Chapter Six – Where the Doctrine Does Not Look
Part Two – Memory Between the Pines
The trees took them in without question. That was the forest's way.
It did not care who you were. Only how long you could walk without looking back.
They made camp beneath a bent cedar, its roots wrapped around an old listening stone—one of the Veil's forgotten relics. Time had softened its edges. Moss veiled its glyphs. It hummed once when Zephryn stepped near, then stilled, as if recognizing him but unsure whether to bow or break.
The fire was small. Just enough to ward off the cold, not enough to draw Doctrine eyes. Yolti struck the flame herself, more for something to do than any real need. Her hands moved nervously, busy with the flint, even after the fire was already lit.
Kaelen sat cross-legged, arms resting on his knees, eyes always shifting back toward Zephryn.
Selka said nothing at all. She stood with her back against the cedar trunk, arms folded, gaze lost in branches.
Zephryn knelt near the fire but not beside it. He sat apart—not out of pride, but distance formed from years. Like his body still remembered how to be alone.
He hadn't removed the cloak. The cowl hung just low enough to shadow his face, but not hide it. He wasn't hiding anymore.
No one spoke for a long time. The fire cracked gently. Wind threaded between needles high above.
Yolti broke first.
"You've grown," she said, voice faintly sheepish, as if speaking to a myth you weren't sure believed in you anymore. "Not just taller. You… move different. Fight different."
Zephryn didn't respond right away. He reached into the dirt beside him, fingers curling around a shard of stone.
He held it. Examined it. Then dragged it slowly across the flat of a nearby rock—etching a single line.
No one interrupted.
He etched again. Crossed it.
Then once more.
Kaelen watched, leaning forward. "What are you drawing?"
Zephryn didn't look up. "A memory."
Yolti tilted her head. "What does it say?"
He set the shard down beside it, quietly.
"Memory," he said, "is not a gift. It's a cost."
Selka turned then, stepping forward out of the shadows. Her voice came brittle. "Why didn't you tell us you were alive?"
Zephryn didn't answer.
"We thought you—" Her jaw clenched. "We buried what was left of her. Of Solara. We thought maybe you died with her. That maybe you—"
"I did."
His voice was quiet. The words, not.
Kaelen stood suddenly. "You're not dead."
"I was."
Yolti shook her head, arms wrapping around her knees. "Then what are you now?"
Zephryn looked at the stone again. Then toward the fire.
"…Still paying."
The flames flickered.
Silence returned.
Kaelen didn't sit. But he didn't walk away either. "I don't care what you've been through," he said at last. "You should've come back."
Zephryn's gaze met his.
"I never left."