Chapter Five: Sharp Shadows, Quiet Steps
Part Ten – When the Name Reaches Buta
Date: Apris 3, Year 204 PCR – Early Morning Prelight
Location: Legato Unit Stronghold – Inner Command Hall
The command hall was still.
Not in use.
Not under lockdown.
Just… still.
The kind of stillness that felt older than its walls.
Like the silence had been waiting for someone to break it for years.
Buta stood in the center.
Boots unmoved.
Hand resting lightly on the command board.
Pulse flaring once every few seconds—not from cast. From thought.
There were no squad drills scheduled today.
No Doctrine pings.
No flare routes.
No authorized missions.
Buta was awake before any of them.
He always was.
The quiet was where he did his real work.
Where the truth couldn't hide behind orders.
The message came without sound.
A blackline flicker at the edge of the scroll terminal—so faint it could've been mistaken for noise.
But Buta didn't mistake signals.
Not anymore.
He tapped it once.
Unrolled it.
Read the first line.
And stopped breathing.
Not from fear.
From memory.
"Unregistered glyph.
Spontaneous redrawing.
Response sync detected across squad pulse drift.
Possible Vael-link anomaly.
Do not catalog.
Do not assign.
Just listen."
He didn't move.
Didn't blink.
Then the glyph attached to the scroll activated—not with a flare. With a pull.
It wasn't a cast.
It was a wound reopening.
He saw it.
And knew it.
Not because he'd studied it.
Not because he'd taught it.
Because he'd tried to forget it.
And failed.
He whispered it aloud.
Just once.
"Vael."
He sealed the scroll.
Locked the interface.
And turned away without a sound.
Walked down the long hallway of the stronghold—one step at a time.
Not fast.
Measured.
Every motion deliberate.
Every breath weighed.
Like each one pulled up dust from a life he swore would never surface again.
He passed the barracks.
Didn't pause when he saw Selka asleep in the chair beside Zephryn's cot.
Didn't speak when Yolti stirred briefly in the adjacent room.
Didn't even glance toward Kaelen's open door where the halberd leaned against the wall like it still remembered the last time it broke.
He kept walking.
Down the second hall.
Past the old glyph-test chamber.
Into the room no one used.
The one with no windows.
No lights.
Just an obsidian pulse mirror built into the wall.
It hadn't activated in years.
He stood in front of it now.
And it flared the moment he opened his mouth.
"Open Echo Memory Code: Yuki—Vault Three."
The mirror pulsed.
Once.
Twice.
Then breathed.
Literally.
It exhaled a soft wave of pressure, like a cast waking up without permission.
The glass rippled.
Shifted.
Then reflected him not as he was.
But as he had been.
His face was younger.
Scar across his temple not yet earned.
Eyes sharper.
Shoulders squared with certainty.
Wearing the old Lyceum uniform.
Standing beside two others.
One with a flaming glyph across her back—Solara.
The other…
A boy with a crooked grin.
Daggers crossed on his belt.
White hair pulled back, veiled just enough to break regulations.
Halric Veer.
The memory held only a few seconds.
But it was enough.
Buta stepped back.
Shut the vault.
Breathed once.
And whispered:
"They're not gone."
Not Halric.
Not Shaenor.
Not the glyph.
Not the name.
Not Vael.
He returned to the command board and pressed a different sequence.
This one didn't request orders.
It opened a manual route.
Unlinked.
Untraceable.
He wrote a single line:
"The Vael mark has returned."
Then paused.
Added one more line.
"If you're near, drift loud."
Then sealed it.
Didn't tag it.
Didn't route it.
Just cast it into the old humlines—the ones no one used anymore, the ones that only responded to echo-tuned memories.
He didn't expect an answer.
That wasn't the point.
He stood in the room alone for a while after.
Longer than he should've.
The sun hadn't risen.
But the Veil had.
He could feel it—not through cast.
Through memory.
The glyph had returned too early.
That was the problem.
Because it never should've returned at all.
Behind him, a soft knock.
Selka's voice.
"Buta?"
He didn't turn.
"He's awake," she said. "The glyph hasn't flared, but he said something strange."
Now he turned.
His voice was quiet. Controlled.
"What did he say?"
Selka hesitated.
"He said he didn't think it was his power anymore."
"He said it was someone else's memory… still trying to finish casting."
Buta nodded once.
Didn't smile.
Didn't panic.
Just whispered:
"Then we don't have time."
Selka stepped in.
"Time for what?"
Buta finally looked at her.
Eyes sharper.
Older.
Aligned.
"To teach him how to hum without breaking."
"Because the next time it flares…"
"He won't be casting alone."