Midnight in Eldholt.
While the academy's towers slept under veils of starlight, the city below whispered with rumors. Tension slithered in alleyways, and shadows moved as if they had purpose.
Something old was stirring again.
But tonight, it wasn't Kairo awakening.
It was his enemy.
---
Elsewhere, beneath a shattered temple, an informant named Valech knelt before a cracked mirror. His face was hidden beneath a half-mask stitched with runes, but his voice trembled.
> "He's broken the Fifth," he said. "Faster than we anticipated."
The mirror replied—not with voice, but with vision.
Twelve figures. Cloaked. Faceless. Watching.
One of them stepped forward.
Their voice was like silk being slit.
> "The Fool awakens, then. Time to test the Knife."
---
Back in the academy, Kairo stood in a vault few knew existed—the Reliquary of Lost Wills.
He had been summoned by Headmaster Enver in silence, guided by Orren, and locked behind seven layers of spellwork.
Floating in the center of the room was a single item:
> A dagger. Small. Plain. Its handle wrapped in violet thread. Its blade made of black aurorium—a metal said to feed on lies.
> "What is it?" Kairo asked.
> "It was once yours," Enver replied. "You called it Truthcarver."
Kairo felt something inside him twitch.
The moment his fingers brushed the hilt—visions surged again.
This time, clearer.
---
Memories:
> A hand holding the dagger under moonlight.
Blood dripping from a seal-scribed neck.
A whisper: "Better one betrayal than twelve."
Kairo reeled back.
> "I killed someone," he said.
> "More than one," Orren murmured. "When you were Samhael, you wielded that blade like a judgment passed. You hunted the Veiled."
> "The Veiled?" Kairo asked.
Enver stepped closer.
> "A cult. Or a faction. No one truly knows. They wore masks to hide truth. You wore this blade to cut it free."
---
Meanwhile…
In a hidden chamber below the city, a girl trained.
She was barely sixteen, with skin like inked parchment and eyes like coins—silver and hollow.
Each strike of her blade echoed with discipline and desperation.
A masked woman watched her.
> "You will kill him," she said.
> "Who?" the girl asked.
> "The boy who was once Samhael."
> "Why me?"
> "Because you are the only one without memory."
---
Later that night, Kairo stood on the academy's balcony with the dagger.
It was light in his hand but heavy in memory.
Lyra joined him.
> "So what's next?"
He looked at her, eyes dimmed by fragments he couldn't piece together.
> "There's a sixth seal," he said. "Somewhere in the North. A ruin called Hallowmere."
> "You think the answers are there?"
> "No," he said. "But I think I am."
---
Far away…
In the Tower of Silence, a masked man watched the stars move.
He whispered to the wind:
> "Come, then, Knife-Bearer. Let's see if the Fool still bleeds."
And beneath the mask, he smiled.