(Flashback – The Night Aria Was Born)
The air stank of blood and magic.
The birthing den deep beneath the mountain temple was lit only by silver candles—each flame flickering in unnatural stillness. Not even the wind dared stir.
High Priestess Merel knelt in blood, her robes soaked as she caught the infant sliding from her mother's trembling body.
The mother—a fierce warrior named Isolde of the Hollow Fang—screamed once more, then collapsed, her body trembling, eyes wide with something far worse than pain.
Fear.
"She's here," Merel whispered. "She chose us."
The infant wailed.
But the sound wasn't normal.
It wasn't a baby's cry.
It was a wolf's howl—ancient, piercing, raw.
The candle flames flared.
The mountain trembled.
And every midwife in the room dropped to their knees in terror.
"Goddess have mercy," one muttered. "The prophecy—"
"She is not the prophecy," Merel snapped, eyes hard as obsidian. "Not yet. Not if we act quickly."
She turned to the bloodied warrior woman. "You have minutes, Isolde. Do you understand what must be done?"
Tears streamed down Isolde's cheeks. "She's my child."
"She is more than that," Merel whispered, wrapping the newborn in white silk runes. "She is the Gateborn. The first in five hundred years. If her power awakens too early, she will tear the world apart without even knowing it."
The child's cries had stopped.
She stared at the priestess now, eyes glowing faintly.
Not wolf-gold.
But star-silver.
An omen.
A warning.
"She must never know," Isolde choked out, reaching a trembling hand toward her daughter. "Please…"
Merel softened, placing the child in her arms.
"You will hold her," she said. "Once. And then we begin the binding."
Isolde looked down at the small bundle in her arms, the tiny chest rising and falling, the fist curled around a strand of her mother's hair.
"I wanted to name her Lira," she whispered. "After my mother."
"You cannot," Merel said. "The old name carries blood magic. It will call to the spirit inside her."
Isolde shut her eyes.
Then opened them.
"Then call her Aria," she whispered. "It means song."
"May she never learn her true voice," Merel murmured, and gestured to the stone altar.
The ceremony began.
---
It took seven blood seals to bind the power.
The first was carved into her chest—just over her heart—marked by a faint birthmark that no healer could ever explain.
The second was buried in her name—a false thread weaved into her spirit to mask her from those who would search for the Gateborn.
The third was hidden in a lullaby, one only her mother sang, layered in protection runes no infant could ever interpret.
The fourth was the price of memory—her mother allowed the priestess to take the memory of Aria's first transformation before it could ever happen.
The fifth seal was a gift from the Moon Goddess herself—one night of forgetting every full moon, a gap in Aria's soul that would always feel like missing time.
The sixth seal was the most painful: the silencing of her wolf.
Until her eighteenth year, Aria would hear no voice within. No instincts. No comfort in the dark.
Only silence.
And the seventh seal—the final protection—was the cruelest.
Her mother's life.
It was not a sacrifice of blood. It was a curse.
As the power surged around the altar and Aria's infant body arched toward the heavens, Merel placed her hand on Isolde's heart and whispered the price.
> "You will live. But she will never know you."
> "You will walk the earth. But your face will be forgotten. Your name erased."
> "And when her true power awakens, you will be the first she fears."
Isolde wept silently as the final rune sank into Aria's soul.
Then the light dimmed.
The temple fell still.
The baby lay silent.
No more silver in her eyes.
Only warmth.
Only innocence.
Only Aria.
---
Outside the temple, hidden among the trees, an old man watched the mountain glow and fade.
He wore robes older than any remembered kingdom and carried a scroll etched in dragonfire.
He turned to the raven perched on his shoulder.
> "The girl is sealed," he murmured.
The bird cawed in reply.
He nodded. "Then we wait."
> "And when she awakens?" the bird asked, its voice echoing in his mind.
The man's eyes glinted. "Then the Gate opens, and the world chooses. To kneel…"
He held up a finger, and the wind shifted.
> "Or to burn."
(Back to Present)
She woke gasping, her heart slamming against her ribs.
Sweat drenched her sheets, and a sharp ache pulsed just over her heart—right where the strange birthmark had always been.
She sat up, panting, eyes wide.
"I saw her."
The room was dark. Empty.
But the vision still burned behind her eyes.
A stone altar.
A woman who looked just like her, sobbing.
A high priestess whispering curses.
Seven seals.
Aria touched her chest, feeling the heat still rising from beneath her skin.
"I was sealed."
It wasn't a dream.
It was a memory.
But not hers.
Not completely.
Her mother's.
The voice in the flame stirred again inside her, softer this time.
> "You see now. They feared you. Even when you were helpless."