Chapter 19 Aria's First Prophecy

Chapter 19 Aria's First Prophecy
The Alpha Spirit rising from the ground was bigger than a house, with glowing eyes that looked like golden suns. Its howl made my bones tremble, but what scared me most was watching three-year-old Aria stand perfectly calm in front of it.
"Aria!" I shouted, running toward her as rocks and dirt flew everywhere. "Get back!"
But she turned to look at me with those old eyes, and I stopped dead. This wasn't my sweet little girl anymore. Something older and more powerful was looking out through her face.
"It's okay, Daddy Marcus," she said, but her voice echoed weirdly. "The Great Alpha Spirit won't hurt family."
The massive creature bowed its head toward Aria, and she reached up to pet its nose like it was a regular dog. Through our soul-bond, I felt Luna and Damon's shock mixing with my own fear.
"Impossible," Luna's grandma whispered, backing away from the giant spirit. "The Alpha Spirits were banished centuries ago!"
"You banished them," Aria amended, still petting the creature that could eat trucks for snacks. "But I called this one back."
Around us, the battle had stopped totally. Void Beings, werewolves, everyone just stared at the three-year-old talking to a legendary monster like they were old friends.
"Aria," Luna called slowly, "sweetheart, what's happening?"
Before Aria could answer, more Alpha Spirits started rising from the earth. Smaller ones, but still huge compared to us. They formed a circle around our group, their golden eyes focused on Luna's grandma with clear anger.
"No," the grandmother said, real fear in her voice for the first time. "I spent lives learning to control reality. I won't be stopped by dead creatures!"
She raised her hands and sent a blast of power that should have destroyed everything in its path. But the lead Alpha Spirit opened its mouth and swallowed the blow like it was eating air.
That's when Aria started speaking in words I'd never heard before.
"Kaelen-tharr voss nethys malachar. Threnody-vel ashkente vorthak."
The words came out of her mouth in a voice that wasn't quite hers - deeper, older, like she was summoning something ancient. Every magical being in the area gasped, because we all felt the power in those sounds even if we didn't understand them.
"What is she saying?" Damon demanded through our link.
"I don't know," Luna answered, tears running down her face as she watched her daughter speak impossible words.
But Elder Moonwhisper, who'd been hiding behind a tree during the fighting, stepped forward with total terror on her face.
"She's speaking Old Tongue," the Elder whispered. "The first language of magic. No one has spoken it in over two thousand years."
"What is she saying?" I asked desperately.
Elder Moonwhisper listened as Aria kept chanting, her little voice carrying across the battlefield with supernatural power.
"She's... she's reciting the First Prophecy," the Elder said, her voice shaking. "The one that foretold the end of the Age of Separation."
"The what?"
"Threnody ashkente malachar," Aria continued, her eyes now glowing the same golden color as the Alpha Spirits. "Vorthak-nel threnody-vel kaelen."
"She's saying..." Elder Moonwhisper stopped, struggling to translate. "She's saying that the barriers between supernatural places are breaking down. That the Age of Separation - when different magical beings stayed in their own regions - is ending."
My blood turned cold. "What does that mean?"
"It means," Luna's grandmother said with sudden excitement instead of fear, "that every supernatural territory on Earth is about to be linked. Dragons from the Hidden Realms, fae from the Lost Courts, demons from the Shadow Planes - all of them will soon be able to cross into our world."
She started laughing like this was great news.
"Don't you understand?" she continued. "I won't just control werewolf reality anymore. I'll control ALL realities when they join together!"
But Aria's shouting grew louder, and new words poured out of her.
"Voss-tharr malachar nethys kaelen. Ashkente-vel threnody vorthak-nel."
"What's she saying now?" Luna begged.
Elder Moonwhisper's face went totally white. "She's saying that when the worlds unite, there will be a Great War. Every supernatural species will fight for control of the new combined world."
"How long do we have?" Damon asked sadly.
"Kaelen-threnody voss malachar. Ashkente, ashkente, ASHKENTE!"
Aria's final word came out as a shout that made the ground shake, and suddenly I understood what she was saying without translation.
"Three days," I whispered. "The barriers fall in three days."
The Alpha Spirits around us howled in unison, confirming what Aria had predicted. In seventy-two hours, our quiet werewolf territory would become ground zero for a supernatural war involving every magical species on the world.
"This is perfect!" Luna's grandma laughed. "I'll drain power from all the incoming creatures and become a Reality God!"
But that's when something even more scary happened. Aria stopped glowing and fell, looking like a normal scared three-year-old again.
"Mommy!" she cried, running to Luna. "The bad things are coming! The bad things from everywhere!"
Luna caught her daughter, and through our bond I felt her desperate love mixed with absolute fear.
"What bad things, baby?" Luna asked softly.
"Not just Great-grandma," Aria said, hiding her face in Luna's shoulder. "Worse things. Things that eat whole worlds. They've been waiting for the walls to fall so they can come here."
"What kind of things?" I asked, though I wasn't sure I wanted to know.
Aria looked at me with eyes that had seen too much for someone her age.
"The Hunger Lords," she whispered. "The ones who destroyed the First Reality thousands of years ago."
Elder Moonwhisper made a sound like she was choking. "The Hunger Lords are just tales. Stories to scare children."
"They're real," Aria said sadly. "And they're already here."
She pointed toward the forest, and that's when I saw them - shapes moving between the trees that were darker than darkness, bigger than the Alpha Spirits, and radiating a cold that made death seem warm.
"They followed the Void Beings here," Aria explained. "They've been sleeping under our territory for centuries, waiting for someone to open enough doorways to wake them up."
The biggest Hunger Lord stepped into view, and looking at it made my mind hurt. It wasn't exactly solid, wasn't exactly living, but it was definitely hungry.
"Foolish child," it spoke with a voice like grinding bones. "You cannot prophecy what has already begun."
That's when I discovered the most terrifying truth of all.
The magical war wasn't starting in three days.
It was starting right now.
And we weren't just fighting for our area anymore - we were fighting to keep reality itself from being devoured by things that shouldn't exist.
The Hunger Lord opened what might have been a mouth, and the sound that came out made the Alpha Spirits whimper in fear.