Chapter Two: Where the Pulse Still Waits
Part Four: The Water That Waits Behind Selka's Eyes
Date: Junilis 4th, Year 204 PCR
Location: Lyceum – Backpool Sanctuary
Selka sat beneath the moonless canopy, her boots half-submerged in the backpool's still surface, fingers tracing the pulse trails the water always remembered.
The stars hadn't shown themselves tonight.
Good.
She didn't want to be seen.
The Lyceum gardens whispered around her—fronds shivering, pulsepetals folding inward as if ashamed. The backpool never drew students after sundown. Not since the old tales. Not since the day the surface flared and a girl vanished, leaving only a single broken note echoing in the water.
Selka didn't care.
That same water had once heard her scream. That same surface had held her tears when no one else knew he was alive.
Zephryn.
Back.
Walking through corridors like nothing had broken. Like the Veil hadn't shattered. Like she hadn't broken herself defying Thaelen and sprinting through the storm-torn wilds just to prove her pulse hadn't lied.
But the way he looked at her now?
He didn't even remember what she'd done.
What she'd risked.
What it cost.
She clenched a pebble in her palm, squeezing it until her fingers throbbed. Her Veilmark flickered faintly—petal-bloomed just beneath her collarbone. A soft violet glow that always appeared when her pulse wanted to speak and her mouth couldn't.
"You're really here," she murmured to the water. "But you're not."
The surface didn't answer. It just held her face in its reflection—older now, sharper, braided tight like her restraint.
A breeze curled through the garden and sent a ripple across the backpool.
Something in her chest rippled too.
She didn't cry.
She hadn't cried in years.
Not when the Doctrine tried to silence her report. Not when Thaelen threatened her with exile for leading a search party without clearance. Not when she found Zephryn in a half-collapse, body bruised by memory more than blade, eyes blank, hair silver like ash from a pyre that never cooled.
He didn't even ask why she was the one who found him.
He didn't ask what she'd gone through to bring him home.
Because to him, this was home.
To her?
This was the cage she stayed in so he'd have somewhere to return.
The water shimmered again, soft and still.
"Selka," a voice called faintly from the tree line behind the garden.
She didn't move.
Kaelen.
He didn't push. He never did when she sat here.
"You need to rest," he said quietly. "Trial's coming."
Still no response.
He waited.
Then: "If you keep holding it in, it'll cast without your say."
She finally turned her head—barely. "I know."
A long silence.
Kaelen stepped closer. "He's changed."
"I noticed."
"He asked about you. Not out loud. But you were the first person he looked for when the bell rang."
Selka's eyes stayed fixed on the water.
"Why doesn't he remember?" she whispered. "Why does he look at me like I'm new?"
"Because he's trying to pretend nothing was taken."
"I was taken, Kaelen," she said, voice razor-smooth. "We all were. Six years ago, when the Hollow Choir erased him from everything."
Kaelen knelt beside her, his own pulse whispering faintly—embers against her lilac bloom.
"We got him back."
"No," she said. "We got his body back. His memory's still gone. His glyph—flickering. His hum isn't right."
Kaelen nodded, jaw tight.
"Do you remember what Solara said?" Selka asked.
Kaelen hesitated. "I remember parts."
"She said if Zephryn ever vanished… to follow the sound that hurt."
The water stilled again.
Selka looked up at the moonless sky.
"If he disappears again…" she whispered, pulse catching in her throat, "I won't come looking. I'll burn this place instead."
Kaelen placed a hand gently over hers, grounding her.
"You won't have to," he said.
Selka closed her eyes.
"No," she said softly. "I will."