Chapter 13 – The First Days in Aurion

(4th Excerpt from the Manuscript of the Chronicles of Arlen Sharim)

The air in Aurion wasn’t just breathed in—it was sucked in, as if every particle contained a truth that Arlen wasn’t ready to swallow. His lungs burned, not from lack of air, but from too much of something else. Something that made the Amulet of the Creator beat in his chest like a borrowed heart.

He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to hold on to the last clear memory he had: the dust of the desert, the smell of smoke and sweat, the familiar weight of the sand beneath his feet. Everything he was. Everything he thought he was.

Now, lying in that strange bed, wrapped in fabrics that shimmered like dragonfly wings, Arlen felt a chill run down his spine.

“This isn’t for you.”

The voice in his head was that of his grandfather, dead for five years. The same one that haunted him every time the amulet weighed more than it should have.

The door swung open without a sound.

“It hurts, doesn’t it?”

Aeloria stood there, her bare feet hovering a foot off the ground. Her blue eyes weren’t just clear—they were transparent, as if Arlen could see through them right into the void between the stars.

Arlen clutched the amulet until his knuckles ached.

“What have you done to me?”

She smiled, but it wasn’t a warm smile. It was the smile of someone who sees a cornered animal finally understand its cage.

“Nothing you didn’t already carry inside you.”

Her touch, when she reached out, burned. Not like fire—like the desert sun at noon, the one that melted sand into glass. Arlen recoiled instinctively.

“I didn’t ask for this.”

“No one asks for their own blood, Arlen Sharim.” But he ran anyway.

Aeloria didn’t wait for him to take her hand. She grabbed his wrist, and the entire room disappeared in a swirl of light.

The city exploded before him in colors that had no name. Aurion wasn’t built—it was grown, its towers rising from the ground like giant crystals, bridges of liquid energy weaving through the air. And at its center, the Core pulsed like a heart, each beat sending ripples of blue light through the city’s veins.

Arlen felt sweat trickle down his back.

“This is madness.”

“It’s your legacy,” Aeloria corrected, her fingers still wrapped around his wrist. The amulet only paves the way. Sharim blood builds the road.”

He looked down at his hands, the battle scars that now seemed insignificant. How many nights had he spent staring at the stars, wondering if there was anything beyond this miserable life in the desert? And now that the universe was showing him the answer, all he wanted to do was run.

A sudden movement caught his attention.

On the lower level, half hidden in the shadow of an archway, a boy was watching. His eyes were too dark for someone from this city of light, and in his hands he was twirling an object that made Arlen’s amulet vibrate violently.

“Leynad,” Aeloria murmured, and for the first time, Arlen heard something that sounded like concern in her voice. He shouldn’t be here.

The boy—Leynad—held up what he was holding: a shard of black metal studded with runes. The same pattern Arlen had seen at the Stargate.

“He knows.”

His grandfather’s voice again, but this time urgent, almost a warning.

Aeloria pulled Arlen back, but it was too late. Leynad smiled, and it was a smile that didn’t suit his young face—all sharp teeth and bad promises.

—Welcome to the end of the beginning, Sharim.

The shard in his hands glowed red, and for the first time since arriving in Aurion, Arlen smelled something familiar: the scent of blood in the air.

And then the world exploded.