Page 44 of The Last Remaining Light

Beyond the cliffs, the sea churned beneath the darkening sky, restless and heavy in a way that matched the mood tightening through his chest.

“You’re brooding again.”

Caelyn glanced sideways as Agatha approached through the corridor carrying several rolled scrolls protected under her arm.

With a sniff, he looked away. “I don’t brood.”

“You look like your favorite library has burned to the ground,” the elder Sister scoffed.

“That’s a bit dramatic of an assessment.”

Agatha stopped beside him and looked unconvinced by his denial. “You once walked into the sea during a storm because Elowynn ignored you for two suns during her intense studies of the celestial convergences. You are dramatic, Caelyn.”

Caelyn stiffened, clearing his throat. “That is not what happened.”

“You were waist-deep in freezing water staring tragically into the distance!”

He turned to give her a withering look. “I was fixing the tide pylons,” he said, a note of defensiveness creeping into his voice.

Agatha stared at him, her expression blank while her weathered lips thinned. “With the expression that every joy had abandoned you,” she grumbled before lifting a gnarled finger to point at him, “Just like that one you wear right now.”

Caelyn huffed a laugh, but it held no amusement. Because celestials preserve him, she was right.

The severity in Agatha’s gaze faded before she looked away from him, studying the storms brewing on the horizon.

“She leaves in one moon,” the Sister said at last.

There it was.

No easing into the conversation. No mercy.

Cutthroat. He felt the words like a silversteel blade slicing along his neck.

One bloody moon!

He looked back toward the storm so Agatha would not see the devastation threatening to break across his face.

“She told you,” he murmured. It was not a question.

“She told Lady Selvicta.” Agatha adjusted the scrolls in her arms, being careful not to crush them. “Then, Lady Selvicta told me after masquerading about for nearly two spans, like delaying the inevitable would somehow make it easier on her.”

Caelyn forced out a harsh laugh, but it sounded exhausted. Nothing about this felt easy.

“She belongs there, Caelyn. You know that.”

He knew. But that didn't mean he had to like it, for Dimming’s sake!

That was the worst part in all of this.

He knew Elowynn belonged to Veylspire in the same inevitable way stars belonged to the night sky. The great observatories of the continent would adore her. She would lose herself among resonance halls and the ancient Celestial Archives, surrounded by scholars capable of understanding the things she loved most.

And Caelyn? He’d merely become the boy she met along the way toward her grand story.

The thought made him feel empty.

“I don’t need convincing,” he said low, his voice subdued.

Agatha’s gaze studied him longer than usual. “No. I imagine you do not.”