It didn’t look like a gate.
Just a stone circle standing alone in the wasteland east of the Academy—half-buried in ash, with glyphs so old they refused to glow. But the shard in my palm pulsed the moment I stepped close.
"This is it," Valmira said. "The place the Codex spoke of."
Seraphina approached the stone arch, her breath forming frost in the dead air. "It’s sealed. But not against entry—against memory."
"What does that mean?" I asked.
Lilith, standing at my side, answered without looking at me. "Once we pass through... we may forget why we came."
Yuria cracked her knuckles. "Then let’s go through fast."
Astraea drew a blade of ice and carved a symbol into the gate’s keystone. The glyph flared—just once—and the stone shimmered.
The air rippled.
We stepped through.
And I felt everything I knew... loosen.