SWNOVELXO Chapter 23: Chapter 23 – The One Chosen After
Far beyond the borders of Virelles…
In a dead temple swallowed by sand and time…
A girl opened her eyes.
She had no name.
Only a mark-carved in flame across her chest.
The gods did not whisper to her.
They screamed.
"You are not love.
You are balance.
You are the answer they refused."
Meanwhile, in the palace-
Elara stood in the center of the great archive chamber, surrounded by tomes no one dared read anymore. Her fingers brushed across bindings made of moon-leather and ash bark.
Kaelith entered behind her, quietly.
"They're building stories already," he said. "Of us. Of you."
She smiled faintly. "Let them."
"I heard one today from the market-said I was a cursed prince turned wolf."
"And me?"
He grinned. "A goddess of memory and war."
She paused, staring into the candlelight.
"Maybe that's not far off."
But her smile faded as she opened a scroll-old, brittle, and marked with a seal she hadn't seen since her third life.
Her breath caught.
"What is it?" Kaelith asked.
She handed him the scroll.
The Divine Vessel Protocol.
A rite used when a chosen soul breaks contract and must be replaced.
The replacement becomes not cursed-but owned.
A replacement.
Kaelith's eyes narrowed.
"They're grooming a new weapon."
Back in the desert temple-
The girl walked barefoot across cracked stone, fire trailing behind her feet like serpents. Her voice was hoarse-unused-but her eyes… were inhuman.
She looked into the mirror they gave her.
And didn't see herself.
She saw Elara.
The gods whispered through her bones.
"She stole what was sacred.
You will restore it."
"You will burn her name from the world."
In Virelles, the shadows moved.
Two palace guards disappeared without a trace.
Three astrologers saw the stars shift and bled from the nose.
A child claimed to see a girl made of flame walking in her dreams.
Elara felt it in her chest before the news reached her lips.
"They've sent her," she said.
Kaelith was already beside her.
"Then we find her first."
"No," Elara whispered. "She'll find me."
That night, Elara stood at the garden edge, barefoot in moonlight, breathing in the silence.
And from the trees…
A flicker.
A shimmer.
A girl no older than sixteen stepped out of the darkness, eyes glowing gold.
She said nothing.
Elara didn't move.
"You're her," the girl said at last.
"The one who broke the sky."
Elara's voice was calm. "And you're the one meant to put it back together."
A pause.
Then-
"No. I'm the one meant to bury you beneath it."