Page 24 of The Last Remaining Light

“I am beginning to think you enjoy rescuing me,” she said, attempting some semblance of composure and failing miserably.

Caelyn looked at her for one long, unreadable moment before his expression shuddered. Looking away from her, he began picking up the wood he’d dropped in silence.

"Thank you for catching me," she said breathlessly. Before he could notice the warmth rising into her cheeks, she quickly looked toward the abbey above them.

Something fluttered inside her chest. It was unfamiliar, and she decided right away that it wasn't worth examining.

"Agatha will scold us if we're late for the evening meal."

“She will scold us regardless,” Caelyn responded, though the teasing and joy in his tone had dissipated.

“Probably,” Elowynn agreed with a small nod of her head.

After Caelyn had the fallen wood secured in his arms once more, the two continued their way back up the cave path and toward the abbey.

Neither mentioned what happened on the cliffs again.

Not during their evening library chores.

Not during supper when Seralyth had asked how their sun had been.

Not later while the bells rang through Lumenshire beneath another gathering storm.

Still, long after retreating to her chambers that night, Elowynn found herself staring toward the ceiling while sea wind rattled her windows.

And against all reason, she could still feel the warmth of Caelyn’s hand resting against her waist.

Chapter Five

“The first starways sang beautifully when they opened. The later corrupted ones screamed as if in pain.”

— Witness Testimony, Ash Wars

Duskfall, 747 A.V.

The first true thaws always arrived during the Duskfall moons. Winter didn't surrender Aetheris easily, especially not along the western coast where the sea still hurled cold rain against the cliffs below. Frost always lingered stubbornly in the shaded corners of the courtyards each morning, and the wind blowing in from the sea still carried enough bite to redden cheeks and numb fingertips.

Yet spring had begun creeping into the world regardless.

Rain replaced snow more often than not, nourishing the land to bring about the blooms of spring. The gulls circling overhead had begun to grow louder with the changing season, their cries carrying across the sea from dawn until duskfall.

Elowynn stood beneath one of the upper cloister archways, watching the silver mist drift through the air from the waves crashing along the rocks below.

She was fifteen now and no longer resembled the grieving child who arrived at Lumenshire wrapped in devastation and shock. Time had shaped her steadily over the turnings. Her light golden hair now fell nearly to her waist when unbound, but it was usually braided loosely behind her head with strands forever escaping into the sea wind. Her features had sharpened to delicate angles with age, the soft roundness of childhood slowly giving way to something more elegant and distinctly Astrari.

“Ah, I knew I’d find you here,” came the familiar elderly voice.

Elowynn glanced over one shoulder as Sister Agatha approached through the cloister corridor carrying several weathered books stacked precariously against her chest. The older woman’s dark robes swept across the damp stone while puddled rainwater clung to the hems from her walk through the gardens. Age had done nothing to soften her severe expression.

If anything, it had sharpened it and made the elder more intimidating.

“There’s that look again,” Agatha muttered in a grumble.

Elowynn blinked, her brows pulling down. “What look?”

“The one that suggests your thoughts have wandered somewhere else, child,” Agatha answered chidingly.

“They usually have,” Elowynn admitted. Those that knew her well accepted it was merely one of her quirks. To dream and to think. To let her mind run amok while her body remained still. She had come to understand that many found it disconcerting.