The next morning, the skies above Blackthorn weren't the same.
A crack split the horizon, fine as a hairline fracture—barely visible to those who didn't know what to look for. But the magic in the air had shifted. Thick. Ancient. Tense.
The Twelve Houses felt it.
The Order of Twelve sensed it.
And Rowan Vale woke up not in his bed, but on the throne of the forgotten house—its stone now pulsing with veins of silver and blue, as if alive.
"Is this what power feels like?" he whispered.
No answer.
Just the hum of something beneath his skin. Not magic. Not exactly. More like… a memory that had been waiting to return.
He stood slowly. His reflection shimmered across the black-marble walls, dozens of versions of himself staring back—older, younger, burning, breaking.
Lyra appeared in the doorway, her silver eyes more cautious than usual.
"You bound it," she said.
Rowan didn't answer.
"You merged with the First Flame," she continued. "Do you even understand what that means?"
He looked at her. "I am the Thirteenth now."
Her lips parted, as if to argue—but then she stepped closer, lowering her voice. "The Order will see this as a declaration of war."
"Then let them."
Lyra's expression turned stormy. "Rowan—this is bigger than you. Bigger than all of us. The Thirteenth House was erased because it was too powerful. Because it threatened the foundation of our world."
He turned toward the throne. "Maybe it's time that foundation cracked."
A heavy silence passed between them.
Then—Avery barged in.
"They're coming," he said breathlessly. "The Twelve Houses. Their heirs. Their guardians. Everyone. The Headmaster's called for a full assembly."
Rowan lifted his hand.
The flames curled around his fingers like silk.
"Let them come."
—
Cut to: The Assembly Hall of Blackthorn
Hundreds of students stood in stunned silence. Professors lined the walls. At the center, twelve thrones shimmered—one for each house.
But now, a thirteenth throne blazed to life.
Blue fire.
Black stone.
Uninvited—and undeniable.
Rowan stepped into view.
The room gasped.
Heads turned. Some flinched. Others glared.
"Rowan Vale," the Headmaster said, voice calm but taut with rage. "What have you done?"
Rowan didn't blink. "I brought it back."
Murmurs.
Gasps.
Terror.
He turned, facing the heirs of each House. "You were taught the Thirteenth was a mistake. A curse. A danger."
He stepped forward. "But what if it was never a mistake? What if it was erased because it threatened your control?"
"You dare—" began one heir from the House of Stone.
"Yes," Rowan cut in. "I do."
The ground trembled. The throne behind him roared with fire.
And the mark on his palm—the sigil of the Thirteenth—blazed brighter than ever.
The chamber shook.
Not from magic—but from the weight of a truth that refused to stay buried.
Rowan stood before the Twelve, unbowed. The flame of the Thirteenth burned behind him, casting a long shadow that stretched across the Assembly Hall, swallowing the edges of the polished floor, licking at the feet of the so-called sacred thrones.
"The Thirteenth House was never a mistake," Rowan said, voice low but fierce. "It was a warning."
The Headmaster rose from his high seat, robes crackling with contained magic. "You are treading the edge of exile, boy. Renounce this madness, and perhaps the Houses will be merciful."
Rowan met his eyes. "You call it madness. But I call it memory. And I remember what they tried to erase."
Silence.
Then—one of the heirs, tall and clad in crimson robes from the House of Flames, stepped forward.
"Then burn, Vale."
She drew her wand. Flame gathered like a storm.
But Rowan didn't flinch.
The wand in his own hand—blackened bone, threaded with glowing veins—rose in perfect silence.
He didn't cast a spell.
He simply spoke.
A name.
One no one had heard in centuries. One no one had dared to write down. One that bled power into every syllable.
"Elarian."
The moment it left his lips, reality cracked.
—
Somewhere beneath Blackthorn…
The underground passage Lyra had once shown him groaned, stone shifting like ribs waking from centuries of sleep.
A hidden door—sealed for over a hundred years—shuddered and clicked open.
Inside: an ancient sanctum.
Statues of cloaked figures. Murals of a throne buried in fire. And at the center… a stone slab with thirteen sigils carved deep into it.
One of them now glowed.
Alive again.
Awake.
—
Back in the Hall
Screams rang out.
The heir from House of Flames was on her knees, her wand shattered, her fire gone.
Rowan lowered his arm. His voice calm.
"The Thirteenth House was silenced by names. So it will rise again through names."
Gasps.
Professors looked at one another, unsure whether to flee or fight.
"The War of Names was never finished," Rowan said. "It was paused. Buried."
He turned.
Faced the stunned crowd.
"And I am unearthing it."
—-
Lyra finds a journal hidden in the ruins of the old tower—one that belonged to the last known leader of the Thirteenth House.
Inside are the original sigils.
Names that were never meant to be spoken again.
But Rowan is already speaking them.
And one name… is his own. Written in blood. Centuries ago.
But how?
And why does it say:
"He will rise again when the Thirteenth burns."
The past is catching up.
And Rowan Vale may not be the first Rowan at all.
The sigils in the journal pulsed with heat—alive, reactive, as if they recognized the one holding them.
Lyra stared at Rowan. "Your name… it's here. Written centuries ago. This can't be a coincidence."
Rowan stepped forward, eyes narrowing at the ink that shimmered like molten silver. "There were thirteen wands. Thirteen names. Thirteen powers. But only one was sealed twice."
Lyra flipped back to the beginning. A page torn, then reattached. On it, a prophecy scratched in a language even the Twelve had forgotten:
"When fire burns blue and shadows claim breath, the one who bears two names shall undo the world's breath."
She looked up, chilled. "Rowan… do you have another name?"
"I don't know," he whispered. But his hand trembled, as if something beneath his skin remembered.
Suddenly, a low hum filled the chamber.
The journal began to glow—and then burn.
Not with normal flame.
But with the same blue fire that lived inside Rowan.
The truth unfolded like a trap.
The wands had not been destroyed after the war—they had been split. Disguised. Hidden within the Twelve Houses.
And now Rowan had unknowingly begun reassembling them.
One by one, the true wands were waking—and each was calling out to their true bearer.
But wielding all thirteen?
It wasn't a gift.
It was a sentence.
The last time someone had held them all, the world cracked in two.
Now Rowan stood on the edge of that same fate.
And in the shadows, something ancient began to whisper again.
A name.
Not his.
But one he used to be.
The name that even the Order of Twelve had sworn never to speak:
"The Thirteenth King."