Chapter Four: The Broken Chord (Part Three)
Date: May 22, Year 204 PCR (Maelis 22)
Location: Trial Arena – Harmonic Lyceum
Time: Late Afternoon
Zephryn dropped to his knees.
Not out of shame. Not out of fear.
But because his body couldn't carry the weight of instinct anymore.
Bubbalor stopped humming.
The resonance in the arena warped.
All around him—dust, stone, flame—the air bent as if the Trial itself was deciding whether it wanted to remember him… or erase him.
Riko stepped forward first.
His boots cracked stone beneath them—glyphlight flickering along his legs like sparks trapped in amber.
"You're pathetic," he said, voice sharp. "We haven't even used our Veilmarks yet."
He glanced sideways at Lumyra.
"She's right. You never belonged here."
Lumyra said nothing. But her sword dipped—subtle. Ready.
Zephryn coughed.
Blood slipped from his mouth and mixed with the dust. His arms trembled, weight pressing through bone and breath.
But his eyes…
His eyes were clear.
He heard Selka's whisper still folding through his ribs.
"Remember."
And something did.
Not in the mind. Not in the pulse.
But beneath both. Deeper.
A place without light.
A place where song went to die.
The glyph didn't flare into being.
It began to unfold.
Lines curved into the air around him—not ink. Not flame.
Threadlines—etched in silence, not glow.
The center coiled first—two mirrored curves spiraling into each other like gravity folding back upon itself.
The arena didn't shake.
It stilled.
Riko stopped moving.
"What… what is that?"
Zephryn didn't answer.
Because he didn't know.
But his body did.
His breath matched the glyph's curve. His veins pulsed in rhythm to its hum.
And when the outer ring began to form—arching in fractured segments like a sigil chiseled into time itself—even Lumyra backed one step away.
Riko's voice dropped a register. It wasn't mockery now.
It was fear.
"What the hell are you?"
"You're not marked. You're not trained. You're just—"
"You're a freak."
From the royal tower, King Vaelen Tiramis did not move.
But his eyes narrowed to slits.
And his voice was the quietest thing in the sky.
"I've seen that mark before."
Thaelen turned sharply. "You said that glyph was myth."
Vaelen's hands tightened on the stone railing.
"It is."
"That mark was forbidden before the Veil was born."
The glyph formed fully now—an infinity loop, edged in harmonic fractures and script no scholar had ever written.
It hovered above Zephryn's back, not glowing.
But chanting.
A single note.
Low. Broken. Absolute.
Lumyra took another step back.
Riko's glyphs flared defensively now, out of panic—not timing.
"Don't let him cast it!" Riko shouted. "Cut it off!"
He lunged.
Zephryn's eyes lifted.
And the glyph responded.
Not with light.
But with memory.