How does inheritance in House Helios work? Does Taion have no collateral female relatives who have ascended and have a stronger claim on the title?
Once a generation in House Helios - which, due to Ascension, generally works out to be about 50-75 years - the current head of House Helios, the Lady Ecliptic, will announce her intention to step down. Itâs considered good form for the Lady to wait until all the children of the âcurrentâ generation have grown and had a chance to Ascend; she may delay her retirement by decades if a favored sister or cousin has trouble producing an heir, or if there has been infighting in the Helios, she may retire early in order to deprive a certain branch of the family a chance at the house seat. The original idea was that only the strongest, cleverest and most powerful Daeva that Helios could produce would be worthy to rule - which, in theory, each generation would improve upon the last - and the House would not stagnate under the leadership of a single immortal, but instead shift as the changing world dictated. This policy was put into place approximately around the time of the assault on the Tower, when Israphel and Siel were lost to Atreia; it became clear to the Helios at the time that they could not afford to rely on single heirs or old prejudices to see them through the turmoil.
(In-story, the current Lady Ecliptic has been seated for just under 50 years. She has reached the lower part of the bell curve of average retirement dates, but she has not made so much as a twitch in the direction of stepping down just yet. There is plenty of time to do so, from the perspective of the House and her sisters and cousins - no one is much worried. The older generations presume that the problem that Taion presents will solve itself before competition for the Ecliptic begins in earnest, and while the current generation sees him very much as a direct threat to the Helios way of life, there is still enough time to do something about it before it becomes a very pressing issue.)
Anyway, when the Lady Ecliptic makes her announcement, the current aethelings of the House are named and brought forth in a House meeting, in order that everyone knows who is in the running. The title of aetheling passes from generation to generation among the Helios; only the most recently-Ascended Daevas in that house carry it, denoting their eligibility for the Ecliptic long before the actual event arrives, and those who survive the scramble for the seat but do not become Ecliptic lose the title afterward.
For example, Daevas A, B and C are Helios-born females who all Ascended after the beginning of the reign of the current Lady Ecliptic. All 3 ladies would hold the title aetheling. When the current Ecliptic steps down, Daeva A wins the title and becomes the new Lady Ecliptic. Daevas B and C lose the title of aetheling and are no longer eligible to compete for the house seat.
In the early days of House Helios, when Daevas were much fewer, competitors for the title of Ecliptic were only two or three, or perhaps four in an abundant year. As the Helios grew in size, power and influence, however, and Daevas slowly became slightly more common, the number of competing Daevas for the seat rose as well.
In-story currently, there are 12-15 Ascended Helios Daevas waiting in the wings for the current Lady Ecliptic to retire, including Taion. Most are from cadet branches and are considered by the older generations to have no real chance at winning the seat; the competition is cutthroat among the Helios, and usually within days of an announcement the field has been winnowed down to a handful, either by bribery, dirty deeds, or outright murder. It isnât unheard-of for a relatively weak Helios Daeva to announce very early that she is withdrawing from the race for the Ecliptic, either; given that immortal sisters have been known to kidnap or kill mortal relatives of their rivals, this kind of formal withdrawal is usually as much to protect their families as it is themselves.
Once the field has narrowed to the strongest handful of candidates, competitions generally become much more public and less back-room. The forms they take vary widely; a Helios lady skilled in the blade might challenge one of her rivals to a fight, or a scholarly type may hold a gaming tournament, or a nimble one a dancerâs competition. No matter the form, eventually the competitions will either produce one clear winner, or two equally-strong competitors, from which the current Lady Ecliptic will choose. That Daeva then becomes the Lady Ecliptic, any survivors of the competition lose the title aetheling, and the previous Ecliptic returns to a life without bullshit political shenanigans.
Then, in about 50-75 years, they do it all over again.
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