Festival

Festival
Gender	Female
Classification	Seraph
Race	Stelian
Place of Origin	The Far Isles
Relatives	Akiva (son) Nightingale (mother)
Status	Deceased
Significant Other(s)	Joram † (consort)
Appears In	Days of Blood & Starlight (mentioned)

Festival was the Stelian concubine who gave birth to Akiva. Though the character is mentioned in Daughter of Smoke & Bone, she is not named until Days of Blood & Starlight.

Appearance

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Personality

Not much is known about Akiva's late mother, but from snippets of Akiva's memories she is shown to be a strong woman with a fiery streak, having been the cause of Jael's scar and reminding the young Akiva that he is his own person as he is taken away from her. Festival is a Stelian, the strongest of the angels, and is gifted with unique powers. One of her powers allows her to sense the future and she learns that she will give birth to a powerful son who will play a role in brining peace to the realms. Festival is duty-oriented, she allows herself to become a concubine and have her purity tainted in order to give birth to Akiva. From Jael's flashbacks, we learn that she was quite fierce and showed no fear of the militant brothers of the empire. She allowed herself to be taken and tainted, but neither her body or will was broken, is said by Jael.

Background

Festival was a Stelian daughter of Nightingale who was the First Magus to Scarab's grandmother. Festival had a strong ananke, a sensitivity to the pull of destiny. Her strong ananke is was led her to follow her destiny even towards the dark or even Joram's harem. Her will was strong and and could not broken. The strength of her will it would seem was something she believe that would be inherited by Akiva telling him when he was young, You are not his, even if the misbegotten were nothing more then instruments to the empire.

Plot

Days of Blood & Starlight

Not much is known about Akiva's mother aside from the fact that she is Stelian, a race of people who live in the Far Isles. She was part of Joram's harem, and eventually got pregnant with Akiva who was essentially an "experiment" in mixing Seraph and Stelian blood.

It is revealed that Joram gave Festival to his brother Jael after he was tired of her. Festival resisted Jael and ended up giving him a very large scar that disfigured his face for the rest of his life. Knowing Jael's penchant for cruelty, it is not surprising to find out that he killed her immediately after.

Dreams of Gods and Monsters

It was revealed by Nightingale that all Stelians felt a tug to their destiny and Festival had somewhat foresaw her part in bringing Akiva to the world. She was not perturb when Byon the emperor's steward had assigned Akiva his name. The name was a cursed name that no bearer of the name before the seventh Akiva had lived to manhood. It is unclear how much Festival sensed of Akiva's future or even if she knew how powerful and instrumental he would turn out in the future. It was only made clear that like all Stelian who felt the pull of destiny that she was drawn to fulfilling hers or risk the painful compulsion if they were to fight their destinies.

Relationships

Joram

Festival was Joram's concubine. It was unknown if Joram had a higher regard or distaste of Festival compared to other concubines. But he did know of her will but thought nothing of it because of his own pride. And some time after Akiva was taken away to be trained he gave Festival to Jael, maybe in the hopes of seeing her will break. His own pride and even his disregard of Festival that did not compel him to think of punishing Akiva after her death.

Akiva

Festival was Akiva's mother. Not much is known of her relationship with Akiva except that she did not fight the guards that came to take him away and that caused Akiva to believe that she was not any better than Joram. But it was later revealed that Festival had a sensitive pull to destiny. She knew that it was Akiva's destiny and might have already resigned herself that Akiva had a greater fate ahead.

Memorable Quotes

"Scribble whatever you like on your list, old man. My son will not be tangled in your feeble fates." - To Byon when he assigned the cursed name to Akiva

Gallery

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Trivia

• Out of all the Seraphim, the Stelians are known as the most mysterious and one of the strongest branches. Hence, Jael questions to his brother Joram on why Festival would allow herself to become a concubine since Stelians are known for their isolation. His doubts and suspicions are proven correct when Akiva's powers start to manifest years later.

References

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