Chapter Three: A Flame Too Young to Burn (Part Seven)
The notice arrived without flourish.
Not a proclamation.
Not a banner.
Just a slip of pulse-thread parchment tucked beneath the glyph-lock at the edge of the dorm entrance.
Selka found it first.
Didn't open it.
Just stared at the fold until Zephryn stepped beside her.
She handed it over without a word.
He read it.
Didn't react.
Handed it to Kaelen, who grunted, skimmed, and muttered:
"Guess we're not the only ones now."
By the end of the week, the dorm quadrant expanded.
Two more wings—one to the north, one southeast.
Neither glowed with the same pulse.
Echo's halls breathed slow, cautious.
The others felt sharper.
Not hostile.
Just expectant.
They met on the second day after expansion.
Not formally.
Not by name.
In the training circle.
Liraen stood between them.
Her arms crossed behind her back.
Her gaze fixed not on any one squad—
but on the distance between them.
Three groups.
Four students each.
Twelve figures on cracked stone and fading glyphlines.
No captains.
No colors.
Just eyes measuring eyes.
"Echo. Recon. Medic," Liraen said.
"You are not squads.
You are not units.
You are fractures waiting to break."
Selka raised an eyebrow.
Kaelen rolled his shoulders.
Yolti tapped her pulse-stone against her palm.
Zephryn remained still.
"These drills are not about victory," Liraen continued.
"They are about weight.
Your own.
And how you carry it when others begin to fail."
Medic stood with quiet confidence.
The girl in front—Luma—glanced at the sun once before lowering her stance into a shield-ready coil.
The one beside her, Nima, wore a cloak too large for her shoulders but didn't seem to notice.
Her pulse felt soft. Warm.
But unshaken.
Elari stood in the back. Water mark across his hand flickering as if it needed a rhythm to anchor to.
And Liora, the smallest, blinked slowly, counting breaths in patterns Zephryn recognized but couldn't follow.
Recon wasn't still.
Kellian moved constantly.
Not nervously—intentionally.
Each twitch of his fingers like a silent test of nearby glyph range.
Vessa stood with arms folded, feet apart, eyes narrowed.
Shadow mark dimmed beneath a half-cloak that hadn't moved in wind that didn't exist.
Torr tapped the edge of his boot against the glyph circle's outer ring.
His lightning mark pulsed in intervals.
Riko?
Riko didn't move at all.
And yet somehow, he was the one who felt closest to ready.
Liraen gave no signal.
No starting word.
No pairings.
She just turned—
and walked away.
Selka hummed.
Yolti stepped forward.
Kaelen cracked his knuckles.
Zephryn said nothing.
But the circle was already shifting.
No one attacked.
That was the tension.
The waiting.
The measuring.
Medic didn't break formation.
Recon didn't blink.
Echo didn't yield.
They stood in the circle for seven full breaths before Vessa finally spoke.
"So which of you breaks first?"
Kaelen grinned.
"Don't know.
But it's not going to be me."
Nima stepped slightly forward from Medic.
"That's not what this is," she said.
"This isn't combat.
It's calibration."
Riko nodded.
Still didn't speak.
But Kellian scoffed.
"Only people who expect to lose say things like that."
Selka's hum dropped into a lower register.
The glyph beneath her pulsed.
Zephryn watched it all.
Tracked speech against pulse.
Tension against echo.
It wasn't a fight.
But it would become one.
Not today.
But soon.
He stepped forward, slow.
Stood in the middle of the triangle forming between the three squads.
Kaelen moved to his right.
Yolti his left.
Selka slightly behind.
Not coordinated.
Just known.
Vessa tilted her head.
"You walk like someone who doesn't know where he's going."
Zephryn looked at her.
Didn't blink.
Didn't smirk.
"I do."
His voice was quiet.
But the glyph beneath his foot surged once.
Just once.
Enough to be heard.
Liraen stood on the tower above, watching.
She didn't speak.
But she recorded the moment in her mind the way only instructors do.
Three squads.
No captains.
No titles.
Just pressure.
And under it?
Only one of them didn't shift.