Chapter Two: The Ones Who Watch the Silence
Part Five – The One Who Knew Her
Date: Maelis 25, Year 204 PCR
Location: Cradle of Aegir – Upper Warhall
Time: Nightfall
They moved through the stronghold without speaking.
No footsteps echoed. No glyphs flickered.
Even the torches held their flames low—as if they, too, recognized what waited above.
The air wasn't tense.
It was reverent.
Like something sacred had returned.
Zephryn stepped first into the upper warhall.
He didn't need to be told where to go.
The hum was waiting—soft, steady, familiar. Not his own glyph, not quite. But it thrummed in harmony, like two notes hovering near the same song.
Sitting at the war table, back to the room, was a man.
Old cloak. Worn gloves. Scars layered into the armor like pages of a book long out of print.
His left arm bore a cracked bracer with an unreadable glyph faded by time. His right shoulder carried a mark burned deep into the skin, visible even under the cloth.
A Veilmark.
But not one used by any Doctrine-registered squad.
This one was pre-Veil Registration era.
Ancient. Pre-collapse.
Buta stood near the window, arms crossed.
He didn't look at the man. He looked at Zephryn.
"You weren't supposed to meet yet."
The man—Amo Sancho—spoke without turning.
"You think the Veil listens to schedules?"
His voice sounded like it had broken once and refused to heal.
Low, quiet, and laced with a resonance Zephryn felt in his ribs more than his ears.
Sancho turned. Slowly.
His eyes were tired, but they glowed faintly—not with power, but with memory.
"She said you'd be louder," he said.
Zephryn blinked. "Who?"
Sancho smiled once. Sad. Small.
"Solara."
Kaelen stepped forward, blade half-drawn. "How do you know her?"
Sancho raised one hand—not in defense, but in dismissal.
"She taught me how to shut a Rift with nothing but a broken glyph and a curse.
That was before the Choir started hiding her name."
Selka's breath caught.
Yolti went pale.
Zephryn said nothing.
Sancho stood fully now. His height matched Buta's, but his posture was looser. Weathered. Like someone who knew battle wasn't a test—it was just breathing harder.
"You were five the last time I saw her."
He looked at Zephryn fully now.
"She said your mark would never obey. That it would remember before it ever responded."
Zephryn felt his glyph stir again. Not light—weight.
A tether.
Buta finally spoke.
"You shouldn't have come back, Amo."
Sancho didn't argue.
"I know."
"They think you're dead."
"I know that too."
"If they find out you're here—"
"Then I'll die properly."
Zephryn stepped forward.
"Why now?"
Sancho didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he reached into his coat and pulled a folded parchment—old, worn. He slid it onto the table.
The paper unrolled itself, like it recognized the room.
Inside: a sketched fragment of a glyph—spiraled, incomplete.
Beneath it, written in Solara's hand:
"His song is not to be taught.
Only remembered."
Kaelen's voice shook. "What is he?"
Sancho turned to him.
"He's not special.
He's just the one who didn't forget."
Selka whispered, "Didn't forget what?"
Sancho stared at Zephryn again.
"That this world was sung into shape, not built.
And when the Choir burned the old verses, one mark refused to fade."
Zephryn's legs weakened. He sat on the edge of the war table, hands trembling.
"So what now?"
Sancho walked past him, toward the far wall.
"Now? You learn to listen."
He placed his palm on a dormant glyph etched into the stone.
It flared—a slow pulse of blue and silver.
And the wall opened, revealing a hidden archive.
Inside?
A stone shaped like a tuning fork. A harmonic shard.
It vibrated as Zephryn approached.
Selka reached for his arm.
"You don't have to—"
"Yes, he does," Sancho said. "Or it will start singing in his sleep."
Yolti exhaled slowly.
"It already does."
The shard pulsed once.
The glyph on Zephryn's forearm responded.
And this time, the voice that echoed in the room wasn't the Choir.
It wasn't the Doctrine.
It wasn't even Solara.
It was his.
Low. Quiet. Unsteady.
But it said:
"I remember."