Page 42 of The Last Remaining Light

“She is not ready.”

“She is, and you know it. You would truly deny her this?” Agatha shook her head, tutting as she did so. “If she stays here, you will ultimately be harming her potential for discovery. There are things she needs access to that we simply cannot provide.”

Elowynn looked between her mother and the elder Sister in confusion. “Ready for what?”

Agatha turned from Seralyth and took measured steps toward Elowynn, her expression gentler now.

“Veylspire,” she smiled.

Caelyn’s stomach dropped as a sick, hollowing feeling wedged between his ribs. He stepped back further until he bumped into a wall, pressing his spine against it.

No.

No, no, no.

He couldn't breathe. He couldn't see. He was spiraling.

Slamming his eyes closed, he took long inhales. To anyone else he might have looked like he was resting.

When he opened them again, he noticed Elowynn blinking rapidly at the mention of the great city.

“What?” she asked.

“You are one of the most naturally gifted resonance scholars Lumenshire has seen in many turnings, close to seventy, I’d say. Your control manifested just over two turnings earlier than expected. This usually does not happen until around twenty.” Her attention briefly moved toward Seralyth. “She belongs among the great Celestial Archives.”

Seralyth remained silent, her regal composure fracturing as her shoulders lowered.

Elowynn stared at them both in disbelief. “You are speaking as though this has already been decided.”

“Because eventually,” Agatha said with calculated words, “your gifts will outgrow these walls. The only question is whether we prepare you for that sun or pretend it will never come. And pretending will do no one, especially you, any good.”

Elowynn blinked again as her cheeks lost their color. She turned toward Seralyth.

“Mother?”

Seralyth finally approached with slow steps, her expression unreadable beneath the observatory light. “Agatha had spoken of this possibility several turnings ago.”

“You never told me,” she said, her voice just above a whisper.

“You were a child, Elowynn.”

“And now?” she pleaded.

Now.

The question remained between them like a fresh bruise neither of them wanted to touch.

Caelyn already knew the answer before Seralyth spoke. Opening his eyes, he decided the observatory was stifling; he needed air. Now.

He crept sideways along the wall where his back had been pressed and stepped further backward toward the shadows lining the outer chamber.

Veylspire. The heart of Aetheris.

The great celestial city.

The center of observatory scholarship across the entire continent.

And impossibly far away from Lumenshire.