Chapter Two: Where the Pulse Still Waits
Part Two: Veilmarks and Divides
Date: Junilis 4th, Year 204 PCR
Location: Harmonic Lyceum – Southwind Courtyard
"Medic Unit, form up! Now!"
Instructor Thaelen's voice cracked through the courtyard like a thrown spear. His coat rippled behind him as the resonance winds shifted, exposing the gleam of his Lyceum badge. In his left hand, a folded veil-scroll hummed, pulsing instructions through its fibers like a heartbeat too ancient to question.
Four figures stepped forward.
Liora. Luma. Nima. Elari.
Their boots moved in rhythm, though none of them had rehearsed it. When the Lyceum called for a squad, it didn't call for perfection. It called for resonance. And today—the day after Zephryn's mark reawakened—it called for truth.
The four girls halted before Thaelen, who turned with a controlled breath, eyes sharp.
"You're not Healers. Not yet," he said. "You're shards of potential, threaded by fault lines."
He tossed the scroll into the air. It unfurled mid-flight and exploded into a pulse-dome around the group. Soft gold and pale green lines began to scan their bodies, charting Veilmark signatures, resonance types, even past cast records.
Then it spoke.
Squad Alignment: Medic
Liora – Element: Light
Veilmark: Morning Sigil
Luma – Element: Water
Veilmark: Deeprest Bloom
Nima – Element: Earth
Veilmark: Rootcall Echo
Elari – Element: Wind
Veilmark: Whispersend Crest
A hush swept through the courtyard as other trainees from Recon and Echo squads turned to watch.
Selka stood with arms crossed, still in her modified Lyceum robes, a faint pulseband active over her left shoulder. Kaelen leaned beside her, eyes narrow, chewing the inside of his cheek.
"She's stronger than I remember," Selka murmured, watching Liora.
Kaelen didn't respond. His gaze had already shifted to the center of the court—where Zephryn stood alone. His Veilmark hadn't flickered again since the Pulse Eye moment. But the hum was still there. Always under the surface. And every trainee in earshot could feel it.
"Echo Squad next!" Thaelen barked.
But still… he paused. Just a second too long.
Selka stepped forward first, brushing past Kaelen. "We're not afraid to show what we are."
She moved into the circle. Her stride was deliberate. Bold. But her pulse betrayed the tremor beneath it. Liora caught it—just for a moment. The way Selka's right hand twitched as she rolled her shoulder, like she was remembering something sharp.
Kaelen followed her.
Then Yolti.
Then finally—Zephryn.
"Pulse alignment initiated," Thaelen said as the scroll recoded.
The Pulse Circle roared to life again.
Squad Alignment: Echo
Selka – Element: Ice
Veilmark: Veilring Bloom
Kaelen – Element: Fire
Veilmark: Echo Flame
Yolti – Element: Wind
Veilmark: Seravelle Arc
Zephryn – Element: Lightning / Flame
Veilmark: Silver Crest
The circle cracked for a moment. A flicker. The glyphs rearranged themselves—and for just a second, a second only Thaelen and the choir agents would notice—a fifth tone echoed beneath the others.
Not Ice. Not Wind. Not Fire. Not Lightning.
Memory.
Thaelen's eye narrowed. The scroll closed. And somewhere, in the fog just beyond the south gates of the Lyceum, a gloved hand disappeared behind a crystal tree.
—
Later that morning, in the shade of the Southwind archways, the units dispersed.
Recon Squad had already returned from their terrain mapping exercise. Mino watched the results flicker on the northern pulseboard, arms crossed. Torr and Kellian whispered just behind him, trying not to stare too obviously at Zephryn's figure standing alone near the old glyph monument.
"He's got lightning and flame," Torr muttered. "That's not natural."
Kellian snorted. "Neither is coming back from the dead."
Their squadmate Vessa, who had a habit of vanishing at the wrong moments, leaned forward with a sigh. "You think that mark's real?"
"Doesn't matter," Mino said. "If it hums, it's dangerous."
—
Inside the old Lyceum infirmary, the Medic Unit began their first training session.
Instructor Mirae—strict, velvet-voiced, and sharper than she looked—unrolled a pulse-grid between Luma and Elari.
"This grid maps resonance decay. Today, you learn how to delay that decay by sharing pulse harmony with the injured."
Nima raised an eyebrow. "What if the injured can't sing?"
"Then you sing for them," Mirae replied. "Even the unconscious hum. It's our job to echo them until they can hum for themselves."
It wasn't the kind of training that burned the ground or shattered ceilings—but Liora could feel it. The weight. The pressure. The memory required to hold another's pain long enough to return it soothed.
As she watched the light shimmer off the pulse-grid, she thought of Zephryn again. Of the way his mark had cracked the room open without effort.
She didn't know what kind of healing someone like that would need.
But she wanted to be ready when the time came.
—
That night, long after the last bell and the dorm lights dimmed, Zephryn stood on the balcony of the eastern wing, arms braced on the ledge.
Below him, the Lyceum glowed like it was alive—vein-lines of crystal threads pulsing between towers, bridges, and inner courts.
Kaelen walked up beside him.
"I named it Echo when you didn't come back," he said, voice low. "Didn't want it to be a squad. I wanted it to be a reminder."
Zephryn turned his head. "Of what?"
Kaelen's jaw tightened. "Of the hum we thought we lost."
Zephryn didn't speak for a while. But when he did, it came from deeper than his voice.
"You didn't lose it. You just couldn't hear it yet."
Kaelen looked at him—really looked—and saw something new behind his silver hair and shadowed eyes.
Not power.
Not pain.
But legacy.
And somewhere far beyond the Lyceum, the Hollow Choir leaned forward in their unseen seats, murmuring as one:
"Silver Crest has begun to resurface.
The core still hums."