Aria stood in the vast silence of the court.

  Colored light from the stained-glass windows drifted slowly across the marble floor, moving like quiet tides across the polished stone. The chamber felt enormous with only three people inside it now. Every sound seemed to echo further than it should.

  For a moment, Aria simply watched the shifting colors.

  Then she spoke.

  “I will not ask you to fight beside me.”

  Her voice was calm—clear, unwavering.

  It was not the voice of someone making a request. Nor was it the voice of someone issuing a command.

  It was a statement.

  “Whether you aid me… or oppose me… that choice is yours.”

  Her gaze moved slowly across the chamber as she spoke.

  The towering pillars.

  The banners of Archiea hanging in quiet rows.

  And finally—

  The throne.

  The seat that had carried the authority of the continent for a thousand years.

  Aria looked directly at it.

  “Archiea is a nation,” she continued. “A nation built on freedom and knowledge.”

  Her tone softened slightly.

  Not with weakness—rather with remembrance.

  “And a nation must decide its own path.”

  The words settled into the chamber like something ancient being reaffirmed rather than newly spoken.

  For a moment, no one moved.

  Queen Thalia remained kneeling where she had been.

  Then slowly—without urgency—she rose to her feet.

  For the first time since Aria had entered the court, a faint smile appeared on her face.

  It was not mocking.

  Not prideful.

  It was the smile of someone recognizing a story unfolding exactly as it had been told.

  “Spoken like a true founder,” Thalia said.

  She turned slightly and gestured toward the throne behind her—not just the chair itself, but the centuries of rulers who had occupied it.

  “You said the same thing to the first queen of Archiea,” she continued. “At least… that is what our history tells us.”

  Aria’s eyes narrowed a fraction.

  Across the chamber, the saintess—still kneeling—released a quiet breath.

  “History repeats itself eventually,” she murmured.

  Her voice carried a strange calmness, as though she were merely watching a pattern unfold exactly as expected.

  Thalia’s smile slowly faded, replaced by something more solemn.

  She placed a hand over her chest—the same gesture the maid had used earlier in the hallway of heroes.

  A gesture of devotion.

  “Even if you were to command us to destroy every nation in this world,” the queen said quietly, “this Archiea would gladly sacrifice itself to fulfill that will.”

  Her gaze rose to meet Aria’s directly.

  “We are your subjects.”

  She paused.

  “And only yours.”

  The declaration echoed against the high vaulted ceiling.

  There was no drama in her voice.

  No exaggeration.

  Only certainty.

  Aria watched her silently for a long moment.

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  Then—

  Unexpectedly—

  She exhaled.

  It almost sounded like a laugh.

  “The first queen,” Aria said slowly, “was still a child when I made her sit on that throne.”

  Her gaze moved across Thalia, studying her with the weight of memories stretching back a thousand years.

  “She was ten.”

  A faint trace of amusement crept into her voice.

  “She cried for nearly an hour.”

  The saintess blinked.

  Thalia’s eyebrow rose.

  Aria glanced briefly at the throne behind them.

  “She thought ruling meant people would stop scolding her for climbing the palace walls.”

  For a moment, the tension in the room softened.

  Her voice lowered slightly.

  “In the end… she accepted it faster than the adults did.”

  The saintess blinked again, clearly recalibrating her mental image of the legendary founder of the monarchy.

  Thalia folded her arms slightly.

  “Looks like her heir is the same as her,” Aria added.

  For a brief second, the queen’s composure cracked.

  “…I have never climbed the palace walls,” Thalia said defensively.

  The saintess quietly hid a smile behind her sleeve.

  Aria tilted her head slightly.

  “You’re thinking about it now.”

  “…That is not the point.”

  A tiny shift appeared in Aria’s expression.

  Something softer.

  Barely noticeable.

  Then her gaze drifted upward.

  Toward the ceiling.

  The mural stretched across the high dome of the court chamber—an enormous painting depicting the final battle of the Great War.

  At the center of it stood a lone figure.

  A woman.

  Two spears crossed on her back.

  Two swords hovering near her waist as though obeying silent commands.

  Around her, rings of floating cards spun like celestial halos.

  The artist had tried to capture motion... divinity... terror.

  But Aria only saw memory.

  She studied the image quietly.

  Then spoke again.

  “Tell me,” she said, still looking at the mural, “where are my creations?”

  Her voice had changed slightly.

  Not colder.

  Sharper.

  “What have become of them?”

  The saintess answered.

  “Most of them are sealed within a vault in temporal realm,” she said. “Others are guarded by the temples and other nations in the Infinity Legion.”

  She hesitated briefly.

  “And a few… remain in the possession of those gods.”

  Aria’s eyes lowered again.

  The faint colors of the stained glass crossed her face like shifting fragments of time.

  “I see.”

  She was quiet for a moment.

  Then she said,

  “I will need some things… not now. And I wish to conceal my identity. I am nothing more than Aria Carlford."

  The saintess nodded.

  “That can be arranged.”

  Thalia studied Aria carefully.

  “The Vault is in the temporal realm, as so we can only enter it from Infinity legion HQ.” the queen said.

  She stopped mid-sentence.

  Aria had already begun walking toward the throne.

  The queen finished anyway.

  “As my queen wishes.”

  Aria stopped beneath the mural.

  The painted version of herself stared down from above, frozen in the moment of victory.

  She looked up at it for a long moment.

  Then spoke quietly.

  "We shall take it..."

  The doors of the court chamber swung open with a deep, echoing sound.

  Armored officials and attendants hurried inside, their footsteps sharp against the marble floor. The quiet tension that had filled the chamber moments ago dissolved into the ordered chaos of governance returning to motion.

  One man stepped forward from the group.

  His armor carried the insignia of the western frontier—layered steel marked with a crest of crossed blades and a horizon line.

  He knelt immediately.

  “Your Highness,” he said, voice firm despite the urgency, “I bring urgent reports from the western ward.”

  The guardian of the western warden.

  His eyes briefly flicked toward Aria before returning to the queen.

  Thalia did not look at the reports.

  “I will review them later,” she said calmly.

  Her voice carried effortlessly across the chamber, silencing the murmurs beginning to ripple through the officials.

  “For now…”

  She stepped forward, standing at the base of the throne.

  Her posture straightened, her presence expanding to fill the room.

  “I, Thalia Temporis,” she declared, “the current ruler of Archiea on the planet Kagkal, hereby declare—”

  The court went completely still.

  Her eyes moved briefly toward Aria.

  “—Aria Carlford.”

  The name landed like a stone dropped into still water.

  “Aria Carlford is recognized under the status of Otherworlder…”

  A pause.

  Then.

  “…and granted a rank on par with that of a Sub-Guardian of Archiea.”

  For half a second, nothing happened.

  Then the court erupted.

  Whispers spread through the chamber like wildfire.

  “Sub-Guardian?”

  “An Otherworlder?”

  “Aria Carlford…?”

  Even the armored officials shifted uneasily.

  Sub-Guardians were legends.

  Individuals entrusted with authority just beneath the realm’s divine protectors.

  To grant such a rank instantly—without trial, without council approval—

  It was unprecedented.

  At the edge of the room, the saintess simply watched quietly.

  Because she knew.

  And so did the queen.

  Aria stood once again in the quiet chamber where she had first awakened.

  The room had not changed.

  The same pale stone ceiling.

  The same filtered light through tall crystal windows.

  And the same maid standing respectfully near the door.

  Aria glanced at her.

  “What is your name?”

  The maid straightened slightly.

  “It is Victoria, my lady.”

  Aria considered it for a moment.

  “Victoria,” she repeated.

  A faint smile tugged at the corner of her lips.

  “It has a nice ring to it.”

  Victoria bowed her head slightly.

  “Thank you, my—”

  “I’ll be going out for a bit,” Aria said casually.

  Victoria blinked.

  “Where will you—”

  Aria raised her hand.

  The air shifted.

  Then.

  She began writing.

  Not with ink.

  Not with light.

  With mana itself.

  Ancient symbols formed in the air before her fingertips—sharp, geometric characters twisting into existence like fragments of living mathematics.

  Runes.

  A language long lost to time.

  Each symbol burned faintly with pale silver light as it appeared, circling slowly around her wrist once written. One by one they formed a flowing sentence, the runes orbiting her arm like tiny moons bound to an invisible gravity.

  Victoria stared in silent shock.

  No modern mage wrote runes directly.

  Not like this.

  The symbols accelerated, completing the final arc of the sentence.

  Aria snapped her fingers.

  The runes collapsed inward.

  A pulse of distorted space rippled outward.

  And in the next instant—

  She was gone.

  No flash.

  No sound.

  Just absence.

  The runes dissolved into nothing.

  Victoria remained frozen where she stood, staring at the empty space where Aria had been moments ago.

  After several seconds, she whispered quietly to herself,

  "What in the name of the gods...”