There was no floor.
No ceiling.
No sky.
Only memory.
Rowan stood in a place that wasn't a place - an endless void echoing with voices not his own. Around him, fragments of light floated like shattered glass, each one pulsing with pieces of lives that didn't belong to him… and yet felt too close.
In one, he saw himself as a child, setting a field ablaze with a scream.
In another, he was on a throne of bone, eyes cold, armies bowing before him.
In another still, he was dying - stabbed in the back by someone he loved.
Rowan reached for one of the shards, and it burned him.
"Careful," said a voice behind him.
He turned. The other Rowan stood there, calm, composed, the blackened wand still in his hand.
"This is the Vault of Echoes," he said. "It shows you every version of who you were… and who you could become."
"And what happens if I fail the trial?" Rowan asked.
The other gave a cold smile. "You become one of the echoes."
The air rippled.
From the darkness, shadows began to emerge - echoes of Rowans that never made it. Some wore crowns. Others wore chains. All of them had fallen. All of them stared with hollow eyes.
"Only one version can survive," the other Rowan said. "Only one truth."
But Rowan didn't step back.
Instead, he clenched his fists, fire crackling beneath his skin.
"Then I'll write my own."
The echoes screamed. The Vault trembled. And the Trial began in full.
The fire rose - not to destroy, but to reveal.
Blue flames coiled around Rowan's arms, pulsing in time with his heartbeat. But this time, he wasn't afraid of them. They didn't burn. They remembered.
Every flicker carried a memory not his own.
The ancient halls of the Thirteenth House, before it was buried in silence.
The war that tore it apart.
The betrayal.
The one who sealed its name away.
Rowan staggered as the weight of centuries flooded his senses. The fire wasn't just his magic - it was the legacy of everyone who came before him. Every chosen one the world tried to erase.
Behind him, the echoes closed in, whispering, clawing.
You are not strong enough.
You are not meant to exist.
You will burn like the rest.
"No," Rowan breathed.
The wand in his hand pulsed. Not the black wand - the one he had always carried, even when he didn't know it. The wand that had been forged not from bone, but from memory.
He raised it high. The blue flames surged outward, not in rage, but in remembrance.
The echoes recoiled, their forms splintering as the fire passed through them. The Vault of Echoes cracked at the edges, the glass memories splintering into smoke.
"I am Rowan Vale," he said aloud, voice steady. "I am the Thirteenth Flame."
The trial shattered.
Light consumed the void - and he was falling.
—-
He woke with a gasp.
Stone beneath him. Cold air. The scent of ancient dust.
He was in the hidden room again. Lyra knelt beside him, eyes wide. Avery stood over him, wand drawn.
"You were gone," Lyra whispered. "For hours."
Rowan sat up slowly. The fire still flickered beneath his skin, but now - it answered to him.
"I know what I am," he said quietly.
And somewhere deep in the school, the hidden sigil of the Thirteenth House glowed faintly to life.
The fire had remembered.
—
The bell rang at Blackthorn Academy - but not the usual soft chime that signaled class changes. This bell was louder. Older. It echoed through stone and soul alike.
Rowan felt it in his bones.
Lyra froze mid-step. "That's not possible," she whispered.
"What is it?" Rowan asked, already knowing he wouldn't like the answer.
"The Summoning Bell," Avery said grimly. "It hasn't rung since the last purge."
Rowan turned toward the sound. The blue fire inside him pulsed, restless.
"They know," he said.
Lyra's silver eyes flashed. "The Order is coming."
—
By nightfall, the school was locked down. Professors stalked the halls, cloaks heavy with enchantments. Students whispered behind closed doors. And above the main tower, twelve banners fluttered in the wind / one for each of the Twelve Houses.
"They're gathering," Lyra said, watching from a shadowed corridor. "All twelve heads. All twelve houses. United for the first time in a century."
"To kill me," Rowan said.
"To erase you," she corrected. "Like they did before."
Footsteps echoed behind them. A professor approached - Headmaster Aldren. His expression was unreadable, his wand gleaming at his side.
"Rowan Vale," he said. "You are to stand trial before the Twelve."
Rowan lifted his chin. "For what crime?"
Aldren's gaze was cold. "Being born."
—
They took him to the Hall of Convergence - a grand circular chamber hidden beneath the academy. Twelve towering seats loomed above him, each carved with a different symbol of magic.
House of Flames. House of Stone. House of Blood. And on and on…
The Thirteenth House was not among them.
A robed figure stepped forward - one of the Twelve.
"You are accused of awakening forbidden magic," he said. "You carry the mark of a house that no longer exists."
Rowan didn't flinch. "Maybe it never stopped existing."
Gasps rippled through the chamber.
Another elder leaned in. "Do you deny that your magic is unstable? That it nearly destroyed a student during a duel?"
Rowan clenched his fists. "I didn't start that fight."
"But you ended it… with blue fire," a woman hissed. "The same flame used in the Siege of Hollowvale. The flame of traitors."
Lyra stepped forward, defiant. "You're afraid of him because you couldn't control us. You erased the Thirteenth House to hide your own crimes."
The chamber trembled with magic.
"Silence," the head elder snapped. "This is not a place for ghosts."
And then - the fire answered.
Blue flames rose from the floor, spiraling around Rowan like a storm awakened. Not in destruction. But in truth.
One by one, the enchanted banners of the Twelve flickered.
And behind them, a hidden sigil flared to life - burning bright above Rowan's head.
The Thirteenth had returned.
—
The sigil hung in the air - brilliant, defiant, impossible. Thirteen twisting lines of light, curling like flame and ink, forming the long-lost crest of a House that history had erased.
The chamber plunged into chaos.
"Impossible!" someone shouted.
"Kill the light!" another screamed.
But they couldn't. The sigil wouldn't fade. It pulsed brighter, casting its glow over every banner, every elder, every lie.
Rowan stood at the center, flames curling around his feet - but they didn't burn. They whispered.
Lyra stepped to his side. "They can't stop it. The House has chosen you."
"They're going to try," Avery said grimly, backing toward the door as magic cracked through the walls.
Headmaster Aldren raised his wand. "Contain him!"
Twelve spells burst through the air - arcs of wind, water, stone, shadow. They collided with Rowan's shield in a blinding blaze of blue.
He didn't cast it. It cast itself.
Rowan felt something stir inside him - not rage, but memory. He wasn't just a student.
He was legacy.
He lifted his hand, and the chamber shook.
Flames exploded from the ground - not wild, not chaotic, but shaped. Twelve fiery forms emerged from the smoke, each bearing the mark of the lost House. Echoes of those who had once stood where he now stood. Forgotten. Erased.
"The Thirteenth did not die," Rowan said aloud, voice echoing in a tongue he didn't know. "You buried us beneath lies, but we were roots. And now we rise."
Gasps turned to screams.
The elders tried to flee. Some vanished in teleportation bursts. Others struck at Rowan with desperate magic - but every spell was swallowed by the blue fire.
Headmaster Aldren stepped forward, breathing heavily. "You don't understand what you've awoken, boy. The Thirteenth House was never just magic - it was prophecy. It was power meant to end the world."
Rowan's gaze locked with his. "Then why does it feel like I'm meant to save it?"
Behind him, the ghostly figures of the Thirteenth bowed their heads.
The banners of the Twelve turned to ash.
And Blackthorn Academy trembled beneath the weight of truth.
—
They followed the sigil.
Not through the halls of Blackthorn, but beneath them - into ancient tunnels etched with forgotten runes, the stone whispering secrets in a language only Rowan could understand. With each step, the mark on his hand burned brighter, guiding them through twists and turns no map remembered.
Avery walked beside him, sword drawn. "This place gives me the creeps. Like it's… watching."
"It is," Lyra said softly. Her silver eyes shimmered in the dark. "This was once the heart of the Thirteenth House."
"Before they buried it alive," Rowan muttered.
They stopped at a gate made of obsidian and bone. In its center: the crest of the Thirteenth - now glowing on Rowan's hand. He stepped forward.
The gate responded.
With a groan like a dying god, it cracked open, revealing a chamber beyond that pulsed with power.
It was not a throne room.
It was a crypt.
Dozens of thrones - broken, overturned, burned - lined the walls. And in the center stood one still whole. Black stone, veined with blue flame, hovering just above the ground. The Secret Throne.
Rowan approached. Each step felt heavier, like time was pressing down on him.
Lyra touched his arm. "You don't have to sit."
"But I do," he said.
He turned to her. "This was never about a school. Or a House. This was about something much older."
"The end of the Twelve," Lyra whispered.
Rowan nodded once.
And sat.
The flame in the throne flared - and the chamber lit up with memories.
Visions.
The War of the Houses. The betrayal. The child taken and hidden. The rewriting of history. The sealing of the throne beneath lies and blood.
Rowan's body jolted as centuries of forgotten power coursed into him. Names whispered through his mind - those erased, those murdered, those who had waited for someone to return.
Lyra caught him as he swayed.
"You okay?" Avery asked, voice tight.
Rowan looked up, eyes glowing blue-gold. "They weren't protecting the Twelve from us."
"Then what?" Lyra asked.
"They were protecting the Twelve from what we were guarding."
From the shadows behind the throne, a voice answered. Cold. Familiar.
"And now you've let it out."
They turned.
Standing there was the Headmaster. But not as he'd been.
His skin was smoke. His eyes hollow. And behind him - something else stirred.
Something ancient.
And hungry.
The Headmaster's face shimmered like a mirage, warping between flesh and shadow.
"You were never meant to find the throne," he said, voice layered with echoes - one calm and cruel, the other frantic and ancient. "We sealed it for a reason."
Behind him, the shadows twisted. Something moved.
A shape. A pulse.
Something breathing.
Lyra stepped forward, silver eyes blazing. "What is that?"
"The true power of the Thirteenth," the Headmaster hissed. "The First Flame. The one even the Twelve feared."
Rowan staggered back. The visions from the throne still burned in his skull. He saw a child—no, a vessel - carved from prophecy. A flame that was not born, but summoned. Not magic… but something older. Pre-magic. Pre-order.
"It's not just fire," Rowan breathed. "It's origin."
The Headmaster nodded. "And now that you've awakened the throne, it's waking up."
From the darkness, the creature emerged.
It had no true form - just shifting limbs of smoke and fire, eyes like dying stars, and a mouth full of screaming voices. It wasn't alive. It was memory made monstrous. The magic erased by history.
"The Thirteenth House didn't die," Lyra said slowly. "It became this."
Rowan stood his ground, heart pounding. "And I'm its last heir."
The creature lunged.
Avery threw up a barrier just in time, but it cracked on impact. The chamber shook. Dust and bone rained from the ceiling. Rowan raised the black wand. Blue fire surged to life around him - but it wasn't enough. Not against this.
"Rowan!" Lyra shouted. "You can't fight it with fire. You are the fire."
He froze.
In the throne's memory, he had seen it - the day the First Flame was born. Not ignited. Not summoned. Chosen.
He didn't need to burn it.
He needed to bind it.
Closing his eyes, Rowan dropped the wand.
The creature surged forward.
He stepped toward it.
"Rowan!" Avery screamed.
But the fire didn't consume him.
It merged with him.
Rowan's mark exploded in light - blue and black weaving together like ancient runes set ablaze. The creature roared. The shadows twisted - and collapsed inward.
The chamber went silent.
Rowan stood in the center, flames wrapping around his form like a second skin. His eyes were not his own.
They were older.
Brighter.
The throne pulsed behind him. And on the stone, new words carved themselves:
The Flame Has Returned.