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The entirety of it all was breathtaking.

And it felt impossibly lonely.

At least the scattered books that already covered most of the available surfaces offered a small measure of comfort.

Elowynn stood near the large arched window fastening the silver clasps along the sleeves of her robes while winter sunlight spilled across the terraces below. Sparkling snow drifted lazily between towers as it blew off the spire from the mountain winds.

All the while, observatory bells tolled through the city in layered echoes.

One span. Only seven suns.

And already she felt as though she had stepped into a world she was not prepared for. Perhaps once, had Astermere not been destroyed, this would all have been routine. She would have grown up in such lavish accommodations. Instead, she felt out of place.

A sharp knock sounded at her chamber door.

“Elowynn?” a voice called through the wood. “If you’re reorganizing books by color and their emotional significance again, I’m leaving without you.”

Elowynn blinked, staring at her closed door.

“I do not organize them like that,” she muttered.

“I heard that. And you absolutely do.”

The moment the door opened, quiet ceased to exist.

Lora Vale entered without invitation, balancing half a dozen scrolls against her chest and bringing enough energy with her to fill the entire chamber.

Elowynn had met her during the first evening after arriving in Veylspire when the other young scholar, Perrin, nearly collided into her while carrying enough scrolls to obscure most of his face. Lora was a petite Astrari, perhaps one turning older than Elowynn, with rich bronze skin, dark auburn curls that sat messily atop her head in a bun, and bright golden eyes seemingly incapable of remaining serious for longer than a breath.

She also spoke alarmingly fast.

“We’re going to be late,” Lora announced hurriedly while looking around at all the books.

“It is barely the third bell after dawn,” Elowynn retorted as she moved across to her bed to shove what she may need for the sun in a new leather satchel.

“Exactly!” Lora exclaimed. “We’re already behind.”

“Behind what?”

“Everything,” Lora sighed.

Elowynn gave her a flat look, her hands hovering over the open satchel.

Lora grinned a toothy smile. “You truly are from the abbey.”

Elowynn’s ears and cheeks flushed pink before she returned to stuffing books, crystals, and quills into her bag.

“Rude,” she muttered.

“No, fact!” Lora quipped.

Unlike the abbey, the Celestial Spire functioned less like a place of worship and more like a living machine built entirely around knowledge. Hundreds of scholars crossed the observatory halls at every bell carrying resonance instruments, celestial charts, stacks of manuscripts, or partially assembled astrylite devices glowing with faint light in their hands.

The scale of it left Elowynn dizzy.

Beneath the city's endless activity, another current flowed.

Veylspire was divided—not by walls or districts, but by philosophy. Two powerful factions shaped nearly every conversation, lecture, and discovery.