The Memory Vault shook violently as the glyphs overhead flickered like dying stars. Cracks split the crystalline shelves, and memory-orbs burst in a cacophony of shrieking voices. The scent of scorched magic filled the air.
"GO!" Rowan shouted, clutching the Founding Chronicle to his chest.
Avery carved a glowing path through the vault with his wand, shouting incantations to hold the crumbling ceiling. Lyra sprinted ahead, her silver eyes wide, hand glowing with Thirteenth sigils as she unlocked the concealed passage—a narrow tunnel veiled in ancient invisibility magic.
They dove inside just as the vault's central dome caved in. The explosion of memory-fire behind them scorched the walls, illuminating the tunnel like a lightning strike.
Stone began to shift unnaturally around them. The vault wasn't just collapsing—it was rearranging, sealing off exits, twisting its own architecture to keep the Chronicle inside.
"It's alive," Lyra breathed, panting. "The vault—it's protecting the lie."
"No," Rowan said, teeth gritted. "It's protecting the one who wrote it."
Behind them, footsteps echoed—far too many. Avery turned, eyes blazing. "Enforcers. They're in the passage."
"Split," Rowan ordered. "I'll take the Chronicle to the Heart Hall. You draw them off."
"No chance," Lyra snapped. "You're not dying alone."
"None of us are dying," Rowan said fiercely. "We make it out. We show them the truth. Or all this was for nothing."
He pulled a wand from his belt—not his own, but the blackened relic of the Thirteenth Founder. The wood hummed in his palm like a second heartbeat.
"I'll burn through whatever stands in our way."
Avery and Lyra locked eyes—then nodded.
They raced through the winding tunnel, Rowan unleashing flames that tore through barricades and enchanted stone. With every step, the Chronicle pulsed against him, whispering fragments of the past into his bones:
"They struck her down."
"The Pact was built on erasure."
"The Thirteenth didn't vanish. She was buried alive."
At last, light poured ahead. A doorway, cracked and trembling.
"The Heart Hall," Avery gasped. "We're almost—"
But as they reached the exit, a figure stepped through the portal, robes glowing with sigils of all Twelve Houses.
High Accordor Elion. His eyes shone like cut glass, and his voice was a blade:
"You should never have opened that book."
Rowan raised the Chronicle high. "And you should never have written it with blood."
Behind Elion, more enforcers surged.
Rowan took one final step into the Hall of Hearts, fire swirling at his heels, the truth clutched to his chest.
The Heart Hall trembled as Rowan stepped onto its marble floor, the Chronicle pulsing in his arms like a second heart. High Accordor Elion raised his hand—but the moment his magic surged forward, Rowan slammed the tome down on the center dais.
Blue fire erupted, not outward—but upward, curling into the air in ghostlike threads.
A dozen illusory scenes began to unfurl above them, drawn from the Chronicle's depths:
Thirteen wands forming a circle.
A girl crowned in ash, wielding the flame of all elements.
Founders kneeling before her—then turning on her.
The Pact forged not to preserve peace, but to erase a threat to power.
And the Thirteenth House, buried beneath false history.
"No!" Elion roared, his wand glowing. "This is heresy!"
Rowan stood tall, his voice calm and defiant. "No. This is memory. And memory cannot be destroyed—only rewritten."
A hush spread across the Hall. Dozens of students, professors, and council members now gathered in stunned silence, watching the sky above fill with history long buried.
Avery stepped beside Rowan, wand steady. "The people have a right to know what was taken."
Lyra's voice rose like steel laced with sorrow. "You built a world on forgetting. But forgetting only lasts until one person remembers."
Elion raised both hands. "You don't understand what you've done. If the Thirteenth House rises again, so will the War of Wands."
Rowan's voice dropped. "Then maybe this time… we finish it."
The Chronicle exploded with light, casting shadows of the past across every wall. From the flames, a final figure emerged—a spectral woman in Thirteenth robes, face veiled in fire.
The Founding Sorceress of the Thirteenth House.
She looked at Rowan. She smiled.
And then she spoke:
"You are not the first. But you may be the last."
Elion struck. Lightning magic tore across the floor—but Lyra deflected it. Avery countered. Rowan met it with fire.
The Heart Hall burst into chaos.
The Heart Hall burned—not with destruction, but with revelation.
Around Rowan, the crowd surged like a tide. Some reached for their wands. Others fell to their knees, overcome by visions from the Chronicle's release. The past whispered from the flames, wrapping around every student, every professor, every enforcer. The truth could not be undone now.
The figure in the fire—the First Flame, the Founding Sorceress—floated above the dais, her voice echoing from the walls.
"They feared balance.
They feared what we remembered.
But memory, like flame, returns. Always."
Rowan stood in her light, his palm glowing with the sigil of the Thirteenth House—now no longer hidden, no longer dormant. It bled up his wrist like ink or blood or prophecy.
Lyra moved to his side, silver eyes blazing. "They'll hunt us for this."
"Let them try," Rowan said. "We're not hiding anymore."
Avery raised his wand. "Then we give them a reason to fear the truth."
From the far end of the hall, a new sound split the air: the shatter of glass, the crack of stone.
A hidden door, long sealed, exploded outward.
Figures emerged—hooded, armored in ancient sigil-marked robes, each bearing the flame of a different element in their palms.
"The Wardens of the Flame," Lyra breathed. "I thought they were only legend."
One stepped forward and removed her hood. Her hair was white as bone, her skin lined with battle scars and magic-burns.
"You are Rowan Vale," she said. "The one who bears the Thirteenth."
"I am," Rowan answered.
She nodded once, solemn. "Then the House calls us home."
Rowan's breath caught. Behind him, the entire Heart Hall shuddered. The Chronicle glowed, its pages turning themselves, revealing the next line of prophecy in silver fire:
"When the sealed flame walks among the twelve,
The forgotten throne shall rise again.
One shall fall.
One shall burn.
One shall reign."
Gasps spread like wildfire. Professors backed away. The Accord stood frozen.
Because they all knew what came next.
And outside, above Blackthorn's highest tower, the sigil of the Thirteenth House reappeared in the sky, burning for all the magical world to see.
The war was no longer coming.
It had already begun.