“Aeriels appeared on earth shortly before the dawn of the agricultural age. In fact, much of the archaeological evidence we have from that time would suggest that the agricultural revolution – which ended the age of nomadic hunter-gatherers – was brought about largely with the help of the Aeriels. Being energy manipulators, they could to an extent affect the local weather conditions to facilitate cultivation. Now of course, it was the humans that did all the actual sowing and harvesting; no Aeriel would have the patience for that. During those days the Aeriels just sort of…floated in and out of the scene, I suppose. Lending a hand here and there when asked but staying largely out of human affairs.

“Then Zeifaa came to earth. She was the current queen of Vaan – the Aeriels being a matrilineal race – and the most powerful Aeriel humanity had seen up till that point. According to pre-rebellion folklore, she had the power to control the tides of the ocean. Now apparently, she really liked the earth when she got here and decided to settle down for a while. And ‘for a while’ by Aeriel standards can be quite a long while indeed.

“If the legends are to be believed, during Zeifaa’s time on earth, one of the human tribes that had been driven from their home by another tribe asked her for help in finding a new place to settle. So she drove the sea away and raised the landmass we now call North Vandram – including Ragah – from under the water for the tribesmen to settle down; which they did with much fanfare.

“As you can imagine, this impressed the humans rather profoundly. And being humans, they of course deified her and asked her to be their ruler. And being an Aeriel, she of course thought that this would be a good bit of fun, and agreed. So they established the Aeriel Monarchy in Vandram – which later spread to span the globe – and the successive Aeriel Queens ruled both the races.

“Only they didn’t. Not really. The Aeriels were not exactly the ruling type. Their idea of a ‘queen’ was very different from that of a human’s, which both sides quickly discovered. They were – are – flighty, hedonistic creatures far more concerned with arranging the clouds to look pretty than with gathering revenue and quelling unrest. They had immense power, but no drive to actually utilise it for coherent, long-term goals. For all practical intents and purposes, humans have always been ruled by chieftains and overlords belonging to their own race. The successive Aeriel Queens were never anything more than figureheads; a role with which they were perfectly satisfied, as were the humans. Every now and then they would lend a hand when things got messy with wars or natural disasters, but that was really the extent of it. The Aeriels had no idea how to actually rule anybody, and were not interested in learning. The humans, for their part, were absolutely fine with that attitude.”

“Sounds like a perfect fairy-tale,” said Ruban impatiently. “So what went wrong?”

“Biology. That’s what went wrong.”

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“What?”

Dawad sighed. “Do you know how Aeriels reproduce, my lad?”

“Of course,” said Ruban, feeling vaguely insulted. He hadn’t been that bad a student. “They reproduce through their feathers.”

“That’s correct. But only partly.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s true that Aeriels usually reproduce asexually through their feathers. It’s the most common practice. But it’s not the only way they can reproduce. They can also reproduce sexually – with other Aeriels and with humans.”

“W-what are you saying, prof?” Ruban stammered. He wasn’t sure how much of this he believed. He wasn’t sure how much of it he wanted to. “You’re saying that Aeriels can…what? Have children with humans? That’s impossible and you know it.”

“You would think, wouldn’t you? I mean, they’re different species belonging to two different dimensions, for God’s sake. But it seems like nature took her laws and decided to shove them up our collective asses when it came to designing Aeriels. They’re reproductively compatible with humans, it would seem. And that compatibility is what fucked us all.”

“So what do these Aeriel-human hybrids end up being? Aeriel or human?”

“Neither. And both. They’re called vankrai, and they’re the deadliest creatures in existence.”

“Vankrai?” Ruban repeated, brow crinkling in vague remembrance. “Ashwin said something like that to Reivaa in Zikyang.”

“I’m sure he did. That is what Reivaa was. A vankrai. A creature with the raw power of an Aeriel and the ambition and avarice of a human.

“Not to sound cliché, but vankrai were born with…great potential, in one way or another. They had the drive and the motivation, the ability to set and pursue long-term goals, that the Aeriels lacked. And with it they had the godlike powers that are natural to the inhabitants of Vaan. I suppose you could say they had the best of both worlds – or the worst.”

“What do you mean the worst?” Ruban hadn’t realised he was sitting up at the edge of his chair. When had that happened?

“Well, this is just a personal theory; nothing backing it up but my own funny little ideas, you understand. But the Aeriel psyche wasn’t quite designed to handle the intensity of human emotions, I don’t think.

“Not all of their lives were documented, of course, and there weren’t many of them to begin with, so the sample-size for this hypothesis leaves something to be desired. But most vankrai seemed to be…overwhelmed…by the human side of their nature. They couldn’t control it, couldn’t really seem to get a handle on it. In one way or another, they tended to go off the rocker. Their humanity got the better of them, to the vexation of all concerned. A mad demigod hell-bent on ‘saving the fish’ or ‘ending the reign of the evil mosquitos’ is not a pretty sight.

“Of course, this wasn’t always the case. And the vankrai performed great feats, achieved great things when it went right. But those instances were rarer than the alternative.

“Still, it didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. Vankrai were very rare – born once or maybe twice every few centuries – and were always heavily outnumbered by both Aeriels and humans. They never really posed a serious threat. Until, that is, Tauheen was born.”

“Tauheen – as in the Aeriel Queen?” said Ruban incredulously. “She’s half-human?”

“Didn’t you see her eyes, Ruban? They weren’t silver like an Aeriel’s, were they? That’s how you tell a vankrai from a feather-born Aeriel. The eyes. They’re dark with flecks of silver – part human, part Aeriel.”

“The best of both worlds…” Ruban murmured.