Chapter Three: The Hollow Between the Notes
Part One – "Shards in the Pulse"
Date: Maelis 26, Year 204 PCR
Location: Cradle of Aegir – Resonant Training Hollow
Time: Morning
The glyph had stopped burning.
But it hadn't gone quiet.
Zephryn woke to the hum still ringing beneath his skin—like a whisper caught between sleep and memory, threading between bone and breath.
He sat up slowly.
Selka was already gone. Her bedding neatly folded.
Kaelen's boots thudded against the far stairwell.
Yolti sat on the balcony, watching the rising Veilmist curl above the training hollow like it was waiting for something.
Maybe it was.
Buta stood alone in the hollow, smoke curling from his mouth, coat half-buttoned and gaze locked on a Veilmark tablet embedded in the center stone.
The glyphs on it were fractured—not broken, but disrupted. Almost rewritten.
Zephryn joined him quietly.
Buta didn't look at him.
"The glyph isn't sick," he said.
"It's remembering too fast."
Zephryn stared at his own arm.
The mark was calm. Sleeping, almost.
"What does that mean?"
"It means it was bound by silence, not death. And now it's waking itself up."
Selka entered next, nodding once without speaking.
Yolti and Kaelen followed, both already laced in their pulse-bind gear.
Today wasn't rest. Today was instruction.
But it wasn't going to be like before.
Because this was when Buta stopped holding back.
He stepped onto the central ring.
"You've been calling them Veilmarks.
Because that's what the Doctrine taught you."
He snapped his fingers. Glyphlight spun behind him, forming an elemental wheel—twelve points, each flickering with a different pulse:
Flame Stone Wind Ice Storm Light Shade Toxin Mind Echo Beast Song
"These aren't just elements.
They're Essence Forms.
Every Resonant channels one.
But only the worthy anchor it."
Kaelen raised an eyebrow. "Anchor it how?"
Buta turned to him.
"Through what the Choir calls Veilmark Harmony.
Not everyone gets it. Not everyone survives it."
He nodded toward Yolti.
"Some of you were born with a pulse already tuned. That's why your marks respond quicker."
"Others," his eyes flicked to Kaelen and Zephryn,
"have something broken beneath the surface.
When that crack lines up with a forgotten song?"
He pointed at Zephryn's arm.
"You get that."
Yolti whispered, "But we don't even know what it does."
"That's because it's not an element," Buta said.
"It's a fracture class.
There's no spellbook for that. No training."
He looked at Zephryn again.
"That's what Solara meant when she wrote, 'His song is not to be taught. Only remembered.'"
Silence.
And then, from the far corridor—
Footsteps.
Not a warning.
Not a rush.
Just presence.
Amo Sancho stepped into the light, cloak pulled, sword sheathed.
"If you're going to show them the path," he muttered,
"you might as well show them the monsters waiting along it."
He stepped into the circle. Buta didn't stop him.
Sancho raised his arm—his glyph flared.
Not a symbol.
A pulse.
Shaped like a howl made of memory.
Selka's hand moved to her blade.
Yolti gasped.
Kaelen took a step back.
Zephryn just stared.
Sancho wasn't summoning energy.
He was singing with it.
"What you hold," Sancho said, "isn't a weapon."
He looked at Zephryn.
"It's a verse from a song they tried to erase."