Chapter One: The Silver Flame Returns
Part One: Ash Beneath the Pines
Date: Junilis 2nd, Year 204 PCR
Location: Caervale Forest Edge, Celestis Veil Border
The ridge cracked beneath each step, as if the land itself still hadn't forgiven what was taken.
Selka didn't speak. Not yet. The path back to Celestis Veil was narrow—lined with jagged thornpine and sky-split stone—but it was the silence that made it unbearable. Not even the wind dared hum. The only sound was the echo of Zephryn's boots scraping earth as he walked a few steps behind her.
His silver hair caught fragments of sun that pierced through the hanging mist. Every now and then, it shimmered like molten thread—half memory, half myth. The boy she found in the shattered clearing wasn't the same as the one who vanished six years ago. And yet, there he was. Breathing. Eyes hollow and ancient. As if the void hadn't let go of him even now.
"You're really not going to say anything?" Selka asked finally, her voice more strained than she meant it to be.
Zephryn didn't look up. "…What would I even say?"
She halted, spun around. "Anything. You disappeared for six years, Zeph. No note. No glyphtrace. No sign of life. And now I find you alone in a Riftborn-burnt field, casting like your soul remembers but your body forgot."
"I didn't forget," he murmured. "That's the problem."
Selka's throat tightened. He didn't look angry. He looked scared.
She wanted to scream. Instead, she turned and kept walking.
The Veil broke the horizon just before midday.
Rising out of the earth like a cathedral built by sound, Celestis Veil pulsed with its ancient resonance—spires of memoryglass arching into the sky, runes woven like scripture into its crystalline walls. And above it all, humming like a heartbeat layered beneath the world: the Lyceum.
Home.
Selka slowed as the path widened. Birds began to return—thin bluebacks with hum-pitched wings, always the first to know when something was about to change. And change had come.
Because Zephryn had returned.
They crossed the whitewatch gate in silence, glyphflare runes activating beneath their feet, identifying their Veilmarks. Selka's registered instantly: Veyel.
Zephryn's? The crystal didn't respond.
The guards blinked. One of them stepped forward, confused. "Uh—he doesn't show up in the registry—"
Selka snapped, "Override. Student protocol. He's with me."
The guard hesitated. "But the system—"
"Override it."
The man backed down without a word.
They didn't make it far into the city before the resonance changed.
It was subtle at first—like a song losing rhythm. But Selka noticed it. So did Zephryn. The wind shifted wrong. The pulse of the Veil felt… watched. And then a voice split the air like a blade through silk:
"Selka Veyel. You disobeyed direct orders."
Thaelen.
He descended from a hover-stride drawn by twin crestborn tethers—massive, antlered beasts of deep gray scale and obsidian fur. His cloak bore the Doctrine crest, and his Veilmark glowed faintly through his armor, a spiral of shifting runes etched across his left gauntlet.
Behind him, two Doctrine agents stood silent, masks reflecting the sky.
Selka stepped forward. "Sir."
"Don't 'sir' me. You went off-grid. Abandoned the quadrant. Risked your squad."
"I found him."
"You risked everything for a memory."
"No." Her eyes hardened. "For the truth."
Thaelen's gaze finally moved to Zephryn, still silent behind her.
He studied the boy with narrowed eyes. The silver hair. The exhausted shoulders. And then the faint shimmer beneath the skin—just for a moment—where a Veilmark tried to flare and vanished.
"You brought him back?" Thaelen's voice dropped lower. "Do you understand what you've done?"
"I brought him home."
Thaelen dismounted. Walked toward Zephryn.
"You remember me, boy?"
Zephryn nodded once. "Thaelen."
"What happened to you?"
Zephryn opened his mouth—but nothing came out.
Thaelen studied him. "He's fractured. No Veilmark registration. No pulse records. And yet…"
The older man circled him, slow.
"You cast."
Zephryn didn't deny it.
"You shouldn't exist," Thaelen muttered. "And yet, here you are."
Selka stepped in front of him. "He's staying."
Thaelen didn't argue.
But he leaned in close, voice a whisper. "I'll cover for you once. But the next time you disobey Doctrine? You'll hum in a cell. And if he's dangerous—if you're wrong—this whole city hums with you."
Selka didn't blink.
Thaelen signaled to his guards. "Reset the registry. Give him a Lyceum cloak. One week probation. And inform the Council: Zephryn has returned."
They walked through the veilring corridor in silence.
Only when they reached the main causeway—lined with crystal lanterns and pulseroot banners fluttering on windless air—did Selka break it.
"I told you they'd come for you."
"I didn't think it'd be so… soon."
"They never stopped watching."
She didn't tell him the truth: that the Hollow Choir had eyes on him the moment he stepped into the light. That Doctrine had been waiting for a reason to erase his memory again. That her bringing him back might've already cost her the Lyceum.
Instead, she nodded toward the gate.
"Tomorrow," she said, "you return as a student."
Zephryn looked up at the looming spires of the Lyceum. "I don't even know what I am."
Selka met his gaze, calm. "You're Zephryn. That's enough."
He didn't answer.
But as they walked, the hum beneath the Veil changed—slight, imperceptible, like a song just beginning to remember its chorus.
Far above them, tucked behind crystal trees, a hand pulled back from a mirrorsteel surface.
Watching.
Listening.
And for the first time in six years…
The Veil hummed in silver.