The scroll hadn't been there before.
Eryndor stood beside his cot, eyes fixed on the obsidian-black parchment. It lay perfectly centered, untouched, without dust. The wax seal glinted with silver thread—not House, not instructor, but something older. The symbol marked it clearly: three interlocked eyes, one cracked straight through the iris.
The Vaelith Archives.
He didn't speak. Didn't call the others. He broke the seal with his thumb. Cold seeped into his skin like a command.
The parchment unfurled.
---
Eryndor Vaelith,
You trespassed memory.
You bled where no record remains.
The Archive watches.
You will appear before the Tri-Scholars before the seventh chime.
Refusal is not permitted.
Observation is never passive.
---
No name. Just runes that refused to stay still. He folded it, tucked it into his coat.
"You're up early," Flicker mumbled from the floor, hair a mess. Eryndor didn't answer.
The Mana-Cursed Girl sat up in her cot, eyes narrowing. "Something's wrong."
"Always," he replied, already lacing his boots.
She stood, stepped into his path. "Where?"
"The Archive."
Flicker blinked awake. "Wait, the real Archive? The silent tower nobody speaks about?"
"They spoke today," Eryndor said. "They want me. Alone."
Mana-Cursed Girl opened her mouth, closed it. "You're going anyway."
He nodded. The Unborn didn't move but raised his head. A single chain coiled behind him like a reflex. Eryndor left without another word.
---
At the gate of the Hall of Thresholds, a robed figure waited. It didn't speak. Didn't move. Eryndor held out the letter. The figure examined it, turned without response, and began walking. He followed.
Through narrow halls. Through blind archways that bent logic. Light vanished behind them, replaced by something duller, deeper. Not darkness—just absence.
Then the figure stopped and extended a strip of cloth.
A blindfold.
Eryndor took it. Tied it without resistance. The air stilled. His feet moved, but the ground felt wrong beneath him. Like crossing silence, not space. Each step was soundless.
When the blindfold came off, he stood in a hollow chamber. No walls, just endless obsidian. Runes scrawled across invisible surfaces. Three chairs floated ahead, thrones carved from something darker than stone. Shapes sat in them—shrouded, masked, unmoving.
The Tri-Scholars.
He stood in a ring etched into the ground. Unarmed. Nothing but breath between him and whatever this was. A pause. Then one of the figures spoke.
"You walked beneath the sealed ground."
No voice. Just resonance. Like memory given shape.
"You bled into a place that should no longer be."
He didn't answer.
"Why?"
"Because I could."
The silence rippled. The second figure leaned forward. "Did you *see* the throne, or did it see you?"
"What are you talking about?" he asked.
"You woke a piece of the past," said the third. "You changed its pattern."
Eryndor didn't flinch. "I survived your test. I faced what the Academy sent. I fought your champion. I bled and stood. I have earned silence."
"You've earned nothing," the first replied, voice sharp now. "You were never meant to rise."
The floor between them flared to life. A projection shimmered—Eryndor before the throne. The Oracle vanishing. Blood on stone. Glyphs blinking red. They were watching even then.
"You remember what you should not," the second whispered.
"And what I remember," Eryndor replied coldly, "is mine."
The projection vanished.
"You carry echoes that should be buried."
"Then bury me," he said.
No one moved. Then the third Scholar raised a hand. A map burned into the air—seven points connected by jagged lines. Vaults? Gates? No labels. Only the center marked with a familiar sigil.
The throne.
"You found the first," they said together. "Others wait."
Eryndor narrowed his eyes. "Why tell me this?"
"You already stepped beyond."
"And if I keep going?"
"You won't come back."
---
Eryndor studied the map hanging in the air. Seven points. All distant. All unlabeled. All pulsing faintly with the same cadence as the throne below the arena.
"You call them vaults," he said quietly. "But they're not vaults."
The center Scholar tilted its mask. "What are they, then?"
"Keys."
No answer. The map vanished.
"You'll try to stop me," Eryndor said.
"We already did."
And then the lights died.
He stood in perfect dark for five full seconds before a single torch flared behind him. When he turned, the chamber was empty. The Scholars gone. The map gone. Only the door he'd entered through remained—this time unlocked.
No ceremony. No guards. Just exit.
---
Back on the surface, the air felt colder. Sharper. The corridor outside the Archives wound upward through levels of unused halls and sealed stairwells. No one spoke. No other students. Just stone and torchlight.
At the threshold arch, the Oracle stood. Or at least, something wearing her shape. She leaned casually against a broken column, glass eyes flickering with laughter that didn't reach her voice.
"You didn't die."
"Not yet."
She stepped forward. Not a person. Not an echo. Something in between. Her form flickered where shadow touched it.
"They told you only fragments. Because even they don't remember the whole."
"Then tell me."
She smiled.
"You think I serve answers. I serve *reminders.*"
A pause.
She turned her head slightly, almost curious. "Do you know why they locked it away?"
Eryndor didn't answer.
"They feared it," she said softly. "Not the throne. The one who made it."
"And who was that?"
Her voice dropped to a whisper. "The one who bled order into submission."
He didn't move. Didn't ask more.
The Oracle reached out with one translucent hand and touched the center of his chest—just once.
A flare of glyphlight surged across his coat, over his skin. The System responded instantly.
[Lost Vault Echo Registered: 1/7]
[Key Node Access Enabled: Sublevel One]
[Heir Status: Latent Confirmed]
[Class Trait Mutation Unsealed: Forbidden Inheritance]
A final whisper in his own thoughts—not from the System. Not from the Oracle. From something older.
*Wake the throne.*
Eryndor stepped past her. She vanished behind him like mist devoured by silence.
---
He returned to the dorms. The Lost Ones didn't ask where he'd gone. But when he entered, the Unborn stood straighter. Flicker lifted his head and squinted. The Mana-Cursed Girl stopped her breathing practice and looked straight at his chest.
"You changed," she said.
"Yes."
He sat by the hearth and lit the flame again. Not to warm. Not to relax. To think.
The System didn't speak again. But it didn't need to.
Because now, something had changed.
Not above. Not around.
Beneath.
Far beneath the Academy, a sealed vault stirred. One of seven. One now open.