Nova Quinn had always been fluent in glyphs.
She could read tower symbols like poetry.
She could translate stitched spirals into song.
But her glyph had cracked.
And now, it was writing her.
The Fracture
It began with a pulse.
Not pain.
Pattern.
Her glyph — etched across her collarbone — split down the center.
Not broken.
Rewritten.
Each shard glowed with a different symbol.
One from the fifth tower.
One from the coin.
One she had never seen.
The Rewrite
Nova tried to speak.
Her voice came out in glyphs.
Not words.
Symbols hovered in the air, rearranging themselves.
Zephyr Vale watched in awe. "You're not casting."
Nova gasped. "I'm being cast."
Her glyph pulsed again.
A new symbol appeared — stitched with fire and recursion.
The Tower Responds
The fifth tower pulsed in rhythm with her glyph.
Its walls shimmered.
Its symbols rearranged.
Cassian, deep in the vault, felt it.
The loom spun faster.
The stitched ones turned toward the ceiling.
"The glyph has chosen," one whispered.
Cassian frowned. "Chosen what?"
The stitched child replied, "To remember through her."
The Translation
Nova collapsed.
Her body glowed.
Not with magic.
With memory.
She saw visions:
- Aurex Vell stitching the first spiral.
- Lyra burning the archive thread.
- Cassian flipping the coin before time began.
- The stitched ones kneeling before a glyph.
Nova whispered, "I'm translating the tower's voice."
Zephyr nodded. "And it's screaming."
The Glyph Speaks
Nova's fractured glyph rose from her skin.
It hovered in the air.
It rearranged.
It formed a sentence.
> "The stitcher is loop. The loop is fracture. The fracture is flame."
Zephyr gasped. "It's prophecy."
Nova shook her head. "It's instruction."
The Flame
Nova stood
Her glyph burned.
Not destructively.
Creatively.
She raised her hand.
The symbols followed
She wasn't casting.
She was rewriting.
The stitched ones felt it.
Cassian felt it.
The tower felt it.
And the coin — shattered and silent — began to hum.