CHAPTER FOUR: THE WEIGHT OF RETURN (Part one)
The door clicked shut behind them.
Not loud. Not final.
Just… closed. Like a chapter you don't remember writing.
Kaelen leaned his halberd against the wall and exhaled through his nose.
Yolti kicked her boots off with a grunt and flopped backwards onto her bed.
Selka moved toward the corner, fingers brushing her journal's edge—but she didn't open it.
Zephryn remained standing.
The pendant still hung around his neck, quiet now.
The memory slip sat on the desk beside him, untouched.
He hadn't sat down since returning.
Bubbalor hadn't moved either.
It just watched him from its perch—glassy eyes wide, pulsing slightly with faint blue. Not humming this time. Not breathing, either. Just still.
Like it, too, was waiting to see what he would do.
Outside, the Lyceum kept breathing—its halls full of pulse and shifting glass.
But in this room, there was no sound.
Not yet.
Kaelen finally broke the silence.
"You ever gonna open that?"
Zephryn didn't answer right away. His hand drifted toward the slip, hovered over it.
"I will."
That was all.
Selka spoke next, her voice as soft as a leaf turning.
"Do you feel different?"
Zephryn didn't look at her.
"I feel like… part of me came back.
But not all of it."
His fingers curled slightly. The desk edge pressed into his palm.
"And I don't know where the rest of me is."
Yolti sat up now, crossing her legs.
"That's kind of the point, isn't it?"
Zephryn turned slightly. "What is?"
She shrugged. "The Lyceum. The Trials.
Coming back after the world tries to rip you apart.
It's not about what you remember.
It's about what you rebuild."
Kaelen grunted. "Didn't sound that wise when you said it last year."
Yolti threw a sock at him. "I was twelve."
They laughed. Just once. Just enough to prove they still could.
But even the laugh didn't last.
Because something was different.
They were all back in the same room.
But not in the same place.
And by the window, Selka watched the rain start again—quiet, slow, silver.
She didn't say a word.
But her breath fogged the glass,
and in the center of that fog, her finger traced one small shape.
A spiral.