Chapter Two – The Silence in His Glyph
Part Four – Selka Breaks In
Date: Maelis 27, Year 204 PCR
Location: Doctrine Tower Annex – Sub-Resonant Perimeter, Level 3B
Time: 10:39 Veil Standard
Selka didn't wait for clearance.
The moment the third Recorder went silent, she reached for her blade—and the moment it hit her palm, the pulse changed.
The entire hallway tightened.
Kaelen felt it. Yolti stepped back.
"Selka—don't."
But she wasn't listening.
Not to them.
Not to the Veil.
Just to the way Zephryn's memory had screamed before the glyph reversed.
—
The chamber door was sealed with a six-thread Doctrine lock.
Selka pressed her hand against it anyway.
The seal resisted.
So she whispered something Doctrine had forgotten to fear:
"If you won't open, I'll hum the death of your architect."
The pulse flared in her fingertips.
Her blade glowed.
Then—
The lock unraveled.
Not exploded.
Not broken.
It refused to exist in her presence.
The door opened.
—
Inside, the suppression field had completely failed.
Zephryn stood mid-chamber, glyph spiraling across his torso like a halo drawn in pain. His veins pulsed backwards. His breath came shallow, eyes unfocused—not unconscious, not present, caught in a memory that was consuming him from the inside out.
Selka ran to him.
"Zephryn!"
He didn't answer.
His feet were hovering. Just barely.
His glyph wasn't responding to her voice.
But his pulse was.
It synced for a moment—
And Selka's mind snapped sideways.
—
They weren't in the chamber anymore.
They were in a memory.
Not his.
Not hers.
A fusion.
—
The sky was pulsing.
The ground was gone.
And around them stretched a city of white towers, spiral-script flaring across the skyline like starlight carved into glass. It wasn't Celestis Veil. It wasn't even their world.
It was a place that remembered them.
Where glyphs were sung and names were earned.
Where Solara once walked.
And where Zephryn's truth had begun.
—
Selka gasped, stumbling.
"What is this?"
Zephryn stood beside her now—barefoot, glowing, younger.
He turned, eyes wide, but not afraid.
"It's the memory she sealed inside me."
—
In the distance, a voice echoed—
Not hostile.
Not warm.
Just old.
"Keeper of Ruin's Son…"
Selka turned fast. "Who said that?"
Zephryn whispered, "That's what they used to call her…"
"Who?"
"My mother."
Selka blinked.
"You mean Solara?"
Zephryn slowly shook his head.
"…No."
He pointed ahead.
Toward the highest tower.
"Solera Veyl'run."
—
The memory pulsed.
The city rippled.
And the glyph on Zephryn's chest cracked.
Selka grabbed his hand.
"We need to go. This memory isn't stable—"
Too late.
The sky screamed.
The white towers fractured—
And a veilhole opened midair.
Not a Rift.
A fractal Veil opening—smaller than the sky, but deeper than anything real.
Zephryn gasped.
"This is how she sent me away."
Selka turned.
"What?"
He looked at her.
Tears in his eyes.
"She didn't die in front of me."
"She threw me through the Veil."
—
And just before the vision collapsed—
Bubbalor's voice whispered through the resonance stream.
Not spoken.
Felt.
"Run."
—
Selka screamed—
And they were slammed back into the chamber.
Real bodies.
Real pain.
The suppression field flickered back online just in time for Zephryn to drop.
Selka caught him mid-fall.
He was burning. Glyph burn. Core strain. Emotional collapse.
But conscious.
He whispered—
"I was never supposed to be here."
Selka held him tighter.
"You're here now."
—
And across the tower—
Buta felt it.
The memory had broken open.
And Zephryn's truth was no longer his to protect.