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To be honest, she sounded a lot like you.

I miss you.

There. Since you insisted on writing it last time, now you must endure the consequences of honesty. Some nights I still reach for your journal before sleeping because your handwriting makes the city feel less enormous. I often sit beside the northern towers during late bell and think about you looking through one of those telescopes. I am determined to get you here to see them one sun. You belong beneath these skies as much as anyone in this city does.

Anyway, I guess that is all I have for this letter. Write me back as soon as you get this. Tell me if that strange humming beneath Lumenshire has worsened. I do not like the sound of that at all, and the archivists here become suspicious whenever I begin asking too many questions involving current fluctuations near the coast.

Also, tell Sister Agatha I found tea here stronger than hers, and I suspect it may actually qualify as a weapon.

May the light keep you safe.

Always your best friend,

Elowynn

A Letter to Elowynn

Hearthfall, 750 A.V.

Dearest El,

First of all, I need you to understand I nearly stopped reading your letter after the sentence involving swaying mountain bridges. “Some are enclosed” is not the comforting reassurance you seemed to think it was.

That said, I am glad you've not fallen to your death yet. The fact I apparently now measure my own emotional strength based upon whether you are dangling safely above fatal mountain drops feels very unfair, but here we are.

Lumenshire remains mostly unchanged, though the summer winds have been especially strong along the western cliffs these last few spans and the humming beneath the abbey has worsened. Not enough to really cause anyone to panic, but enough that the Sisters are noticing it more.

You remember the lower western archive corridor near the old resonance foundations? The one Sister Agatha always claimed smelled like mildew and “bad decisions?” Well, I was cleaning down there, and I noticed the stones there have started vibrating after the dusk bell. I don’t think anyone would notice if they weren't looking closely, but the resonance through the foundations feels uneven now, almost like distant harmonic interference beneath the currents.

I know how ridiculous that sounds, but after reading your theories regarding current instability, I don’t think either of us are imagining these things anymore.

Sister Agatha is noticing it too. Naturally, she won’t talk about it in depth with me. Three nights ago I found her standing alone in the lower archives listening to the foundations with that expression she gets whenever something concerns her. When I asked what she was doing, she informed me she was “considering whether the abbey would survive being pushed into the sea.”

That was… something. She refused to say more than that and hurried me back to the upper floors. Yes, the elder Sister was ushering a man much larger than her away. I know better than to disobey her now.

Your presentation sounds incredible, by the way. Like y I can picture the entire lecture hall arguing itself into chaos afterward while you stand there wondering whether you fortuitously started an academic uprising. Honestly? I think the city has underestimated you given what you’ve said. Possibly because you spend so much time underestimating yourself first, though.

And before you attempt denying that statement in your next letter, understand I have known you for nearly half your life now. You hide uncertainty the way Sister Hannah hides her alcohol.

Poorly.

But Elowynn… Your mind is extraordinary. You see patterns others overlook. Contradictions they dismiss. Connections buried beneath turnings of assumptions and politics and old fears. You always have. Even when we were younger, you questioned things other people accepted without thought. Half the observatory arguments at Lumenshire started because you refused to leave inconsistencies alone and by doing so, you made ripples that shaped the way we do some things here.

Apparently, you are now doing the same thing to Veylspire. I cannot decide whether to be proud or concerned.

Probably both, if only because that city is dangerous.

As for Master Vaelor… I don’t trust him. Anyone who says “not all knowledge deserves pursuit” with complete certainty concerns me a lot. People who believe themselves responsible for deciding which truths survive over others often become dangerous eventually.

Especially frightened people, and from what you said, he sounds frightened. Maybe not of you personally, perhaps, but of what you represent. Change can make institutions discomposed. Scholars like you unnerve them even more because you ask questions they can neither comfortably answer nor entirely keep quiet.

You standing between the Conclave and Collegium probably terrifies him. I think you are right not to choose one side entirely. If the Conclave preserves wisdom and the Collegium pushes discovery forward. Without preservation, knowledge is lost. Without advancement, knowledge stagnates. Both seem necessary, I think. You sound like you’re on to something.

Though if the Collegium explodes part of Veylspire by accident while “advancing discovery,” I reserve the right to become smug about it.

You mentioning that Lora sounds like me may actually be the single most offensive thing you've ever written to me. I would NEVER physically drag you from archives. I would stand nearby sighing heavily until guilt accomplished the same result. Completely different.

Anyway, I’ll say it again. Lumenshire still feels strange without you.