Chapter Four: The Broken Chord (Part Five)
Date: May 22, Year 204 PCR (Maelis 22)
Location: Trial Arena – Harmonic Lyceum
Time: Dusk
"Don't let him cast it! Cut it off!"
Riko surged toward Zephryn with his pulse roaring off-rhythm, a second glyph flaring wildly across his forearm. He wasn't fighting anymore. He was flailing at something he couldn't understand—something he'd already lost to.
But Zephryn didn't flinch.
His body stood inside the echo of He Who Was Not Sung, posture slackened, chest half-rising, breath hollow. The glyph behind him dimmed into spiraling dust—lines curling back into the air like the final trace of a fading breath.
The strike had already ended.
Zephryn's eyes were open, but unfocused. His limbs hung like strings cut too suddenly from tension.
He took one step forward—
And then he dropped.
Hard.
The weight of the Veilmark was still unwinding from his ribs, the memory still draining down through his spine like frost dripping from shattered glass.
Lumyra didn't move.
Her blade was still raised, but her eyes never left him. They didn't burn with fear now—just a rare, flickering disbelief.
"That's not something you're born with…"
"That's something you dig out of yourself."
Her voice was barely a whisper.
Zephryn's hand twitched. His legs kicked once, weakly. His body had absorbed too much resonance. There were no cuts. No burns. Just the internal collapse of something ancient that should never have reawakened.
He was still breathing.
But barely.
Riko's shout ripped across the ring again.
"You think you're better than us?! You think a freak can just show up and steal this?!"
He leapt.
Dust spun beneath his boots. His glyph surged again—red this time, edged in jagged bursts of stone-pulse and layered energy. His fist cocked backward, elbow cutting through the air like a blade about to crash down—
And then he stopped.
Not because he wanted to.
But because a hand gripped his wrist mid-air.
Tightly.
Calmly.
Commandingly.
"That's enough."
The voice wasn't loud.
But it echoed louder than anything that had come before it.
Buta.
He stood in the center of the ring now—no warning, no fanfare. Just there.
His uniform was still dust-slick from the Lyceum corridors. His hair tied back, his eyes flat. One hand still gripped Riko's wrist—firm, unshaking.
Riko struggled to move.
He couldn't.
Buta's palm turned slightly. Not in aggression.
In dismissal.
"This match is over."
"Call it a draw."
Riko's glyph dimmed.
Lumyra lowered her blade.
The pulse field around the ring flickered once, then dropped completely.
The crowd didn't erupt.
They inhaled.
Because whatever had just happened, no one had words for it.
Zephryn's body slumped completely.
He fell sideways onto the stone, chest rising once more—then pausing.
Selka moved first, stumbling down from the stands.
Kaelen leapt the barrier.
Yolti called for support, her hands already glowing with soft lattice light.
"He's still breathing. But his rhythm's cracked—he's falling out of sync."
"He needs a pulse chamber."
"No," Selka said. "He needs stillness."
They gathered around him.
Bubbalor didn't hum.
He just curled against Zephryn's spine—dimmed, glowing faint.
Kaelen lifted Zephryn beneath the arms. Yolti steadied his legs. Selka pressed her hand gently over his.
And Echo Squad carried him from the field.
From above, King Vaelen Tiramis said nothing.
Thaelen exhaled slowly.
"He shouldn't have survived that."
Vaelen's eyes never left the arena.
"He didn't."
"Not as the boy who walked in."