The deck of the Skybarge hummed with quiet anticipation. Beneath the thick crystal-glass railing, clouds drifted lazily by, catching the glow of the Breath-Core embedded in the vessel's keel. The barge itself, larger than some city blocks, creaked like an old titan, its bones laced with anchored runes and heat-warped steelwood. It floated gently across the open sky, following invisible leylines that pulsed faintly beneath its hull.
Khalen Rasheen leaned against the railing, silent as ever, arms crossed. He watched the white mist roll across the sky like surf against the hull. His reflection shimmered back faintly in the glass, a flicker of firelight caught in the braid at his shoulder. His thoughts wandered, detached from the bustle behind him, dozens of students in flowing robes and crested cloaks clustered in tight, nervous groups, trading stories of lineage and theory and which tutors might take them on.
He hadn't spoken since boarding.
"Hey. You see him?" came Novek's voice from his left, low and teasing. "Mr. Legacy himself.
That's gotta be your cousin, right?"
Khalen didn't have to look to know who he meant.
Across the deck, a tall boy with sun-darkened skin and wind-mussed curls stood laughing with a small group of students. He radiated the easy confidence of someone raised to be listened to. His cloak shimmered faintly with Breath-stitching that marked him as noble-blooded. His smile, open, effortless, drew eyes without trying.
Elyas.
Khalen exhaled through his nose. "We've never met."
Novek snorted. "You're kidding. That's your actual blood."
"Our branch was exiled before I was born." Khalen's voice was quiet, flat. "Might as well be strangers."
Novek studied him for a second longer, but wisely didn't press.
The barge tilted slightly as it shifted direction, the hull creaking beneath their feet. Far ahead, something stirred in the haze, ribbons of crystal-light filtering through the clouds, hints of something massive moving just beyond the sky's veil.
"You nervous?" Novek asked, half-grinning.
Khalen gave a small shrug. "I'm not here to impress anyone."
"That's the kind of thing people say right before they impress everyone."
Khalen didn't answer.
Instead, he turned his eyes back to the clouds, just as the first arc of sky-glass broke through the mist ahead.
"Let the heirs chant their names like spells.
I'll be the question they never dared carve. For power is not given, nor kept, it is claimed, the moment you choose who you are." Inscribed on the cracked lens of the Observatory at Caer Syllen,
-author's name struck by decree of the Council
---
Caer Syllen, Year One - When we were children
-----
The clouds parted like Breath-drapes torn slow and reverent, unveiling a sky-born city that did not belong to this age.
Caer Syllen.
The university did not float so much as hover, still, colossal, as if the world itself were holding its Breath. Crystalline ridges shimmered along its curved underbelly, bending sunlight into halos. From its Core rose a ring of spires, some thin as needles, others wide and vault-backed, resembling the ribs of a god turned to stone. Between the towers, crystalline bridges arched like stretched song, each pulse of color hinting at ancient Breath woven into stone.
And it was moving.
Slowly. Majestically. Like a second moon drifting above Bastion.
A curtain of wildflowers rippled down one sheer cliff wall, vines blooming midair with each shift of wind. Not natural. It was the Living Wall, spoken of only in myth. Flora that grew without soil, dancing to the rhythm of Breath itself. Some said it responded to the emotions of those nearby.
Khalen's Breath caught.
"You okay?" Novek asked.
Khalen said nothing. His fingers clenched faintly on the railing as the barge creaked under shifting wind.
"It's bigger than I thought," he murmured.
Novek grinned. "She gets that a lot."
Khalen didn't laugh.
Above them, something massive stirred in the upper haze, a slow, soaring shape that cast a shimmering shadow across the barge. A sky-whale, its translucent fins gliding silently past the university spires. Dozens of smaller drift-beasts followed in its wake, trailing fractal spores that glowed like stars before fading. A floating ecosystem. Living proof that not everything that survived the Collapse had done so on the ground.
The air shifted again, ozone and windflower and crystal resin.
The Breath engines under the barge hummed louder now as they adjusted course. Ahead, glowing orbs floated in perfect rhythm, waypoints suspended like pearls, guiding the ship toward a docking gate carved into Caer Syllen's belly. Even the sky itself seemed to part.
Behind them, Bastion shrank into haze.
Before them, the sky opened wide.
"I used to think it wasn't real," Khalen said quietly.
Novek leaned forward beside him. "It's real.
And they say once you walk those halls, nothing below ever feels the same again."
A crystalline bell tolled above, low and patient.
Then came the echoing roar of the vault-chimes, whispering through the air like thunder underwater. As the barge passed beneath the university's coliseum rim, Khalen glimpsed a shard of bone wall and, just for a second, a hint of the labyrinth below.
Where the Breathlings were kept.
Where history breathed not through books, but through the monsters that survived it.
Khalen swallowed hard.
"I don't know if I belong here," he said.
Novek shrugged. "No one does. Not at first."
Then, with a grin: "Just don't fall off. It's a long way down."
**
As they neared the massive arch of Caer Syllen's inner plaza, the living wall pulsed.
A hundred different flowers blinked open, releasing threads of golden pollen that drifted like Breath made visible. Moss stirred as if it were listening. And then, at the base of the wall, one of the student groups paused.
A girl stepped forward.
She pressed a palm to the stone.
The wall responded.
The vines curled back, revealing an engraving, worn by time, but unmistakable: a name written in seven scripts, followed by a glyph shaped like wings.
Khalen watched from a distance.
"What is that?" he asked.
Novek tilted his head, then shrugged. "One of the First."
"The First?"
"The original breathshapers who hollowed this place out of skyrock," Novek said. "They say the wall remembers each one. Shows them to students it likes. Or to those it's warning."
He gestured toward another bloom, a crystalline flower whose petals shimmered between violet and blue.
"That's a Ghostviolet. Doesn't grow anywhere else in the world. Legend says it only blooms for those who've seen the Core and returned."
Khalen raised a brow. "No one survives the Core."
"Exactly."
They stood in silence, watching the girl slowly step back. The wall had sealed itself again, the engraving vanishing into tangled root and leaf.
Khalen turned back to the steps, brow furrowed. "What happened to the ones who built all this?"
Novek shrugged. "Some say they went deeper into the clouds. Others think they fused with the wall itself. My mother says one of them jumped into the Core."
Khalen blinked. "Why?"
"Looking for an artifact," Novek said, grinning. "One that could gift us flight."
Khalen looked up at the sky-whales drifting above. "We already have flight."
"Not like that," Novek said. "I mean real flight. On your own. No ships. No Breath. Just you and the sky."
He looked at Khalen sideways. "You'd jump for that, wouldn't you?"
Khalen didn't answer.
But the wall behind him rustled, softly, like it had heard the question.
And remembered.
—--
A Misread Beginning
—------
Down by the colonnade, Khalen lingered beside the statue of the First Breathborn, fingers tracing its weather-softened inscription. Sun-shards slipped through the glyph-net above, painting restless shapes across his coat.
The stone beneath his hand thrummed faintly with stored Breath, older than the university itself, sealed into the roots of the floating city.
The words carved beneath the statue's feet had been recited to him since childhood, but only now did they feel real:
To shape the world is to first survive it.…and to survive it is to pay the price.
"Uh… don't look now," Novek murmured beside him, "but Elyas is headed this way. Alone."
Khalen's gaze stayed on the stone. "All right."
"You gonna say something?"
"I'll say hello. I'm not an animal."
Novek eased a step aside, sensing this was not his moment to intervene. A cousin-to-cousin meeting might carry more weight than either was ready to admit.
**
Elyas descended the marble steps with the ease of someone used to being noticed. His Breath-cloak trailed behind him in a faint cobalt shimmer, catching sunlight as if it answered only to him. His usual entourage waited a respectful distance away, murmuring about class placements and legacy lines.
"Khalen Rasheen?" Elyas asked, stopping a single pace away.
Khalen turned. Measured. Met the gaze with calm detachment. "That's me."
"I'm Elyas." He extended a hand, neither stiff nor casual. "Looks like we share blood,however distant."
Khalen accepted the handshake: firm, brief, respectful. "So I've heard."
Elyas took in the space around them, the sky-whales drifting lazily above the coliseum, the mist trailing from the Verdant Atrium's waterfall, the living wall coiling with whisper-leaves and crystal-rooted vines.
"First day's something, isn't it?" Elyas said, voice still warm. "I thought meeting you might feel stranger. It doesn't."
Khalen allowed the barest half-smile. "Maybe. Still,thanks for saying it."
Elyas waited, expectant. Most people filled silences with small questions. What House are you in? What affinities run your line? Did you get your invite early?
None came.
So he tried again: "If you need anything settling in, my door's open."
Khalen nodded once. "Good to know."
A Breath of wind spiraled through the plaza, tugging at both their cloaks. Elyas's shimmered like ink over glass. Khalen's coat lifted and fell again, as if drawn into orbit for a moment.
"Well…" Elyas adjusted his collar. "I should check in with my mentor. See you around, Cousin."
"See you," Khalen echoed, pleasant but uncommitted.
Elyas turned and climbed the steps back to his group. At the top, he glanced back, not angry, just puzzled by how little of himself had been reflected back in the exchange. Then he turned and disappeared into the crowd.
Novek returned to Khalen's side like a storm giving a second warning.
"That felt… delicate."
"He was being kind," Khalen said, eyes still on the curved stairs. "Just not always safe to assume kindness is simple."
"Stars above,you really are exhausting."
Novek shook his head, but his grin was fond, even if he tried to hide it.
Khalen let the moment pass without reply, gaze drifting again to the inscription on the statue. As if somewhere in the carved old words, a hint of the future was waiting to be read.
Paths had crossed.
Threads were set.
Neither cousin yet knew how tightly they'd twist together
Or how much sky would hang on the knot.
**
Back at the top of the plaza, Elyas rejoined his group with his usual measured grace, but there was a tension in the way his breathcloak settled, less like a banner, more like a mantle grown heavy.
Nadroj noticed.
"Well?" he asked, brushing an invisible crease from his sleeve. "Did the exile prince thank you for gracing him with your presence?"
Elyas didn't answer right away. He leaned on the carved marble railing, eyes drifting toward the lower courtyard where Khalen and Novek still stood beneath the arch of names.
"He was polite," Elyas said at last.
Nadroj scoffed. "Polite? He barely looked at you. Didn't even ask a single thing about you. Just stood there like the whole university was a burden."
"He's cautious," Elyas replied, almost to himself. "Probably used to being dismissed."
"Or full of himself," Nadroj said. "Your mother warned you about them, didn't she? Said they always carry that chip like it's a crown."
Elyas's jaw shifted, just a twitch. He traced a fingertip along the etched crystal line in the railing, then paused. His voice softened, not with frustration, but something else.
"She also said their branch used to lead the council. Long before the disgrace. Before my father cut ties."
Nadroj blinked. "So what,you wanted to fix that?"
"I thought… maybe it would mean something," Elyas said quietly. "To extend a hand. To help him walk among us again. Being seen with me could've restored some of their name. I even thought I'd show him the advanced Breath forms,his posture's off, like no one taught him the old shapes."
He exhaled slowly. "I thought he'd be grateful."
Nadroj tilted his head, skeptical. "Why bother? The outcasts are outcasts for a reason. Lifting him just drags you down."
Elyas didn't respond. He only looked back toward Khalen, his face unreadable.
"Some people," he said at last, "just don't want to be helped."
The tone wasn't bitter, only resigned. A door quietly closing, even as he watched the hinge.
A breeze passed over the coliseum's high edge, stirring the ivy-wreathed spires and casting flickers of light across the floor. Behind them, a bell sounded from the atrium archway, first call to orientation.
Elyas straightened his collar and walked without another word.
But as the light shifted, he glanced back just once. And from below, Khalen looked upward at the drifting clouds, as if trying not to feel the weight of the sky above.
—-----