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But the deeper they traveled, the more Elowynn found herself wondering whether history had been less a puzzle and more like a carefully edited manuscript. Entire sections appeared altered or totally removed.
Caelyn had grown even more distant with every passing corridor.
While he had never been especially talkative, this felt different. His attention seemed divided between the group and that thing only he could perceive. Several times she noticed him slowing as they approached intersections, his gaze wandering toward passages they didn’t enter. Once he stopped entirely beside a wall where a resonance channel disappeared beneath the floor. He remained there long enough that Alyra turned back to check on him, and when he finally continued walking, the expression on his face reminded Elowynn of someone listening to a conversation taking place just beyond hearing.
She didn't like it one bit. Every instinct that had carried them this far was suddenly urging her to turn back.
Eventually the corridor ended at a doorway.
The opening rose far above their heads, large enough that several caravan wagons could have passed through side by side. Whatever doors had once occupied the space were long gone, leaving only darkness beyond the threshold. The scale of it drew everyone's attention, and the group slowed as though approaching something sacred or dangerous.
Perhaps both.
Lantern light spilled through the opening first, revealing fragments of the room beyond. Elowynn saw stone, then pillars, then platforms. More details emerged as the light spread farther into the darkness, and each new glimpse made the chamber seem larger than what it actually was.
The engineer stopped walking, and nobody needed him to explain why.
Elowynn crossed the threshold beside him. For several moments she only stared.
The floor of the chamber had been carved into a map.
Stone channels crossed the floor in vast, intricate patterns that stretched farther than the light could fully illuminate. Immense circular platforms occupied key points throughout the design, while convergence sigils marked intersections where multiple lines joined together. Some sections had collapsed while others remained remarkably intact. Even damaged, the shape was unmistakable.
Her breath caught in her chest. “I recognize these patterns. Those channels represent aethercurrents.”
Everyone stared first at her, then down to the map etched below them.
“Stars of hell...” Lora cursed. “Is that… what I think it is?”
Several others murmured their own shock.
Elowynn nearly stumbled. She’d spent entire moons comparing regional surveys and resonance charts. Of studying maps of their world. The network beneath their feet mirrored those diagrams with astonishing accuracy.
Except where the archive versions had always contained gaps, this one didn't.
The others had spread out around her and across the enormous floor. Survivors clustered together near the entrance, unwilling to stray far from familiar faces. Lora turned in a slow circle, her lantern casting sweeping arcs of light across the stone, while Alyra studied the nearest platform with visible suspicion. Even Korvel looked concerned now, and the sight of genuine doubt on his face did little to comfort her.
The farther Elowynn walked, the larger the picture became. She recognized more current lines and convergence points. There were more provinces, too.
“Wait,” she breathed. “This... is not the city. This is the entire continent.”
“The entire continent?” the engineer asked, disbelief tinging his voice. “There’s no way.”
Her eyes followed one channel northward until it connected to a circular platform marked by symbols she recognized.
An observatory. Astermere.
Another platform sat farther east.
Then another south.
Then another west.
One by one, the pattern revealed itself.
“Observatories,” she whispered. Every major observatory she knew.
“Astermere,” she pointed to the northern one, then jogged to the north-eastern platform. “Crystal Peak.” She quickly moved to the eastern one. “The Dimmed Lands,” her eyes locked on Caelyn.
