CHAPTER EIGHT: PULSE AWAKENS (Part one)
The sky hadn't fully broken when he stepped into the light.
Just that hazy edge of morning—
not dark, not bright.
A sky still deciding whether to weep or burn.
Zephryn walked alone beneath it,
not toward the dorm,
not toward the Lyceum.
Toward the one place he hadn't returned to.
The Heartbloom Tree.
The wind was low.
Carrying dust.
Carrying memory.
He moved without thought,
scarf trailing like smoke behind him,
the pendant warm with the last breath of the throne room still pulsing.
No one stopped him.
No one watched.
But the glyphs in the stone shifted as he passed—
faint swirls curling behind his steps,
like the ground had started to listen.
He reached the hill.
And there it was.
Tall. Silent. Waiting.
The Heartbloom Tree.
Still blooming,
still humming,
still holding every name that had once been spoken beneath its roots.
Zephryn stopped at the base of the tree.
He didn't kneel.
Didn't bow.
Didn't speak.
He just placed his palm against the bark—
And the tree exhaled.
Not with leaves.
With light.