The next morning, the academy felt… different.
Not visibly. The tower bells still rang at the seventh chime. Class halls bustled with energy, laughter, and yawns. Spellcraft dummies smoked slightly from a fire accident in House Solari's arena.
But Caelum felt it a shift in the rhythm beneath it all. The wind, once restless and curious, now circled like a wolf stalking a scent.
Another Sigil had stirred.
And it was close.
---
Combat class was the last place Caelum expected trouble.
He lined up across from Eo, wooden practice blades in hand. Professor Viren barked orders from the stone balcony above.
"No illusions. No elemental enhancements. Just form."
They bowed.
Caelum struck first measured, careful. Eo deflected easily, twisting sideways and slipping into a textbook Lunaris arc. For a few minutes, it was clean technique.
Then something in her shifted.
Her movements turned sharper. Fluid became too fluid like she was responding before he even moved. A turn, a pivot, a blade nearly struck his throat.
"Whoa!" Caelum stepped back. "Okay, okay what was that?"
Eo blinked. "What?"
"You just moved like… like you knew."
Professor Viren called time, eyeing them both with interest.
"Good instincts, Lunaris. Again next round."
Eo stepped off the platform with a furrowed brow.
Caelum followed. "Eo… that wasn't instinct."
She didn't respond.
---
Later that afternoon, Caelum found her alone on the cliff path behind the greenhouses. Her arms were wrapped around her knees, staring out across the horizon.
"You're not going to ask again?" she said, not turning.
"I'm not sure you want me to."
Eo sighed. "I've always been fast. But this is different. Today I *knew* where you'd strike. Not from training. From somewhere… else."
Caelum sat beside her. "You're hearing anything? Seeing?"
She hesitated.
"Not hearing. But dreaming. A lot. Of mirrors. Of shadows that reflect back the wrong face. Of voices calling me *Witness*. Over and over."
Caelum's pulse jumped.
That wasn't one of the elemental Sigils.
That was Memory.
"Eo," he said gently. "I think you're one of us."
She laughed bitterly. "Great. Just what I need. Another reason to not sleep."
---
That night, she came to his dorm.
Caelum had lit only a single floating lantern in the room. The scroll on Sigils was spread across his bed, the serpent-eye mark throbbing lightly on his hand.
Eo stepped inside, her usual Lunaris poise dimmed by uncertainty.
"I wanted to see," she said softly. "See if it's true."
He rolled up his sleeve and showed her the mark. Then turned the scroll to the page on Memory.
"The Sigil of Memory is the mirror unbroken and the truth unchosen. It reveals what was taken, what must be faced, and what should remain buried."
"Its bearer will remember what others forget. Even if they were never there."
Eo stared at the words like they might burn her.
"I remember dying," she whispered.
Caelum froze.
"In my dreams. It's not me, but I feel it. A sword. A bridge of stars. And then silence."
He stood slowly, the air shifting.
"You're remembering someone who bore the Sigil before."
She nodded, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes.
"Who was she?"
"I don't know," Caelum said. "But I think you're becoming her. Or… remembering what she was meant to finish."
In the span of three days, the world had tilted.
Caelum, with wind and Echo.
Lira, with fire and Valor.
And now Eo, with memory and something older than time.
Three of seven.
And someone had triggered the next seal.
At breakfast, a letter arrived.
Unmarked. Slipped beneath Caelum's plate while he wasn't looking.
Inside, a single sentence written in silver ink:
"The Third is found. The Council listens. The clock breaks at Four."
He crushed the paper in his fist.
The Council knew.
Or someone was telling them.
Reian had warned him the Order wasn't whole. There were spies, sleepers, factions. If the Council thought the Sigil-bearers were awakening faster than they could control…
They might act.
That night, Caelum checked on Eo again.
She was in her room, cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by floating shards of light each one pulsing with images he couldn't fully see.
"I'm not creating them," she said before he could speak. "They come to me. When I close my eyes."
She touched one.
It flickered a vision of a man in armor, weeping before a shattered city. Anothertwo children standing before a chained gate. Another a girl with silver eyes cutting her own reflection.
"Are these… memories?" Caelum asked.
"I don't know. But they're not mine. Not all of them."
She looked up at him.
"Caelum. What happens when I stop being me?"
He knelt beside her.
"Then I'll remind you who you are. Every time."
A long silence passed.
Then Eo whispered, "I'm scared."
"So am I."
Later, alone in his bed, Caelum couldn't sleep.
The wind outside whispered too sharply.
And from somewhere beyond the dorm walls… he felt it again.
A pulse.
The Gate stirring. The Veil growing thinner.
And four Sigils still asleep.
But not for long.