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The words landed like a physical blow.

"What?" breathed Lora in disbelief. “What in the dead stars do you mean repaired it?! You mean this all predates the Vigil? The orders? Everything?”

"The records surviving from that era are fragmented," Vaelor said calmly despite Lora’s outburst, "but they consistently describe failures.”

His gaze snapped to Elowynn as he listed them off.

“Resonance instability. Observatory collapses. Current disruptions. Entire regions becoming unreachable. Whatever system existed before the Great Vigil was already breaking apart.”

“Oh my gods,” Elowynn gasped. "The astrylite pylons!"

Vaelor nodded. "Now you’re thinking like a scholar. Yes. The pylons were not the foundation, but the repairs made to it.”

Korvel blew out a long breath. “Oh, starry hells....”

The corridor seemed to tilt beneath Elowynn's feet, and she caught herself against the wall. Caelyn had moved beside her so quietly she hadn't noticed his approach. His arm slipped around her waist, steadying her before she could stumble. Even injured, even exhausted, his first instinct remained the same: to protect her.

Caelyn drew her closer as the implications of Vaelor's words crashed through her. She felt his thumb move once against her side.

Are you alright?

A silent question.

The blood had drained from her face, but she nodded up at him before steadying herself once more.

Elowynn wished she had been wrong about all the inconsistencies she’d discovered. The Great Vigil had not created the system, but inherited a failing one. And they had spent everything they possessed trying to keep it functioning.

“What if they had only delayed the problem?” she voiced aloud.

The question must have crossed other minds as well because no one else said anything. They all stared at one another with dread in their eyes.

Vaelor cleared his throat.

"I came down here because… well, I believed the system was failing again."

Korvel folded his arms. "And?" he prompted.

Vaelor looked tired. Emotionally and physically. The expression made him seem far older than he was.

“You all saw the city above. The Spire. The giant split running down its entire height.” He laughed, though it held no amusement. “The instability spreading through the city is not a collection of unrelated failures, that’s for certain. It’s more like an infection spreading outward from that single wound.”

Vaelor scoffed, his head shaking.

“And to think. I was correct about all of it,” he said, eyes training on Elowynn. “Hardly anyone listened. You were one of the only people willing to entertain the possibility.”

“Then why?” she asked quietly. “Why were you so determined to keep me away from it? Why all the hostility over the last turnings?”

Vaelor’s expression softened with something that looked almost like regret.

“Because I believed you were searching for answers,” he said. “I didn’t realize you were right on the cusp of finding them, for star's sake.”

He turned his focus back to the dark path ahead before continuing.

“Every scholar who came too close to this truth has either disappeared, died, or wished they had. I thought that if I could turn your curiosity elsewhere, you might live long enough to hate me for it. Better that than witnessing another brilliant mind walking to their death.”

Elowynn stared at his profile for a long moment. Then, unbidden, Korvel's words returned to her.

You are making powerful people uncomfortable.