Chapter 13: the chosen one

The vault doors groaned as the key turned, sending a ripple of power through the chamber. The stone beneath them trembled, and the air turned thick with an ancient energy.

"No!" Aria lunged forward, but before she could reach Kael, the vault's mechanism activated.

A series of sharp, glowing runes flared to life across the floor, forming a circle around the entrance. The arcane energy pulsed once, twice then lashed out like invisible chains.

A searing pain ripped through Aria's arm.

She gasped, stumbling back, her sleeve suddenly damp with something warm. When she looked down, crimson blood stained her skin, shallow cut had appeared across her forearm as if the magic itself had sliced into her.

The runes absorbed the blood instantly.

The chamber fell silent.

Then

A deep, guttural whisper echoed from the darkness beyond the vault doors. The entity was stirring.

Kael's smug expression faltered. He looked between the runes and Aria, realization dawning in his eyes.

"No… That's not possible."

Riven, who had been preparing another incantation, froze. Her amber eyes locked onto Aria. "Wait. It needed blood to unseal the vault… but not just any blood."

Aria's breath caught in her throat.

Jax took a step toward her, his face pale. "Aria… It was never about the Lumina family."

Kael's expression darkened. "It needed the blood of the Chosen One."

Silence.

Aria's heart pounded.

No. No, that couldn't be right.

The Chosen One was a myth, a prophecy passed down in hushed whispers someone fated to either save or destroy the world. But it wasn't her. It couldn't be.

And yet, the proof was undeniable.

The vault hadn't opened when Kael used the key. It had opened when it tasted her blood.

Riven took an unconscious step back. "You… You're the Chosen One."

Lila's hand flew to her mouth. Eryn swore under her breath.

Jax looked at her, his expression unreadable. "Did you know?"

Aria shook her head, her mind spinning. "No. 

A rumbling sound cut her off.

The vault doors finished opening.

And something inside was waking up.

Kael, recovering quickly from his shock, smirked. "It doesn't matter how it happened. The door is open now."

The air turned ice-cold as a figure stepped from the abyss. Cloaked in shifting shadows, with eyes that burned like molten gold, it moved with unnatural grace, its presence pressing down on them like an invisible force.

A voice, ancient and hungry, filled the chamber.

"The seal is broken."

Aria's knees nearly buckled.

The figure that emerged from the vault was unlike anything Aria had ever seen. Cloaked in golden light, its form shifted between solid and ethereal, as if it existed in multiple realities at once. Its eyes, burning with ancient power, locked onto Aria.

"The Chosen One has come at last."

The words echoed through the chamber, silencing even Kael.

Aria took an unsteady step back, her mind still reeling. "What… What are you?"

The figure did not answer immediately. Instead, it lifted a hand, and the air around them shimmered.

A second presence was forming something cold, something wrong. A shadowed mass, unseen yet suffocating, crept along the edges of reality. The darkness beyond the vault pulsed as if something on the other side was watching, waiting.

Kael grinned. "Perfect. The seal's energy is fading. The Shadow Realm will"

The guardian moved before Kael could finish.

With a mere flick of its wrist, golden light surged outward, slamming into Kael and his followers. They were thrown backward as the light wrapped around them like chains.

Kael struggled, his smirk replaced with fury. "You—what are you doing?"

The guardian's voice was like the weight of the universe itself. "You have no right to stand here."

With a final wave of its hand, the light expanded, engulfing the cloaked figures then they were gone. Not dead. Banished.

The silence that followed was deafening.

Lila let out a shaky breath. "What… just happened?"

The guardian finally turned back to them.

"You are all reckless. But you are not beyond salvation."

Jax swallowed hard. "You You knew about the Chosen One?"

The guardian nodded. "I have waited countless ages for .

waited in this vault, bound by fate, until the day the Chosen One arrived to claim their destiny."But not like this." Its gaze fell on Aria. "Fate does not always reveal itself in ways we expect."

Aria's pulse thundered in her ears.

"Destiny?" Jax said, his voice tense. "What destiny?"

The Guardian's golden eyes met Aria's, and she felt as though he was peering straight into her soul

"To bear witness to the truth of Aethoria," he intoned, lifting a hand.

At his gesture, the crypt walls shimmered, and suddenly, they were no longer standing in the vault but surrounded by an endless night sky. Stars spun overhead, galaxies stretched into infinity, and in the center of it all, a single glowing thread shimmered with an ethereal light.

"In the dawn of time," the Guardian began, "the cosmos was a vast expanse of darkness, devoid of light or life. From the void, a single thread emerged, shimmering with ethereal glow. This thread was the essence of the First Weaver, a being of pure light named Arachne."

As he spoke, the thread in the vision pulsed, and from its glow, a figure appeared—a radiant, celestial entity, her hands moving with graceful precision as she wove the shimmering thread into a vast, intricate tapestry.

"Arachne wove the thread into a tapestry of breathtaking beauty, creating the very fabric of reality. As she wove, the cosmos came alive—the stars, the planets, the glaciers took shape. The threads of fate were born, and the destiny of Aethoria was set in motion."

Aria felt her breath catch as the vision unfolded before them, revealing Aethoria's birth from the cosmic weave.

"But such beauty could not go unchallenged."

The vision darkened, and a chilling force spread through the air. Shadows coiled around the tapestry, twisting and writhing like hungry serpents. From the abyss, a monstrous form stirred—a creature of endless void, its presence alone enough to send shivers down Aria's spine.

"A dark force, known as the Devourer, sought to unravel the tapestry and plunge the cosmos into eternal darkness."

The scene shifted again, showing Arachne standing before the encroaching darkness, her hands moving swiftly as she wove a final, brilliant thread into the fabric of reality. The golden light bound itself around the monstrous shadow, sealing it away within an endless void.

"Arachne, determined to protect her creation, wove a final thread of fate, binding all living beings to the fabric of reality. Within this thread, she imprisoned the Devourer, casting it into the Shadow Domain—where it remains to this day."

The vision flickered, and the celestial tapestry faded, leaving them once more in the crypt. But the weight of the story lingered in the air.

Aria stared at the Guardian, struggling to process the revelation.

"You mean to say… that all of this," she gestured vaguely around them, "the legends, the myths… they're all real?"

"They were never myths," the Guardian replied. "They were warnings."

A tense silence followed.

Then Riven's voice broke it, sharp and urgent. "And the Shadow Concord? They want to unseal the Devourer, don't they?"

The Guardian nodded gravely. "They seek to undo Arachne's final thread—to sever the bond that holds the Devourer imprisoned."

Aria clenched her fists. "Why?"

"Because the Devourer is not merely destruction," the Guardian said. "It is unmaking. If the Shadow Concord succeeds, the tapestry of existence itself will unravel."

A heavy stillness settled over them as the enormity of the revelation sank in.

Lila who had remained unusually silent, let out a low sigh. "So that's it, then?" she turned to Aria, his eyes glinting with something unreadable. "You're not just the Chosen One you're the key to stopping all of this."

Aria's chest tightened.

She hadn't asked for this. She wasn't some hero from a story. And yet…

She looked down at the faint wound on her arm, the one that had unsealed the vault.

The proof was there.

She was the Chosen One.

And now, the fate of Aetheoria rest on her shoulders 

Eryn crossed her arms.curiously she asked "Then why did the shadow concord need the vault? What's in here?"

The guardian hesitated, then simply said, "A power beyond their grasp."

It was a careful omission, Aria realized. The guardian wasn't telling them everything.

Jax narrowed his eyes. "If the vault wasn't holding the devourer the n what is this guardian guarding? he thought to himself.

The guardian's expression darkened.

"The seals keeping the devourer contained are weakening. The Shadow Concord has already begun the process. And now that they know the Chosen One exists, they will stop at nothing to use her blood to break the final seal."

Aria's breath caught in her throat. Her blood.

She had already opened this vault without meaning to. If the Shadow Concord captured her, they could force her to do the same for the entity.

She suddenly felt very, very exposed.

Riven seemed to come to the same realization. "They'll come for her."

The guardian nodded. "Which is why you must be prepared. War is coming, and you are at the heart of it."

Silence.

Aria exhaled slowly, steadying herself. Everything she thought she knew about herself, about her purpose, had just changed in an instant.