Chapter One: The Room We Don't Enter
Part Three – When the Wind Knows Your Name
Location: Legato Unit Stronghold – Upper Terrace Walk
Kaelen didn't like the quiet.
It wasn't peaceful. It was tight. Dense. Like the sky was holding its breath and just waiting for them to misstep. His halberd rested along his shoulder, but his grip had gone tense ever since they left the Veilmark Chamber.
"Stop clenching," Yolti said casually beside him. "You'll wear the grip down again."
He exhaled slowly. "It's not the grip I'm worried about."
They walked along the upper terrace of the stronghold—open sky above, whispering winds slithering through carved pulse-stone railings. Below, the other Units trained in staggered zones. The harmonic fields had been reset. Glyphs flared in staccato bursts, some elegant, others jagged. Mino's voice echoed from afar, commanding Recon through drills.
Selka leaned on the railing.
She hadn't spoken since the chamber.
Neither had Zephryn.
He stood off to the side, half-watching the clouds, half-watching his palm, where the ∞ glyph had stopped reacting—but not vanished.
It pulsed faintly now, like a memory refusing to settle.
"You good?" Kaelen asked him.
Zephryn tilted his head, not in answer—but in thought.
"The glyph is quieter," he said. "But it's not… gone."
"That's not how Veilmarks work," Yolti said, coming to stand with them. "Even the strongest casters can't erase it. Not if it's real."
Selka finally spoke.
"It is."
They turned.
"I heard it respond before you even cast. Same tone I heard when we thought you died the first time."
Kaelen grimaced. "Don't say it like that."
"No," she said firmly. "Say it exactly like that. We all felt it, didn't we? Like time looped. Like the hum was choosing him. Not just reacting to him."
Zephryn looked down at his hand again. The pulseline was steady, not sparking, but it curved in ways no Doctrine-licensed glyph should. The resonance shimmered like a scar left behind by another timeline.
He clenched his fist.
And the glyph folded back into his skin—quiet, but watching.
—
From the terrace's edge, they watched Cantare Unit cross the courtyard below. Sylie was mid-command, her braid coiled tight, her eyes narrowed as Nima argued with Luma about elemental angles. Elari walked a step behind them, humming to herself again. The tone didn't match anything she'd been taught.
"Why do they keep singing?" Kaelen asked.
"They don't know they're doing it," Selka answered.
Zephryn nodded once. "It's like… everyone's humming and no one knows the song."
A pause.
Then Yolti spoke.
"You think Buta knows what's happening?"
"He knows too much," Selka muttered.
"Then why not tell us?"
Zephryn turned to her. "Because it would break us."
The words came too naturally, too easily.
He didn't even know why he said them.
But Selka didn't flinch.
She looked at him—and for the first time since the chamber, she smiled.
A real one.
"You're starting to sound like Solara."
Zephryn froze.
The sky pulsed once—almost imperceptibly.
And a new hum rolled across the horizon.
—
Down below, Bubbalor paused in the courtyard.
He looked east.
Then west.
Then up.
His wings fluttered twice, not in alarm—but preparation.
Because somewhere on the wind—
A name was being whispered.
Not by the people.
By the world itself.
Rael.
Zephryn blinked.
The wind curled around his ear.
And he heard it too.