Chapter Four: Parallel Pulse
Part Seven
Date: Maelis 26, Year 204 PCR
Location: Southern Caervale Ridge – Tier 3 Pulsefall Zone
Time: Nightfall, beneath echo-heavy sky
No one spoke for a long time.
The Riftborn was gone, but its scream hadn't left the ridge. It echoed through the Veilmarks still hovering around them—like the land itself hadn't finished listening.
Zephryn's glyph was dim again, faint lines of silver threading along his wrist before fading under his skin. He was breathing shallow, not hurt… just hollow.
"You said your name isn't Zephryn," Selka said softly, still beside him.
"It's not," he replied, voice ragged. "But I don't know what it is. I just felt it… like a note played before the rest of the song."
Bubbalor chirped quietly and pressed its head against his leg.
Yolti knelt in the cracked grass nearby, hand pressed to the ground, pulse spread wide.
"Something else is still here," she whispered. "Whatever you did didn't clear the fracture. It just… reset the field."
"Which means something worse could be under it," Kaelen muttered, standing with his halberd braced.
Above them, the sky glimmered like a bowl full of humming water—stars trembling in response to the pulse that had just been released.
They all felt it now.
Not power.
Not pressure.
But memory. Something ancient buried beneath Caervale was watching back.
"We're not within the Veil anymore," Selka said aloud, glancing to the terrain. "We passed the limit mark hours ago."
Zephryn looked up.
"That far?"
"No pulse lattice, no Veilthread lines, no Doctrine relay echoes."
"We're off-grid," Kaelen confirmed. "Completely."
A beat.
"Did we know that when we left?" Zephryn asked.
Kaelen didn't answer. Neither did Yolti.
Selka did.
"The mission directive said 'periphery scouting'—no location lock. That's how they masked the zone change."
"So they sent us out," Yolti whispered, "to fracture."
Zephryn turned his eyes to the tree line.
"They want to see what I am."
No one argued.
Because it wasn't paranoia anymore.
It was clear.
From the west, three Veil pulses shimmered through the dark—low, careful flares. Not emergency beacons, but position syncs.
Selka rose first.
"That's Cantare."
Kaelen clicked his tongue.
"Of course the medics would show up after the Riftborn died."
"They're not late," Yolti corrected. "We're early. This isn't the real mission."
Zephryn turned to her slowly.
"Then what is?"
"The song," she said. "This place wasn't built to test our combat. It's built to listen."
Bubbalor chirped again. Not alarmed.
Just… still.
From the trees, the sound of branches folding broke the silence. Then boots.
Recon.
Voices low. Terrain-walk trained.
The three squads were converging.
And not one of them had a matching brief.
Zephryn didn't look surprised.
He stepped forward once, toward the dark, where Cantare's pulses blinked steady in the ridgelight haze.
He opened his mouth like he might say something.
But the glyph under his skin pulsed again—
and somewhere far beneath the earth, the hum replied.