Page 139 of The Last Remaining Light

“Just a few more steps, alright?” she whispered.

They had found a small service chamber at the side of the exchange passage once they started moving again. Its door was half-buried behind collapsed shelving and old crates.

Alyra forced it open with her shoulder, and they dragged Caelyn inside as another wave of unstable resonance rolled through the city above them.

The room was narrow and windowless. Old storage cabinets lined one wall, dust coating everything in gray. It smelled of parchment, mold, and extinguished lantern oil.

It would hold them for a little while.

Maybe. Hopefully.

Alyra helped to lower Caelyn onto the floor. He looked too large for the small room. Too pale beneath the soot.

Too still, his breathing shallow.

Elowynn knelt beside him and pressed both hands gently against his chest because she didn't know what else to do. His heart hammered beneath her palms, wild and uneven, but it was there. Still beating.

Lora crouched across from them with tears shining in her eyes, the stolen crystals spilling from her pockets onto the floor with a clatter.

Pressing a kiss atop Lora’s head, Alyra stood guard at the door with her resonance blade ready.

Korvel remained at the threshold, his face unreadable as he looked down at Caelyn and then at Elowynn’s hands resting over his heart.

Outside, Veylspire continued to burn beneath a sky without stars.

Inside the small chamber, Elowynn was crying. She bent over Caelyn and held on to him as though the force of her touch alone could keep him from slipping into the dark.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“When the earth begins to tremble, the wise do not ask whether they should be afraid. They ask what has awakened.”

— Old Astrari proverb

The service chamber had probably been abandoned long before Elowynn ever arrived in Veylspire.

Old record crates crowded the narrow walls, their corners softened by dust and time. A row of storage cabinets leaned slightly along the far side of the room, their brass handles dulled and speckled black from age.

Lora had managed to find an oil lantern in a crate, and miraculously it still worked. It burned with a weak amber glow, enough to reveal the mold growing along the ceiling stones and the stacks of abandoned ledgers no one had likely opened in several turnings.

The chamber offered a false sense of security, and for a few precious moments Elowynn allowed herself to believe in it, clinging to the illusion of safety.

The city continued to groan beyond the walls in long, miserable shudders. Every few moments, another distant collapse reverberated through the stone overhead, sending pale sheets of dust drifting from the ceiling.

Each impact made them all still.

Lora would squeeze her eyes closed and hold her breath while Alyra's hand drifted instinctively toward the resonance blade at her side. Korvel's gaze lifted to the ceiling, his expression wary. He was likely wondering whether the roof intended to hold.

Caelyn didn't react at all.

He lay on the floor where Alyra had helped lower him, too large for the cramped space and too still beneath the weak light of the lantern. Soot darkened the sharp lines of his face. Blood had soaked through the ruined back of his shirt and coat where the crystal shards from her observatory windows remained embedded beneath the fabric. His breathing came shallow and ragged, and every time his chest fell beneath her palms, Elowynn found herself counting the time before it rose again.

One breath. Then another.

Still there. Still with her.

She had spent five turnings imagining what it would feel like to see him again. Sometimes she imagined throwing her arms around him and breathing in cedar smoke and sea air until the ache of missing him finally loosened its grip.

None of those imaginings had included kneeling beside him in a storage chamber beneath a dying city, pressing trembling hands against his chest as though touch alone could keep him anchored to her.