They forged a prison with silver and salt.
But the girl they wanted to bind was made of thread and blood-ink, not fear.
They waited until dawn.
That's when the Containment Bell rang low, thrice, breaking sleep in half.
And every student knew someone was being put into the Unwoven Vault.
Only once in the last century had it been opened.
That time, it ate the person whole.
This time?
It opened for Elariax.
She didn't resist.
That's what terrified them most.
She walked with them twelve cloaked casters, iron chains in their hands.
She didn't flinch when they chanted.
Didn't speak when they tightened the runes.
And when they reached the Vault?
She smiled.
"You think I'm the thread," she said, quietly.
"But you're the ones tied to a story too old to survive me."
They threw spells at her back as she stepped inside.
Layers of containment magic.
Blood writ oaths.
Name severing circles.
And yet she walked through every one like silk through fingers.
They didn't bind her.
They revealed her.
Inside the Vault, they watched.
They expected her to tremble.
To scream.
To beg.
But Elariax?
She sat down on the cold stone floor.
Cross legged.
And began to weave.
Not a spell.
Not an escape.
A story.
One thread at a time, through the air, glowing like breath turned physical.
And the words?
They weren't in any known tongue.
But they made the chains hum.
They made the walls shift.
They made one of the Council members fall to his knees, sobbing blood.
Outside the Vault, students began to whisper.
Sol stopped writing.
His hand refused to move across the page.
Something inside him screamed that she was unsealing more than herself.
Kairon dropped his blade mid-drill.
It cracked on the marble.
And Eren…
Eren sat alone, hand to his head, remembering a voice that should have been gone.
"You were meant to choose."
Inside the Vault, the containment spells shattered.
But Elariax did not leave.
She waited.
Let them see.
Let them listen.
Let them understand:
You cannot contain what has already made a home in your magic.
Because she is the spell now.
And soon?
She'll be the god they accidentally resurrected.