Chapter One: The Petalwind Ceremony
Part Nine
Date: Maelis 24, Year 204 PCR
Location: Cradle of Aegir – Inner Echo Chamber
Time: Late Afternoon
The stone platforms hadn't stopped humming.
Even long after Buta dismissed the training ground and the glyphs dimmed to a breathless silence, the pulse remained in the air.
A residual frequency—like the world had just remembered their names for the first time in years… and wasn't sure if it wanted to keep them.
Zephryn sat alone near the stronghold's inner corridor, hand clenched around a cracked stone tile. His glyph hadn't stopped flickering since the trial.
Not glowing. Not burning.
Flickering.
Like it was trying to decide what shape it wanted to be.
Selka passed him without a word. She didn't ask what he saw. She didn't speak of the wolf pacing in the back of her mind since the trial. But her eyes had changed.
She walked straighter now. Not braver—colder. Quieter. Aligned.
Kaelen was pacing in the hall upstairs, still trying to mimic the motion he'd felt when the lion essence flared beneath him.
His glyph had burned out after one roar.
Yolti hadn't spoken much. She was in the water tunnel chambers now, listening to ripples—not with ears, but with pulse.
She'd heard the bird again.
Buta hadn't explained anything more.
He simply told them to return to the Echo Chamber before nightfall.
When they arrived, it was waiting.
A dome-like chamber beneath the stronghold—cut into bedrock, hollowed by pulse shock centuries before the current Veilmark structures even existed.
It didn't echo sound. It echoed memory.
The walls shimmered faintly with rune-dust and dormant glyphs.
A single platform in the center. Circular. Cold.
Buta stood beside it, arms crossed.
"Essence speaks when forced," he said.
"Resonance speaks when challenged."
He walked around them once.
"You passed your alignment trial. But you haven't faced your echo yet.
The mark knows what you are—but not all of you are ready to hear it back."
He pointed to the platform.
"One of you will step in. You will be asked a question by your glyph.
You won't hear it in words.
You'll feel it in your bones."
"If you answer honestly—your glyph will evolve.
If you hesitate, resist, or lie—your glyph may fracture."
"And you won't get it back."
They were silent.
Selka stepped forward first.
But before her foot reached the platform—
"No," Buta said. "Not you."
He looked to Kaelen.
"You felt fire. Let's see if it remembers you."
Kaelen swallowed. Looked down at his arm—scarred from the resonance flare.
He stepped in.
The platform lit.
Orange-gold. Violent. Uneven.
It spun.
Suddenly Kaelen's body locked, frozen mid-step. His mouth didn't open. But his eyes—
They widened.
He was no longer standing there.
Not in mind.
He was somewhere deeper.
A sound burst from the glyph.
Not a roar.
Not a name.
A low, guttural growl followed by something that sounded like cracking glass and stone.
Kaelen screamed.
Not out of pain—out of shame.
The glyph flashed red.
Then dark.
He fell backward onto the stone, panting.
"I told it the truth," he gasped.
"And it hated me for it."
Buta didn't blink. "Then it believed you."
Yolti stepped up next.
The glyph lit soft blue, almost lavender.
It didn't spin. It rippled.
She swayed slightly, arms out, fingers twitching.
A pulse of sound fluttered out of the stone.
Like feathers brushing water.
Yolti smiled.
She whispered, "It remembers… a river I was never born near. But it still sang for me."
Her glyph flared white-blue for a second—just enough to trace the outline of a bird's wing.
Then faded.
Selka didn't wait.
She stepped into the circle. Her glyph reacted before the platform did.
Frost.
Not ice—stillness. Precision. Measured silence.
She didn't twitch. She didn't flinch.
The question didn't come in pain.
It came in an image—
A sword in her hand.
Zephryn falling.
A voice saying: "You know this ends with him gone."
She didn't answer.
She didn't cry.
She just said, "I already knew that."
The platform lit silver-white.
Then shut off.
Zephryn stepped up last.
Buta didn't call him.
He just nodded.
And Zephryn's glyph didn't wait for the circle.
It pulsed beneath his feet, igniting the moment he stood at the edge.
∞
The platform refused to light.
Instead, the chamber lit around him.
All four walls of the dome—runes ignited, casting mirrored glyphs onto the floor.
His body locked.
The glyph whispered:
"Why are you still pretending you don't remember?"
Zephryn's heart stopped.
He saw:
His mother. A sword. Choir masks in a circle. Solara screaming—not at him, but at a glyph that had already burned itself into his arm.
He didn't answer.
He couldn't.
The glyph flared once—then went dark.
No sound. No pain.
Just a whisper from the wall behind him:
"We already named you."
He stepped back.
Everyone stared.
Buta stepped forward.
"That… was not an echo.
That was a memory."
"And it didn't come from you."