The Masque had ended, but its echoes lingered.
Anaya woke the next morning with the phantom press of her mask still against her skin, her ears ringing with the relentless waltz. The warning note weighed heavy in her sleeve pocket, the three words etched into her skull: They know. Run.
But running wasn't an option. Not yet. Not while the Academy's walls closed in tighter with every day.
Classes the next morning were hollowed by absence. The desks that should have been filled by students dragged out during the Masque now sat vacant, as though carved holes in the room. No one spoke of it. Silence gnawed the air, broken only by the scrape of quills. Even Mira was quiet, though her eyes glittered with something unreadable whenever they flicked toward Anaya.
Professor Oril lectured on the Principles of Fractured Resonance, but the words slid past Anaya. Her gaze kept snagging on the stone walls. Cracks spidered across the plaster near the windows. The faint smell of smoke hung in the air — not from candles, but something older, deeper.
It wasn't until their dismissal that she noticed the pattern: tiny scorch marks etched along the seams of the stone, like faint handprints clawed into the Academy itself.
Leila noticed too. She lingered beside Anaya as they packed their satchels. "Do you smell that?" she whispered.
"Smoke," Anaya murmured. "Old. Like… ashes."
Leila's face paled.
That night, their circle gathered in one of the disused stairwells that spiraled beneath the east wing. The stone was cold, the torchlight dim, shadows pooling between the steps.
Rafael was already waiting, his mask from the Ball shoved carelessly into his belt. He frowned as they entered. "You felt it too, didn't you? The walls."
Anaya nodded. "Not just felt. They're marked. Scorched."
Kato scowled, arms crossed. "So what? This place is centuries old. Wars leave scars."
"No," Rafael said sharply. "Not wars. Rebellions. This isn't history carved into books — this is history buried in stone. They burned them here."
Leila shivered. "Kaelen wrote about it. The Ashbinding was not the first rebellion. Nor the last. The walls remember what the Headmistresses erase."
Anaya's breath caught. She hadn't known that passage. "You've read further?"
Leila nodded, pulling a crumpled page from beneath her cloak. The handwriting was jagged, ink smeared with ash:
They think fire erases us. But fire only leaves more ashes. The walls drink them. The halls whisper them. Listen close, and you'll hear the truth they cannot burn away.
That night, they listened.
Anaya pressed her palm against the wall, closing her eyes. For a moment she felt nothing but cool stone. Then — a shudder. A pulse. Like a heartbeat buried deep in mortar. Whispers crawled at the edges of her hearing, fragmented and broken.
"…hold the line…""…not all erased…""…ash into ash…"
Her eyes flew open. The torchlight flickered violently, shadows stretching too long.
Rafael swore softly. "You heard it, didn't you?"
Anaya nodded, trembling. "They're still here. The ones they burned. The walls kept them."
Word spread through whispers that week. Students spoke of nightmares — waking to the smell of smoke, finding ash smeared across their desks. The Seers grew restless, their veils twitching as though catching scents unseen. Rumors of "the Ash Whisper" churned through the dormitories.
Mira cornered Anaya one evening by the fountain courtyard, her crimson mask gone but her smile sharp as ever.
"You hear them too, don't you?" she said softly. "The voices in the walls."
Anaya froze. "What are you talking about?"
Mira's grin widened. "Don't bother denying it. I see it in your eyes. The way you flinch when the stone sighs. The Hunt isn't just after you, Anaya. It's after all of us. And maybe… maybe the ashes want a champion."
Before Anaya could respond, Mira was gone, vanishing into the fog that clung to the courtyard.
Their circle grew desperate to uncover more.
Rafael pushed for exploration of the sealed catacombs beneath the Academy. "That's where they'd put the remains," he argued. "Not a cemetery, not an honor. Just ash and stone, buried so the new students never learn what came before."
Kato resisted. "It's suicide. You think the Seers don't ward every entrance? You think the Headmistress doesn't know every stone beneath her feet?"
But Anaya found herself siding with Rafael. "If we don't look, we'll never know the truth. If the walls whisper, maybe they're trying to warn us. Maybe they're trying to show us a way they couldn't take."
Leila's voice shook. "And if we find what they left behind?"
"Then maybe," Anaya whispered, "we find out what happened to the one who came before me."
Two nights later, they descended into the east wing again. Torches sputtered. The stairwell bent deeper than before, as though reshaping itself at their persistence. The walls grew darker, the smell of ash thicker.
At the bottom, they found a sealed archway, runes etched into its frame. The stone was blackened, as if scorched from the inside.
The journal had spoken of such a place: The Ashes are sealed not to honor us, but to silence us. To open the seal is to court their fury. But fury may yet be our weapon.
Rafael traced the runes with his fingers. "This is it."
Anaya pressed her palm against the stone. For a moment, silence. Then — a rush of whispers, louder this time, rising like a chorus.
"…break the seal…""…fire remembers…""…the erased are never gone…"
The wall shuddered under her touch. Cracks spidered outward, glowing faintly with ember-light.
"Stop," Kato hissed. "You'll bring the whole Academy down on us."
But Anaya couldn't. The whispers burned through her veins, hot and pleading. She felt them in her bones — the weight of every student who had stood where she now stood, choosing rebellion and paying in ash.
When the cracks flared, she staggered back. A handprint seared itself into the wall, blackened and smoldering. Not hers. Another's. Older.
The whispers fell silent.
Only one phrase lingered, curling through her mind like smoke:
"We wait for you."
They fled the catacombs before the Seers could descend, hearts hammering, ash smeared across their skin.
Back in her dormitory, Anaya washed her hands, but the black smudges clung stubbornly to her palms. Her reflection in the mirror flickered, her eyes briefly glowing with ember-light.
The Academy was built on ashes — and now those ashes stirred.
Anaya knew then: their rebellion hadn't begun with her. It had smoldered for centuries, waiting for the one who would listen.
And the walls had chosen her to hear.