Rayon walked into the silence he'd trained his whole life to become. The sun had not yet risen, but the corridors of the eastern wing flickered with glyphlight. Harsh red sigils pulsed across the tiled floor—warnings rather than illumination. Somewhere behind the walls, gears moved in silence. Machines hummed in syncopation with the breath of the building itself. He moved through the Academy's throat, a specter cast in ash.
Sleep was short. When he closed his eyes, he saw Vyne's chest rise and fall under the blade, saw the arc of blood against moonlit columns. And beneath that image: not regret, not shame—just the slow, subtle itch of having crossed something invisible. Something permanent.
Now, he entered the Infiltration Annex. The ceiling arched low here, closer than the rest of the Academy—like it was pressing down. Before him stood a door of iron rootwood, slick with old sigils. He touched the handle.
It opened without sound.
Inside waited four others. Mirae stood at one end, arms folded, face unreadable. She had not acknowledged him since the Trial. Talia leaned against a pillar, gaze flicking between the others with quiet wariness. Bilden sat cross-legged on the floor, humming a melody that didn't match the tension in the room. And the fourth—someone new.
She was taller than the others, wrapped in obsidian threads and a tunic lined with raw glyphs—alive glyphs. The runes pulsed faintly across her shoulders, not carved but born into her fabric. Her eyes were amber, and too old for her face.
Cyrus stepped in after Rayon, closing the door behind him.
"Today," he said, "we begin Bloodglyph alignment."
A chill passed through the air.
"No longer projection. No longer tracing. This is imprinting. The glyph enters you. And if your intent isn't sharper than steel, it will write back."
He gestured to the new girl.
"This is Kess. A Writborn. The glyphs you see on her? They are not clothing. They are memory. Inherited command."
Kess didn't bow. She didn't blink.
Rayon studied her. Something about her presence made the room feel narrower. Not hostile. Just true.
Cyrus continued. "You will learn the First Glyph of Silence. Not how to use it. How to survive it."
He touched a panel on the wall. A slab of stone hissed and withdrew, revealing five small altars—each inscribed with looping symbols that shimmered faintly red.
"The glyphs are old. From before the Codex. Pre-structured. They will not wait for you to understand them. You enter, or you don't."
Rayon approached first. His altar pulsed once beneath his palm.
Inside his head, a pressure began to grow—not a sound, but the absence of one. Every breath he took felt louder. Every thought echoed. He saw the lines of the glyph not as curves, but as decisions. Not drawn, but chosen.
Behind him, Mirae muttered something. Bilden exhaled too fast. Talia clenched her fists, eyes narrowed as if bracing for impact. Mirae blinked too long. When she opened her eyes again, her hands had moved without her.
Kess walked among them. "The glyph is not a tool," she said. "It's a language. But some words don't want to be spoken. They want to be obeyed."
Rayon felt something shift. Not around him—within. His own thoughts began to distort. Not panic. A low reordering. Like someone rewriting his instincts one letter at a time.
He pushed back. He pictured his father's training hall. The cold stones. The shape of the silence he'd grown inside. Control was not absence. It was will. Direction.
The glyph faded. The pressure broke.
Rayon stepped back from the altar. Sweat ran down his neck.
Cyrus raised an eyebrow. "You saw it."
"I survived it," Rayon replied.
Mirae staggered. Talia still stood, but her breath was ragged. Bilden sat straighter than before—his humming gone.
Kess stopped beside Rayon.
"You see it like a wound," she said quietly. "Most don't. That's why it doesn't kill you."
He looked at her, uncertain if it was a warning or a compliment. One of the glyphs on her collar shifted subtly, as if listening.
Cyrus clapped once. "Good. Again. Tomorrow, you will learn how to carry it. Today, you just bled a little to earn its name."
The red sigils along the floor dimmed. The room exhaled—but something else inhaled.
Rayon felt it even as he left.
The glyph had not gone.
It had entered.