Every kingdom has its shadows. Some whisper. Others bleed.
Three nights after unlocking the Forgotten Door, Kael was unable to sleep. His body still thrummed with unknown energy. He sat by the window, watching the crescent moon drift behind stormclouds.
Suddenly—he heard a voice behind him.
"Pretty view. Shame it's wasted on a flame-blood."
Kael spun, blade half-drawn. But the girl in black already had a dagger at his neck.
She wore a cloak of feathers, eyes like molten onyx. On her wrist: the crest of a silver raven.
"You don't remember me. That's fine. I remember you."
She introduced herself as Sira Virellan, heir of the Ravenbloods — one of the Nine Hidden Houses. Houses that officially didn't exist.
She tossed him a scroll.
"We have your bloodline marked in our vaults. When the Vaelorian line stirs, we are called."
Kael opened the scroll. It wasn't a threat.
It was a contract.
Target: Professor Theon Marr, Lorekeeper of Forbidden HistoriesReason: "Silencing the wrong questions."Payment: Secrets of the Silent Moon. Location of one Echo Chamber.
Kael frowned. "You want me to assassinate a professor?"
Sira grinned. "No. I want you to break into his soul archive. But you won't get past the wards without fire that remembers gods."
Kael refused at first.
But Riven, who had been watching from the shadows, stepped forward.
"Theon Marr's not what he seems. He's part of the Dust Cabal. He erased an entire city from history — Myrien Tal. My home."
Kael stared at Riven. "Why didn't you ever tell me that?"
"Because no one alive remembers it. Not unless you carry the Dustbrand curse."
Riven pulled up his sleeve. His veins shimmered like cracked glass.
"The cabal stole time itself. If this contract gets us an Echo Chamber, we might recover the truth they buried. We might recover… Myrien."
Kael clenched his fists.
He signed the contract.
Three days of planning followed.
Sira provided them with:
Dust-Stepping boots (silence and levitation)
Moonblood ink (invisible on most surfaces, reveals divine glyphs)
One-use Mirror Key (opens a mirrored surface once per lunar cycle)
They infiltrated the Hall of Histories during the Winter Veil Festival, while the academy was distracted.
The Hall itself was a shifting tower of ever-turning staircases — enchanted to confuse trespassers. Its interior was patrolled by golems made of silver bone and old language.
They used the Mirror Key on a stained-glass panel in a prayer alcove. Behind it: a hidden room of suspended soul-crystals, each containing living memories.
One bore a glyph Kael recognized from the Book of Flame:
∇ – The Seal of Suppressed Pantheons.
Kael touched the crystal.
Visions exploded through his mind.
Theon Marr, younger, standing beside robed figures around a pit of screaming flame.
An ancient being chained beneath the school, whispering "Freedom for memory" in forgotten tongues.
A map showing eight Echo Chambers, guarded by sentient relics.
And finally — a memory of Theon erasing a name from the Pantheon's divine record.
"No one must remember her. Not even the Flame-Born."
The name? Seralyth.
Kael recoiled. The crystal burned his hand.
But he had what he needed.
They fled — barely escaping the golems and memory wards.
Back in their hideout beneath the eastern tower, Kael handed Sira the information.
But Sira didn't celebrate. She bowed.
"You've done more than you know, Flame-Born. House Virellan does not forget its debts."
She pressed a coin into Kael's hand.
A black raven, wings broken. The back: "One death. Any name. Any time."
"Redeem it wisely," she said. "Even kings bleed."
She disappeared into the night.
Later, Kael stood on the dormitory roof alone.
Lia joined him, looking troubled.
"You're not the same. You're colder."
Kael didn't answer at first.
Then he said:
"I'm not trying to be good. I'm trying to win. If I don't, we all die."
Lia looked away.
"Just don't lose yourself trying to find the truth."
In a distant land cloaked in volcanic ash, seven cloaked figures gathered around a black pyre.
One of them — wearing a mask of stitched gold — held a fragment of silver fire in a sealed jar.
"He found the Echo," the masked one said.
"And what of Seralyth?"
"She remembers."
They raised their hands and cast fire into the sky.
"Then it begins."