Chapter 12 - Chapter 11: Purpose

EndlessReverie

Chapter 11: Purpose

𝚉𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚘𝚗

05/29/2025

A/N: I will start releasing chapters on a scheduled basis soon, it will be on Hong Kong Time. Have a fun read! Also, if you wanna ask about the power system, join the discord server from the book's description to ask me about the outline of it. Or otherwise, just wait for a chapter or two for it.

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The ceremonial chamber was sealed the moment the doors shut behind the last lingering soul.

Aidelie stood at the edge of the altar, her white gloves soaked in the ashy residue that fame from the chamber refused to fade or brush off. Her hands were still pressed at a solid surface as she didn't bother to move for long.

"Seal the upper vents. I want every trace of everyone's essence contained within this room," Asareth ordered, his voice low and grating with restraint.

He was already issuing commands to the cloaked stewards—loyal servants bound by blood and oath, disciplined to obey without question. But despite their discipline, unease rippled beneath their calm demeanor. Their faces, obscured by ceremonial masks, betrayed nothing—yet their movements were just a shade too slow, too uncertain.

They could feel it.

Even those with only the faintest sensitivity to the Corelace could sense the lingering resonance in the air—an oppressive weight that defied containment. The chamber had been sealed with high-grade binders, constructs designed to suppress and lock down even the most volatile of energies. Not a single thread should have escaped.

And yet, it had.

The pulse of it reached beyond the threshold like a distant heartbeat—vast, overwhelming, and wrong. It wasn't just powerful. It was unnatural. Divine.

It stirred something primal within them.

A presence not meant to be touched.

Not by mortals.

The white thread still shimmered faintly from the shards of the relic, like the mirror was overloaded with an anomalous source of energy. It slowly dissolved into the ceremonial matrix. It was undeniable proof—it was danger, a revelation the world wasn't ready for.

Aidelie finally spoke, her voice soft.

"He's not just awakened. He's… reached through the veil."

Asareth said nothing. He was still gripping the hilt of his ceremonial sword, knuckles bloodless beneath his glove. His golden eyes—eyes that had seen war, rebellion, and the death of kings—had never once held fear.

Now, they did.

"Asareth," her voice was like the wind, resonating towards her husband's ear. "A white thread—our son had a white thread. What do you think it could mean? Is our son cursed?"

Asareth's grip tightened further, the leather groaning beneath his fingers. The word lingered in the air like a blade unsheathed—cursed.

He turned slowly, eyes still fixed on the crystal's fading glow. The chamber stilled, holding its breath with them.

"No," he finally said, voice gravel-thick and heavy with conviction. "Not cursed—" at least he hoped.

A white thread was certained to be impossible. A thread is like an emotion, your soul. It has color and hue, it was warm and cold. It signifies something in you—but a white thread meant an anomaly. A unified thread with emotions that shouldn't be touched, colors that shouldn't be seen, and a form that should remain incomplete.

After thinking deeply for a minute, Asareth met with Aidelie's eyes, she was frightened and concerned. "This nation, continent — better yet, the entire world will see something new. This world isn't prepared for what to come, Zairon will either be someone to save us all or lead us into destruction."

A silence passed between them, as thick as blood. Then the crystal cracked—softly, like bones under pressure—and a flicker of essence, colorless and cold, drifted into the air before vanishing.

"…Seal this chamber," Asareth ordered, his tone shifting to steel. "Triple the veils, and silence the stewards. No word of this spreads—especially not to Luminark or Synthara. I'll deal with the tower myself."

Aidelie still remained there even as she saw her husband moved. He hoped Zairon would be alright—even if everything wouldn't be.

∗ ⋅◈⋅ ∗

Ethereth walked without a word, her steps soundless on the marble floor. Her expression was unreadable as always, but there was tension in the curve of her mouth. Her arm was wrapped around her brother's back, supporting him in the case should he feel dizzy.

And just minutes earlier, there were two girls lingering down the hallway just beyond the far side of the common chamber, their voices barely above whispers, sharing a breathless excitement only children in a noble house could carry during a sacred ceremony.

"I'm telling you," Sofia said, hands on her hips, golden curls bouncing with every word, "—Zairon's gonna have Aerus like me! Mother even inherited Aerus before she transformed it into Vortex! I hope I could also do something close as that—"

"Hold up," Yve scoffed, arms folded, her long raven hair swinging as she leaned against the stone archway. "—just because you and mom inherited Aerus doesn't mean he couldn't resonate others. Father inherited Ignicia, he even reached the third form and attained Harmonic Weave to Hellfire."

"Mother taught us about the forms and structure of our essence—meaning, Zairon could awaken any element and still perfect it! But I still bet it would be Aether—calm and ethereal, like our world."

Sofia giggled. "That's not how affinities work, dummy. Besides, Zairon is silent—that doesn't even come to terms to what I will guess."

"Well, what is the point of being quiet if you're not hiding something terrifying?" Yve fired back, but there was no venom in it—only teasing. "He's got that look in his eyes sometimes. Like he knows things he shouldn't, he may be even older than us."

"I mean… maybe," Sofia said softly, her eyes distant. "He's special. I can feel it, even Mother told us so." She pouted.

Their quiet betting game was interrupted by a subtle tremor in the stone beneath their feet. Just for a moment. It came and went—like the heartbeat of the Sovereignty itself. They froze.

"Did you feel that?" Sofia whispered, glancing around.

Yve's brow furrowed. "Yeah…"

And then, like a thunderclap muffled behind silk, the front doors behind them flared with light. Only for a moment. But it was enough to make every steward in the hallway flinch—and the two girls instinctively looked toward the bend in the corridor where their family should've returned. Yet, there were only two.

They didn't have to wait long.

From the far end of the passage, footsteps echoed. Measured. Heavy.

Ethereth appeared first, a specter of calm, her silver eyes blank and cold as frost. In her arms was Zairon—pale, unmoving, small—but not broken. There was something in his silence that demanded reverence.

Yve and Sofia ran.

"Zai!" Sofia gasped, voice cracking with panic.

"Is he alright?" Yve asked, faster, sharper, already reading the details—his loose posture, his unblinking stare, the silence from Ethereth.

Sofia reached them first, her hands trembling as she slowed. She didn't touch him—just hovered, eyes wide. "Zairon! Are you there? Speak!"

Yve drew close and knelt beside her. Her scowl returned, but it was soft now, a protective edge to mask the fear that had crept up her spine. "Zai… hey, dummy. You okay?"

Zairon didn't respond. His gaze was distant, not empty—but deep. Heavy, like he was staring across centuries rather than marble walls. His small hands were limp at his sides, but his breathing was calm.

Sofia's voice trembled. "Ethereth, what happened?"

Ethereth didn't answer. She shifted the boy's weight slightly, lowering him into Sofia's arms with the care of someone handling a precious item. Her movements were precise—cautious, even.

As if this moment had to be remembered perfectly.

"He needs rest," she said quietly, barely above a whisper. "Keep him warm. No one enters his room without permission. No one..."

Yve looked up. "Wait, what happened in there? Is he hurt? Is his thread broken?"

Ethereth turned away.

"Wait—" Sofia began, but the elder sister was already walking. "He's freezing!"

Yve removed her cloak and wrapped it around him without hesitation. "He's not bleeding. He doesn't look sick. But…"

Ethereth looked at them before nodding. Both Zairon and Ethereth continued threading the marble floor, cradling him closer— then they vanished around the corner.

"But something's wrong," Sofia finished, voice hollow.

They sat there for a moment, quiet as the hall faded into silence behind them.

Yve broke the silence with a calm mutter. "We need to ask Father and Mother."

Sofia replied with a nod before they took extra coats by the doors and equipped them, they threaded outside as they were exposed to a sight of their Mother and Father walking... faces down.

∗ ⋅◈⋅ ∗

Zairon's personal quarters was dim, its light drawn only from the soft glimmer of soul—lanterns set into the high-arched walls. Silken drapes hung still in the cold air, and the scent of lavenderwood lingered faintly from the hearth—now lit with a flint and steel that was hung nearby.

"... Rest properly, Zairon. I will check up on you with Mother tomorrow—" she paused, feeling the need to reassure him. "I, mom and dad, our siblings, and anyone that first resonated with their thread will feel like this. Don't worry, Zairon."

Zairon was brought to a queen-sized ceremonial bed of woven goldenweaves, scathed in cloaks and a thick fur-lined quilt. Ethereth had arranged everything with deliberate care: his breathing that she help cooled down with her essence, his posture that she supported to settle Zairon down comfortably, and the gentle melody that was playing with her soft hums.

"Take care, little brother."

She slowly stood up and opened the doors to take her leave—then, the door whispered shut behind her.

Silence.

Not the gentle quiet of rest, nor the muted hush of safety—but a deeper, suffocating kind of stillness. The kind that pressed against the core of his soul.

Zairon's eyes blinked slowly. Once.

Then again.

He wasn't asleep.

He hadn't been.

His gaze swept across the ceiling, following the arcs and designs carved into the sacred wood, tracing the flow of the linear worksmanship that took wonder as a sight. But none of it meant anything now. Not in the wake of what had happened.

He had seen beyond.

Not in the poetic sense the elders spoke of in their lessons on essence or the world. Not a vision gifted by fate, nor a memory of a former life.

He reached—through.

And something looked back.

He slowly lifted his hand from beneath the blanket, staring at his pale fingers that trembled. Not from fear, nor exhaustion. But from something deeper. The last lingering resonance of contact.

The white thread had brushed against the veil, pierced it, and returned incomplete.

He could still feel the echo of that other place, a realm of impossible silence. Colors without name, truths without form. It wasn't death. It wasn't divinity. It was something else.

Someone waiting.

Zairon closed his eyes.

For a moment, there was nothing but the sound of his own heartbeat—steady, fragile, human.

And then—

A flicker.

A ripple in the air above his chest, like water over fire.

The white thread shimmered faintly in his mind's eye—fraying and reweaving itself in endless permutations, colorless yet iridescent. Not bound to elemental affinity, not forged through lineage or ritual. Blank.

Not empty.

But unbound.

Yet as he thought of the thread deeply within his mind—something departed.

The white thread started departing into many forms.

The first was red—

Orange—

Yellow.

Green.

Then blue—

And Indigo.

Before all that's left was violet. The other colours disappeared from the back of his mind and all that remained was violet.

The violet thread pulsed, faint at first—like a breathless whisper.

The violet strand pulsed, quiet and deliberate, like a slow breath in the stillness of his soul. It wasn't white—not the unknowable thread that he had seen, that pierced the veil—but it wasn't ordinary either.

It felt like a reflection. A refracted truth.

He didn't call for it. It came of its own will.

The violet thread weaved in slowly, spiraling around the broken space—a shape not of dominance, but of resonance. It didn't fill the void.

It sang to it. Echoed within it.

And then Zairon remembered.

That moment during the ceremony—when the mirror fractured and reality thinned. When he had appeared.

A figure that looked like him—but battered, broken, and scarred. Eyes that looked distraught and a smile that couldn't distinct between happiness and sadness.

He hadn't understood it then. The message, the timing, the purpose of that figure stepping forth from beyond the void of his young mind. He had thought it merely a vision. A warning.

Yet he still he couldn't make a thing out of it.

He tried thinking deeply within, to find that individual that hadn't yet explained clearly. But he was just floating, thoughtlessly in remembering an occurrence he couldn't fully muster.

The violet thread was not a power bestowed—it was a resonance awakened by that encounter. Like the aftersound of a chord struck between timelines.

It hummed inside him.

Then he remembered something else, before he thoroughly disappeared and awakened Zairon from his short faint.

"Alicia, find her."

Zairon's breath hitched.

The voice hadn't echoed aloud—it had trembled through his bones, whispered into the hollow between thought and memory. Not a command, not even a plea.

A reminder. A vow carved into time itself.

Alicia

The name rang through him with clarity sharper than steel. His pulse quickened. He didn't know why it mattered but the moment he heard it again, he knew. The same way a forgotten word can still stir an ache in the chest before meaning returns.

Find her.

The violet thread pulsed once more, stronger now, as if stirred by that single thought. Its resonance expanded, stretching through his body like roots threading into the very marrow of his soul. With it came a surge of intent—not wild emotion, but direction. A force that didn't shout but carved purpose.

Zairon sat up again.

This time not out of confusion or weight—but with focus.

He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, the marble floor cold beneath his bare feet. The blanket slid off his shoulders, unnoticed. His hand hovered in the air, and the thread—still invisible to the eye—seemed to hum in tune with his gesture.

"Alicia," he whispered again, tasting the word like it was cake. His brow furrowed. "Who…?"

The image was fragmented—silver light, laughter echoed in another life, a hand outstretched beneath a falling sky. She wasn't from here. Or maybe she hadn't yet become who she needed to be. But she was out there.

Somewhere.

And she mattered. Not because someone told him so. But because he remembered the feeling.

Because his future self had carried that name through pain, scars, and failure—and still whispered it like a prayer.

The violet thread responded with a final echo, a ripple like wind over glass.

It was as if time had given him a name to chase. A piece of his destiny that had already been written but not yet lived.

The door to his room remained closed. The mansion still quiet.

But within him, something had awakened.

Not just the blank thread. Not just violet.

A purpose.

Not for glory.

Not for power.

Not even to survive.

But to find her.

To reach across lifetimes and fix something broken.

To follow the thread that fate had left behind.

He stood—unsteady, yes, but driven now. The future had whispered its secret, and Zairon would listen.

And one day soon, when the threads returned, when the white reformed and the others awakened…

He would be ready.

For her.

For all of it.

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𝙰𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝙲𝚘𝚍𝚎𝚡

Aerus — one of the four foundations of the Corelace. Its nature and affinity corresponds to the wind and breeze, illusions, and duality. Symbolizing freedom and thought, it's known for its green-ish hue.

Ignicia — one the four foundations of the Corelace. It is the form of crimson, the companion of heat and fire. It symbolizes passion, rebirth, and destruction.