The tunnels shook with the force of a hundred boots.The Circle wasn’t waiting. The survivors had barely laid Alden’s body down when the walls began to tremble with the sound of war drums echoing through the stone. Torches flared as runners rushed in, panic flashing in their eyes.“They’re here,” someone gasped, blood dripping from their jaw. “They’re coming from every tunnel…. every passage. We’re surrounded.”The chamber erupted in fear.The wounded cried out. The unarmed backed against the walls. The fighters gripped their weapons, though their hands trembled. They had nothing left to give and yet the Circle demanded everything. Kai stood at the center, his shoulders slumped low. Aldens last words kept banging around inside his head. He felt every single gaze locked on him, every hopes rested on his shoulders. The weight of it made his chest tighten up something fierce.You are not ready.That amulet throbbed warm against his skin. He itched to yank it off, crush it under his b

Silence.It fell heavy across the battlefield after the Circle leader’s body hit the ground. The clang of steel, the shouts, the spells muted, as if Arcadia itself had paused to take a breath.Kai stood over the corpse, his blade slick with blood, his chest heaving like it might split open. Sweat and ash dripped into his eyes. He barely noticed.All he felt was the tremor in his hands.The tremor of ending a ghost that had haunted two lifetimes.But victory didn’t taste like triumph. It tasted like iron, like ash, like something stolen.A ragged cry went up from the Inversion lines. Students cheered, voices breaking with relief. For a moment, hope pierced the smoke.But Kai didn’t smile.Something inside him was breaking.Shadows clawed at him, not in hunger just felt empty, like something vital got ripped away. His mind went blurry, memories slipped right through his fingers like water. Faces, voices, names all melted into nothing.He staggered, dropped to one knee. His blade clatter