Page 32 of The Last Remaining Light

“These sigils are degraded,” Elowynn murmured, pointing to one of the lines. “The convergence lines are collapsing inward. Look.”

Agatha leaned closer to the convergence gauge she had attached to the stonework. The instrument’s astrylite needle trembled erratically. “Which should not be possible near dormant starways.”

“Unless it is trying to reactivate.” The words slipped out before Elowynn fully thought them through.

Silence followed, but Agatha’s expression sharpened intensely on her.

“That would be impossible,” she said.

A sudden dimness of light in the chamber had them both looking up. Every astrylite lantern lining the hall flickered at once.

Elowynn went rigid, her breath whooshing out of her. The resonance humming beneath the floor changed in a way that felt unfamiliar. She felt it vibrating through the stone beneath her boots, like something deep below the earth had stirred in its sleep. Terror crept up her spine and along her neck as the old tales about the Great Vigil came pouring into her mind.

Then—

Complete silence.

The resonance vanished, and Elowynn’s stomach dropped to her toes.

Every Astrari sensitive to resonance knew the sound of the aethercurrents. Even faintly, the sound remained ever-present beneath the world like distant music vibrating through stone and blood alike.

Now?

There was nothing.

The absence hit like freezing water, stealing her breath, and she felt panic welling within her.

Agatha straightened so fast before whirling toward Caelyn. “What did you do?!” she demanded.

Caelyn looked up from across the chamber, visibly startled. “What?”

The lanterns flickered again. One by one, the astrylite embedded throughout the starway arch began glowing. The light blue resonance shifted to a darker hue at the edges, silver-white light oscillating unevenly through the structure.

Elowynn’s pulse hammered painfully against her ribs. She brought her hands up to her chest, clutching at her robes as the sound of the resonance warped.

“That should not be possible,” she whispered, worry laced in her voice.

Caelyn had gone ghostly white as all the blood drained from his face. The warping resonance tones vibrating through the chamber seemed to die around his form. An oppressive silence filled the space, like placing him within a bubble.

Then the glyphs on the starway moved. Elowynn was hit with shock and horror, her breaths gasping while the resonance sigils carved into the arch began to rearrange themselves in sluggish patterns beneath the glowing crystal veins.

Agatha sucked in a sharp breath. “No…” she whispered.

Caelyn stumbled backward, trying to get away from it, but the moment he crossed beyond the center of the chamber, the resonance slammed back all at once as a violent surge thundered through the starway chamber hard enough to shake dust and fractured stone from the ceiling.

The lanterns stabilized.

The glyphs stopped moving and dulled in their glow.

Silence blanketed the hall again.

Elowynn stared between the starway and Caelyn in disbelief. She couldn't form a single word.

Agatha looked terrified. Truly terrified.

And Caelyn? Stars take her. Caelyn looked worse.

“I didn't touch anything!” he said in a shaking voice.