Chapter Four: Waterfall of the Unspoken
Part Seven – And the Wind Sang Her Name
Location: Pulsefall Glade – After the Glyph Transfer
Time: Holding its breath
There are moments where memory doesn't echo—it waits.
And in the wake of Bubbalor's offering, as Zephryn stood quietly staring at the curve of Solara's forgotten glyph stitched into his skin, it wasn't the mark that hummed.
It was the wind.
Soft at first.
Then shaped.
Then… familiar.
Selka felt it before she heard it.
That flutter beneath her ribs, like someone whispering a name she hadn't said aloud in years—but had held silently through every breath.
The Pulsefall shifted slightly.
Not its direction. Its tone.
As if the hum inside it had recognized that it had been answered—and now asked for more.
—
Zephryn turned to Selka.
"She's not done."
Selka nodded once. Her mouth was closed. Her fists clenched, not in anger, but restraint.
Because something inside her remembered what they had lost.
What she had lost.
The Veil hadn't buried it.
The Veil had only paused.
And now…
It was playing again.
—
The water curved around her steps as she approached the cliff.
She didn't touch it this time.
She sang.
No melody.
No words.
Just a hum—low, pulsing, wavering at the edges, cracking at the seams.
It wasn't beautiful.
It wasn't trained.
But it was true.
And the cliff responded.
Glyphs that had never revealed themselves before flared from the stone face—burned not into rock, but etched into air like scars never allowed to heal.
They shaped a name.
Selkariel.
—
Zephryn stepped back.
The name didn't shock him.
He had seen it once—whispered inside the Choir fracture, spoken by a version of Solara that might never have lived.
But now he understood.
That wasn't a nickname.
It was a half-mark.
Selka had been born with it, carried it, but never completed it.
Because the hum that carried her into that name had been interrupted.
Now, in the glade—
She sang it awake.
—
The glyph spiraled once above her chest.
Not water.
Not ripple.
Not veil-thread.
Syncline.
She didn't falter.
She let the hum climb.
Not in volume.
In weight.
And as she did—
The glyph on Zephryn's arm glowed again. The crescent mark Solara left in him began to lift from his skin like smoke.
It didn't leave.
It merged.
With hers.
With the sound.
And suddenly—
There was no water.
No air.
Only pulse.
And memory.
And resonance.
Her name fully sang: Selkariel.
—
The Pulsefall straightened.
For the first time in known history—
It dropped vertically.
Water fell with clean precision, humming as it landed, forming a perfect mirrored reflection at the base.
Zephryn turned slowly.
And in that mirror—
He saw not himself.
Not Rael.
Not Solara.
But Selka.
Standing whole.
Glyph complete.
Eyes glowing not with cast power, but with knowing.
—
She breathed once.
And said nothing.
Because the wind had already sung her name.
And she had answered.