The sky had forgotten what color it was supposed to be.
In the days since the collapse, it changed with every sunrise — one morning violet, the next pale green, sometimes streaked with lines of gold that shimmered too long before fading. The world felt like it was relearning itself, the light hesitant, the air too quiet.
Anaya stood on the cliffs overlooking what had once been the Academy. Smoke still rose in slow ribbons from the ruins below. The towers were gone. The mirrors, shattered beyond magic. The river that had once reflected the stars now carried flecks of glass and ash.
No bells. No chants. No glimpse-threads above the heads of survivors.
The weave was gone.
And the silence it left behind was unbearable.
Behind her, the remnants of her circle moved among the broken courtyards. Rafael was trying to organize the rescued students into something like calm; Leila tended to the wounded using herbs and old spell-fragments that barely worked anymore.
Kato lay still beneath a blanket of stone, buried where the tunnels had caved in.
Anaya hadn't let anyone speak his name aloud yet.
Rafael joined her at the cliff's edge, his face drawn, eyes rimmed red. He didn't look at her when he spoke.
"They're lost," he said. "Half of them don't even know who they are anymore. The glimpses are gone, and so are their memories of what they were supposed to become."
Anaya's voice was raw. "Maybe that's a mercy."
"Or a curse."
He turned toward her. "You did what you said you would. You broke it. But now look around — no threads, no certainty, no future anyone can see. What happens to a world that doesn't know what it's supposed to be?"
She had no answer.
The ember pulsed faintly in her palm, still alive but quieter now, like a heartbeat heard from another room.
At night, the survivors gathered around fires built from broken furniture and splintered doors. They spoke in hushed tones — not prayers, exactly, but questions.
What would become of them?Was the weave truly gone, or merely sleeping?Would the Seers return, or had they dissolved with their purpose?
Leila sat beside Anaya, her face illuminated by firelight. "The spells don't work right anymore," she said. "Even the simple ones. They used to draw power from glimpses — from what people were meant to become. Now there's just… nothing to pull from."
"Then we'll learn new ways," Anaya said.
Leila smiled faintly, bitterly. "You make it sound easy."
"It won't be," Anaya admitted. "But maybe that's the point."
Rafael, listening from across the fire, shook his head. "People aren't built for this kind of uncertainty. Give them a few weeks, and they'll be begging for another weave to tell them who they are."
"Then we teach them to live without it," Anaya said quietly. "Choice isn't supposed to be safe."
Rafael's gaze softened. "Maybe. But it should at least be survivable."
Later, when the camp had quieted, Anaya walked alone through the ruins.
The wind hissed through broken arches. The smell of smoke still lingered, faint but permanent. She found herself at the threshold of what had been the Great Hall. The obsidian dais was cracked, the marble floor split into jagged veins.
Veyra's staff lay there, half-buried in rubble.
Anaya bent and picked it up. It was warm to the touch, faintly humming with residual power. For a moment, she saw Veyra's face again — not the stern Headmistress, but the woman who had once said control is not cruelty, it's containment.
Now she understood. Control had been her kindness. Containment, her love.
Anaya had torn it all away.
"Was I wrong?" she whispered to the empty hall.
The ember flickered in answer, neither yes nor no. Just being.
The next morning, the survivors began to scatter. Without the weave, the Academy was no longer a beacon — it was a ruin.
Some packed what little they had and walked toward the horizon, chasing rumors of towns untouched by the collapse. Others stayed, unable to imagine life beyond the walls that had defined them.
Leila approached Anaya as she watched them go. "I'm leaving," she said softly.
Anaya nodded. "Where?"
"South. There's a settlement that still trades in old spellwork. Maybe I can help them rebuild something smaller. Gentler."
Anaya forced a smile. "Then that's your glimpse now — one you chose."
Leila hugged her fiercely. "Don't make me regret believing in you."
When she was gone, the absence she left felt like a fresh wound.
By dusk, only Anaya and Rafael remained. They built one last fire on the cliffs and watched the smoke from the ruins drift into the violet sky.
"She's gone too, you know," Rafael said.
"Who?"
"Veyra. Some of the survivors saw her walk into the river. Said she didn't fight it."
Anaya closed her eyes. "She was tired of fighting."
Rafael poked the fire with a stick. "So what now, prophet?"
"I'm not a prophet."
"Fine. Rebel. Monster. Chosen one. Pick your title. The world's waiting for you to tell it what it's supposed to do now."
Anaya looked out at the horizon. For the first time, she saw no threads, no shimmer of fate, no guiding light — only open sky.
"I'm not telling the world anything," she said. "I'm listening to it."
He smirked faintly. "And if it stays quiet?"
"Then we teach it to speak."
When Rafael finally slept, she stayed awake, watching the stars flicker in strange, new constellations. The ember in her palm glowed once, dim and steady.
"Is this what you wanted?" she whispered to the ashes still whispering somewhere deep beneath her. "Freedom at any cost?"
A voice answered, faint but unmistakable — a blend of many, layered into one.
Freedom was never the goal. The goal was to remember we were alive.
Anaya smiled, tears burning her eyes. "Then maybe that's enough."
She turned her gaze toward the horizon, where a thin, uncertain light began to grow — dawn struggling to find its shape in a world without a pattern.
And for the first time since the letter had arrived, since the Academy, since the glimpses, since the rebellion, she didn't wonder what came next.
She decided it.