The academy gates, once silent iron sentinels, trembled as a carriage approached under the pre-dawn haze.
Not an ordinary carriage.
It moved without horses.
It didn't creak.
It hummed, as though powered by memory itself.
Professor Arlen stood on the northern wall, robes fluttering as the wind shifted unnaturally around him. His pale eyes narrowed.
> "He's here," he muttered.
From inside the carriage, a man stepped out.
His boots did not leave prints.
His coat was stitched from threads that shimmered between red and gray.
He looked no older than thirty.
But his eyes—
They had seen the end of the world.
Twice.
---
"You're early," Enver said, appearing beside Arlen without sound.
The man below gave a slight bow.
> "Time is a courtesy, Headmaster. I don't offer it often."
His name was Orren Vale.
A timewalker.
A "Remembrancer" of the old order.
And once—long ago—Kairo's shadow.
---
Meanwhile...
Kairo sat atop the Academy's inner garden wall, knees drawn, watching students move as if nothing had changed.
But something had.
The air was too still.
Birds didn't sing.
Even the leaves refused to rustle.
Lyra joined him, holding a small silver compass that spun endlessly.
> "Storm coming?" she asked.
> "No," he said. "Something worse. A man I used to trust is walking toward us."
She looked at him.
> "And you're afraid?"
> "No," he replied. "I'm angry I don't remember why I should be."
---
They met Orren in the central atrium.
The man had aged, but his voice hadn't.
> "You once told me to break your neck if I ever saw you again," Orren said.
> "And yet here you are," Kairo replied.
Orren smiled faintly.
> "I never said I listened well."
There was silence.
Then:
> "How many Seals have cracked?" Orren asked.
> "Four."
Orren's face tightened.
Not in fear, but in expectation.
> "And the Fifth?"
> "Coming."
Orren turned to Lyra and studied her with no subtlety.
> "Do you know what he is?"
She didn't flinch.
> "Do you?"
Orren gave a smile touched by grief.
> "I watched him fall from a star. Watched him walk through ages, gather the Twelve, then bury them with his own hands."
> "Sounds dramatic," she said.
> "He was a god once," Orren whispered. "But he asked to forget. And when he did... the world started dreaming again."
---
Later that night...
Kairo sat alone, Orren's words echoing in his skull.
He didn't feel like a god.
Didn't even feel like a man, most days.
But the seals—they didn't lie.
He pulled the glove from his left hand.
A fifth symbol had appeared, faint and blinking like an ember:
> A circle broken by a straight line.
The Seal of Contradiction.
He traced it with his fingertip.
And in that moment, he saw—
---
A battlefield of glass.
Twelve bodies floating in the air.
His own hands covered in silver fire.
A voice behind him screaming:
> "YOU PROMISED!"
And his own voice, cold and distant:
> "I did. But promises die with gods."
---
He pulled away, breath ragged.
The Fifth was breaking.
And with it came memory.
---
Somewhere deep beneath the academy…
A girl with white hair and closed eyes twitched.
She was not asleep.
She was dreaming for someone else.
In her mind, a silver clock ticked backward.
When it reached midnight, her eyes would open.
And the world would weep.
---
Back above...
Orren stood in the chapel ruins, speaking into a shard of glass.
> "He's not ready."
A voice answered from the other side—distorted, feminine.
> "None of us are. But the Seventh is close. You have to decide soon."
> "Decide what?"
> "Whether you're going to save him… or stop him."
---
Elsewhere, in the city of Eldholt…
A masked girl with no shadow watched the moon rise.
She held an old sketch: a boy with gold eyes and black marks trailing down his neck.
> "He's awake again," she whispered. "And I still owe him a death."
She turned.
Her coat bore a sigil—
A closed eye pierced by a silver thread:
The Choir of the Dreamless.
---
Final scene…
Kairo found a letter beneath his pillow.
It was not there moments ago.
No wax seal.
No name.
Only a line in perfect script:
> "You are not who you think you are. Not yet. Let the Fifth break. Let him remember."
He turned it over.
The back held the words:
> "Signed, You."