The Room That Tried to Measure Him
The Council Quarter wasn't made of stone.
It was built from pulsebound crystal, grown from resonance fields beneath the city and shaped with Veilmark engineering older than any living architect could name.
The doors didn't open with keys.
They opened with permission.
And as the group reached the top steps, one of the guards—still pale from the Heartbloom's reaction—stepped forward and placed her palm against the entrance glyph.
It hesitated.
Just a blink.
Then: light.
The doors unfolded without a sound.
Inside, the air was colder. Thicker.
Not from temperature, but from memory.
Kaelen felt it. Yolti did too.
It was the kind of weight that only existed in rooms where history had been killed and rewritten a thousand times.
The kind of silence where names were erased on purpose.
And still, Zephryn said nothing.
An official stepped forward. Older. Robes not for status, but tradition. His glyph-bands were dull silver—not retired, but close.
He didn't look at Kaelen. Or Yolti. Or the guards.
Only Zephryn.
The silence between them stretched too long to be polite.
Then the official exhaled. "…Gods."
Another stepped forward, whispering. "Is it really him?"
"I saw him fall." The older man stepped closer. "I was stationed at the southern watchpost the night it happened. Solara never—"
He stopped.
Because Zephryn had raised his eyes.
Not hostile. Not afraid.
Just present.
And the man—who had once fought alongside Solara in the eastern firewalls—took a step back.
"…You look just like her."
He didn't ask where Zephryn had been.
Didn't ask how he survived.
He simply turned to the guards. "Bring him to the inner hall. Notify the king."
Kaelen stiffened. "The king? Already?"
The man nodded. "He'll want to speak to him. Privately."
Zephryn didn't object.
He just followed.
Because kings didn't scare him anymore.
Only silence did.
And this place reeked of it.