CHAPTER EIGHT: PULSE AWAKENS (Part two)
The light didn't flash.
It pulsed—soft, slow, like a heartbeat cradled in old bark.
Zephryn's hand stayed against the trunk.
And beneath his fingers, the grooves shifted.
Not physically.
But resonantly.
As if the tree didn't recognize him by sight—
but by memory.
He closed his eyes.
For a moment, he didn't feel the hill.
Didn't feel the wind.
Only the hum.
That low, familiar tone
that wasn't from Bubbalor
and wasn't from him.
It came from beneath the roots.
From the same hum that once lived in the scarf.
From the glyph beneath the gate.
From her.
Behind him, a footstep.
Then another.
He didn't turn.
Selka stood just a few paces back.
Hair unbound. Hands folded in front of her.
She didn't ask permission.
Didn't announce herself.
She just stood with him,
the way she always did when the weight became too loud.
For a while, they didn't speak.
Just stood
beneath the Heartbloom Tree
like two names written into the same line of a forgotten song.
Then Selka whispered—
"It remembers you."
Zephryn nodded.
Quiet. Sharp.
"I remember it too."