Page 309 of Elemental Becoming

I exhale sharply, pushing a loose strand of hair from my face.

“If this ledger was so important, why didn’t someone leave clearer instructions?” I mutter. “Every reference we find says it was hidden. Hidden where? A temple? A library? A cave in the middle of nowhere?”

Valen leans back in his chair and rubs his fingers against his temples.

“We know it was given to the Air Clan,” he says, his voice tight. “But if it still exists, we don’t know where or who has it.”

I stare down at the journal, frustration building inside me. We are so close. Yet without a name, a location, or something more concrete, we could spend months searching and still find nothing.

Valen flips another page, his eyes skimming the faded text.

Then he stills.

I straighten immediately. “What?”

He doesn’t answer. His gaze remains fixed on the page as he leans closer, studying the passage.

“Wait,” he says quietly, leaning closer to the page.

Every nerve in my body feels taut.

“Valen?”

He traces a finger beneath a line of text, the ink faded but still legible. Then, quietly, he reads aloud.

“Stored within the archives of the Wind-Swept Halls, far from unworthy hands.”

A chill runs down my spine.

The Wind-Swept Halls.

I murmur the words under my breath, turning them over in my mind.

“That’s not a place I’ve ever heard of.”

Valen’s brows draw together. “It’s not a modern name.”

His fingers follow the faded ink absently as he thinks.

“Centuries ago, before the Air Clan moved their seat of power, they ruled from an older capital. Within that city was a sanctum where their highest-ranking scholars preserved knowledge too valuable to lose.”

He looks up, and his eyes are dark with certainty.

“They called it the Wind-Swept Halls.”

Realization sweeps through me like a storm wind. The ledger wasn’t just given to the Air Clan. It was sealed away in their lost archives.

I press my fingers against the worn parchment, staring down at the faded words.

“Valen,” I whisper. “If it was locked away in an archive that old, what are the chances that anyone still knows about it?”

His silence is answer enough.

The Fire Clan did everything they could to erase this history. Even if the Air Clan protected the ledger once, that was generations ago. The knowledge could have been lost. The archive could be empty.

Or worse, someone could have already taken it.

Uncertainty creeps through me.