Arcadia's wards glowed with renewed vigor after the Siege of Cinders, yet in the corridors of the Academy, a new tension simmered. Students spoke in hushed tones of disappearing runes and half–erased murals. Professors discovered gaps in the history tomes. Even Valmira's Codex trembled as if quivering at some unseen touch. I felt it most strongly in the Memory Ward's gentle pulse—which now faltered like a wounded heart.
At dawn, I summoned Seraphina, Yuria, Valmira, Astraea, and Zephira to the Hall of Echoes—an ancient wing lined with reflective obsidian panels intended to preserve the Academy's past. The doors swung open with a whisper, revealing long-forgotten murals that depicted Lilith's earliest days as a demon queen. Yet parts of the murals were fading, the scenes blotting out as ash devoured flame.
