Chapter Three: The Hollow Between the Notes
Part One – Pulse Echoes and Ghost Roads
Date: Maelis 26, Year 204 PCR
Location: Cradle of Aegir – West Observation Balcony / Stronghold Archives
Time: Early Morning
The sun had not risen yet.
But the glyphs in Zephryn's skin were already awake.
He stood alone at the edge of the stronghold's western overlook, the wind tugging at the loose ties of his training cloak, eyes fixed on the horizon where light hadn't broken, but something had.
Faint lines in the sky—like cracks in glass, like breath marks on memory—hovered low across the clouds.
"There," he whispered. "It's getting louder."
Behind him, footsteps padded in quiet rhythm.
Selka.
"Didn't sleep?"
"Didn't need to," he replied. "It's like the Veil's humming through my blood."
She stood beside him, arms crossed.
"Your glyph's still flaring?"
"Not flaring. Tuning."
He turned his wrist. The infinity-shaped glyph wasn't glowing—but it pulsed in soft loops, like a song tuning itself with no instrument present.
Down in the lower quarters, Buta was already awake.
The war table was cleared. A new scroll—sealed in dark violet wax with the crest of the Outer Doctrine Liaison—sat unopened.
Beside it, a map. Blank. Not a mission route.
Just a field of pulsepoints, each one connected by a thin, crooked line.
And across the top:
"Sanctioned for Initial Resonance Study – Animal Signature Deviations"
Buta didn't touch it.
Because he already knew what it meant.
"Essence Forms," he muttered. "They're surfacing too early."
Yolti trained in silence outside the main gate.
She wasn't practicing movements. She was humming—low, beneath her breath. Her glyph pulsed with the rhythm of the notes, tracing the same sequence three times before locking into a glow.
Kaelen watched from the window above, hand resting on his halberd. He didn't speak.
He had seen what her glyph did in the field.
What his nearly did.
What Zephryn's had already started becoming.
And he hated the feeling settling into his chest:
"They're changing," he whispered. "And I'm still behind."
Back inside, in the deep alcove of the archive, Amo Sancho placed his palm on the edge of the memory wall again.
But this time, it didn't open.
It pulsed once. Denied him.
"So it knows you're here now," he muttered to himself.
"Guess that means it's time."
He turned. Zephryn stood waiting.
"You said I had to learn to listen."
"You do."
"Then start teaching."
Sancho led him to the old glyph wall behind the archives—one that hadn't lit in a hundred years.
There were animal etchings on the stone.
Not decorative—reactive.
Some resembled creatures Zephryn had seen in passing. Others didn't look native at all.
Sancho placed Zephryn's hand on the center glyph—an unmarked circle veined with threads of resonance.
"Essence doesn't come from training," he said.
"It comes from memory.
From the part of you that doesn't break when your glyph burns."
Zephryn closed his eyes.
The pulse inside him shifted. Slower.
Deeper.
And suddenly—he saw it.
A creature.
Not real. Not known.
But familiar.
Silver-plated skin. Wings that weren't wings—just sound shaped like limbs. Eyes like reflective glass, shimmering in a broken infinity loop.
It didn't speak.
It just watched him.
Then turned and vanished into a field of light.
Zephryn opened his eyes, breath uneven.
"What… was that?"
Sancho smiled faintly.
"That was your resonance spirit.
The creature that sits beneath your element, beneath your Veilmark."
"And it looked like it didn't belong here."
"Because it doesn't," Sancho said. "You were never supposed to exist in this cycle."
At that moment, Buta entered.
"Time's up."
He held the scroll high, voice firm.
"Resonant Units Legato, Recon, and Medic are being dispatched to separate fracture zones.
These aren't drills. They're field-tier Rift emergence tests."
"We're splitting up?" Kaelen asked.
"Each unit will face a different classification of Riftborn.
Yours, Zephryn—has already started speaking."
Zephryn nodded.
Selka reached for her blade.
Yolti finished her hum.
Kaelen inhaled once, then said nothing.
Buta unrolled the map.
It didn't show destinations.
It showed pulse trails.
One per unit.
Each line glowing like a thread waiting to be pulled.