflies dancing in her belly.

She's going to New York.

Ana is seventeen and eight months old when she makes her first friend.

(Hi. I'm Alice.

My name is Ana. Ana Winters.)

She is seventeen and eleven months old, nearly eighteen, on the cusp of adulthood when she meets him for the first time

(Has met him twice before, but remains unaware of it)

A Man. A Monster. A King.

"Why are you crying?" He murmurs, voice like velvet, dark, a murderous fury hidden behind a too simple question.

Ana answers his question with a question of her own. It makes his lips stretch in a wide, broad smile, ravenous, and something inside her shifts.

"Who are you?" she sniffs

"Oh my malen'koye serdtse," he whispers, lips running along her wet cheeks, fingers trailing a scorching path over her neck and jaw as he cradles the back of her head.

"I'm your everything."

Ana Winters is eighteen.

There are tears in her eyes and a fury unlike she has ever known in her heart, a silk sheet she has wrapped around her naked self, lips red as if bitten upon multiple times, reddish purple bruises sucked across the skin of her neck and shoulders, hair wild as if someone has repeatedly run their hands along her long tresses.

She looks utterly debauched. She looks utterly beautiful.

A King, no, a man

(For kings do not kneel to gods, much less before a slip of a girl like her)

is knelt before her, hands spread, ready to crawl on his belly and beg if only she would stop staring at him with such burning hatred in her eyes

A silver trinket clenched tightly in her fist, questions about a past stolen from her on her lips.

Fate laughs and laughs, whispers, "Playtimes' over."

*****

delo sdelano, milord - It is done, my lord.

Nikto iz nikh ne vyzhil - None of them survived.