Chapter Five: Sharp Shadows, Quiet Steps
Part Four – The Glyph That Returned Too Early
Date: Apris 1, Year 204 PCR
Location: Staccato Stronghold – East Veil Hall
Rhea didn't mean to draw it.
She'd barely even thought about it.
The day had started like every other training interval—Mino issued pressure test drills, glyph layering rounds, and a silent recon sim through the east barrens.
They'd passed.
They'd earned rest.
Now they were in Veil Hall—Staccato's glyph chalk space, a whitewall circle where squadmates practiced air-trace formations with pulse pens.
It was harmless.
It was clean.
Until Rhea's hand moved on its own.
—
Torr was mid-conversation with Kellian about how to blend a three-step blink-cast with a false hum imprint. Mino stood off to the side, arms crossed, not participating—just observing, always calculating.
And then she saw it.
The curve.
It began as a warm-up sketch—a loose trail of threadlike lines.
But it bent.
Sharpened.
Looped.
And layered.
Mino dropped her notes.
Rhea didn't realize she was drawing it until she finished the lower arc—until her hand stopped midair like something had left her.
Torr's words cut off.
Kellian's breath stilled.
And all four stared at what now hovered midair in silver inked trace:
The Vael Glyph.
Fully formed. No cast. No flare.
Just drawn.
And it was humming.
Not loud.
But pulsing.
Not with power.
With presence.
Rhea backed up a step.
"I didn't— I wasn't thinking—"
Kellian whispered, "That's the one. That's the mark I saw in the fracture."
Mino stepped forward.
Not shocked.
Focused.
"How did you draw it?"
Rhea shook her head.
"I don't know. I was just letting the pen move—"
Mino placed her hand on the glyph.
It burned.
Not hot.
Familiar.
Like someone else's cast was holding on through her skin.
She pulled her hand back slowly.
"It shouldn't be active. It wasn't even hummed into place."
Torr narrowed his eyes.
"So why's it vibrating like it knows we're watching?"
They stood in a triangle around the glyph.
No alarms. No outside squad interference.
The Doctrine wasn't watching.
Yet.
But then—
The Veil Hall's sigil-glass cracked.
Not from the glyph.
From outside.
A ripple of static ran along the glyphboard. Not visual. Auditory.
A reversed note.
Low. Faint.
Like a hum trying to unsing itself.
And just before the glyph vanished—folding backward, not fading—
It left behind a word none of them had spoken aloud since Caervale:
"Ruinborn."
It wasn't a voice.
It wasn't even a sound.
It was a truth with nowhere else to go.