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To compare it to the previous murals would be like comparing a child’s first finger painting to Picasso. These are captivating. It’s the only word I can think of to describe what I’m looking at, and even that wildly undersells their otherworldly enchantment.

Murals cover every open inch of space, starting above the shelves and extending to the dome ceiling, in an unending loop around the entire room. The paintings are brilliantly detailed and perfectly preserved, as though they were painted just hours or days ago.

“It’s like the walls above the river,” Branwen breathes, reaching out a delicate finger, but quickly realizing she’s far too short to reach the art itself. With a huff, her arm falls to hang at her side.

She’s right. They’re murals, but aside from their otherworldly quality, they’re rendered with such perfect detail that I could swear they’re moving. While the others were done so well they looked like photographs, these are simply… more.

I keep reminding myself that the figures depicted aren’t going to step off the walls and come to life.

I inch closer until I’m as near the wall as I can get without straining my neck to look up, and I study the details of this part of the painting, still unable to accept that what I’m looking at is real and not some strange dream or illusion.

In front of me, a woman stands on a cliff. She’s barefoot, hair billowing behind her in a sweeping cascade of flame. Her arms are outstretched and hundreds of spheres made of fire float through the air.

They’re moving—or were moving— springing and twirling through the air in deliberate, intricate arcs. The light catches the paint, giving the illusion that the flames flicker and burn even now.

Wait. That’s not right.

The balls of fire, beautiful as they are, are not moving. They haven’t been. It’s a picture. A painting. And while it’s clear what they’re meant to be doing, they’re most definitely not doing it now.

I flick my gaze to the side, and my eyes fall on another man standing beside her. Strong, handsome, with dark grey hair and palms raised toward the sky, not unlike his female counterpart.

His stance sends a shiver down my spine, so reminiscent of the way I stood when calling on the fire earlier that my heart skips a beat.

From his palms, thin silver lines flow upward, each line painted impossibly thin. The paint is an unnaturally bright silver that shimmers like lightning frozen mid-strike.

Each scene flows seamlessly to the next as I make my way around the chamber, attention zoned in on the mural. A glance behind me shows Branwen walking in the opposite direction in a similar state of awe.

I don’t know how the artist managed it, but despite each scene clearly depicting its own individual moment, they’re drawn in a way that makes them feel like they belong together—a unit.

A story.

I stop before a woman kneeling in a garden full of vibrant growth. The color shifts from the darkest forest green to the brightest green of new spring, and it makes me sick with longing for Soren.

The woman’s hands are thrust into the ground, buried in the soil⁠—

No.

They’re hovering over the Earth. They’re not even touching the ground.

Lifting my hands, I press my palms into my eyes, then lift them and wait for my sight to refocus.

I look at the scene once more, just to be sure.

Her hands are still where they were before, hovering in the air.

So why did I think they were buried in the dirt?

I blow out a breath and decide to chalk it up to exhaustion. After the fire, I’m running on fumes. I need to lie down, but I can’t seem to pull myself away from these paintings.

In the garden, new growth bursts from the soil. Some are sprouting while others burst into bloom, bulbs unfurling to expose delicate, velvet soft petals in colors so striking I don’t understand how they’re real.

I feel myself drawn to the new life, overcome by something deeper—a purpose unfurling through the new life brought forth by the kneeling woman.

There’s a light in her eyes—tiny flecks of gold that, when they catch the light, look like they’re focusing not only on the garden, but specifically on me.

The sensation makes me uneasy, and I move on, frowning back at the woman as her eyes follow.

Further down, water spills from a man’s open palms, flowing in graceful, arching streams. Each stream follows its own journey, ultimately coming together with the others and morphing into a magnificent waterfall that crashes over a cliff and spills into a powerful ocean below.