The air in the archives was thick with the smell of dust, aged parchment, and the faint, ozone-like tang of dormant resonance crystals. It was a scent of forgotten time, and now, Elian felt, it was the scent of their only hope.
Anya moved through the narrow aisles with a frantic, bird-like energy, her fingers brushing against spines of cured hide and stacks of crystal slates. Elian, Mara, and Corvin followed in her wake, the grand, terrifying arguments of the Confluence fading behind them, replaced by the oppressive silence of the past.
"The Song of Founding is not one text," Anya explained, her voice a hushed whisper that still seemed too loud for the hallowed space. "It's a cycle. Fragments collected from the first generations after the Sundering. Some are songs, some are prose narratives. They contradict each other. They speak in metaphors. For centuries, we've studied them for philosophical meaning, not… cartography."
