The nights after the catacomb incident stretched long and restless. Sleep brought the smell of smoke, the sound of whispering walls. Anaya tried to drown them out with lectures, with the routines of the Academy, but the voices bled through everything — through the scrape of chalk, the drip of candlewax, the silence between her breaths.
Sometimes she could almost understand them: fragments of names, pleas, a rising hum of grief that pressed against her ribs until she thought she might break.
The others heard them too, though none would admit how deeply.
Rafael began sleeping with a dagger beneath his pillow.Leila muttered runes in her sleep, the edges of her thread flickering faintly in the dark.Kato stopped attending lessons altogether, spending hours staring into the fire in the common hall, as though daring it to speak back.
And through it all, Mira watched them — neither ally nor enemy, hovering like smoke.
The night they decided to return to the catacombs, the moon hung low and swollen, a pale bruise above the Academy towers. The air shimmered faintly with wards, invisible threads vibrating with tension.
Anaya knew what it meant to cross them: expulsion at best, annihilation at worst. But she also knew something had changed since the wall burned beneath her hand. The ashes had chosen her. And if the Academy had built itself over the graves of the forgotten, then its foundations were already cracking.
They met in silence beneath the east wing again. No torches this time — only the faint blue glow of Leila's conjured light, hovering between them like a ghostly lantern.
"The Seers have been patrolling the hall since the Ball," Rafael murmured. "They know someone's been in the catacombs."
"They don't know who," Anaya said. "Yet."
Kato shifted uneasily. "And when they do?"
Anaya turned toward the sealed archway, its runes faintly visible beneath soot. "Then we give them something they can't ignore."
Leila's voice was barely a whisper. "The Seal of Embers…"
Anaya nodded. "Kaelen's writings describe it as a gate. The Academy calls it a tomb. I think it's neither. I think it's a lock — and whatever's behind it isn't dead."
Rafael gave a low laugh. "That's comforting."
But none of them left.
They began their preparations in whispers and fragments.
Kaelen's journal had given them clues — broken descriptions of a ritual meant to bind the unbound flame, to "turn remembrance into weapon." Each line was half-riddle, half-warning.
Only those who bear the mark of ash may call the ember forth.Only those who accept the fire may survive it.
Anaya bore that mark now, faint and dark upon her palm. She felt it pulse when she traced the runes carved into the stone.
Leila knelt beside her, eyes flickering between the journal and the wall. "We'll need five points of focus," she said. "Five threads woven around the seal — one for each of us. If even one breaks, the backlash will burn us alive."
"Then don't break," Rafael said grimly.
They formed the circle.
Anaya at the center, palms to the stone. Leila drew the sigils in the dust, whispering the syllables of Kaelen's script. Kato steadied the wards, Rafael kept watch with dagger in hand. Even Mira — drawn by a mix of curiosity and defiance — joined, completing the ring.
When Anaya spoke the first invocation, the air turned molten.
It began as a vibration deep in the floor, the hum of power waking after too long asleep. The runes along the archway flared orange, then red, then white-hot.
Whispers surged from the walls — not one voice but hundreds, layered and rising, pleading and furious.
"…open… open…""…remember us…""…burn the silence…"
The glow intensified. Cracks split the stone. Heat seared Anaya's hands, but she held firm.
"Now!" Leila shouted. "Focus the threads!"
They channeled their glimpse-energy together, weaving it through the circle. Anaya felt it pour through her veins, into the wall — and back. The Seal pulsed once, twice—
Then something inside it answered.
It wasn't a voice but a roar. A surge of heat so fierce it knocked them backward, torches bursting to life along the corridor walls. The archway blazed open — not shattered, but translucent, revealing a chamber beyond filled with swirling light and drifting ash.
The whispers fell silent.
Anaya staggered to her feet. The mark on her palm burned bright. "We did it," she gasped. "We broke the seal."
Leila's face was pale. "No… we woke it."
From within the chamber, embers coalesced into a shape — faint, humanoid, and blazing.
It stepped forward, flickering like a memory made of fire.
"Who…" Anaya began, voice trembling. "…who are you?"
The figure's reply came in a whisper that sounded like hundreds of voices speaking at once.
"We are what remains."
For a moment, awe silenced them. Then the heat shifted. The glow turned harsh, almost hungry. The embers began spreading, creeping up the archway like veins of fire.
"Anaya—!" Rafael shouted. "It's consuming the ward!"
Anaya reached out instinctively. The flame bent toward her, as if recognizing its mark. Pain seared through her arm, but she didn't pull back. "Listen to me!" she cried. "You wanted to be remembered. I remember you. I hear you!"
The fire hesitated.
Then, softer — a single voice, distinct this time, echoing through the chorus:
"Then carry us."
The blaze collapsed inward, condensing into a small ember that floated before her chest. When she reached out, it sank into her palm, fusing with the mark. The burning pain vanished.
Silence. The seal stood open, but the chamber beyond had gone dark again.
Leila stared, breath shaking. "You… absorbed it."
Rafael's expression was unreadable. "Or it absorbed her."
They fled before the Seers arrived, their footsteps echoing through the corridor. Behind them, the archway sealed itself once more, the runes dimming to a dull, bloody red.
By the time they reached the surface, dawn was bleeding over the towers. Bells tolled — not the morning chime, but the sharp, urgent rhythm of alarm.
"They know," Kato gasped. "The wards flared. They know someone breached the lower catacombs."
Anaya felt the ember pulsing beneath her skin, a warmth that wasn't entirely her own. The whispers had vanished, but something else lingered — a faint, rhythmic hum, like a heartbeat beneath her pulse.
Rafael caught her arm. "We run?"
She shook her head. "No. If we run, they win. They've buried these ashes for centuries. It's time they remembered what burns beneath their feet."
As the bells rang louder, Anaya turned toward the rising sun. The ember within her flared in answer.
And somewhere deep beneath the Academy, the walls began to stir again.