Page 22 of The Last Remaining Light

“It looks like an… observatory notation?” he offered, questioning.

“No,” Elowynn said thoughtfully, shaking her head slightly. “No, it is older. Much older.”

A gust of wind had swept through the cliffside ruins. Caelyn found himself watching loose strands of her light golden hair lifting across her face before she tucked them absentmindedly behind one pointed ear.

“You are staring again,” she muttered without looking at him.

His entire body stiffened. “Uh…”

Elowynn turned and raised a brow in his direction.

Clearing his throat, Caelyn had the decency of looking awkward. “I was looking at the symbol.”

Elowynn’s expression didn’t change. “You were looking at me.”

Heat climbed into his face and along his ears. Stars above. The older she got, the more beautiful and brilliant he believed her to be.

Elowynn studied him for another moment before the corners of her mouth curved upward with unmistakable satisfaction. “You get embarrassed easily,” she observed. “Look, your small rounded ears are pink,” she teased as she reached out for him and touched the top of one fondly.

Caelyn froze outright beneath her touch. His eyes widened only a fraction before narrowing at her with suspicion. He couldn't stop the color in his face from deepening. “You are enjoying this far too much.”

Elowynn looked delighted by his suffering. “You are embarrassed!” she exclaimed, grinning now.

“I am standing in a damp cave with freezing sea wind, blowing through,” he countered quickly. “My ears are cold.”

“They are pink, like your cheeks,” she pointed out.

“They are cold,” he grumbled.

Elowynn’s smile widened further. “Mhm,” she hummed. “Very convincing. That excuse might work better if your ears had not turned pink before mine.” She pointed to her perfectly not-pink Astrari ears.

Caelyn laughed before he could stop himself and leaned back against the ruined pillar. An unbidden smile spread across his face.

The mid-sun carried onward after that. Neither of them seemed eager to leave their newly found sanctuary.

Elowynn explored every surface and crevice of the hidden cliffside ruins while Caelyn followed along dutifully carrying lanterns or moving fallen stones whenever she demanded it of him. They argued over weathered carvings, debated resonance structures etched into the walls, and spent nearly an entire bell trying to determine how the hanging astrylite lanterns still functioned after so many centuries abandoned beside the sea.

“The currents beneath the cliffs must still carry resonance through the stone,” Elowynn theorized while crouched beneath one of the lanterns. She let her fingers trail along the veins in the stone and as she did, they illuminated even brighter. She sucked in a breath, pulling her hand away quickly. As she did, the veins became muted once more.

Elowynn turned to see if Caelyn had noticed, but he’d been focused on the lanterns above them.

“Or the scholars enchanted them directly,” Caelyn offered.

Elowynn thought about that and looked back toward the veins. She shook her head. “No, I do not think so. For that would require constant maintenance.”

“I suppose that’s true,” he agreed after a moment of thought. “Though it brings forth other questions.”

Elowynn glanced sideways toward him, her eyes sparkling as amusement tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Thinking like a scholar, hm?”

Caelyn looked away toward the sea, offering no reply.

Elowynn noticed, but she had decided that this was not the time to tease him further. She had observed that something bothered him, and had he wanted to speak on it, he would. So, she left it alone and turned her attention away from him.

Something strange had begun happening over the last several moons whenever resonance theory appeared in conversation. Caelyn always withdrew slightly afterward, his attention turning distant in ways she could comprehend, for she too had that look in her own eyes quite often. It was a guarded expression, though sometimes pensive.

Yet whenever she pressed him about it, he always deflected. And Elowynn, despite her curiosity, had never wanted to push him harder than he allowed, afraid that it would push him away too.

By early evening, clouds had begun gathering over the western sea while cold wind swept hard against the cliffs.