Morning came cold, sharp, and clouded. Dreary clouds hung in the sky, blocking the sunlight from seeping onto the earth.
Instructrix Vale was waiting in the courtyard when Class Nine arrived. She stood beside a tall obsidian slab covered in flickering glyphs—some ancient, some alive.
"Today," she said, "we trace echoes not with mana, but with memory."
She turned to Caelum.
"You, boy. Step forward."
Caelum did, jaw tight and hands clenched.
Vale drew a shallow cut across her palm and pressed her hand to the slab. Blood traced a single line, pulsing red before vanishing into the stone.
"Trace what I left," she commanded.
Caelum closed his eyes, reached toward the stone with the part of him that listened—and caught it. Not just the gesture. Not just the blood.
A flicker of her.
Guilt. Steel. A long-lost face. Fire behind closed doors.
It startled him.
He almost pulled away.
But instead, he followed it deeper.
He spoke.
"You lost someone. Your sister. Burned in the Cascade."
Vale froze.
The glyphs on the slab stilled.
Class Nine went silent.
Finally, Vale lowered her hand.
"…Correct," she said quietly. "But do not say her name."
Caelum stepped back, heart pounding.
"Where did you learn that?" the masked student asked from the back of the class. His voice was quiet. Too quiet.
"I didn't," Caelum said. "It was just… there."
The masked boy didn't respond, looked away and stared at the sky.
But when class ended, he didn't leave either.
He watched.
That night, Serapha returned to the dormitory quarters, eyes drawn and jaw clenched.
"We're not the only ones listening," she told Caelum. "The Arcanum isn't just watching—they're worried. You're not the first anomaly this year."
Caelum frowned. "What do you mean?"
Serapha pulled a scrap of parchment from her coat. It showed a glyph spiral—twisted, cracked, like his sigil but wrong.
"This appeared in the Bonehollow two nights ago. A traveler touched it. They haven't spoken since."
Caelum shivered. "So it's starting."
"Yes."
She hesitated.
"There's something else. Emera's gone."
"What?"
"Her study's sealed. Her wards unresponsive. No trace."
A weight settled in Caelum's chest.
He looked at his hand.
The sigil didn't glow.
It bled.
Elsewhere, far below Lareth—in the forgotten vaults beneath the Hollowspire—a boy sat cross-legged in an old, shattered circle of glyph-salt.
He looked to be Caelum's age.
But he had no eyes.
Only black fire behind skin.
He whispered to himself.
"To unwrite, one must first remember."
He opened his palm.
The twisted sigil burned.
A ghost-voice echoed in his skull: "The bearer of the true thread lives again."
He smiled, mouth too wide.
"Then I will be his shadow."
He stood, cloak unfurling.
It was stitched from torn soulcloth.
And it whispered back.
The next day, Rheia pulled Caelum aside in the glyph library.
"You're not safe here," she said, voice low.
"I know."
"No. I mean really not safe. Someone's been rewriting the resonance wards around your dorm. I caught one just before class. It wasn't yours. It wasn't Serapha's."
"Do you know who?"
She looked around, then reached into her bag and handed him a folded glyph-scroll.
"This is gravecraft. Used by those who trace soul threads. It's illegal in every known nation. And it was keyed to you."
Caelum stared at it.
"Why?"
"I think someone is trying to map you. To trap your echo. That's Sixth Path work."
Caelum swallowed hard.
Then he made a decision.
"I want to go back. To the Cathedral."
Rheia stared. "Are you mad? It sealed itself."
"I don't care. There's more down there. I saw… something. A name. A memory. If I don't face it, this sigil will never stop pulling."
She was quiet.
Then she nodded.
"Then I'm going with you."
Instructrix Vale didn't stop them.
But she watched.
As they left campus, her mirrorwatch pulsed red.
She turned to the masked student beside her.
"You were right. He's moving toward the echo again."
The boy removed his mask.
His face bore a brand—an old Arcanum curse mark, long faded but never healed.
"I want to follow."
"You want to interfere."
"I want to know if he's worth killing."
Vale's expression didn't change.
"Fine. But do not act unless you must."
He nodded, replaced the mask, and vanished into the wind.
At the edge of the forbidden spiral beneath the Cathedral, Caelum and Rheia stood before the sealed threshold. It looked ominous and terrifying yet here they were.
Rheia handed him a single thread of resonance wire.
"Found this in the archive. It's attuned to unfolding frequencies—used in ancient echo rites."
Caelum took it, wrapped it around his palm, and pressed it against the seal.
His sigil pulsed.
The stone shuddered.
And the spiral opened.
Only silence waited below.
But this time, Caelum didn't walk in afraid.
He walked in listening.