Chapter Five: Shadows Before the Spark
Part Six – The Pulse Reversal
Date: Maelis 27, Year 204 PCR
Location: Caervale Ridge – Shattered Pulsewar Basin
Time: 04:47 Veil Standard
Thrynn exhaled.
And the basin obeyed.
The spell was not a chant, nor a strike. It was a shift. A reordering of sound itself. Every note the squads had ever cast, every glyph etched into skin or memory, began to pull inward. Notes inverted. Chords reversed. Time warped.
Selka's dual blades snapped into their base form.
Kaelen dropped to a knee, his halberd's pulse signature unraveling midshaft.
Torr swung but missed entirely—his rhythm fractured, movements echoing a beat behind his thoughts.
Even Zephryn's ∞ glyph flickered, its twin arcs rotating backward for the first time.
—
Thrynn walked slowly forward, each step resonating in reverse.
"You are Pulseborn," he said. "But your hums are borrowed. Your glyphs are echoes of a song you were never meant to hear."
He extended a finger toward Kaelen.
"You hum in blind faith."
Then cast.
—
The sound was silent.
Yet it struck like a thunderclap made of memory.
Kaelen's eyes widened.
His breath caught mid-inhale.
His heart skipped, then slowed.
For three full seconds, Kaelen Voss forgot how to move.
—
"No!"
Yolti flung both hands forward.
Her lightwall exploded into life—not a shape, not a circle, but a dome of cascading light, layered like petals of a celestial bloom. The Riftborn crashing toward Kaelen shattered against it—howling as their humlines snapped.
She collapsed after it cast, chest heaving, light flickering at her fingertips.
"I held it!" she gasped.
Selka pulled Kaelen back into the line, grip firm on his collar.
"You held it long enough."
—
But Zephryn didn't see them.
He was already walking forward.
Thrynn's hum was turning the air toxic—memories were slipping sideways. Elari whispered someone else's name. Rhea forgot what year it was. Even Mino's casting lost tempo.
Only Zephryn moved true.
His glyph shimmered—not outward, but inward.
It pulled into his chest, cracking light down his arms.
He stepped through the harmonic fold Thrynn had cast—and felt every nerve light on fire.
It wasn't pain.
It was recognition.
"I've been here before," he whispered.
—
He didn't know what memory it was.
But his body did.
The rhythm.
The cadence of loss.
The backward pulse of a heart trying to remember what it forgot.
He raised his arm.
The glyph surged.
And the reversal cracked.
—
For the first time, Thrynn flinched.
Zephryn's ∞ glyph cut through the reversal wave—not breaking it, but unraveling it from the inside out.
Like unspooling a corrupted thread of fate.
The basin flashed once with inverted light.
And Thrynn stepped back.
"You're not ready for this," he said.
Zephryn, trembling, bleeding from both palms now, looked up.
"But I'm still here."
—
Bubbalor stirred.
A breath.
Then another.
Selka leaned over him, whispering again and again, "You're safe. Come back. Come back."
And Bubbalor opened one eye.
The corrupted echo shattered.
The thread inside him snapped.
He rose.
Roared.
And the basin heard him.
—
Thrynn looked toward the beast, then back to Zephryn.
"The first Ruinborn was merciful," he said.
Zephryn narrowed his eyes.
"Then I'm not the first."
Thrynn smiled.
"Exactly."
—
He stepped back into the Rift.
The threads followed him.
So did the remaining Dirgeborn.
But before he vanished fully, Thrynn turned—
And left a final note.
Etched in glyphlight midair.
We tried to forget you.