The journey back to Vel'Thara was silent.
No one spoke. No one led.
The forest didn't press in this time—it simply watched them pass, as if the trees understood what had been left behind. As if even the wind knew better than to whisper Raka's name.
They arrived at the academy gates at dusk. The sky had the same soft orange hue as the day they'd first met him.
Lorr was waiting.
He didn't ask questions.
He didn't need to.
He looked at Sylva, then at Kael. Then he simply said, "Memorial chamber. Do it right."
The room was colder than usual.
Stone arches lined with lanterns curved inward like mourning hands. In the center stood the blackstone wall. Dozens of names were etched into it—names of students and instructors who never returned.
Most names had a small sigil beside them—a candle, a flame, a wing, a shield.
Sylva stood before the wall, alone.
She held the etching tool in her hand. The others waited at the back, giving her space.
Her hands didn't shake.
Not until she wrote the name:
Raka.
No surname. No class designation. Just Raka.
When she finished, she didn't step back.
She whispered, "You could've let someone else be the hero."
And for a moment, the sigil glowed—a single, flickering flame.
Later, Kael stood alone at the training yard.
It was long past curfew. No instructors. No students. Just him, the cold air, and the dummies.
He struck them again and again—harder, faster, angrier.
No elegance. No technique.
Just power and pain.
The flame he'd inherited crackled under his skin. Not Raka's subtle precision. Not his calm instinct.
This burned wild.
Lira watched from the shadows of the walkway above. She didn't interrupt.
She just turned and left.
Jace had stopped sleeping.
He and Tiv moved their research to a forgotten alchemy room. Jace adjusted vials and filters with automatic precision. Tiv sketched symbols in a ruined field notebook.
"These glyphs... they're not just old Spiral echoes," Tiv said, brow furrowed. "They're responding. Like someone's giving them instructions."
"Like what?" Jace asked.
"Like they're listening for something."
Jace didn't speak for a long time.
Then: "He told me once the Spiral erodes stories, not space. So maybe... maybe someone's telling it a new one."
Coren hadn't been seen since the return.
He didn't show up to meals. Didn't answer summons.
When Sylva finally found him in the upper library, he was sitting cross-legged in the rafters, staring at an empty wine bottle spinning slowly in the air.
"Just watching to see if gravity still works," he said.
Sylva leaned against the pillar below. "You're not the only one who lost him."
"I didn't lose him." Coren's voice was low. "I saw him win."
"Then why are you hiding?"
"Because we didn't get to choose," Coren said. "He did. He always did."
Sylva didn't argue.
Three days after their return, Jace took a reading of the Scorchlight ruin remains.
The spiral burn at the center?
Still active.
Faintly humming.
Elsewhere.
In the Spiral, beneath the breach, something stirred.
A memory that wasn't his.
A hand wrapped in chain. A throne of fire. A crown that never fit right.
The Spiral whispered to itself:
"Bridge."
But this time...
No one answered.