Chapter Four: Parallel Pulse
Part Six
Date: Maelis 26, Year 204 PCR
Location: Southern Caervale Ridge — Tier 3 Pulsefall Zone
Time: Sunset bleeding into Veildusk
Zephryn's foot hit the slope and the entire ridge groaned beneath it.
The pulse beneath the stone was breathing wrong.
Bubbalor chirped once—sharp, unsettled—then slammed into the ground beside him, low to the earth, wings flared, crystal spine glowing with fractured pulse ripples.
"This terrain's corrupted," Selka muttered, sword drawn before she even looked.
Kaelen's eyes flared as his Veilmark flashed briefly along the edge of his jaw. The first time it'd done that since leaving the stronghold.
"There's no glyph sync here," he said, tone clipped. "Nothing's responding right. Even the wind's humming backward."
"So we shouldn't be walking on it," Yolti added softly, touching the ground with two fingers. "The pulse is fractured. Not dead—but… echoing something old."
Zephryn said nothing.
His eyes weren't on the terrain.
They were on the glyph haze above the trees—a light flicker that mirrored a memory he hadn't let surface since the Choir first found him asleep in the fracture.
Bubbalor chirped again. This time lower. Almost apologetic.
"Did we trigger something?" Yolti asked.
"No," Selka replied before Zephryn could speak. "It was already waiting."
Kaelen lifted his halberd, spinning it once.
"Then let's finish what it's waiting for."
But Zephryn didn't move.
His pendant was glowing.
The glyph flared across his forearm before he summoned it.
Not drawn. Not carved.
Just… remembered.
A silver infinity loop shimmered beneath his skin and projected upward into the mist. The pulse terrain responded, but not with resistance.
It bent.
Folded like a sound folding into itself—a harmony that wasn't sure it should exist.
Selka stepped beside him.
"Zephryn… your glyph is glowing through your shirt."
"It's not activated."
"Then why is it humming?"
The air snapped behind them.
Kaelen turned just in time to see the ridge curl upward like a wave—a Riftborn burst emerging from stone, not air.
It didn't scream. It just existed, pulsing with Veilmark shadows that slithered off its limbs like dripping ink.
"Move!" Kaelen shouted.
Bubbalor launched, intercepting the Riftborn mid-leap with a pulse burst that shattered the hillside.
But the Riftborn didn't die.
It reformed from the memory of itself.
"What—what kind of Riftborn is that?!" Yolti gasped, casting her first shield veil.
"Not one I've seen," Selka said, blade low, eyes locked.
Zephryn's glyph pulsed again.
Harder this time.
A hum—not from him.
From the glyph itself.
It was remembering something.
And so was he.
Suddenly, the air turned cold.
Not weather. Not fear.
Memory.
Zephryn dropped to one knee as the glyph burst fully out of his arm and hovered mid-air, forming two rotating rings, one inside the other, script etched like breath into frost.
Kaelen stared at it.
"That's not a glyph."
"It's a song," Yolti whispered. "It's… writing itself."
Bubbalor stopped moving.
So did the Riftborn.
Everything froze.
And Zephryn stood up, the glyph spiraling behind him like a god's shadow.
"Selka."
"I'm here," she said instantly.
"Don't let me forget what this feels like."
"I won't."
He stepped forward.
And the world shattered.
The glyph cast itself.
No incantation. No pose. Just emotion—raw, undiluted, absolute.
The Riftborn screeched backward, but not from pain—from memory.
It screamed like it was remembering what it used to be.
And then it exploded into light—silver and blue and violet—as the glyph wrapped around it like a lullaby, folding it into nothing.
Silence followed.
Zephryn stood alone in the haze.
Bubbalor behind him.
Selka to his left.
Yolti kneeling in shock.
Kaelen—wide-eyed, halberd frozen.
"That… wasn't a Veilmark," Kaelen finally said.
"It was," Yolti corrected, voice shaking. "It just wasn't taught."
Selka stepped forward and reached out.
Zephryn was trembling.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
He nodded. Then shook his head.
"I remembered something."
"What?"
His voice was low. Steady.
"My name… isn't Zephryn."
And in the distance, two other squads—Recon and Medic—heard the final pulse of the cast.
And didn't know if it meant Zephryn had won…
Or vanished.