Caelum didn't sleep after the Vault spoke.
How could he?
The message hadn't been a voice. It was a presence—like the bones of the earth had groaned in thought and passed its memory through his blood.
"Six awaken. One resists. And the Seventh… remembers all."
He lay in bed long after the others slept, hand against his chest, mark pulsing faintly beneath his skin.
Each beat felt heavier.
Six?
But they'd only found three: him, Lira, and Eo. Four if you included the ripple they sensed in the surveillance aftermath.
The Vault wasn't predicting.
It was counting.
---
Caelum stood by the window at first light, watching storm clouds crawl over the academy. His reflection stared back at him hair unkempt, shoulders hunched.
What are we waking?
And what if I'm the one who opens it?
"Didn't sleep either, huh?" Lira's voice cracked the quiet behind him.
He didn't turn. "It spoke again."
She crossed her arms. "The Vault?"
He nodded.
She didn't ask what it said. Instead, she came to stand beside him.
"Let me guess. Cryptic. Ominous. Poor bedside manners."
That earned a faint chuckle from him.
"It said six have awakened. One resists. The seventh… remembers all."
Lira's brow furrowed. "Then we're behind."
"We need to go back."
"To the Vault?" she asked, skeptical.
Caelum's voice dropped.
"Not to open it. To listen."
---
They regrouped with Eo and Reian by mid-morning. The four of them descended beneath the library, passing through three layers of locked runes and one very annoyed ghost that guarded the old records chamber.
The scrolls were right where they left them quiet, brittle, half-alive with memory.
Eo touched the one bound in ash-dyed leather. "They react to the Sigils," she murmured. "I didn't see it before. But look."
The scroll's ink shifted as she neared. What once appeared as fractured glyphs now resolved into flowing script.
"Each bearer sees a different version," Reian whispered. "The scrolls aren't written in ink. They're written in resonance."
Caelum stepped forward. The wind curled behind him like a cloak.
The center of the chamber glowed.
One line blazed brighter than the rest:
"The Fifth hides in silence, wrapped in shadow not its own."
Lira stared. "That's... poetic. Unhelpful."
But Eo narrowed her eyes.
"No. That's a clue. Shadow not its own. Someone masking."
Reian paced. "Or someone who doesn't even know they're marked. The inhibitors could be muffling them. Suppressing their resonance."
Caelum's hand clenched.
"Then they're alone. And in danger."
---
They spent hours combing through the fragments.
As his companions debated sigil permutations and scroll sequences, Caelum found his focus slipping. He stared at the table, the maps, the glowing glyphs, and felt like he was drowning in information that refused to connect.
His thoughts spiraled.
What if we find the Fifth too late?
What if I'm the reason they fall?
What if I'm already becoming something else something I can't control?
He closed his eyes.
You were just a farmer's boy, remember?
You liked naps. You hated running. You didn't ask for this.
"Hey," Lira nudged him. "You're fading."
He blinked up at her.
"Sorry. Head's just... noisy."
She leaned closer, voice lower. "Then let me be loud enough to cut through it: You're not alone in this, Cael. Don't try to carry the Vault *and* our futures."
He met her gaze.
And for a moment, the noise dimmed.
---
It was Eo who found the break.
In a ledger of harmonizer incidents, she spotted something strange: one name had appeared five times in reports over the last ten days faint magical feedback loops, unexpected heat spikes, failed enchantments.
Each time, the name was spelled slightly differently.
Eo traced them all to one student: Seren Valewyn.
"Vireos House. Quiet. Top of the class in theory. Fails every practical."
Caelum raised an eyebrow. "Fails, or fakes failing?"
Reian added, "Or their magic isn't reacting like normal. If Seren is the Fifth, their Sigil might be inverting spells. Masking them."
Caelum felt a twinge in his chest like the Vault agreed.
"Then we have to find them. Before someone else does."
---
They found Seren on the observatory deck just after dusk.
The sky above churned with cloud and gold. Seren stood at the edge, wind brushing against their coat, eyes fixed on the horizon like they could see beyond it.
Caelum approached carefully.
"Seren?"
The student turned slowly pale eyes, quiet presence, the kind of calm that felt... too calm.
"Caelum Varrow," Seren said without prompt.
He stiffened. "You know me?"
A nod. "The Vault calls your name louder than the others. It hums when you breathe."
Caelum blinked. "You feel the Vault?"
"I don't feel it," Seren said softly. "I remember it."
Caelum's breath caught.
Eo stepped forward, careful. "What do you mean?"
Seren turned to her.
"The seventh remembers all. But the fifth... the fifth was born remembering nothing. My dreams are fragments. A fire without source. A song I know but never learned."
The wind pulled tighter.
Lira whispered, "They are the Fifth."
---
Suddenly, a pulse echoed through the air not magical, not visible, but present.
Seren stumbled.
The harmonizer on their wrist began to spark.
Veins of light pulsed beneath their skin one heartbeat, then two and then the Sigil surfaced.
Not fire. Not wind. Not memory.
Something stranger.
Something displaced.
The Sigil of Disruption.
The fifth had awakened.
---
Reian stepped forward. "You have to come with us. The Council if they see that"
Seren's face didn't change.
"I've known this was coming. I just didn't know when."
Caelum moved closer. "We'll protect you."
Seren turned their head.
"I don't need protection. I need a reason."
Caelum flinched, then forced himself to speak.
"We're trying to find the truth. About the Vault. About why we bear these marks. We can't do that if we're scattered. You've been alone too long. Come with us. Let us give you what the Council never will."
A long pause.
Then Seren extended their hand.
"Then let's remember… together."
---
Later, in the old courtyard, the five Sigil-bearers sat in a quiet circle.
Wind, fire, memory, flame, and now disruption.
Lira poked at the remnants of a campfire. "Five out of seven. We're almost there."
Eo looked up at the stars. "So why does it feel like we're already too late?"
Caelum didn't answer immediately.
He thought of the Vault. The messages. The way his father's name had been scratched from every record.
He spoke softly.
"Because we were never meant to find each other. Everything in Arcvale was built to keep us apart."
Reian stepped from the shadows, arms crossed.
"Then it's time to stop playing defense."
Caelum met her eyes. "You have a plan?"
She nodded.
"We don't need to fight the Council head-on. We need to get ahead of them. If we can reach the Vault's inner chamber… we may be able to awaken the Sixth ourselves."
Lira stood. "Risky."
"Everything is now," Caelum said.
He looked at his friends his allies.
Five souls bound by fate and fragments.
"If we're going to survive what's coming… we need all seven."