CHAPTER TWO – THE SCAR BENEATH THE CLIFF
The hum cracked through the hall.
Not loud—
but felt.
Like a faultline splitting beneath stone.
Like a name you weren't meant to say—said anyway.
Riko's mouth opened.
But no words came.
Because Bubbalor moved.
Not fast. Not loud.
Just one hop forward—
glyphs glowing cobalt and crystal across his spine,
paws pressing softly into the rain-kissed floor.
And the pulse in the air answered.
A shimmer. A shift.
The Lyceum's ancient resonance stones—dormant since the collapse—
flickered to life overhead.
Not all of them. Just a few.
Just enough.
Riko turned his head toward the hum,
but it passed through him—
like he wasn't the one it was looking for.
Kaelen stepped forward beside Zephryn.
"You've said enough."
Yolti pulled her sleeve back, just slightly—her glyph catching light.
Selka didn't move. She didn't need to.
The air around her had already cooled.
Riko tried to say something—
tried to find a line to reclaim the moment.
But that moment was no longer his.
And that's when a voice echoed from the high arch above:
"That's enough."
They all turned.
Above them, standing on the upper stair with robes still wet from the rain—
hair swept into a wind-worn braid, one white eye glowing like glass—
stood Instructor Liraen Vosk.
Her voice was steady.
"If you're done wasting resonance energy, some of us still have classrooms that remember what silence means."
A pause.
Then she looked directly at Zephryn.
"You. With me."
She turned and walked away.
No explanation.
No invitation.
Just a command.
Zephryn looked once at Kaelen, then Yolti, then—
Selka.
She didn't nod.
She just blinked once.
Go.
He followed.
No one stopped him.
Not this time.