CHAPTER SIX: THE DORMS THAT REMEMBER (Part five)
Night deepened.
The kind of night that didn't ask questions.
The kind that didn't pretend to be quiet—just heavy.
Like every breath carried history behind it.
Kaelen had lit a single resonance taper in the corner—
its flame faint, but steady.
It painted soft arcs across the wall, glowing off old glyph shards, bunk posts, and Bubbalor's waiting eyes.
Yolti lay on her back, staring at the ceiling again.
But this time, she wasn't frowning.
She was tracing something with her finger in the air—
little swirls and loops, over and over.
Zephryn recognized them.
They were part of the lullaby's rhythm.
She didn't know the words.
But she knew the pattern.
Kaelen stepped toward the desk and slid open the second drawer—
one Zephryn hadn't touched since before.
Inside was a folded paper. A crude drawing. Four small stick figures on a cliff.
One had a spiral on its chest.
The name scratched beneath it:
"Us."
He said nothing. Just passed it to Zephryn and walked back to his bunk.
Selka didn't take her eyes off the line carved into the floor.
"Who else knew you'd come back?"
Zephryn looked up.
"What?"
She repeated it. "Who else knew?"
Zephryn swallowed.
"I don't think anyone did."
Selka's voice softened.
"Someone did. This room didn't fold without you. It waited."
She turned toward him, finally.
"You don't just belong here, Zephryn.
You're written into it."
And then the resonance taper flared.
Not violently.
Not from wind.
From the glyph dust above them—
responding.
It shimmered.
Then fell in a spiral.
Right onto the center of the dorm floor.
Bubbalor lifted its head.
Kaelen stood again.
Yolti sat up.
Zephryn stepped forward—his hand tightening over the pendant at his chest.
The dust moved without touch.
No pulse command. No flare.
Just memory.
It gathered into a new symbol.
One none of them had seen before.
Not on any scroll.
Not in the Lyceum records.
Not in Solara's notes.
But when it formed—
All four of them knew exactly what it meant.