The Hall of Concordance was not built—it was grown.
High above the city, encased in a floating geode of crystal and nightglass, the Council convened beneath a sky of churning stars. No torches burned here. The walls pulsed faintly with ambient magic, and the floor—veins of obsidian and gold—hummed with every word spoken inside it.
Twelve chairs.
Twelve Archmages.
Twelve masters of the Eight Sigils.
And one empty thirteenth seat, sealed in chains.
Master Ilron Vael, Archmage of Lumen, stood at the center of the circle, robes of silver trimmed in indigo, his eyes reflecting the starlight like polished glass.
"She's awakened," he said.
A long silence followed.
The first to speak was Marneth Solen, Archmage of Pyra. Her voice was fire itself—sharp, alive, impossible to ignore. "You're certain?"
Ilron nodded once. "The mark has surfaced. The book responded. The Archive's wards buckled at the precise moment. The sigil is no longer dormant."
Across from her, Vareth of Umbra stirred—face hidden by a veil of shifting shadow. "This should not be possible. The Ninth was sealed. Its bearers were eradicated. We made certain of it."
"The magic itself was never destroyed," Ilron said. "Only the memory."
Archmage Caelos of Spiralis, oldest among them, drummed his fingers slowly. "And memory is a dangerous thing to erase. It has a habit of resurfacing… in blood."
Several murmurs rippled through the Council.
Lady Thyra of Vitae leaned forward, her face pale beneath ivy-colored tattoos. "And the bearer? A girl, yes? The one from the Arcanum?"
Ilron's voice tightened. "Eris Thorne."
That name broke whatever calm remained.
"Impossible," Marneth snapped. "She passed every test. We scanned her. There were no indicators."
"There were anomalies," Ilron corrected. "We just refused to see them."
"Then she must be seized," growled Dren Halmor, the Terran Archmage. "Isolated. Contained. If the Ninth stirs, it must not be allowed to grow roots."
"No," said Ilron, voice low but firm.
Heads turned.
"No?" Dren repeated. "You would argue against the Protocol?"
"I argue against the pattern," Ilron replied. "Every time we've hunted a bearer, we've created the very disaster we feared. Do you remember what happened in the Hollowing? The Sands of Verron? The Mourning City?"
"Their deaths saved the realm," snapped Thyra.
"No," said Caelos. "Their deaths rewrote it. We just survived the version we were left with."
A silence fell again. Heavy. Shifting.
Then came a voice that hadn't spoken in years.
It echoed not with sound, but inside their bones.
"Let me see her."
Every Archmage turned to the thirteenth chair.
Still chained. Still sealed.
Still occupied.
A figure cloaked in pale wrappings sat motionless within it, head bowed beneath a hood of iron threads. They had not moved since the last bearer was slain over two centuries ago.
Until now.
Ilron's jaw tightened. "You were never meant to speak again."
"And yet I remember her."
"No one remembers," Marneth hissed. "Not even you. We took that memory."
"You took the words."
"You did not take the truth."
Chains rattled. A single rune burned faintly on the figure's chest.
The same rune Eris now bore.
Ilron turned from them, gaze sweeping across the chamber. "She is not ready. But if we move against her with blades and prisons, she will become what we fear."
"And if we do nothing?" Vareth whispered.
Ilron exhaled. "Then the Ninth will decide."
⌘
Far below the Council's floating sanctuary, in the candlelit darkness of the Collegium, Eris sat awake with the forbidden book open beside her.
And the mark on her chest was growing brighter.