Chapter Six – Where the Doctrine Does Not Look
Part Four – The One Who Vanishes Twice
Dawn broke without warning.
No golden flare across the horizon. No birdsong to soften the edge of silence. Just light—pale, gray, unsummoned—slipping through the cracks in the stone walls like a truth that no longer asked permission to be seen.
Yolti woke first.
Her eyes fluttered, then widened. She sat up, heartbeat skipping, glancing across the cold hearth and empty floor. The sleeping mats still held imprints. But only two were occupied.
Selka lay motionless, one arm over her chest, eyes shut, but breath steady. Kaelen was gone.
Yolti stood.
She moved to the window, pushed aside the curtain—and froze.
Outside, the wind was still. The village was silent. But in the frost-dusted grass just past the fence, she saw two figures.
One standing. One kneeling.
Kaelen.
And beside him—nothing now but footprints.
⸻
He didn't say anything when she came outside.
Kaelen remained where he was, kneeling in the dirt like the world had collapsed in a way only he had felt. Yolti didn't need to ask. She saw it in his hands: the crystal shard Zephryn had given him. It glowed faintly still, despite the morning chill.
"He's gone," Kaelen said.
Yolti sat beside him. "He always was."
"No," Kaelen whispered. "Not like that."
She turned to him.
Kaelen held the shard toward the sunrise. "He remembered us. He remembered everything. But he couldn't stay. Said the Lyceum was where it all began."
Yolti's hands closed in her lap.
"I don't think he came back to be found," she said. "I think he came back to leave something behind."
Kaelen's brow furrowed. "Like what?"
Behind them, a voice answered:
"Proof."
They turned.
Selka stood a few paces away, a small parchment clutched in her hand. Not the page Zephryn had shown them last night—but another. Folded. Warm still.
"He left it by my pillow," she said. "Before he vanished."
Yolti stood. "What is it?"
Selka didn't open it yet. She just stared at the crease, the familiar weight in her hands.
"It's written in harmonic glyph," she murmured. "But part of it… it's in her hand."
Kaelen's breath hitched. "Solara's?"
Selka nodded.
Behind her, the door to the Doctrine outpost swung open. Two mirror agents stepped out, followed by a taller figure in a dark leather coat.
Thaelen Voss.
Kaelen stiffened.
Selka tucked the parchment into her jacket before turning.
Voss said nothing at first. He simply walked past the agents, stopped at the edge of the field, and stared down at the same footprints Yolti had seen earlier. His eyes narrowed—not at the shape, but at the residue.
Pulse echoes. Glyph decay. Traces of something half-cast, then withdrawn.
"He was here," Voss said quietly.
Neither Selka nor Kaelen spoke.
Voss turned toward them. "Your report said the masked figure was no one of concern. That the Riftborn fell from local intervention."
"I stand by it," Selka replied without flinching.
Voss tilted his head.
"Do you know what I used to do, Selka?" he asked softly. "Before the Doctrine gave me rank. Before Caelus fell."
She didn't respond.
"I was a reader of glyph trails. A resonance forager. I know what a collapsed cast looks like. I know what's old… and what's anomalous."
Kaelen stepped forward. "Then say it."
Voss turned his eyes to him.
"Say what?" he asked.
"That you recognize his form," Kaelen said. "His stance. His hum."
Yolti's breath caught.
Voss looked down again. Then to the east—where the trees swallowed the horizon.
Finally, he spoke:
"I saw the same movement in the boy who once stood beside Solara." A pause. "And I saw it again this morning."
Then he turned away.
"Double the agents here," he told the others. "And tell the Choir that if Zephryn walks the Veil again—he may not be alone."
⸻
Back inside the cabin, once the Doctrine agents were gone, Selka unwrapped the parchment.
The glyphs on the page weren't sharp. They were etched, like they'd been carved by someone not trained to write, but forced to remember anyway. In the center of the page, one note spiraled into another—a broken chord held by memory.
At the bottom, only two words remained. Not in Solara's hand. In his.
Written in plain script.
"Still Humming."
Kaelen sat beside her. "Do you think he's coming back?"
Selka folded the page slowly.
"No," she said. "But I don't think he left."
Yolti looked toward the tree line, where the mist had thickened again.
"What happens now?"
Kaelen stood.
"We find out why the Doctrine forgot him."
Selka stood beside him.
"And why the Hollow Choir didn't."