Chapter Two: Where the Pulse Still Waits
Part One: Whispers Beneath the Backpool
Date: Junilis 3rd, Year 204 PCR
Location: Harmonic Lyceum – Southern Reflection Pool
The surface of the backpool shimmered like a memory trying not to be remembered.
Still. Wide. Hollow-blue.
Zephryn sat at the edge of the stones, the water lapping just close enough to kiss his boots without soaking them. He hadn't spoken since dawn. Not since Selka left him here. She had told him to breathe, to let the sound of the Lyceum settle inside him again—but the hums that returned weren't the ones he remembered.
They were newer. Quieter.
As if the Lyceum itself wasn't sure he was real.
The morning sun filtered through crystalleaf trees that draped over the southern end of the pool. Their violet-edged leaves had grown longer since he was last here—like even the foliage had moved on.
The ripples whispered his name. Not aloud. Not in tone. But in the way they bent toward his reflection and then scattered as if afraid.
He stared at the surface anyway.
His reflection didn't hold the boy who left.
Silver hair. Quieter eyes. A scar he didn't remember getting, resting just beneath his collarbone. It burned sometimes—not like pain, but like guilt that remembered how to breathe.
And just above his right wrist, barely visible beneath the skin, the faintest outline of a mark: his Veilmark. Hidden still. Uncast. Dormant. But it pulsed now and then, like it was waiting for something.
Or someone.
Footsteps broke the silence behind him—measured, hesitant, not hostile.
Liora.
She always walked like she was balancing two thoughts at once. Not clumsy, not proud—just thoughtful. She stopped a few steps away, her robes half open at the sleeves, a pulse-thread needle wrapped between her fingers.
"I didn't think I'd find you here," she said softly.
"I didn't think I was here either," Zephryn replied without looking.
She crouched beside him. "I was told to look for you. Thaelen's orders. Class begins at second bell."
Zephryn nodded but didn't rise.
"Selka says you don't sleep much."
"She talks a lot."
Liora smiled faintly. "Only when she's afraid someone won't."
They let the silence stretch. The Lyceum was just waking—distant shouts from morning drills, a soft rumble of the Pulse Eye Chamber flaring to life again. A ripple passed beneath the pool. Liora followed it with her eyes.
"We used to come here before Trials," she said. "Kaelen said the pool reflects more than your face—it shows who you're trying not to be."
"Did he say that before or after he named a squad after his Veilmark?" Zephryn asked, dry.
Liora laughed quietly. "After. Definitely after."
Zephryn stood at last, brushing dew from his pants. "Doesn't feel like I belong here."
"You think any of us do?" she asked, rising beside him. "We're all broken pieces trying to echo the same hum."
A pause.
"You said echo," he murmured.
"Kaelen's influence," she said, brushing a strand of hair from her face. "He's… changed. We all have."
Zephryn looked toward the stone path that led uphill toward the Lyceum's central tower. "I need to see it for myself."
Liora tilted her head.
"The Pulse Eye," he said. "If the Lyceum still remembers me… I want to know what it sees."
She nodded once. "Then we go together."
—
The Hall of Resonation was colder than he remembered.
Rows of elemental banners draped the walls—flame, wind, stone, light, water, and more obscure symbols few could read. At the center: the Pulse Eye.
A relic from the first era. Veil-forged. Bound in glass and songsteel.
It hovered above a carved pedestal, motionless… until Zephryn stepped into its light.
A tone rang out—high, crystalline, and discordant.
Kaelen, standing at the far side of the room, turned fast. His fists clenched.
Selka stood beside him. Her breath hitched.
Liora spoke first. "It's responding."
The Pulse Eye glowed with a storm-colored hue—lightning, silver and pale blue, crackling outward in arcs that shimmered against the wall.
Zephryn didn't move. He let it scan him.
Glyphs emerged along his skin—white at first. Then darkening, reshaping, burning upward in a spiraling motion until it formed the mark on his chest and forearm.
The Eye spoke in glyph:
Veilmark Classification: Silver Crest
Elemental Signature: Primary—Lightning. Secondary—Flame.
Resonant Status: Incomplete. Fractured Memory Detected.
The room went silent.
Not even Kaelen had words for that.
Not even Selka.
But Zephryn didn't flinch.
Because the hum he heard now—beneath it all, under the Lyceum and its eyes and the Pulse-threaded walls—was real. It was ancient.
It belonged to him.
He stepped back from the Eye.
"I remember enough," he whispered. "For now."
Kaelen broke first. "We'll meet again after class. Echo Squad has its own way of catching up."
Zephryn nodded.
But he didn't look back.
His pulse was still echoing as he walked out.