The ruin stayed behind them, but something about it clung to Raka.
By the time the forest thinned and Vel'Thara's boundary glyphs glimmered in the distance, the air felt heavier, more solid. Like reality was slowly locking back into place. He didn't mind. Weight was easier to carry than silence.
Kael broke the lull first. "So... no one died. That's got to be worth bonus marks, right?"
"Only if you can convince Lorr the memory-ghost-thing wasn't your cousin," Coren replied.
Jace exhaled like he'd been holding his breath for miles. "If my cousin could float and scream in twelve directions, the family reunions would be way more interesting."
Sylva marched ahead, quiet as always. But her hand never left her sword the entire walk back.
Raka trailed behind them, gaze flicking back to the trees. Nothing followed but it felt like something could have.
They reached the academy at dusk. Vel'Thara's towers rose like pale spines against a bruised sky. Students clustered under the arches, gossiping about rankings, rotations, and dinner menus.
Inside the central hall, Master Lorr stood waiting.
His robes were uncreased, his posture straight. But his eyes—those dark, sunken things—looked like they hadn't closed in days.
"Briefing. Now."
The debrief room always felt colder than necessary. No windows, only slate walls lined with spellward tracings and iron rings. Remnants from an older time, before the academy became respectable.
Jace sat nearest the wall, goggles perched awkwardly on his forehead. Sylva stood behind her chair, refusing to sit. Kael leaned back lazily, but one boot tapped against the floor. Nervous energy he couldn't disguise.
Raka stood, arms folded, eyes drifting to the brass pendulum swinging slowly in the corner.
Coren took the lead, his voice clipped but clear. "Primary goal met. Ruin scouted. Relic located. Hostile encountered and neutralized. No casualties. Minor injuries. Field effects stabilized after contact with artifact."
Lorr frowned. "Field effects. Clarify."
"Sub-realm fluctuation," Jace said. "Localized. The spatial structure inside the ruin warped briefly when the relic was disturbed."
"Disturbed," Lorr echoed. "By whom?"
All eyes shifted.
"Raka touched it," Sylva said evenly.
Lorr's attention sharpened. "Was he instructed to?"
"No," Kael admitted. "But it didn't exactly come with a warning label."
"He just... moved," Jace added, rubbing the back of his neck. "Like he already knew what it would do."
Raka said nothing.
"You felt something, didn't you?" Lorr asked him directly.
Raka met his gaze. "I didn't know what it was. It felt… familiar."
"Familiar?" Lorr stepped closer. "Explain."
But Raka couldn't. Not without lying, and he didn't want to lie to Lorr. Not outright.
He offered silence.
Lorr exhaled sharply through his nose. "Standard post-contact diagnostics. You'll report to the analysis chamber within the hour."
Kael's boot tapped louder. "He's fine."
"Protocol," Lorr snapped.
The analysis chamber buzzed with old enchantments and new distrust.
Jace adjusted the central rods, each one marked with spirit-tracing runes and detection glyphs. "It won't hurt," he said, glancing at Raka. "But if something… reacts, stay still."
Raka stood in the circle, the stone beneath his feet cool and vaguely oily. He nodded.
The rods hummed to life. Lights flickered down their lengths. At first, everything pulsed normally—steady, rhythmic. But then the pulses sped up. One of the rods sparked faintly.
A symbol flared on the back of Raka's hand. Spiral-shaped, jagged, incomplete. It looked like a brand left mid-burn.
Jace's breath caught. "That wasn't there before."
Raka stared at it. A ripple passed through his body. Ki stirring against something deeper.
Then the lights surged. The chamber blurred. The floor shuddered beneath his feet and Raka wasn't in the room anymore.
It was raining fire.
He stood in the center of a city street paved with silver stone. Towers burned in the distance. A woman screamed a name he didn't recognize but it was his.
Armor weighed down his limbs. A chipped sword pulsed in his grip.
A wyvern's shadow passed overhead. Heat came next. Dust and ash stuck to his face.
He turned.
His own reflection stared back at him from a broken window—older, scarred, wearing a black crown that dripped shadow.
Then...
The vision broke.
Raka gasped, stumbling slightly. The rods dimmed.
Jace stood frozen. "That... wasn't a diagnostic anomaly."
Raka flexed his hand. The mark had vanished.
"Do I get a sticker or something?" he asked, dry.
Jace didn't laugh.
Later, outside in the dusk-draped courtyard, Raka sat with his back to a bench post, watching clouds drift like lazy ghosts. The air felt thicker here. Warmer, but somehow more suffocating.
Jace joined him, wordlessly sitting down nearby.
Raka didn't look over.
"You know," Jace said after a moment, "my sister touched something once. Something Spiral."
Raka remained still.
Jace picked at the seam of his glove. "It was a charm. Looked harmless. She said it sang to her."
He stopped. When he spoke again, his voice was low, quiet.
"She started talking in another voice. Then a different language. Said she remembered being someone else. Somewhere else. She told me she'd seen her own grave, and the hands that buried her."
Raka finally turned his head, eyes searching.
"She disappeared a week later," Jace said. "Mother says she's alive. Father says she's a husk now."
"And you?" Raka asked.
"I think she got pulled somewhere. Somewhere deep." Jace looked away. "And maybe, sometimes, she climbs back up to breathe."
A long pause stretched between them.
"I don't know what you touched, Raka," Jace said, "but I know what it can do."
After midnight, Raka wandered the eastern wing. Quiet, mostly abandoned after curfew. He passed a side hall leading to the archives, where a narrow-eyed staff member. Archivist Menar, stepped out with a stack of scrolls.
Menar paused, eyes narrowing.
"You," he said softly. "You're the one from Ruin 23-B, aren't you?"
Raka nodded once.
Menar's gaze flicked to the back of Raka's hand. "They say Spiral echoes fade after contact. But sometimes they... burn inward."
Raka didn't respond.
The archivist tilted his head, almost curious. "Be careful. The deeper you remember, the more the Spiral remembers you."
Then he walked away, scrolls clicking faintly with every step.
Raka ended the night in the bathhouse, staring at the mirror.
His reflection looked normal. Until it didn't.
For a blink, just once, his eyes turned gold. Not glowing. Burned.
And behind him, a crown sat on a head that wasn't his.
He closed his eyes.
When he opened them, it was gone.
From the hallway, Coren's voice called lazily, "You coming, or planning to drown in your own mystery?"
Raka touched his hand to his reflection.
Then turned away.