They say the school didn't fall.
It changed.
They say that's harder.
And they're right.
It's been two hundred nights since we razed the Hall of Ranks. The rock still shows the crack where Miko etched our first new order, and students still scribble new messages on the wall beside it every week. Some draw glyphs. Some sign their names for the first time. Some leave nothing at all. They just sit. Breathe. Watch.
And sometimes that is enough.
Lunaris High is no more.
We simply renamed it something untraceable.
The Commons.
Simple. Collective.
No gate scanners.
No rank assignment.
No control panels tracking which dorm you eat in or what classes you "qualify" for.
Everyone qualifies now.
And nobody qualifies more.
It's not perfect.
Some students left in the first weeks, grumbling the lack of structure was anarchy. Others tried to recreate structure from the ground up, grumbling about "merit-based teams" and "voluntary structure."
We let them talk.
But the system didn't come back.
Because no one listened.
Jin runs the systems council now.
She doesn't call herself that, but everyone does. She coordinates maintenance routes, distributes tech upgrades, and makes sure no group hoards the good rations. I've watched her argue with eight people at once and still get a laugh by the end of it.
Some days I think the rebellion was preparatory for what she was always meant to be.
Miko teaches now.
Not classes, actually.
Sessions.
She won't accept a title—"Instructor" makes her blanch. So we call her Beacon.
Kids gather around her like gravity.
She has built a new lexicon of glyphs—one that doesn't bind you to a measure of power but informs you about how your energy compares to others.
Not better.
Not worse.
Just true.
Lio orders fieldwork.
He moves more than anyone. He trains runners, scouts, bridge teams—anyone who'll move further out and create safe areas for kids still trapped in the outer zones.
He calls every two weeks. Always with new scars. Always with new maps.
And always with tea for me.
Me?
I don't live on campus anymore.
I walk.
Through the city.
Between zones.
Delivering the messages that won't travel wires.
Sometimes I'm just a shadow in a doorway, watching.
Sometimes I'm a fire in the middle of a student protest in a district that still clings to ranks.
I don't raise banners.
I don't give speeches.
I just exist.
And for some, that's still a kind of spark.
I've met dozens of kids who never made it to Lunaris High. Not because they weren't accepted—but because they weren't measured.
The system never saw them.
And now they glance at one another.
And they glance at me.
Sometimes I leave before they can get used to my face.
Sometimes I stay.
Sometimes they address me by the name the city whispered in my ear.
Seva.
And sometimes?
They don't call out a thing.
They merely say, "We remember."
I have a book with me now.
Not a pretty one. Just paper and string and ink.
I write down all the names I'm called.
Not ranked.
Not categorized.
Just listed.
And when the pages are gone, I burn them.
Not out of disrespect.
But so their names come into the world.
Smoke.
Sky.
Breath.
Memory.
I went back to the ruins of Voss's office once.
Dust and wires and broken glass are all that are left.
But behind one broken panel, I found a file she never finished.
A list of anomalies.
Not powers.
People.
She listed us all—every bug, every spark, and every flare she could not manage.
And next to my name, she wrote something.
Severe.
She wasn't wrong.
Some days I have no idea what she'd think now.
Not about the school.
Not about the city.
But what about the fact that nobody cares to be ranked anymore?
Not because they're afraid.
But because they've learned what it means to choose your place, your people, and your way—instead of being handed it.
The new kids call themselves Echoes.
They say they're what comes after the fall.
They mark walls with strokes of white paint in the shape of an open hand.
No numbers.
Only presence.
One of them ran into me on a walk last month.
Twelve years old. Wild hair. A thousand questions.
"Is it true you used to be nothing?"
I thought about lying.
But I didn't.
"No," I said. "I was never nothing. I was just told to believe that."
They stared at me.
"Did it hurt?"
"All the time."
"Does it still?"
I nodded.
"Now I know what to do with it."
Pain did not strengthen me.
It made me present.
And presence?
Is what systems most fear?
So I keep walking.
I visit old halls.
Old cells.
Broken gates.
Abandoned towers.
I sit on rooftops, and I wait for light.
Not because I have to see it.
But because I know someone else might.
Sometimes I return to where the Hall of Ranks stood.
It's a garden now.
Not only plants.
Iden.
A living archive.
No engraved names.
No statues.
Only one stone with an old glyph question:
"Who do you choose to be?"
And under it?
One word.
Not written by me.
But by one who came after.
Seva.
Not a leader.
Not a hero.
Not a savior.
Only a beginning.