The day after the Veilfire Trials, I couldn't feel my hands.
Not from injury.
But from absence.
Like something had been taken. Or maybe something new had grown in their place, something that didn't belong in flesh.
I sat on the steps outside the east wing of Kadven Academy. Dawn broke slow, dull orange bleeding through the gray sky. Students passed me. Some looked. Most didn't.
The ones who looked… looked away just as quickly.
Word had spread.
I had stood before the Circle of Veils.
And survived.
The academy changed after that.
I wasn't a ghost anymore.
I was a shadow people tried not to step on.
Some bowed their heads. Some whispered prayers. Others crossed the hall to avoid me.
I didn't mind.
They were right to be afraid.
The summons came at dusk, delivered by a man with no name.
He didn't speak, only offered a coin.
Silver. Flat. Etched with a single eye.
The sigil of the Thirteenth Seat.
I flipped it in my hand once. It vanished before it landed.
That was the invitation.
The meeting place was hidden in the northern quadrant of the academy grounds. Past the greenhouses that never grew anything normal. Past the statue of the saint who had no face.
I found a stone archway, ancient and crooked. No door. Just space.
When I stepped through, the air changed.
It was colder. Heavier. My breath fogged.
I stood in a courtyard—circular, black stone underfoot, surrounded by thirteen obsidian pillars. Each had carvings in a language I didn't know but felt like I once spoke.
Twelve figures waited in the center.
Not students.
Not faculty.
And not quite alive.
Their faces were hidden under masks—no two alike. Bone. Silver. Cloth. Smoke. One was carved from ice that didn't melt.
They stood around a stone table that pulsed with slow, red light.
The Thirteenth Seat.
One of them spoke, the voice dry as paper:
"You've passed the trial. You've seen the pit. You carry the mark. You are ready."
"Ready for what?" I asked.
"To remember," said another. A woman, maybe. Her voice echoed behind itself.
One stepped forward. His mask was blank and smooth, like wet clay.
"You think Kadven is a school."
"It isn't?" I asked.
He tilted his head.
"Kadven is a wall."
That silenced me.
"A wall between this world… and the one beneath."
The woman spoke again. "We are not just mages. We are jailers. Guardians. We hold back the forgotten."
Another voice cut in, sharp and cold: "But the seal has weakened. And something has taken interest in you."
They all looked at me.
Even the figure behind the Thirteenth Seat—the one who had not moved.
The one without a face, or shadow.
The Empty Seat.
"You want me to join you," I said quietly.
"No," the voice behind the mask of smoke answered.
"We want you to replace one of us."
Silence followed.
I felt the weight of it settle into my chest like iron.
"I'm a student."
"You were," said the woman. "Now you are something else."
The stone table lit brighter.
Twelve symbols circled it, each one floating in the air—sigils of ancient power, each representing a member of the Circle.
But a thirteenth symbol hovered above the rest.
Dark.
Undefined.
Waiting.
"You are not bound by noble blood," the smoke-masked figure said. "You are not chosen by crown or coin. You were chosen by the seal itself. The mirror saw your truth."
I looked at the symbol above the table.
It pulsed faintly when I stared too long. Like it knew me.
"What happens if I take the seat?" I asked.
"You join the Circle," said the woman.
"You protect the veil," said the blank-faced one.
"You are watched," said another.
"You are hunted," said a fourth.
"And if I refuse?"
"You die," said the smoke.
Not a threat.
Just a truth.
I stepped forward.
The thirteenth symbol burned brighter.
I reached out.
Fingers inches from it.
But then—
The Empty Seat moved.
Not forward.
Up.
It rose from the chair like smoke, formless and tall. No eyes. No limbs. But I felt its gaze.
It didn't speak with a voice.
It spoke inside me.
"This seat is not given."
"It is taken."
The others did not interfere.
This… was my final test.
It lunged.
The air bent. Time cracked. The sky itself blurred behind it.
I summoned my shield spell. It shattered before I finished it.
Dark tendrils reached for me—thoughts that weren't mine, memories I never lived. I stumbled back, heart slamming, mind slipping.
It whispered into my head:
"You are not enough."
I bit my tongue until I tasted blood. Anchored myself.
I remembered the mirror.
The pit.
The beast that bowed.
I whispered the word again. The one from the mirror.
The seal burned on my chest.
Light—no, not light. Something deeper—poured from me.
The Empty Seat paused.
Then I ran at it.
No blade.
No shield.
Just fury.
I reached into its chest of smoke and shadow and dragged something out—a symbol, broken and black.
The old mark.
I crushed it.
The thing screamed without sound and burst into ash and memory.
The air cleared.
The thirteenth symbol dropped into my hand.
Silence.
Then the twelve bowed their heads.
The Thirteenth Seat was mine.
One of them spoke quietly:
"You are no longer a student."
I sat in the chair.
"You are the thirteenth."
And then the sky above the pillars cracked.
A single drop of black fire fell from the heavens and burned in the center of the circle.
The first warning.