Chapter Three: The Shadows Between the Notes
Part Two: The Garden That Waited to Speak
Junilis 5th — Celestis Veil, Harmonic Lyceum – Outer Garden Threshold
The lecture ring fell behind.
Not in distance—but in weight.
Zephryn stepped into the cold hush of the outer garden, that stretch of moss-veined stone and mirrored water where students rarely wandered this early in the day. The wind here whispered without destination. Even the trees didn't rustle—only listened.
His footsteps broke no pattern. His thoughts did.
They saw it.
The Silver Crest hadn't meant to spark. Not then. Not in front of them.
He gritted his teeth. It wasn't just Riko's voice still clawing at the back of his head—it was the weight of that moment, the pulse he couldn't control, the memory that tried to surface on its own.
Lightning.
His glyph had pulsed with lightning.
And for a second, he'd remembered what the storm felt like when Solara placed his hand on the glyph and whispered, "This isn't for what you were. It's for what you're becoming."
But that was before the fall. Before the void.
Now he stood in a school that only remembered half of him.
—
"Was that on purpose?"
The voice came from behind.
Yolti. She stood in the stone arch, arms folded, her dark braid falling over one shoulder, eyes squinting against the rising mist. She didn't look angry. Just… searching.
Zephryn exhaled. "No."
Yolti took a few slow steps forward, her boots skimming across the quiet pond trail, stones arching underfoot.
"You know Kaelen would've thrown Riko off the ledge if Vosk wasn't there."
Zephryn didn't answer.
She sat beside him instead.
"I thought about punching him myself. But Elari said it wasn't 'medically wise.'" A small smile. "I told her healing comes in many forms."
Still, Zephryn didn't speak.
Yolti finally looked at him—really looked.
"You didn't forget how to cast. Did you."
He blinked.
She didn't ask again. She just stood, brushed the damp from her robes, and started walking.
"Pulse Eye activates tomorrow morning," she said, half over her shoulder. "Don't be late. It might say what we already know."
Zephryn watched her vanish back into the archway.
And for the first time since stepping foot in the Lyceum again, he felt a breath tighten in his lungs.
Not from fear.
From memory.
—
Elsewhere in the Veil…
Inside the Doctrine Archive of the Veilfront Domain, a sealed envelope marked with a hollowed crest floated into the hands of a royal scribe. A message sealed in silence and tone:
To the Crown of Veilfront,
The 25th Resonant Trial approaches.
Attendance is no longer optional.
Selection begins in ten days.
—The Hollow Choir
A nearly identical letter was already burning in the hearth of Celestis Veil's northern tower, where King Vaelen Tiramis read it once—and never again.
And the third letter? Still untouched. Still sealed in pulse-locked casing, drifting across the sand-split skies toward the Pulse Barren Region, where few ever lived long enough to reply.
—
Back in the Lyceum—
Instructor Vosk crossed her arms in the Tower Garden overlook. The bell had not rung, yet already she could feel tension climbing the stone.
Squads were shifting.
Echo was half-formed.
Recon grew restless.
And Medic had begun questioning the glyph field fluctuations during morning cast.
She turned when she heard the lightest echo—Selka, walking slowly toward her.
"You told him to stay out of the ring," Vosk said without turning.
Selka answered with silence.
"You risk your standing, Veyel."
"Then lower it," Selka replied. "He didn't step in to fight. He stepped in because you didn't stop Riko."
That made Vosk pause.
After a moment, she turned fully, her voice low and sharp.
"Emotion doesn't excuse insubordination. Doctrine already watches him. Don't make them watch you."
Selka didn't blink. "Then let them."
She turned to walk away—but Vosk's voice stopped her.
"One more misstep, and I won't protect you. Thaelen already petitioned your removal. If he gets wind that you're feeding Zephryn forbidden glyph chants again…"
Selka stiffened. Her hands flexed once at her side.
"If he disappears again…" she whispered, "I won't come looking."
She looked back, a single tear not yet fallen.
"I'll burn this place instead."
—
Below the Veil Tower, far from class, far from Doctrine eyes…
A pulse stirred beneath stone.
Not from a student. Not from a Choir agent.
From something deeper.
Bubbalor stirred in sleep, coiled in the hidden grove Zephryn used to call safe.
He twitched once. The air around his snout shimmered.
And from his breath… a hum flickered.
Light, radiant—and familiar.
A single trace of Solara's pulse signature echoed through his dreaming exhale.
He did not see it.
But far away—beneath the Hollow Choir's scry field—they did.
"The core is alive," one whispered.
And the Smiling Cantor only smiled deeper.