**BANG. BANG. BANG.**
A deep, jarring knock slams against the door.
My eyes snap open. For a moment, I don't know where I am.
The ceiling above me glows faintly—constellations etched into stone. The same ones from last night. The same ones I stared at until sleep claimed me.
Then I remember.
Stillwater.
The elite assembly.
The duel I lost.
The truth I learned.
Around me, the others stir. Callen groans into his blanket. Dorin jerks upright, hand already at his belt. Tessa blinks hard, immediately alert. Neko is the only one already on his feet, silent as a shadow, watching the door.
It opens with a creak.
An attendant in silver robes steps inside. His face is unreadable, but his tone is clipped and dry:
**"You're late. First lesson begins in fifteen minutes. Be outside in two."**
Then he's gone.
Callen lets out a long sigh. "They never said *when* it starts."
"They never *had* to," Dorin mutters, already pulling on his boots.
We move quickly. Cold water on the face. Half-laced boots. No time for food or thought. The silence between us isn't tension—it's urgency.
We file into the corridor outside, where the attendant waits.
He leads us through a side passage none of us remember from yesterday. A spiral descent begins—deeper and deeper into the Sanctum. The walls change as we go. No longer polished black stone, but something older. Cracked, inscribed with words we can't read.
Finally, we reach a vast chamber lit by no visible source. Soft white light pulses gently from the walls themselves.
The room is circular, its center filled with concentric rings of stone benches. No weapons. No training tools. No sparring rings.
Instead—relics.
Hundreds of them.
Some hover gently above pedestals. Others are sealed in glass. Swords broken in two. Masks without faces. Scrolls sealed in wax. Bones.
An elder stands in the center. Robes of silver and gray swirl gently around her feet, as if wind moved within the chamber.
"You are late," she says softly, her voice echoing across the room without force. "You will not be late again."
We bow in silence.
"I am Elder Rehl. Welcome to the Archive of Thought."
She begins to walk in slow circles around us as we take our seats.
"Stillwater does not mold elites through force alone. Here, we study the rise and fall of every generation before you. Their mistakes. Their ambitions. Their end."
She gestures to the artifacts.
"These are what remain of the ones who came before. Not their weapons. Their *warnings*."
Her gaze sharpens.
"Three pillars will shape your foundation here: *Memory*. *Technique*. *Intent.* You will master all three, or you will not ascend."
Callen leans toward me slightly and whispers, "Sounds more like a priestess than a warrior."
I nod once. "Stillwater doesn't need warriors. It needs survivors."
Elder Rehl lifts a hand. A sphere of light rises from the floor between us. Inside, we see the faint projection of a battlefield—not current, but old. Forgotten.
Ash. Smoke. A field strewn with torn banners and silent bodies.
An elite kneels beside a dying friend. His mask is cracked; his hands shake as he clutches the man's wrist.
"Elven Marr," the voice narrates. "Year 618 After Fall. Assigned command of the Vortex Watch. Orders issued. Reinforcements denied. Nineteen lost. One returned."
The image zooms in—Marr slamming his fist into the mud, eyes wild, not from rage—
—but betrayal.
"He obeyed, and they abandoned him. Still, he saluted upon return."
"Lesson: Obedience is not loyalty. Obedience is not truth."
The image fades. Elder Rehl says nothing.
Another spark of light.
A council chamber. Cold, narrow. Elders in black sit behind veils.
A girl stands at the center, bound in threadsteel. Her face is calm.
"Name withheld. Year unknown. She uncovered contraband channels from the Outer Circles—powerstones smuggled to high-ranking families."
A scroll appears in her hand, detailed and dense. Proof.
But no one reads it.
"They silenced her. Branded her a traitor. Every record of her erased."
Flames consume the scroll. The girl vanishes in smoke.
"Lesson: Truth is not what survives. It is what resists."
This time, the silence is heavier.
Tessa clenches her jaw. Dorin doesn't blink.
Rehl raises her hand again.
A city burns.
Shouts echo in the distance. Red embers fall like rain.
An elite in white armor walks alone through the ruins, blade drawn but not raised. His helmet gleams.
"Solen Veer. Year 705 After Fall. Sent to purge an enclave accused of dissent. He asked questions. Too many."
He finds a girl in the rubble. She hides a token beneath her shirt—the sigil of the supposed rebellion. Solen kneels. Says nothing. Carries her out.
"He returned expecting justice. He received judgment."
A square. A gallows. Solen's mask splits as the noose tightens.
"Lesson: Stillwater remembers what it *wants* to remember. Will you let it remember you?"
We're breathing slower now.
Not from exhaustion. From understanding.
One more.
Snow. Silence.
A plain of ice beneath a gray sky.
A man kneels beside a woman bleeding into the snow. She wears Serpent Clan armor.
"Arkin Rael. Year 721 After Fall. Ordered to begin the war with the Clans. He refused."
He touches the wound. Tends to it.
"He demanded both armies tell their truths, not raise their blades. His was the greater sorrow."
A new pact was formed. War was stopped.
"He was exiled from Stillwater."
But the Serpent Clans now send an heir here every year.
"Lesson: Mercy does not win you power. But it can reshape it."
The sphere fades.
Elder Rehl looks at each of us in turn.
"Stillwater does not punish failure. It punishes forgetfulness. If you fail to remember these stories—not just their pain, but their meaning—you will repeat them."
The chamber darkens.
"You are dismissed. Martial review begins at second bell."
We rise slowly.
The corridor back is longer than before.
Not in distance.
In thought.
Neko breaks the silence. "I thought learning meant answers."
Tessa shakes her head. "Here, it means weight."
Callen exhales. "And we've only just begun."
I look back toward the Archive door, already sealed behind us.
Stillwater doesn't break you with pain.
It breaks you with *memory.*
And I'll carr
y it—
Until the day this mask is no longer just a disguise.
But a crown.