Chapter Two – The Silence in His Glyph
Part Nine – The Whisper Beneath the Veil
Date: Maelis 27, Year 204 PCR
Location: Unknown – Subconscious Resonant Depth
Time: Unmeasured
There was no sky.
No body.
No glyph.
Just hum.
It wrapped around Zephryn like a memory trying to form a heartbeat—old, slow, deep enough to hurt. Not because it struck him. Because it knew him.
His eyes were closed.
But not blind.
The darkness wasn't absence.
It was presence.
And something inside it was watching.
—
He floated there for minutes.
Or centuries.
Pulse silent.
Veins quiet.
Only that hum—so low, so buried—that it made him forget he had ears.
Then—
It spoke.
A voice without shape.
Not male.
Not female.
Just true.
"Ruinborn."
Zephryn flinched.
But he didn't run.
He turned slowly toward the voice, wherever it was.
"You are not the first."
"I know," he whispered.
"You are not the strongest."
"I never asked to be."
"You are not complete."
That one cut.
But he said nothing.
The silence filled with something thicker than thought.
Then came the sound again.
This time from inside his bones.
"Then why are you still alive?"
—
Zephryn didn't answer right away.
He breathed.
Or thought he did.
And the answer rose from somewhere beneath even his own truth.
"…Because she gave up everything to make me forget."
—
The hum cracked.
The voice wavered.
Like it had not expected that.
Like it had not been spoken to—only feared.
The darkness rippled outward—
And Zephryn saw them.
Silhouettes.
Half-shaped.
Buried beneath the Veil.
Too far to reach, but not gone.
One was curled like a child, head bowed beneath light.
Another towered with antlers made of broken glyphs.
A third just stood still, watching.
And the fourth—
Its face was mirrored.
And it bore the same mark on its chest.
∞
But not fractured.
Whole.
—
The voice returned.
Quieter now.
"You do not know what you carry."
"I don't."
"Then why protect it?"
He opened his eyes fully now.
And for the first time, he asked the question.
"Then why didn't you take it from me?"
—
The silence swelled.
And for the first time—
The voice answered truthfully.
"Because we couldn't."
"Because she sealed it with her death."
"And because if we do… the world ends early."
—
Then the hum reversed.
The memory darkened.
Zephryn felt his pulse again.
The Veil beneath him.
The real world calling him home.
And the voice offered one final whisper—
A warning.
"Do not cast again until you know what you are."
"Or you will unmake what she gave her life to protect."
—
Zephryn woke up gasping.
Eyes wide.
Room quiet.
Selka asleep beside the bed, blade in hand.
Kaelen outside, pacing.
Yolti with her back to the door.
And Buta—
Sitting silently in the corner.
Eyes open.
Waiting.
—
Zephryn whispered:
"…They're still watching me."
Buta nodded.
And didn't smile.
"Then don't give them something worth fearing."