Chapter One – The Memory That Burned the Sky
Part Four – The Sound That Was Erased
Date: Maelis 27, Year 204 PCR
Location: Veilguard Courtyard → Doctrine Tower Annex
Time: 10:04 Veil Standard
They came without warning.
Three Doctrine envoys.
No emblem.
No Veilmark glow.
Just dark robes, sealed faces, and voices that didn't carry sound the way they should—flattened, like their very presence was pre-echoed through memory suppression.
Selka turned as soon as she saw them cross the outer ring.
"Back up," she warned.
Kaelen reached for his halberd.
But one look from the tallest envoy was enough to paralyze all sound within the courtyard.
Even Bubbalor flinched.
Zephryn staggered backward—his glyph flickering at his forearm, not in combat form, but defensive.
"What are they doing here?" he asked.
Buta didn't answer at first.
Then he stepped between them and Zephryn.
His voice was low, dangerous:
"Doctrine doesn't come in person unless it's about containment."
—
The tallest envoy spoke.
His voice didn't echo—it overwrote.
"Zephryn. You are to come with us."
Selka stepped forward. "He's recovering."
The envoy turned his head slightly. "He's unstable."
Kaelen grit his teeth. "He saved the field."
"By accident," the envoy said. "By invoking resonance unauthorized."
—
Buta didn't blink.
"You sent us in blind. You let Thrynn get close. You hid the Choir's tether and now you're here to what—clean up the name?"
The envoy didn't move.
"Containment. Nothing more."
Buta stepped forward.
"Say 'containment' one more time and I'll shatter your cast before you finish your humline."
—
Zephryn raised a hand.
His voice was calm, but tired.
"I'll go."
Selka spun toward him. "No, you won't."
Kaelen: "We can stop them."
Zephryn: "You saw what I did. You felt it. I'm not safe. Not for any of you."
Buta stepped back, watching him carefully.
"You sure?" he asked.
Zephryn nodded once.
"Let them try and contain what they don't understand."
—
The envoys turned, forming a glyph gate behind them.
Not a Veilmark transport.
A Doctrine Fold—a forbidden short-range compression door.
They gestured for him to follow.
Zephryn took one last look at Selka.
"I'll be back."
Her eyes burned.
"You better be."
—
He stepped through the Fold—
And the light collapsed.
—
Doctrine Tower Annex – Sub-Resonant Chamber 3B
Time: 10:11 Veil Standard
—
It was cold.
Not physically—resonantly.
The chamber was built to suppress song.
The walls were lined in anti-echo metal, sigils bent inward like reversed lyrics. Glyphs that had once been used for Veilmark training had been twisted into suppression spirals.
The center held one seat.
One stone platform.
And three memory recorders carved in Choir spiral pattern—without Doctrine approval.
Zephryn stood in the center.
Still.
Breathing slow.
Waiting.
Then a voice came.
Feminine.
High-ranking.
Emotionless.
"Name."
He didn't answer.
"Glyph."
Still silence.
"Veilmark classification."
He looked up now.
Eyes not angry.
Just alive.
"I don't classify."
—
Silence.
Then:
"You cast memory into pulse. This violates Veil containment law 04-22."
Zephryn laughed once.
Short. Quiet.
"You think I cast it?"
"You deny the event?"
"I didn't create the Echo Flare," he said. "I survived it."
—
A second voice cut in now—male, older, clearer.
"Who taught you the glyph?"
Zephryn's hands clenched.
"No one."
Another silence.
A hum of friction.
The first voice asked again:
"Then where did you see it?"
—
Zephryn whispered.
Low.
So low the recorders shouldn't have caught it.
But they did.
"Before I was born."
—
Alarms surged.
Not loud.
Just presence.
The chamber dimmed.
The glyph suppression rings flared.
The Veil itself contracted.
But Zephryn didn't move.
And behind the walls—
The Choir was listening.
—
Far across the tower, Buta stood at the edge of the archive window, watching the Doctrine Fold shimmer out.
Selka joined him.
"He shouldn't have gone."
Buta didn't nod.
Didn't blink.
"He needed to."
"Why?"
"Because they're about to ask the one question they should've buried."
"What question?"
—
Buta exhaled.
Deep. Old.
"Who gave him the right to remember?"