The Scar Etched in Mist
Zephryn woke before the light glyphs rose.
The Lyceum dorm was still—no sound, no breath, just the soft resonance hum of memory coiled around silence.
His pulse was steady.
But the hum inside him hadn't faded.
The dream still clung to his spine.
The void. The fire. The glyph that had no name.
He sat up slowly, sweat cooled across his collarbone. His hand instinctively moved to his forearm—the place where the mark had burned silver in the dark.
It wasn't glowing now.
But it didn't feel dormant either.
It felt quiet.
Like it was listening.
He crossed the room, opened the window.
The air was colder than it should've been.
Mist rolled through the Lyceum courtyard like a tide that had forgotten how to leave. Glyphlights flickered low in meditation mode, casting long shadows across the grass.
And there—etched into the frost-glass of the courtyard gate—
Was a mark.
Not made by a student.
Not something from the Lyceum.
A glyph.
Thin.
Sharp.
Incomplete.
A spiral, broken by a vertical slash—
the Choir's signature.
He stared at it for several seconds.
Not shocked.
Just aware.
They hadn't attacked.
They hadn't made a move.
They'd simply let him know.
We see you.
Behind him, the door creaked.
Kaelen's voice came through, groggy but alert.
"You good?"
Zephryn didn't turn.
"They were here."
Kaelen's tone sharpened. "What?"
Zephryn stepped away from the window, eyes still locked on the fading glyph.
"They left it for me to find."
Yolti stirred in the next room. Selka didn't speak, but she was already sitting upright.
No alarms.
No alerts.
Because the Hollow Choir didn't need to break in.
They just needed Zephryn to remember…
They never stopped listening.