Page 22 of Fate of Echoes and Embers (Heirs of Elydor #3)

ISSA

I’d been to Aetheria before, but never from the sea. And the only time my father and I travelled as far north as Aethralis, we’d seen the palace from a distance. But as our party stepped onto the docks, the palace rising high above us, seemingly into the clouds, I wondered how we would get there.

The sea had been ruthless, but now, the storm seemed to die behind us. Aetheria rose ahead, wreathed in low-hanging clouds, its ethereal glow casting the cliffs in an otherworldly shimmer.

From this vantage point, the city was unlike anything I had ever seen.

Waterfalls spilled from floating isles above, cascading down and vanishing into the mist before they reached the sea.

The blue glow of enchanted stones pulsed faintly along the cliffside, embedded into the rock itself, as if Aetheria had been carved from magic rather than stone.

And high above, the palace of Aethralis loomed.

Its gleaming white towers pierced the sky, their intricate carvings barely visible through the haze.

“This is very different from Valmyr Port,” I said, glad to have taken a cloak with me. It was barely spring and though never bitterly cold anywhere in Elydor, there was a chill in the Aetherian air that Estmere lacked this time of year.

“When I first got here,” Mev said, in step beside me, “after I realized it wasn’t a dream, I couldn’t understand the perpetual perfect climate. Back home, you could drive twenty-four hours and go from freezing cold to almost tropical.”

“I’ve heard of your cars. And planes. I don’t believe I would ever trust such a thing to take me through the sky that way.”

Mev laughed. “At least there’s a reason why it works.

This”—she flicked her wrist, sending a blast of wind upward in a spiral—“not so much. Lyra tried to explain it to me. My father made sure I was taught Elydor’s history.

But by our technological standards”—she shook her head—“it still doesn’t make logical sense. ”

“A ship that flies through the sky?” Marek added as he and Kael caught up to us. “Sounds like the kind of tale a drunken sailor spins after too much rum. At least with magic, I can feel the wind shift, the tide answer. Your planes? What stops them from simply falling?”

“You’re ridiculous,” Mev said. “They aren’t ships. But physics wasn’t my strong suit, so I’m not sure I can explain how they fly with any accuracy.”

“He’s jesting,” I said. “Elydorians have studied human technology since they first arrived. It’s all chronicled in the Luminara. We have our own version of it in Estmere, but Aetherians, as you probably know, excel at preserving history.”

“How did I not know about this?” Mev asked Kael, who smiled mischievously. “You have chronicles of our technology?”

“You’ve been… otherwise occupied.”

“Ugh,” she said, in mock indignation. “You’re impossible.”

We’d arrived at the far end of the docks, in the opposite direction of where the others seemed to be going.

It was always difficult for me not to stare in Aetheria, the striking beauty of their shades of white and silver hair making them the most distinguishable among all Elydorians.

Though it was usually fairly easy to spot a Gyorian as well—their size and usually dark hair coupled with a sternness that stemmed from countless years of physical training—those that lived among the clouds had always been the most striking to me.

Marek’s arm brushed mine as he walked past me to talk to Kael.

The jolt of awareness when he was close wasn’t new. The shift that had happened these past few days was, and it concerned me. Marek was still the roguish ship captain who strolled into my life, made me feel things I had never before and then callously left without even a goodbye.

But he was also someone deeply affected by his mother’s death, enough so to have altered his life’s course because of it. The terror I saw in his eyes when he woke was real. And I wasn’t immune to it.

“Here we are,” Mev announced proudly.

Two Aetherian sentinels stood on either side of a white marble arch, much like the ones at the Temple where the Aetherian Gate was housed.

None were allowed inside, but my father had taken me to it once, to show me where my ancestors had come from their realm into Elydor, some believing it would be a temporary stay, others, happy to leave permanently for a new beginning.

Aetherians often greeted each other with a slight bow of the head, but these guards bent theirs deeply, looking down to the ground. It was easy to forget Mev was the king’s daughter, an Aetherian princess. But their greeting was a reminder she was no ordinary woman.

The guards stood to the side, allowing our party admittance into a mist that hid whatever was beyond the arches. As we passed beneath them, the air shimmered and I realized, with a jolt, that the path ahead wasn’t a path at all.

It was floating.

“Uh, Mev,” I said, unable to see anyone.

“It’s fine,” she said. “We’re almost there.”

It was like being caught in an updraft, the wind cradling me, lifting me higher. The mist began to clear. Below, the docks shrank, the sea stretching endlessly beyond them.

Then, just as suddenly as it started, we were weightless no more. My boots met solid ground… a floating platform of smooth white stone, suspended high above the cliffs. Ahead, an ornate bridge stretched toward Aethralis, gleaming in the glow of the enchanted city.

Mev smiled. “Welcome to the Ascension.”

Of course. I should have realized. All knew of it, but few traveled through it.

“That was… different,” Marek said as we began to walk toward the palace.

“You’ve never used the Ascension before?”

Marek’s laugh was immediate. “The company I keep doesn’t usually involve royalty and special treatment.”

“Yet here you are.” Mev smiled. “Maybe the company you keep is shifting. You’re never too old, or young, to reinvent yourself.” With that, she bound ahead, clearly happy to be home. Or at least, her home for now. What would happen when the Gate opened?

“How are you feeling?”

Marek’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. “From that ascent?”

“That. The storm. Hawthorne. I know it bothers you still.”

As we passed buildings that seemed to float on islands of clouds with waterfalls cascading onto more clouds below them, I marveled at how different it was than Estmere.

“I feel so… powerless. But the storm? Oddly, navigating through it made me feel just the opposite.”

“Not odd at all, Issa. You belong on a ship.”

I could argue with him, tell Marek I belonged in Estmere, at Hawthorne, but something stayed my tongue. Perhaps because there was some truth to his words?

Hawthorne was your parents’ dream.

I had never spoken the words aloud, but somehow, from that short time we’d been together, Marek had guessed what no one else in my life knew.

Guilt welled in my chest, a vision of my parents in the great hall, sitting on the dais as they’d done each day until they left this world too soon, replaced by the one of me standing behind the wheel of Tidechaser .

“I belong at Hawthorne Manor.”

Marek had no chance to respond as we approached another archway, its sentinels greeting Mev as the other two had done. The Aetherian palace in Aethralis was an awe-inspiring place of gleaming white stone with lush gardens in every direction. As we climbed the marble stairs, the sea beyond beckoned.

I stopped to stare.

“I didn’t realize how high up we were until now.”

Marek stopped with me, taking in the sight. “It calls to you.”

It wasn’t just the sea that called to me.

“Marek?” I turned to face him.

“Aye, Issa?”

I hesitated, then asked the question I never thought I’d let myself voice.

“Did you ever regret it? Leaving Hawthorne that way?”

Our eyes locked.

“Every damn day, sereia.”

It was something, I supposed.

I took a step when Marek reached for my hand, stopping me. Though he let me go immediately, the effect of his touch lingered.

“I regret leaving at all, Issa.”