Night had long since fallen over Blackthorn Academy, but under a sky stained with deep violet and bruised blue, the world felt stuck—like it had paused between one breath and the next.
The courtyards were still lit by torchlight, but no one was talking about dinner or assignments. Students and professors clustered together in nervous pockets, their voices low and quick, passing rumors like flammable paper: The sky is remembering.
It began at dusk.
One star had blinked into existence—not the soft kind of star that gently fades into the night, but a piercing violet flare that hummed at the edge of sight. It cast crooked shadows across the crimson leaves of the academy's flame trees. Then another appeared. Then another. Until there were thirteen.
By the time Rowan, Lyra, and Rhoan reached the Moonlit Terrace—the highest open courtyard at Blackthorn—the sky looked like someone had carved strange sigils into it with fire.
They weren't constellations anyone knew. They weren't even shaped like stars. They were symbols. Glyphs. The kind you saw etched in old stone or in forbidden footnotes. Entwined vines. Coiled snakes. Hollow flames. Shards of mirrors. Blooddrops. An extinguished moon. Bells with no clappers. Each glowing with its own pulse and color, each one unfamiliar and yet… familiar.
Students tilted their heads back, stunned. Some dropped to their knees. Others raised wands without casting anything at all—caught between fear and awe. Professors came out in robes that trailed behind them like shadows, eyes wide, uncertain.
Rowan didn't say a word. He didn't need to. The air felt charged, heavy with something ancient. The kind of silence that made your heart beat louder than it should.
All around them, whispers rose.
"That's the House of Echoes, isn't it?" someone said behind them. "They created sound magic… before the Accord banned it."
"That one—Ironroot," another voice said, shaky. "They stood against the Council. I read about them in a footnote… and then I never saw it again."
"Breathless Oaths," someone muttered. "They erased a whole House… just for breaking a promise?"
Lyra's silver eyes were fixed on the sky, her face lit faintly by the violet overhead. "They're not random," she said softly. "They're in the order they were erased."
Rhoan stepped forward, squinting. "The first two… see how they flicker more than the others? House of Buried Truths and the Flamebound. The first to disappear."
And then, the first sigil—brightest of them all—flared once more and vanished.
Gasps rippled through the crowd as a soft violet glow formed beneath where it had been. A symbol bloomed on the terrace stones: delicate, ancient, and burning without heat. It pulsed like it had a heartbeat.
Everyone backed up.
Everyone except Rowan.
He stepped forward slowly. His chest thudded like a drum. Without thinking, he crouched down and touched it.
Warmth crawled into his palm, but didn't hurt. It felt like a breath. Like a memory. Then—
A flash. A hall filled with robed figures chanting words no one spoke anymore. A brilliant light rising from their joined hands. Then fire—soft, not cruel. A willing sacrifice. A goodbye. The last moments of a House choosing to be forgotten, rather than be used.
Rowan jerked back, breath catching. His voice came out low. "Lyra… this isn't just memory. It's a mosaic. Of their final moments."
Lyra knelt beside him. Her fingertips hovered above the lines of violet light, but didn't touch. "I can feel them," she whispered. "There was a song. A laugh. A promise made and never broken." Her eyes shimmered with something close to tears. "They didn't want to vanish. They were made to."
Rhoan stared at the next glowing shape forming overhead: a circle split by a single tongue of flame.
"House of the Hollow Flame," she read aloud. "They kept pure memory. The Accord sealed them away… said they were dangerous."
More students backed away now, eyes darting to their professors. Some were pale. Some were shaking. The air thickened with fear.
Then a familiar voice cut through the tension.
"There's no going back."
Avery.
He stepped into view, his arm still bandaged, staff in hand. His face was drawn, but steady.
"They're waking up," he said. "The Houses. One by one."
Professor Caelan of House Glass moved through the crowd, her expression unreadable. "If all thirteen are restored," she said carefully, "the balance… the Pact… it will break."
Lyra stood. Her eyes met Caelan's. "Good," she said. Her voice wasn't loud, but it rang with conviction. "Some pacts deserve to break."
There was a moment of stillness. A shift in the crowd. Not just fear now—curiosity. Wonder.
The third constellation brightened, and as it did, the banners above the Grand Hall rustled. Then—chimes. Soft, delicate. Thirteen tones, each unlike the other. Not music. Not warning. Something in-between.
Another sigil appeared on the flagstones—an open book, its pages blank. A gasp escaped a nearby librarian.
"House of Unwritten Laws," she breathed. "I… I've never seen it. But I know it."
From the edge of the courtyard, a group of masked enforcers pushed through the crowd, wands drawn.
Rowan turned, hands rising instinctively. He called up a shield—violet flame arcing out in a smooth wave. It didn't burn, didn't strike. It shimmered, gently, between the crowd and the threat. A quiet reminder: This is memory's domain now.
Professor Liris stepped between the enforcers and the students. "Stand down," she said, firm and clear. "They're not threats. These are echoes. Reckonings."
One enforcer hesitated. "Our orders—"
"Orders are written by people who forget," Rowan said. His voice didn't shake. "Tonight, we remember."
Above them, the sky kept shifting. Constellations rearranged. More sigils sparked into being—each time with another ripple of magic through the crowd. The Hand of Binding. The Serpent's Fang. The Veiled Star. One by one, they carved themselves into the stones of the Terrace like ghosts coming home.
"Look," Lyra said suddenly, pointing.
Near the eastern battlements, a small cluster of first-year students had gathered. One girl—tiny, her robes stained with ink—stepped forward.
She placed her hand on the sigil of the House of Ink.
And it answered.
Not with visions of the past, but with something else: her own magic unfurling. Ink lifting from her fingertips into the air, spelling out words she hadn't even spoken. She laughed, surprised, delighted.
The sigil blazed brighter.
Rhoan stared. "I think… it's choosing her."
The crowd hushed again.
Everyone was watching now.
The sky clustered around the Ink sigil like a wreath—brightest of them all. And on the girl's face, a glow bloomed. Not from her, but from the mark—half flame, half ink.
Rowan felt pride stir in his chest. "The Flame's Hollow," he said softly. "It hears her."
Avery frowned. "We're giving this power to a child?"
"No," Lyra said. "It's not ours to give. If she turns away, it fades. But if she accepts…"
Rowan crouched beside the girl, offering his hand. "Do you want it?" he asked gently.
The girl hesitated. Then nodded. She took his hand.
The ground sigil pulsed once more—and then leapt, imprinting itself on Rhoan's cheek. A quick flicker of ink-black flame. A gasp rose from the crowd.
Rhoan touched the mark. "It's part of me," she whispered. "But not all of me."
High above, the sky stilled.
Only thirteen constellations remained—twelve restored Houses, and the Thirteenth, still shining.
Rowan raised his hand. "These are our Houses now," he said. His voice echoed across the stones. "Not decided by fear. Not hidden by shame. These are the Houses we choose to remember."
And then, without warning, a final star blinked into existence. Pale violet. Brighter than all the rest.
The Thirteenth.
It fell like a tear through the sky—burning, trailing sparks—and landed not with a crash, but a whisper. Right into Rowan's hand.
He stared at it. A small crystal, warm and pulsing.
"A gift," he murmured. "From memory itself."
The enforcers didn't move. Some of them lowered their wands. The first-year girl smiled up at Rowan.
Professor Caelan stepped forward. Her voice was almost small. "You mean to rebuild the Academy on thirteen Houses?"
Rowan looked at her. "On thirteen memories," he said. "Because they're all part of us. Our strength isn't in what we silence—it's in what we're willing to carry forward."
She nodded. Just once. And stepped back.
Avery came up beside him. "What now?"
Rowan looked up—at the constellations overhead, at the banners snapping in the breeze.
"We let them teach us," he said. "And we prepare for when the Accord comes back."
Lyra took his hand. "They will."
"I know," Rowan said. "But this time, we won't be afraid of what we remember."
The crowd breathed out as one.
Above them, the sky glittered—not just with stars, but with names. Names once erased, now glowing. Memory had returned. Not perfect, not complete—but no longer silent.
And far below, the terrace shimmered with thirteen flames, each marking the return of a House once lost.
A single voice rose from the quiet.
"I remember."
And then another.
And another.
Until the Grand Hall echoed with thirteen hundred voices, saying the words together:
"We remember."