The night pressed heavy on Empire High. Clouds strangled the moon, and the wards etched across the campus pulsed like veins under too much strain. Students had learned not to speak of the cracks forming in the walls or the strange humming from the ground; whispers only fed the dread. But the Circle of Five had no such luxury.
Seraphina leaned against the cold stone of Umbra Tower, the shard burning against her palm like an ember refusing to die. Its pulse echoed her own heartbeat, uneven and restless. The map beneath her skin glowed faintly, restless lines shifting as if the Vault itself were rewriting them.
The others were gathered in the chamber's low light. Tobias sprawled in his chair with a flask in hand, joking to no one, his laughter too sharp to be real. Kaelina sat rigid, her face ghost-pale, eyes hollow from the illusion of her brother. Riv paced like a caged wolf, fury leaking from every movement, her braid whipping behind her as if it shared her rage. Mei knelt, chalk in hand, scrawling sigils into the floor with methodical precision, but the tremor in her fingers betrayed her calm.
Elijah stood apart, silent, his shadow stretched long by candlelight. He looked carved from steel, but Seraphina knew that restraint too well—it was armor, not truth.
The silence between them stretched until Tobias broke it with a low chuckle. "So. We're all still breathing. Congratulations. Another rousing success."
"No one's laughing, Tobias," Riv snapped.
"Someone has to," he shot back, tipping his flask. "Otherwise we drown in all this noble silence. Pretending we're not falling apart."
Kaelina flinched, curling tighter in her seat. Mei's chalk cracked against stone.
Seraphina drew in a breath, forcing her voice steady. "We survived the Sanctum of Illusion. That's not nothing."
Tobias arched a brow. "Survived, sure. But every one of us came out of there bleeding on the inside. You think the Vault doesn't know that? It peeled us open like fruit and tasted the rot. What happens next time?"
"Next time we fight harder," Riv growled.
Tobias laughed again, sharp as broken glass. "Spoken like someone who's never watched herself slit her own throat."
The chamber stilled. Even Riv's pacing faltered.
Seraphina's skin prickled. Tobias wasn't just lashing out. He was unraveling. They all were.
Before she could speak, Elijah's voice cut through, low and final. "Enough."
The single word silenced Tobias, though his jaw worked. Elijah's gaze swept the group, burning with restrained fire. "We don't feed the Vault with fear. Not here. Not now."
"Then where?" Kaelina's voice cracked, fragile and raw. "It's already inside us. Don't you feel it? Every time I close my eyes, I see him—my brother—and I can't tell what's real anymore. How do you fight that?"
Her words twisted into Seraphina's chest, too close to her own truth. She remembered the illusion the Sanctum had given her—her parents alive, Elijah at her side not as a soldier but as a man—and the longing that had nearly undone her.
She clenched the shard harder. "We fight it together. Or we don't fight at all."
But even as she said it, she felt the cracks forming. The Circle wasn't just wounded. They were fracturing.
Mei finally rose, her chalk falling silent. She turned, her expression carved in ice. "The Vault is adapting. It learns each time we enter. It saw our fears. It cataloged our weaknesses. The next Sanctum won't just test us. It will strike where we're weakest."
"And where's that?" Tobias asked bitterly.
Mei's gaze swept them all before landing on Seraphina. "Her."
The word hit like a blade.
Seraphina stiffened. "What are you—"
"The Vault's map runs through your skin," Mei said, her voice precise, almost clinical. "The shards respond to you. Every trial sharpens its focus on you. You are the tether. Which means if you fall, we all do."
The silence after was suffocating.
Riv's eyes narrowed. "So what? We protect her harder."
Tobias scoffed. "Or we admit we're all just collateral damage in her personal destiny show."
Seraphina's stomach twisted. The shard pulsed hotter, as if answering the doubt curling through the Circle.
Before the tension could snap, the shard flared bright in her hand, searing hot. The map under her skin writhed violently, lines breaking and reforming until a new symbol blazed across her forearm—deep, jagged, and glowing like a brand.
Mei gasped, stumbling back. "It's shifting again."
Seraphina's breath caught as the glowing lines formed a path—a downward spiral, layers beneath Empire High itself, ending in a single point that pulsed like a heartbeat.
"The next Sanctum," she whispered. "It's under the school."
The chamber trembled. The wards outside flickered. Somewhere deep in the building, stone groaned.
Kaelina shuddered. "It's bleeding into the school already."
Riv slammed her fist into her palm. "Then we go down there and end it before it spreads."
"It's not that simple," Mei snapped. "The wards below Empire High were sealed centuries ago. Whatever's buried there was meant to stay buried."
"Until now," Elijah said quietly.
All eyes turned to him. His expression was calm, but his gaze burned as he looked at Seraphina. "The Vault isn't waiting anymore. It's pulling us down whether we're ready or not."
The weight of his words pressed into Seraphina's bones. She met his eyes, and the unspoken truth passed between them: this wasn't just another trial. This was the beginning of the end.
Later, when the Circle dispersed—fractured, brittle, desperate—Seraphina lingered in the hall with Elijah. The storm outside rattled the windows, but the storm between them was sharper.
"You believe Mei," she said finally.
"I believe the Vault has already chosen its path," he answered, voice low. His gaze flicked to her arm, to the glowing map, then back to her. "And it runs through you."
Her throat tightened. "And if that breaks us?"
His jaw clenched. For once, he didn't look like steel. He looked human. "Then I'll break with you."
The words caught her breath. The tether between them pulled taut, the restraint fraying. For a moment, she thought he might close the distance—end the unbearable space that lived between them.
But he didn't.
Instead, he stepped back, shadows swallowing him again. "Get some rest. Tomorrow, we go beneath."
Seraphina stood alone, the shard burning like a second heartbeat in her hand, the map beneath her skin alive with fire. The Vault was learning. It was waiting. And for the first time, she wondered not if they would survive—but what would remain of them if they did.