The dream left a taste like ash in Raka's mouth.
He woke before sunrise, heart steady, breathing calm—too calm. Like his body had learned to recover before his mind caught up. The mark on his hand was gone again. Or maybe it had never been there.
He sat on the edge of his bunk, listening. Not for noise, but for what wasn't there. No birds. No boots on the stone halls. Even the dormitory pipes, usually clanging by now, were silent. A pause in the world. Too still to be empty.
Outside, Vel'Thara's towers bled pale light. Fog clung low over the eastern terrace. The academy felt like it was holding its breath.
Raka walked the perimeter of the courtyard out of habit, not need. The rhythm helped. Left, right, pause. Listen. Breath in, half-step, pivot.
He moved like a man tracing steps he'd taken before, but on a map that kept redrawing itself.
Sylva found him under the leaning tree near the alchemy wing, the only place where mist always lingered longer than it should. She didn't say hello—just dropped into a crouch beside him and offered a wrapped bread roll.
"Still warm," she said. "Be grateful."
Raka peeled the edge of the wrap. "You steal this from the kitchens?"
"Rescued," she replied. "It was going stale in a tray. Someone had to give it purpose."
"You're a paragon of virtue."
"Don't spread that around. I've got a reputation to maintain."
They sat in companionable silence, the fog parting slightly as the sun forced its way over the horizon. Raka noticed her gaze wasn't on the sky—it was on him.
"You know," she said, "I've seen a lot of people freeze. After missions. In drills. In dreams. They wake up less sure of who they are."
"And I haven't?"
"You have. But differently." Her voice was quiet. "You don't freeze. You... fracture."
He turned toward her.
Sylva leaned back on her palms, stretching her legs. "My mentor used to say we carry three selves: the one we show, the one we fear, and the one we haven't met yet."
"She sounds like a philosopher."
"She was a monster-hunter."
Raka blinked. "Same difference."
Sylva exhaled. "She died in Hollow. Buying time for a boy with a Ki fracture to escape." She hesitated. "I don't think he even remembers her."
Raka looked down at the roll in his hands.
"I know what it costs," she continued, "to hold a line you might never cross. And I know what it feels like to survive something that still has its hands around your throat."
He looked at her. Not with guilt or apology, but something else—something that belonged more to memory than to now.
"I remember more than I should," he said softly.
By midday, the group was summoned to the central wing briefing hall—smaller than the one for first-year missions, built for speed, not ceremony.
Master Lorr stood at the head of the room, flanked by two unfamiliar instructors in dark blue robes with spiraling trim. Their eyes tracked movement like weapons scanning for targets.
"The Spiral anomaly at Scorchlight Outpost has destabilized," Lorr began. "Initial scouts failed to return. We're deploying a closed-response team for investigation and containment."
Jace frowned. "That's not first-tier work."
"It's not," Lorr agreed. "But you're not typical first-tiers."
Kael raised an eyebrow. "Is this about field experience, or disposable assets?"
Lorr didn't blink. "Both."
Sylva's hand flexed near her scabbard.
"The mission is not a test," Lorr continued. "There may be no relic. No clear objective. The terrain is unstable. The reports are inconsistent. You are not to seek confrontation—only assessment and extraction."
"And if we find something alive?" Coren asked. His tone was too casual.
"Document it. Don't talk to it. Don't follow it. Don't touch it."
Jace muttered, "I don't like how that had to be said out loud."
Raka kept still, but his fingers twitched at his side.
"Any questions?" Lorr asked.
Kael raised a hand. "How likely are we to die?"
Lorr looked at him flatly. "Slightly less than the last team."
"Encouraging."
"Dismissed."
That evening, the team gathered under the red banners in the east hall—gear bags half-packed, weapons tested, charms checked and rechecked.
Kael lobbed a cloth-wrapped satchel of salves into Raka's kit. "For the weird Spiral goo we're definitely going to find."
"I'm more worried about the parts that talk."
"I'm worried about the parts that remember us," Jace muttered, adjusting the straps on his spell-glove.
Coren sat by the window, sharpening a blade that shimmered too darkly to be steel.
Sylva moved through the room with quiet focus, eyes scanning not the gear but the people. She paused by Raka's pack.
"I requested to lead the line tomorrow," she said.
Raka looked up. "You think I'm not up to it?"
"I think something's pulling at you," she said. "And if you walk too close to it, you'll forget which way you were going."
"I haven't forgotten yet."
"I know," she said. "That's why I asked now—while you still know how to say no."
He stared at her for a long moment. Then nodded. "All right."
She gave a single nod back and moved on. But her shoulders were tight—like she'd expected a different answer and wasn't sure if this one was worse.
Later that night, when the halls had gone quiet and most students were asleep or pretending to be, Raka climbed the stairs to the upper archive wing.
The door had been left open—on purpose, maybe, or because it hadn't been touched in too long.
He walked between shelves of old knowledge. Books that hummed faintly. Scrolls that pulsed with sealed enchantments. Crystals locked behind thin barriers of gold-threaded glass.
The ceiling above bore spiraling patterns that shifted when glanced at too long. Raka didn't look up.
In the center of the room sat the scrying basin. A shallow stone bowl carved from obsidian-veined marble, with an edge worn smooth by centuries of use.
He stepped toward it.
The surface shimmered.
Not with reflection, but memory.
A battlefield, burning. Men in armor. A broken crown in the dirt. The sound of bells—but they weren't bells. They were names, being struck like war drums.
A helm. A child. A shattered blade.
And a voice that wasn't a voice:
"You are not meant to rest."
He staggered back.
The spiral pattern lit faintly beneath his foot—etched into the stone without ink or magic.
From the shadows, something whispered: "Bridge."
He turned.
No one was there.
But somewhere, far below, something remembered him.