Chapter Four: Waterfall of the Unspoken
Part One – The Place We Were Never Meant to Find
Location: Western Verge – Doctrine-Restricted Zone, Off-Map Pulsefall
Time: Distorted (no temporal tag confirmed)
They didn't speak on the way there.
Even Bubbalor—usually murmuring or whining or mimicking Doctrine glyphs like they were insects—said nothing.
The air around them had changed. Not in scent, but texture. It was too still to be sky, too soft to be wind.
Selka walked in front, cloak half-draped, boots skimming the moss-threaded path like her feet already knew where it would end.
Zephryn followed behind, two steps back, not asking where or why.
He already knew.
This wasn't the path Selka had found during grief.
This was the one the Veil remembered for her.
And the Veil never forgets twice.
—
The sound of water came before the bend.
But not the crash of a fall.
It was curved.
Bent.
Like memory folded in on itself just before it could echo fully.
And then—
They stepped out into the glade.
The Pulsefall hung like glass.
Not dropping. Suspended.
A waterfall that obeyed no gravity.
Instead, it held its shape, gliding sideways along an invisible arc, then folding back into the basin as if unsure whether it wanted to return.
Selka didn't slow.
Zephryn's glyph shimmered before they even touched the stones.
A resonance flickered near the cliff wall—not theirs.
Not recent.
Remembered.
—
"This is the place I felt you," Selka said.
Zephryn blinked. "When?"
"After they said you were gone. I came here to scream. But I couldn't. The hum wouldn't let me."
He turned slowly, scanning the stone for glyphs.
"What did it do?"
"It hummed your name before I said it."
—
She placed her palm against the cliff face.
Water didn't coat the rock.
It moved around her.
Parted, but not in fear—recognition.
Zephryn stepped forward.
His hand hovered just inches above the glyph-washed stone.
And in that moment—he saw it.
A symbol.
Faint.
Etched not in ink, but in Veil-threaded pulseburn.
It matched the ∞ mark.
But it wasn't his.
It was twisted.
Shaped like two glyphs meeting—one from the future, one from the forgotten.
A sync-mark.
Not Doctrine.
Not Choir.
Solara's.
—
Selka whispered:
"This is the place I heard her."
Zephryn nodded.
"I think it's where I almost became her echo."
She looked at him.
Eyes bright.
Voice shaking.
"Then don't leave this place without answering the hum."
—
The Pulsefall rose behind them, casting color through the glade—light bending like it couldn't commit to a single memory.
Above, clouds curled inward.
Not to block sun.
But to listen.
And beneath their feet—
The glyph pulsed.
Waiting.