Page 52
Because no story ever described this.
We move on, heading toward a shape that rises out of the fog. A building.
“What is this place? Someone’s home?” Rosie asks, stepping closer, her cloak catching on the curling vines beneath our feet.
“Hasn’t been a home for a very long time,” Ezryn murmurs.
The structure is beautiful in a wild, broken sort of way. Its walls are carved from silver stone, veined with gold and some other metal I don’t recognize. The pillars rise in spirals before becoming curved archways. The entire thing is overgrown with ivy and bioluminescent moss, and flowering vines dangle from half-crumbled balconies.
Wrenley brushes her fingers over a moss-laced column. “This stone isn’t like any I’ve seen in the realms or the Below.”
We step inside, boots crunching over cracked tiles and dust.
The light filters through shattered windows. Small murals are carved into the walls, barely visible through vines. They’re different from the ones in the Celestial Landing. The same winged fae appear in each of the drawings in this house, and instead of depicting the isles or epic flights, they are more mundane. Arms wrapped around one another. Eating those pears. Holding hands. Family portraits.
At the far end of the chamber, under a collapsed archway, we find a trunk. Dayton kneels beside it.
“Locked?” Rosie asks.
Dayton flashes her a grin. He slips a dagger from his pocket. “Not for long.”
With a quick twist, the latch pops. The trunk creaks open, exhaling a puff of dust.
Inside, clothes are tossed haphazardly: a sea-green tunic, fraying at the sleeves, embroidered leggings, slippers small enough for a child.
Ezryn pulls out a book, fingers brushing reverently over the faded leather. “Handwritten.” He opens it. “This script…it’s in the language of the Above. It’s the same dialect the underfae use.”
Rosie lifts a tiny wooden bird from the bottom of the chest, its paint flaking but still faintly blue. “It’s a toy,” she says softly. “This was someone’s home.”
Wrenley kneels beside Rosalina. “They packed this quickly but didn’t bother taking it. Everything else in this place is untouched. They were fleeing, and fast.”
A shiver passes through me. The fall of the Above. The same thought must be passing through Wrenley as she takes a quick breath and wanders deeper into the house.
“I’ve read about the Above in a hundred books,” I say quietly. “Some scholars debated whether it was real or a metaphor. Whole theses were written on if the floating isles were an allegory for dreams. And now we’re standing here. With someone’s life thrown inside a chest.”
Rosie takes my hand. “Does it feel like the stories said it would?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know if this makes sense, but it feels a lot more real.”
We spend a few more moments exploring the fae’s house, then Wrenley appears. “I think you should see this.”
She stands at the far side of the hall where ivy has crept through a broken wall, draping over what was once a wide window or maybe a balcony. Her expression is unreadable, her hand resting on the hilt of her dagger.
When I step through the tangled veil of vines and look outside, the breath leaves my lungs.
This is not just a floating isle.
We’re on the uppermost ridge of a mountain, so high the clouds hang below us, swirling like silver rivers. And stretching far beneath, carved into the very cliff, is a city.
Or what’s left of one.
Even through the mist, I can see the remnants: towers half-collapsed, domed roofs shattered and blackened, wide bridges split down the center. Streets choked with rubble and moss.
The city spirals downward along the cliff. The architecture is the same as this home, all arches and curving lines. It must have been breathtaking once. A whole civilization nestled in the clouds.
At its heart, perched on a high, broken plateau, is a castle.
Or rather what remains of it. It reminds me of one I built of sand as a child, until a wild boy came along and used the tide to half wipe it away.
