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She wasn’t certain what to do with that knowledge.
So, Elowynn did what she had always done with feelings she could not explain.
She tucked them neatly away and refused to examine them.
Chapter Six
“There are places beneath Aetheris where the currents no longer sing. The old scholars feared those places most.”
— Fragment recovered from the archives of Veylspire
Duskmere, 748 A.V.
Elowynn loved Duskmere in the south; it was vastly different from the northern continent. The sea cliffs glistened in the morning suns, and the heavy storms that batter the western coast transform into light rains that roll inland from the sea. Ivy had awoken and crept along in thick tendrils across the old abbey walls while pale pink and blue sea flowers bloomed off the stone paths. Even the air would start to feel different, carrying the scent of rain-soaked earth and saltwater rather than snow and cedar smoke.
And the bells? The bells sounded so much brighter and lifted her spirits into the heavens. Elowynn had once believed that an impossible feat. She remembered hating their tolling after her arrival, the flashbacks that accompanied them.
But now they were a balm to her soul.
Dressed in flowing ivory robes embroidered with constellations in faded gold thread, Elowynn stood within the upper observatory of the abbey with one hand braced against the cold edge of a star chart table while the golden morning light poured through the domed glass ceiling overhead. Motes of dust flitted lazily through the beams of sunlight while astrylite instruments glimmered around the circular chamber.
At sixteen turnings, she had become striking. The regal grace inherited from Seralyth had begun to naturally form in her posture, refined further by dance lessons her mother insisted she take, and the confidence gained through her studies. Her hair had been braided loosely this sun, though several strands still escaped entirely and now lifted gently in the sea breeze spilling through the open observatory windows.
Several of the younger abbey scholars openly stared at her now, and while Elowynn noticed this change in their behavior, she was far too busy reading books or arguing with Sister Agatha during her lessons to act on it.
“This rotational sequence makes no sense,” Elowynn insisted while leaning over one of the charts spread across the table. “The stabilization sigils contradict the convergence lines entirely.”
Agatha barely looked up from the book she was annotating nearby. “And yet the observatory remained functional and standing for over seven centuries.”
“That does not mean the design was efficient,” Elowynn pointed out.
“No,” Agatha agreed calmly. “But it does suggest that the architects were moderately competent.”
Elowynn glowered at the chart. “I still think it is wrong.”
The elder Sister lifted her head, amber eyes boring into her student, and stared at her flatly. “I am certain the dead architects are devastated by your disapproval.”
Across the observatory, Caelyn laughed beneath his breath, but the sound reached her sensitive ears. Elowynn glanced toward him.
At eighteen turnings, there was a subtle confidence about Caelyn that had not existed when Elowynn first met him. He often moved through the abbey with an ease that suggested he belonged, greeting the denizens and travelers, even the scholars and Sisters, with charming grins and easy conversation.
Now, he had sleeves rolled to his forearms while deft hands worked carefully through the dismantled lantern resting beside him. Loose waves of his dark hair brushed the edge of his collar, the streaks of bronze catching beneath the sunlight pouring through the windows. His attention remained fixed entirely on the delicate mechanisms spread across the table.
He looked unfairly beautiful this morning. Elowynn disliked that she noticed such things now.
“You’re staring again,” Caelyn said without looking up.
Eyes widening, Elowynn’s face heated. “I am not!”
“You absolutely are,” he murmured as he lifted his eyes to lock onto hers.
He smirked. “See?”
Agatha sighed heavily from across the table. “Stars preserve me from youths,” she grumbled.
Elowynn straightened. “Sister, I was only contemplating his terrible lantern repair methods.”
“You were contemplating his face,” Agatha corrected.
