CHAPTER FIVE: THE GLYPH BENEATH THE GATE (Part one)
The Lyceum's morning bell didn't ring.
It pulsed.
A deep, resonant wave that slid through the walls and into the bones of every student still half-asleep beneath their sheets.
It didn't wake them. It called them.
Kaelen was already up, tightening the band along his halberd's grip.
Yolti was upside-down on her bed, her arm dangling as she stared at the ceiling like it owed her answers.
Selka stood by the door, boots already on, braid coiled tight down her back.
She hadn't slept.
But no one asked.
Zephryn stared at the memory slip on his desk.
He still hadn't opened it.
But the pendant he wore now…
It was no longer cold.
"Let's go," Kaelen muttered. "Don't want to be late for her."
Yolti groaned. "She can sense when we're trying to avoid her."
"She doesn't sense it," Selka said quietly. "She knows."
They moved through the halls of the Lyceum without speaking again.
Bubbalor followed.
The doors to the glyph room weren't just open.
They were waiting.
Instructor Liraen Vosk stood alone beneath the stone arch at the far end of the chamber.
She didn't greet them.
Didn't nod.
Her eyes were closed.
And yet, somehow—she watched them enter.
The moment they crossed the threshold, the glyphs along the walls began to shimmer.
Not all of them.
Just one.
The one beneath the center gate.
Kaelen froze halfway across the floor.
Zephryn walked ahead, unaware.
Until he passed directly beneath it—
And the glyph lit.
Not bright.
Not flaring.
Just present.
Alive.
Like it had been waiting all this time to see him.