The Crownless were not like the armies before. They didn't scream, didn't chant or curse. They remembered.
Each step they took toward the heart of the Academy brought memories flooding back—both theirs and ours. I could see their pasts bleeding through: lives they'd lost, betrayals they never recovered from, cities swallowed by flame and time. I could feel their sorrow like it was my own.
Lilith stood at my side. "They're not trying to kill us," she said. "They're trying to make us become them."
It hit me then—the Crownless weren't monsters. They were failed versions of us. Past Architects. Past professors. Past students who gave in.
And now they'd come to make sure we joined them.
We formed a ring of defense inside the Academy's broken spire: Seraphina at the front, her ice blooming across scorched stone; Yuria leaping from rafter to rafter, lightning spiraling in wild arcs; Valmira standing calm, her runes flowing in impossible shapes.
