CHAPTER TEN: THREADS OF THE UNHEARD (Part four)
Selka sat cross-legged beside her bed,
her journal open across her knees.
She hadn't written a word.
Pages fluttered slightly in the draft slipping through the floorboards—
a gentle hum pressing beneath the wood.
Not from the wind.
From the Veil itself.
Her pencil hovered above the page.
Paused.
Not shaking.
Not lost.
Resisting.
Zephryn watched her from the other side of the room.
Didn't speak.
Didn't shift.
But something in him leaned toward her—
not physically,
but emotionally.
Like a quiet gravity.
Selka's pencil finally touched the page.
One word.
"If."
Then another.
"Then."
Then—
She tore it out.
Folded it once.
Then again.
Held it tightly.
Then fed it into the resonance taper beside her.
The paper burned without light.
Only pulse.
A flicker that whispered through the glyph ring.
She closed the journal.
Stood.
Walked to the far wall.
And leaned her forehead against the stone.
Eyes closed.
Breathing quiet.
She wasn't afraid of the Trial.
She was afraid of what it would ask her to remember.