They ran until the fire in their lungs became its own kind of silence.
Only when the Seers' shouts had faded to faint echoes did Anaya let them stop.The tunnel around them was narrow, the walls slick with moisture and faintly luminous with the same pale blue fungus that clung to the deepest levels of the Academy. Every drip of water echoed like a countdown.
Rafael dropped first, leaning against the stone and sucking air through his teeth. "Next time," he panted, "you warn me before you set off a divine cataclysm."
Kato shot him a glare. "Next time, we don't follow her at all."
Anaya didn't answer. The ember beneath her skin still pulsed, slower now, like a heartbeat cooling after a sprint. She pressed her palm against her chest; it throbbed back in recognition, not pain—something stranger, as though it were listening.
Leila knelt, opening the journal on her knees. "The Seers will regroup. If they brought ward-trackers we can't stay in one place more than a few minutes."
Rafael wiped his brow. "You and your minutes. Can we at least breathe before we start running again?"
Kato's voice cut across them, low and sharp. "No. Not until she explains what happened down there."
Anaya looked up. Kato was standing over her, eyes hard, jaw tight enough to creak.The torchlight carved deep shadows into his face.
"You touched it," he said. "That thing. That fire. You let it inside you."
"It wasn't a choice," Anaya said.
"That's what people always say before they burn the world down."
Rafael stepped between them. "Back off, soldier. You think yelling at her helps?"
"I think knowing whether she's still her helps."
"I am," Anaya whispered. "I swear."
But even as she said it, she wasn't sure. The ember's warmth seeped through her veins, gentle but constant, like a whisper that hadn't yet formed words. Sometimes it felt like comfort. Sometimes it felt like pressure waiting to explode.
Leila closed the journal carefully. "The ember isn't just power. It's memory. The ashes said so. It remembers every choice that led to the rebellion. It remembers pain. Maybe it remembers… vengeance."
Kato laughed bitterly. "Wonderful. We're traveling with a possessed bomb full of historical trauma."
Rafael turned on him. "She saved your life twice tonight. Maybe show a little gratitude before you decide she's the apocalypse."
"I'm saying what we're all thinking," Kato snapped. "Look around you. We're hunted, half-starved, one misstep from death. And now she's carrying the same power that leveled this place centuries ago. You think the Seers are the only ones who should be afraid?"
Silence fell.
Even Leila didn't argue. She just looked at Anaya with that same mixture of fear and pity that made Anaya's stomach twist.
The ember flickered hotter, as though aware of their doubt. Heat rippled up her spine; shadows shifted on the walls, long and distorted.
"Stop," she whispered to herself. "Not now."
The warmth dulled, obeying.
They saw it. The obedience. That frightened them more than the heat.
Leila swallowed. "It listens to you."
"I think it listens to everyone," Anaya said. "It's… alive. A collective. Thousands of voices sharing one will."
"And that will wants you to tear the weave apart," Kato said flatly. "To end the glimpses. You heard it."
Anaya met his stare. "Maybe that isn't destruction. Maybe it's freedom."
"Freedom doesn't sound like screaming stone and burning walls."
"Neither does destiny," Rafael muttered. "Destiny sounds like a prison with better curtains."
Kato rounded on him. "You'd risk every life here for an idea?"
Rafael shrugged, the ghost of his old grin flickering back. "Ideas are the only things worth risking for. Everything else dies anyway."
Kato turned away with a curse.
They moved deeper, the argument trailing after them like smoke. The tunnels grew stranger the further they went—hallways that bent back on themselves, stairways ending in smooth walls, symbols that flickered between languages when the ember's light brushed them.
Hours blurred.
Finally, they reached a small cavern split by an underground stream. The ceiling glittered faintly with mica. It was almost beautiful, in a forgotten sort of way.
"We rest here," Leila said. "No further tonight."
Rafael knelt by the water, cupping it in his hands. "Tastes like rust. Perfect."
Kato sat apart, cleaning his blade. Leila scribbled furiously in the margins of the journal, transcribing runes before the light faded. And Anaya… Anaya stared into the stream, watching how her reflection warped whenever the ember pulsed.
It was still her face—but layered. Sometimes she saw others in it: flashes of strangers' eyes, mouths, expressions. The ashes she carried. The lives she hadn't lived.
When she blinked, they vanished.
Later, when the others dozed, she wandered away from the campfire glow. The tunnels opened into a narrow chamber lined with ancient frescoes. The paint was faded, but the images were clear enough: figures reaching for glowing threads, another figure standing between them and a roaring flame.
At the bottom, in crumbling script, she could still read one word: Choice.
"You're seeing it too, aren't you?" a voice said behind her.
She turned. Rafael leaned in the doorway, arms crossed, the faintest grin curving his mouth.
"I can't stop seeing," she said. "Everywhere I look there's something waiting to be remembered."
He stepped closer, lowering his voice. "Maybe that's not so bad. The Academy's whole game is forgetting. You're just… bad at playing."
She smiled faintly. "Kato thinks I'm dangerous."
"Kato thinks everything is dangerous. That's why he's still alive."
Then softer: "He's not wrong, though."
She looked at him sharply. "You think I'll burn us too?"
He shook his head. "I think you already could. I just hope you choose not to."
Something in his tone—half trust, half plea—cut through the noise inside her. The ember pulsed warm, not hot.
"I don't want to hurt anyone," she said.
"Good." He brushed her arm. "Then make sure that thing inside you remembers that."
When they woke, the air had changed. Heavy. Electric.
Leila was already on her feet, staring down the tunnel they'd come from. "They're close."
A low hum vibrated through the rock. Far above, faint bells echoed—again, again—like a heartbeat closing in. The Seers had followed.
"Then we keep moving," Rafael said, grabbing his pack.
"No," Kato said. "We split. They're tracking her. If we stay together, we're all dead."
Anaya froze. "You're not serious."
Kato's voice was stone. "I am. You go deeper. Draw them away. We'll find another route, circle back."
"I won't leave you."
"You already did, the moment you touched that ember."
Rafael stepped forward, fists clenched. "Say that again."
"Enough!" Leila's shout cracked the tension like thunder. "We can't fight each other. That's what they want."
But the crack had already formed.
Kato looked at Anaya, something almost sorrowful in his eyes. "You don't see it yet. You're not just carrying them. You are them now. And I don't know if there's room left for the rest of us in whatever you're becoming."
He turned and strode into the side tunnel before anyone could stop him. The darkness swallowed him whole.
Silence.
Leila's hands shook. "He'll come back."
Rafael rubbed his face. "Not if the Seers find him first."
Anaya couldn't speak. The ember pulsed erratically, emotions bleeding through her body like heat. Guilt. Fear. Anger. And beneath it all, a whisper that wasn't quite her own.
Let him go. He chose his thread.
She pressed her palms to her ears. "Stop."
Leila caught her arm. "Anaya?"
"I can hear them. The ashes. They want me to accept it. To stop fighting."
Rafael's jaw clenched. "Then fight harder."
They moved again, fewer now, the tunnels tightening around them.As they walked, Leila murmured fragments of the journal under her breath, trying to steady herself. Rafael scouted ahead, every sense sharp.
Anaya followed, her thoughts a storm.
The ember wanted choice—but what if every choice destroyed something?If she embraced it, she might free them all. Or consume them all.If she refused, she might keep her friends safe. Or doom them to the same cages as before.
Every path led to fire.
When they finally stopped again, miles deeper, Rafael turned to her. "We'll find him," he said quietly. "We always do."
Anaya nodded but didn't believe it. Her hand ached; faint cracks of light spread across her palm, tiny fissures where the ember's glow seeped through.
"Raf," she said, voice barely audible. "What if Kato's right? What if I can't carry this?"
He hesitated, then reached out, covering her hand with his. The light dimmed beneath his touch.
"Then we carry you," he said.
She met his eyes. "Even if it kills you?"
He smiled crookedly. "Especially if it saves you."
For the first time in days, she almost laughed. But it died on her lips as the tunnel walls began to hum again—softly this time, like a voice humming through stone.
One falls. One rises. The circle breaks. The ember chooses anew.
Leila shivered. "What was that?"
Anaya looked down at her glowing palm. "It's begun."
And somewhere, far behind them in the maze of tunnels, a single scream echoed—a sound of metal against flesh, cut short.
Kato.
The Seers had found him.
The ember flared so violently she thought it might split her apart. The whispers roared, no longer distant—angry, grieving, alive.
Choose.
Anaya closed her eyes. For the first time, she didn't try to silence them.
"I will," she whispered. "But it will be my choice."