Arin awoke on the cold floor, breath ragged, chest heaving. His room had returned to darkness. The crimson feather was gone burned to nothing, leaving only a faint ring of ash that looked like a ritual circle around him. But something had changed. He felt it.
A throb pulsed in his chest not painful, but warm. Alive. Like a second heartbeat flickering beneath his ribs.
"You are the last of the Flameblood Line."
The words still echoed, not just in his mind, but deepernin his bones. Arin touched his forehead. Sweat clung to his skin. But it wasn't fear. Not anymore.
It was fire. Something inside him had awakened. By morning, the air at Duskmoor was sharp with tension. Whispers passed between students like sparks on dry grass. Something had triggered one of the ancient wards buried beneath the Academy grounds.
Most brushed it off. An old spell reacting to seasonal shifts. A prank gone too far. Nothing serious.
But Lyra wasn't most students. "You did something," she said, sliding her tray beside his in the mess hall. Her voice low, sharp.
Arin nodded. "I burned the feather. It… opened something."
She leaned closer, eyes scanning the room. "What did you see?" He hesitated. "A void. Eyes. A voice. It said I'm the last of the Flameblood Line."
Lyra went still. "That's impossible," she whispered. "The Flamebloods were wiped out during the Magelock Rebellion."
"Looks like someone missed one," Arin said quietly.
Her voice dropped even lower. "If that's true, someone out there is going to want proof."
By noon, a formal summons arrived. Arin was called to the Headmaster's chamber.
Students whispered as he passed. No one was ever summoned directly at least, not unless something serious had happened.
The climb to the tower felt longer than usual. At the top, the guards opened the massive doors without a word.
Inside, the circular chamber was quiet, glowing with ambient magic. Floating orbs drifted lazily between tall bookcases. A fireplace crackled with blue fire. And in front of it stood Headmaster Caelum, hands behind his back.
"Sit," he said. Arin obeyed.
The silence that followed felt like a test.
"You've been busy," Caelum said at last.
Arin chose his words carefully. "I've been searching. Trying to understand… who I am."
"And you think the answer lies in fire?"
He didn't respond.
Caelum turned. His pale eyes were cold and clear as moonlight. "Magic often answers questions. But it also asks them."
He took a step closer.
"Tell me… when the flame spoke to you, did you feel watched?"
"Yes," Arin said softly.
"Good," Caelum replied. "Because you were."
The blue flames in the fireplace surged. They twisted into the shape of a phoenix rising, burning, dying, rising again.
"The Flamebloods," the Headmaster said, "were once guardians of dangerous knowledge truths too powerful to let roam freely. They sealed those truths beneath Duskmoor... and were hunted for it."
"Why?" Arin asked. "Why kill those who protected knowledge?"
"Because knowledge," Caelum murmured, "can burn the world down." He turned to face Arin fully.
"And now that fire rests in you.
The Headmaster dismissed him with no answers only a warning.
That evening, back at his dorm, a folded note lay at his door. No seal. No signature.
Just a single line:
"Meet me in the Old Alchemy Wing. Midnight. Come alone."
—Varik.
The Old Alchemy Wing had been abandoned for years. After a fire consumed one of the labs, no one dared return. Students said the halls still smelled of burnt mercury and blood.
Arin slipped in through a cracked archway cloaked in ivy. Broken glass crunched beneath his boots. The air was cold, metallic.
Varik waited in the center of the ruined hall, Ember Cloak draped over his shoulders like shadows woven into cloth.
"You came," he said.
"You said I'd need answers," Arin replied.
Varik nodded. "And you will. But first, understand this Duskmoor was not always the beacon of magical learning it claims to be."
He touched a scorched pillar.
"Before Duskmoor, this place was called Flamefall Fortress. A prison. Built to contain the most dangerous knowledge ever discovered. And the Flamebloods were its wardens."
Arin's mouth was dry. "You mean this whole academy… was a cover?"
"A repurposed shell," Varik said. "The kingdoms feared what the Flamebloods protected. So they turned on them. Killed them. Buried their truths. And locked their memories in the only place no one could reach bloodlines."
"My blood," Arin said.
Varik raised his hand. A glowing sigil flared on his palm shaped like an eye wreathed in flame.
"You deserve to know the truth," he said. "But understand truth won't make you stronger. It'll mark you."
Arin met his gaze. "I've already been marked."
Varik studied him for a beat, then handed over a small glass vial filled with molten gold light.
"What is this?"
"Memory Flame," he said. "It'll show you what your ancestors sealed away."
Arin stared at it. His hand trembled slightly.
There was no turning back.
He uncorked the vial and drank.
Fire. Screams. Memory. He dropped to his knees as visions tore through him:
A girl in chains, her mind stripped spell by spell.
A tower collapsing in golden fire.
Flamebloods in a circle, bleeding into a burning sigil.
A crown of flame set atop a crying child's head.
"Only in flame will truth endure."
Arin's eyes snapped open.
His hands were shaking. His skin glowed faintly. The second heartbeat in his chest now roared like a forge.
Varik was gone. But behind him, scorched into the wall by fire, were five words:
"You Are Not The Last."