CHAPTER FIVE: THE GLYPH BENEATH THE GATE (Part two)
The glyph didn't scream.
It pulsed.
A low, harmonic vibration that rippled across the chamber floor like the breath of something ancient finally inhaling.
The stone beneath Zephryn's boots shimmered—not visibly, but in feel.
Like the floor had recognized him.
Like the air around him was holding its breath.
He stopped walking.
Slowly looked down.
The glyph beneath the arch had ignited in quiet motion—lines curling from its center like roots, like veins, like something alive.
Each curve moved in time with his heart.
And then… with something else.
Something deeper.
Below his pulse.
Yolti blinked. "That's new."
Kaelen didn't speak.
He was staring.
Because he'd seen that symbol before.
In his father's old resonance logs—scrawled between lines of forbidden glyph theory and sealed notes marked "Class Null."
The shape.
The arc.
The fracture spiral on the left side.
He whispered it without meaning to.
"The First Seal."
Zephryn's head snapped toward him. "What?"
Kaelen stepped forward—slowly, like crossing thin ice.
"I've seen it. In my father's notes. He said it predates the Choir. Predates everything."
Liraen still hadn't spoken.
But her eyes had opened now.
And the white one—the one taken in the war—
watched without blinking.
Selka moved beside Zephryn.
She didn't flinch.
She didn't even seem surprised.
The glyph lit brighter the closer she stood.
Yolti whispered, "Why's it reacting to you too?"
Selka didn't answer.
She just looked at it.
Calm. Focused.
Like it was a memory she'd already accepted.
Zephryn reached out—not to touch it, but to feel it.
His hand hovered inches from the stone's edge.
And in that moment—
he heard something.
Not a voice.
Not a name.
Just… a hum.
Not from Bubbalor.
From the glyph.