Chapter 121: Skyland [1]

Gravity returned in a rush.

There was a lurching, sideways second where everything was wrong, and then his boots found solid ground and stayed there, and the world resolved itself into something his senses could process.

The first thing he noticed was the breeze.

It was cool and clean, carrying a scent unlike anywhere he had ever been. The air was higher and thinner than anything on the ground below.

Then he looked up.

The sky above him was not the regular sky. There was nothing but cloud in every direction, an endless ocean of white extending to every horizon, lit from below and above simultaneously by a soft gold that had no obvious source. It made the whole expanse glow.

He looked around more slowly.

White marble architecture rose from the cloud layer in sweeping, graceful forms. Towers that didn’t look like they were built so much as grown, floating free of the landmass below them and connected by bridges made of what appeared to be solid, compressed wind. The material of the bridges was not quite glass and not quite crystal. It was something that suggested wind had been convinced to hold a shape and was doing so out of respect rather than necessity.

’Is this the Windsky territory?’

It looked nothing like anything Alden had imagined when he wrote the Assembly names into his notes.

Constantine was already moving ahead, walking along a grand marble path that cut through the cloud layer toward the larger structures in the center of the island. Alden shook himself out of the awe he couldn’t quite help and quickened his pace to follow.

The Primordials they passed on the way made it very clear immediately that the beauty of the place was not extended to him as a welcome.

Flowing white hair on every face. Features that carried the specific quality of things built to last. Eyes that had seen things that hadn’t happened yet. And when those eyes found Alden, walking behind Constantine in his Windsky Assembly uniform, the expressions that appeared were not curious.

They were disdainful.

"Why do those lower mortals even get to come here?" one of them said from a balcony above, not bothering to lower her voice at all.

"Fragile, weak things," the one beside her agreed. "I don’t understand why the Assembly leaders allow it."

Alden kept his eyes forward and his face still.

He had spent a year in the Astern Academy as someone people looked at the wrong way. He had practice at this.

Let them look. Let them talk. It didn’t change anything that actually mattered.

But internally, one part of the conversation was still running.

’The average Primordial here looks at me and sees like a lower being. I guess these people don’t know anything about me beyond that.’ His eyes tracked the path ahead. ’But Alarion knew my real name. Constantine knows something about me significant enough that he despises me for it. And somehow none of that information has reached anyone else here.’

’Why just them? What do they know that makes me specifically worth knowing?’

He didn’t have an answer, so he kept walking.

A figure dropped from a high floating archway ahead of them, landing lightly on the marble path. He looked young, or what young looked like on a Primordial, sharp-featured and easy in his posture, white hair a little messier than the others he had seen. His hands went behind his head immediately, the gesture of someone who has permanently claimed casualness as a personal trademark.

"How many did we get this year, Father?"

Constantine didn’t slow. "Only one."

The young man let out a long, suffering sigh. "Only one again? Veyne is probably drowning in cadets and we get zero to one person per year, it’s completely unfair—"

He stopped.

His eyes had found Alden.

The casual complaint evaporated from his face. For a moment he just looked, and then his expression shifted into something that had no business being on a stranger’s face. It was the look of recognition.

"Oh." He straightened immediately. "It’s Alden."

Alden’s heart skipped.

’Even he knows my name.’

Before he could form a response, the young Primordial had already crossed the space between them and thrust a hand forward with a bright, genuine smile.

"Nice to finally meet you, Alde—"

"I’m sorry but," Alden interrupted him flatly. "How do you know my name?"

The hand froze in the air.

The young man stared at him. Then something moved across his face, a slow, dawning realization, and he pulled his hand back and covered his own mouth with it briefly.

"Ah." He looked genuinely embarrassed. "I already messed it up."

Alden waited.

The young man let his hand drop and scratched the back of his neck with the sheepish energy of someone who has just tripped on their own entrance. "I was supposed to pretend I didn’t know you. Act natural, ask for your name first, build a little mystery." He muttered this slightly under his breath, mostly to himself. "That would have been so much smoother. Father’s definitely going to say something."

Alden stared at him. "Is there a script that everyone has except me?"

"...Kind of, yeah." The young man gave him a helpless, slightly apologetic smile.

"Then can you at least explain to me," Alden said, very patiently, "why the Chief Head of the Upper Academy, Lord Constantine, and now you and possible other people know my name or even about me before I’ve said a word?"

The young Primordial opened his mouth.

Then stopped.

He tipped his head back and looked at the golden cloud sea above them for a few seconds, as if consulting some internal checklist. Then he brought his gaze back down.

"I’m not really supposed to tell you that." He paused. His smile turned a little warmer, a little more honest. "Not yet."

Yet.

That single word detonated quietly in Alden’s chest.

’Not ’yet’. Not until ’then’.’ He stared at the young Primordial’s face. ’Are they operating on a predetermined timeline of what I’m allowed to know and when I’m allowed to know it? Did the universe look at what I did as an author and decide to return the favor?’

He thought about all the scenes he had written where characters withheld information from the protagonist for exactly this reason. The dramatic timing. The "you’ll understand when you’re stronger" speech. The reveal held back until the emotional moment was exactly right.

He had written those scenes. He had designed those beats.

’And now I’m on the receiving end of my own techniques.’

The irony was genuinely unpleasant.

He exhaled through his nose. "Fine. I’ll drop it for now." He looked at the young man properly. "What’s your name, Sir?"

The smile came back immediately, the earlier awkwardness gone. "Ulvakor Veydrath Windsky." He pointed down the path toward where Constantine had disappeared into the main palace. "And again, the man walking away is my father."

Alden glanced at the palace entrance, then back at Ulvakor. The contrast between the two of them was significant enough to be almost comedic. Constantine radiated the specific stillness of someone who had decided centuries ago that unnecessary words were a waste. Ulvakor had just apologized for not following a social script properly and was now smiling like it was fine.

"He’s your father," Alden said.

"I know. Shocking, right?" Ulvakor extended his hand again, properly this time. "Good to officially meet you, Alden. And since you’re the only new cadet we got this term, I’ll be your personal trainer while you’re here."