Page 102 of The Last Remaining Light

But of course she wasn't. She never left the abbey.

He looked back down at the note, and a laugh escaped him before he could stop it.

Several bells later, he stood within a lower terrace tailor shop while an exhausted seamstress attempted to fix the fact he apparently possessed the proportions of a war criminal instead of a normal man.

“You are too broad through the shoulders,” she informed him with an annoyed tone.

Caelyn was terribly uncomfortable.

He had never been to a tailor before, and on top of that, he was being insulted by one.

“I wasn’t aware that was something I controlled,” he grumbled.

She scowled up at him before getting back to work. Unless she had asked a specific question, Caelyn remained silent for the remainder of the time.

Before she finished, another assistant pressed a comb into his hand along with a strip of black silk.

While the tailor made a few final adjustments, Caelyn combed his shoulder-length black hair and tied the upper half neatly back into a bun.

Then came the new clothes.

The tailor circled him one last time, smoothing a lapel here, adjusting a cuff there, before finally stepping aside with a satisfied nod.

"There."

She led him to a mirror where Caelyn just stared.

The man looking back at him felt... unnatural.

It was the only word for it.

He wore dark formal attire tailored in the Veylspire style—a fitted black coat layered over rich fabrics, a high collar fastened with silver-threaded clasps, and crisp lines that somehow made him appear taller still.

He looked refined. Elegant.

He looked like a bloody noble.

And the damnable collar already itched.

The gala arrived that evening beneath softly falling snow.

Even after three suns in the city, Caelyn still found himself in awe of how Veylspire glittered beneath thousands of astrylite lanterns. Instrumental music drifted across the upper terraces as nobles crossed illuminated bridges wrapped in silks, jewels, and ceremonial observatory robes. He had never witnessed such extravagance. It felt less like Aetheris than another world entirely.

Caelyn had entered early through the servant passages alongside catering staff carrying wine crates toward the halls. No one bothered stopping him. The estate was drowning in preparations. Servants rushed in every direction, guests continued arriving, and no one had the time to scrutinize one more well-dressed young man.

The Zenith Hall bordered on absurd.

Crystalline chandeliers floated beneath an enormous domed ceiling etched with moving constellations while musicians played from suspended galleries overhead. Nobles and scholars filled the marble floors below in shimmering fabrics of silvers, blues, blacks, and golds. Everything glittered.

Caelyn hated every single thing about it. It was too much.

Then he saw her.

And time slowed.

Elowynn stood near the center of the ballroom beneath crystalline light, clothed in deep midnight-blue silks threaded with silver resonance embroidery that shimmered with every graceful movement.

Her hair had changed. The pale gold he remembered had faded into something almost luminous, pale enough to rival starlight itself. It spilled down her back in soft waves, and with startling clarity he remembered how it had once smelled of salt air and floral herbs.