Ash Circle — Dawn after the Forest
Elira didn't speak of the vampire priest when she returned.
Not to Naerina, not to Vessa, not even to Tovin, who greeted her with sleepy eyes and a string of curious questions.
The words sat like a stone in her chest: "You're the only one still pretending to forget."
She couldn't explain why it rattled her more than any seal, any vision, or any flicker of half-remembered pain.
It felt… familiar.
She avoided the sanctum that morning.
Instead, she stood at the outer garden's edge, staring at the glyph-stained trees and wondering why her memory of this place felt layered—like she'd walked these paths twice, but one version had burned away.
"Back from another silent errand?"
Vessa's voice broke the hush.
Elira didn't turn. "I wasn't gone long."
"Gone is gone. And you're not the only one the seals speak to now."
At that, Elira turned. "What do you mean?"
Vessa hesitated, then nodded toward Tovin, who was playing in the dust with a sharp piece of bone.
"He's been speaking in riddles. Not childish ones. Words the glyphs used when the first seal cracked."
Elira's breath caught. "What kind of words?"
"Ash-bound. Fracture-born. Unbind the key."
Vessa narrowed her eyes. "He speaks them like he's heard them before."
Elira tried to keep her voice steady. "He doesn't even know what they mean."
"No," Vessa said softly. "But you do."
And then she walked away.
The City Beneath the Stone — Undercourt Passage
Caelum hadn't slept since the summons.
He watched Aethros pour wine into a cracked obsidian cup, lounging like a man who didn't carry ancient knowledge in his bones.
"You said the Court won't move," Caelum said.
"They shouldn't," Aethros replied, "but they are."
"Why?"
"Because they're afraid. And fear is the only thing more infectious than prophecy."
Caelum leaned against the cold stone wall. "You spoke of unbinding her."
Aethros didn't flinch. "I did."
"You know what that would do."
"I also know what will happen if she reaches the fifth seal still bound."
Caelum said nothing.
Aethros met his gaze. "You've seen it, haven't you? In the way the glyphs react to her. They remember her."
Caelum's jaw tensed.
Aethros stepped closer. "Let me ask you a better question. Why did she forget?"
Ash Circle — Lower Dormitories
Tovin hadn't spoken since Elira returned.
He sat at the edge of his cot, drawing symbols into the wooden floor with a splintered piece of coal.
Elira approached him carefully.
"What are you drawing?" she asked.
Tovin didn't look up. "I dreamed of fire."
"What kind of fire?"
"The kind that doesn't burn," he murmured. "The kind that listens."
He scratched another symbol — a small eye, split down the center.
Elira froze.
She'd seen it before. In her dream. No — her memory. The one that returned after the third seal broke.
The same eye marked on a door her mother had once warned her never to open.
"What does that mean?" she whispered.
Tovin looked at her then, his eyes distant. "He's watching now. He remembers you."
inside Naerina's Chamber
Naerina's expression was unreadable as she closed the spellbook she'd been working on.
"The glyphs are becoming… restless," she said.
Vessa stood nearby, arms crossed.
"We found one echoing a seal that doesn't exist."
Naerina nodded slowly. "That would be the false sigil."
Elira stiffened. "There's a false seal?"
Naerina sighed. "No. But there is a false memory of one."
They didn't elaborate.
But Elira left the room with a name buzzing in her head — Serelune.
She didn't know why, but it hurt to think about it.
Like trying to remember someone you loved after forgetting how they died.
Caelum's Chamber — Moments Later
A small scroll of blood-ribboned parchment had arrived.
No name. No symbol. Just a drop of blood at the seal.
When Caelum touched it, the spell activated — and a memory not his own flashed across his mind.
A child standing before the first seal.
A girl.
Hair like ash.
Eyes like Elira's.
And a voice whispering, "I choose to forget."
His own voice — younger, horrified: "No. You don't have to—"
The girl looking back, smiling softly.
"If I remember, I'll destroy everything. And everyone."
Caelum pulled back, breath caught in his throat.
The memory ended.
But the silence that followed was worse.
Because the memory wasn't a lie. It was his.
And she had asked to forget.