The morning bell rang hollow, echoing through the vaulted halls of the Academy. Students spilled into corridors, robes whispering like restless shadows. Anaya moved among them, her steps unhurried, her gaze fixed forward. On the surface, she looked like any other, clutching books, muttering about the day's lessons.
But inside, her pulse hammered. Every whisper felt aimed at her. Every glance lingered too long.
She knew now that she wasn't just different — she was dangerous. And dangerous things, at the Academy, were caged or destroyed.
If she was to survive, she couldn't do it alone.
It began with Leila.
She found her in the greenhouse after class, pruning the bioluminescent vines for Professor Caren's botany lecture. The plants glowed faintly blue, their tendrils curling toward the warmth of her hands.
"You haven't been sleeping," Leila said without looking up.
Anaya almost laughed. "You can tell?"
"You look like a candle burning from both ends."
Anaya hesitated. She had guarded her secret discoveries tightly, fearing what would happen if the wrong ears caught them. But Leila had stood by her when whispers grew loudest. She deserved some of the truth.
"There was another," Anaya said finally. "A Transfer before me. They called them a rewriter."
Leila's shears stilled. Slowly, she turned, her expression sharpened. "And what happened to them?"
"They were erased. Scraped out of history."
Leila set the shears down. For once, the calm scholar's face cracked, fear flashing in her eyes. "And you think you're next."
"I think," Anaya said, lowering her voice, "that I'm walking the path they left behind. Unless I change it."
Leila studied her a long moment, then nodded. "Then you won't walk it alone."
Kato was harder.
He caught her after sword forms practice, wiping sweat from his brow, blade still gleaming.
"You've been… different," he said bluntly. "I don't like it."
Anaya folded her arms. "You don't have to."
His jaw clenched. "No, but I do have to decide if you're a danger to us all. I heard Mira spreading rumors that you're consorting with the Headmistress herself. That you're being groomed."
"And you believe her?"
"I don't want to," Kato admitted, his eyes narrowing. "But I've seen things. Echoes twisting around you like smoke. When you lose control, the rest of us feel it. How do I know you won't shatter me too?"
Anaya stepped closer, holding his gaze. "Because if I could, I already would have. And because I don't want to shatter anyone — I want to stop this place from swallowing people like us whole."
Something in her voice must have struck true, because Kato exhaled, slow and shaky. "If you're lying, I'll know."
"Then stay close enough to watch."
Rafael was easiest, though also most dangerous.
He slipped into her study nook one evening, grinning like he'd been waiting for the invitation. "So, what's this secret you're too nervous to tell me?"
Anaya stiffened. "I didn't say—"
"You didn't have to. I can see it in your face. The way you stare off, like you're holding a story that might burn you if you speak it." He leaned closer. "Tell me."
She almost refused. But the truth pressed against her chest, too heavy to keep.
"There was another student. Like me. They erased them from the records."
Rafael's grin faded. "Erased?"
"As if they never existed. But I found traces." She swallowed. "I think the Academy destroys people it can't control."
Silence stretched. Then Rafael reached out, fingers brushing hers. "Then let's make sure you don't end up erased too."
The warmth of his hand lingered long after he left.
The circle began to form — fragile, tenuous, but real. Leila, sharp and cautious. Kato, wary but resolute. Rafael, reckless but loyal.
Together they whispered in shadows, met in unused classrooms, pieced together fragments of hidden history.
They found mention of a hall that had been rebuilt three times, each after mysterious fires. They traced the records of Transfers whose families had been sent falsified letters. They uncovered notes on a ritual called Resonance Severance, a process designed to cut a student's gift from their soul.
All of it pointed to the same truth: the Academy preserved its future by erasing those who threatened its story.
And Anaya was next in line.
Mira, of course, noticed the change.
One afternoon in the refectory, she sauntered past their table, flanked by her usual circle. Her smile was all teeth.
"Forming a little club, are we?" she drawled. "How quaint. Planning to rewrite the future over tea and biscuits?"
Rafael bristled, but Anaya touched his arm, forcing him to stay quiet. She met Mira's eyes steadily.
"Some of us don't need a glimpse to know we're more than footnotes."
Mira's gaze sharpened. For a moment, something flickered — fear, or recognition, or perhaps both. Then she laughed lightly. "Careful, Transfer. The last one who thought like that vanished."
The words hit like knives, but Anaya kept her face calm. Mira knew. Somehow, she knew.
Which meant the circle needed to move faster.
Their first act of defiance came two nights later.
Leila had found mention of a sealed archive beneath the observatory, locked behind wards that shifted with the stars. With Kato's strength, Rafael's tricks, and Anaya's resonance, they managed to break through.
Inside, they found crates of confiscated artifacts: broken glimpses stored in crystal, letters half-burnt, portraits with faces scratched out. And at the center, a journal — battered, stained, but intact.
The first page was a name. The erased student's name.
Anaya's hand trembled as she traced the letters.
It was real. They had lived. They had resisted.
And their story had been buried.
The chapter closed with Anaya tucking the journal beneath her robes, a fire burning in her chest.
They would not let history repeat itself.
If the Academy erased the last rewriter, then this one would carve herself into memory so deeply that no blade of silence could reach her.
For the first time, she wasn't just surviving.
She was beginning to fight back.