The mist still clung to the streets of Yal Elunore when Ellowyn and Aeryn slipped back through the garden gate.
The city slept, but in Ellowyn's chest, her heart thundered loud enough to shake the stones beneath her feet.
Inside, the house was eerily still. Only the faint hiss of the Ether lanterns filled the air.
Ellowyn collapsed onto the edge of the sitting room, her whole body trembling, the stolen truths whirling inside her like a storm.
Aeryn hovered, unsure, wringing his hands. He bent beside her, trying to anchor her shaking shoulders.
"Ellie, breathe," he whispered. "What did you see? What happened?"
She opened her mouth — but before the words could form, a sharp voice cut through the stillness.
"What is this ruckus?"
Caelarion stood in the archway, robes hastily thrown over his nightclothes, silver hair tousled, irritation etched into every line of his face.
"It is not even morning. Have you two lost all sense?"
Aeryn stiffened, trying to step between them. "Father, it's nothing. We—"
But Ellowyn surged forward, cutting across him, her voice trembling with rage.
"Do you know of the dangers Skyland faces right now?" she said, her words slicing through the room.
Caelarion froze.
"Do you know what is happening beyond the Dome?" she pressed, her eyes burning. "Or are we just pretending everything is fine?"
The silence between them grew taut as wire.
Caelarion's jaw clenched. "I have no duty to share diplomatic matters or outside affairs with children," he said coldly. "Skyland is stable. Sylvanmyr stands firm. That is all you need to know."
His gaze hardened into steel. "You would do well to stop before your questions bring shame upon this house."
Ellowyn trembled — but she did not back down.
Her gaze locked with her father's — burning, fierce, searching for the man she once trusted.
"So what would you do?" she said bitterly, her voice cracking like dry wood.
"Send me to re-education? Like Talanar?"
At that, something sharp snapped in the air between them — invisible but violent, like a taut thread finally breaking.
Caelarion's nostrils flared.
His fists clenched at his sides, knuckles whitening under the strain.
But it was his eyes — his proud, unyielding eyes — that betrayed him most.
For a flicker of a heartbeat, Ellowyn saw it: a flash of something behind them.
Not anger.
Not authority.
Fear.
Real, bone-deep fear.
He masked it quickly, his jaw locking hard, his entire body bristling like a shield raised against a blow.
But Ellowyn had seen it — and it struck her harder than any shouted threat ever could.
He's scared.
Not of her.
Not even of the Dome falling apart.
But of the truths she had touched — the ones too dangerous even for him to name.
"This conversation is over," Caelarion snapped, his voice cracking like a whip in the heavy air.
"Go to your chambers. We will speak again at a better hour."
He turned sharply, his robes swirling with practiced, imperious grace —
— a gesture meant to end the argument as all others before it.
But Ellowyn's voice cut through the room like a blade drawn across stone:
"How about Drako?"
The word was soft — almost a whisper.
Yet it struck like thunder.
Caelarion froze mid-step.
The atmosphere shifted instantly, as if the very walls had inhaled in horror and refused to breathe again.
The Ether lanterns flickered, casting long, trembling shadows across the floor.
Slowly — painfully slowly — he turned back toward her.
Ellowyn had never seen his face like this before.
His skin had gone bloodless, almost translucent.
His proud mouth had fallen open slightly, slack with shock.
And his eyes —
—his sharp, commanding eyes—
were wide, stark with terror.
Raw, unmasked, human fear.
It was as if she had spoken a curse, or unearthed some ancient ghost that no living Eldian dared disturb.
"How…" Caelarion rasped, his voice hoarse and broken, "how do you know that name?"
Aeryn stood frozen beside them, caught between them like a man standing on the edge of a crumbling cliff.
For a long moment, no one moved.
No one even breathed.
Ellowyn's heart pounded so hard she thought it might tear itself free.
But she held her ground — the fear she saw in her father's face giving her strength she didn't know she had.
Aeryn looked between them, confused and uneasy. "Drako? What's that?"
Caelarion rounded on both of them, his face a twisted mask of panic and dread.
"Silence!" he hissed, the word slashing the air between them. "Do not even speak that name again. There may be eyes — ears — you know not who listens in this city."
He advanced a step toward Ellowyn, his robe whispering against the floor, his hands trembling —
—the same hands that had once carried her on tired shoulders, now curling into desperate fists.
"What have you done?"
His voice cracked, low and hoarse, like something old and broken.
Ellowyn stood her ground, though her heart pounded against her ribs.
Her voice was barely a whisper.
"I went to the archive," she said. "To find answers.
There was a scroll… a glowing one…"
Caelarion staggered back as if struck.
His fingers groped blindly for the edge of the table, gripping it until his knuckles blanched.
"The Encloric Scroll," he breathed, each word falling heavier than the last.
"No. No, Ellowyn... you touched it. You opened it."
His knees buckled slightly, and for a moment, he looked very old, very small — a crumbling monument to fear.
"You have doomed us all," he whispered, the words hollow and shaking.
"If the Council finds out… not just you… all of us. Cast out. Exiled. Worse."
Aeryn stared at them both, wide-eyed and stricken, the color draining from his face.
Ellowyn's voice cracked with raw pain. "Father… how could you live like this?" she cried, stepping forward.
"How could you accept it?
We abandoned everything.
We let Skyland suffer."
Caelarion's eyes — once so sharp, so commanding — were now wide and empty, like windows into a house that had long been abandoned.
"You have no idea," he rasped, voice fraying like a torn cloth.
"You do not understand the horrors beyond the Dome.
Here, we are safe.
Here, we endure."
"Here," Ellowyn swiftly added, stepping forward, voice low and fierce,
"we rot in our pride."
The words cracked through the room like a stone hurled through glass.
Caelarion flinched as if the blow had landed.
His face twisted — hurt, anger, fear — colliding in a storm he could no longer control.
"You know nothing of survival," he growled, but the weight behind his words had faltered.
Ellowyn swallowed hard, her voice thick but steady.
"I know that if we stay silent," she said, "Skyland will die.
And your precious Dome — your 'Silent Heaven' — will crumble with it."
At her words, the fragile silence seemed to buckle under its own weight.
The very Ether lanterns flickered uneasily in their cradles.
Caelarion reeled back, almost staggering.
His mouth opened as if to protest — but no words came.
"What are you saying?" he rasped, voice barely human.
Ellowyn gripped the scarf at her heart, the memory of Rikuin burning against her skin like a second heartbeat.
"I saw it," she said. "The Ether Tree dying. The shadows consuming all. Skyland falling into ruin. The ether fading from the land and the kosmic Dome shattering, leaving us all to perish."
Caelarion's face — already pale — turned ashen.
"No... no," he stammered, shaking his head violently.
"The Encloric Scroll only holds records. Memories.
How did you—"
He broke off, choking on the words.
"None from the council has ever been able to have a glimpse of the future.
But you… how?"
Ellowyn's tear-rimmed eyes locked onto his.
Ellowyn's tear-rimmed eyes locked onto his.
"You see, Father.
This isn't just about pride anymore.
It's about life.
It's about hope."
She stepped closer, a trembling force of conviction.
"You can stand before the Council and speak the truth."
Caelarion's still in shock remained silent.
Ellowyn, staring at his eyes in a wait of final hope for an answer.
"..or I will" adding as her father never gave an answer
Her vow fell into the room like a sword plunged into the stone.
For a long, terrible heartbeat, Caelarion said nothing.
Only the brittle hum of the Ether lanterns stirred the silence.
Ellowyn saw it — the war in his face —
—the crumbling walls of fear, the ancient pride straining against the thin, newborn flicker of guilt.
She bowed her head once, slow and solemn, and turned away.
"I will not stand by," she whispered, her voice carrying a fierce, terrible grace.
"Not anymore."
Without a backward glance, she swept from the room, the ruined scarf clutched close against her heart.
Behind her, Caelarion slumped into a chair, staring blankly at the floor —
—a man broken not by the future, but by the past he had helped forge.
Aeryn hovered in the doorway for a moment, his hands curling and uncurling at his sides.
Then, silently, he crossed the room and sank down beside his father, both of them lost in a silence that no walls — no Dome — could shield them from anymore.
—BREAK—
In her chamber, Ellowyn stood before the mirror, the silence wrapping her like a second skin.
Her reflection stared back — thinner, harder, older.
She traced the faint lines of her face with trembling fingers, memorizing the person she had become.
Tomorrow, the Council would gather —
to finalize the decree against the Kinitu, to drive another cold spike into Skyland's fading light.
To turn silence into law.
And if her father would not stand —
she would.
Even if it cost her everything.
Slowly, she reached for the scarf tied close around her shoulders — Rikuin's scarf, worn but warm, heavy with broken promises.
She pulled it tighter, feeling its tattered edge brush her skin like a quiet vow.
Her voice touched the glass like a breath.
"I won't be afraid."
Outside, the vast silver lattice of the Dome pulsed faintly —
a borrowed heartbeat against a crumbling world.
And within her chest, her own heartbeat answered.
Steady.
Defiant.
Alive.
—BREAK—
The pale light of dawn seeped through the misty windows of Yal Elunore, casting a trembling glow across the polished floors.
Caelarion stood by the open door, fastening the last folds of his ceremonial robes, the silver threads catching the weak light.
Outside, his carriage waited — dark, silent, the driver stiff in the morning mist.
Ellowyn rushed to him, heart hammering.
"Father..." she gasped, voice raw. "You still have time. Please — you can still speak. You can still do what's right."
For a moment, he froze, hand lingering on the doorframe.
Slowly, he turned — and met her gaze.
It wasn't cold — not at first.
For a breath, she glimpsed the man she remembered — the father who lifted her onto his shoulders, who whispered tales of Skyland's old glories.
She held her breath, hope flaring painfully.
But when he spoke, the ember died.
"I always do what is right," he said, voice flat as stone, "for our family."
Without another word, he stepped into the waiting carriage.
The door shut with a heavy, final thud.
Ellowyn stood frozen in the doorway, mist curling around her bare feet.
She watched the carriage vanish into the fog, the clatter of hooves fading like a heartbeat slipping away.
Her stomach twisted.
He's not going to speak, she thought.
Or worse... he might betray me.
The cold seeped into her bones.
She swayed, breathless.
Then she turned sharply, wiped her sleeve across her wet eyes, and bolted back into the house — up the stairs, two at a time, as if outrunning the shattering of her last fragile hope.
—BREAK—
In Aeryn's chamber, she found him pulling on a cloak, his face tight with worry.
"We have to go," Ellowyn said, breathless, her voice sharp with urgency. "To the Council."
He turned to her, frowning.
"Ellie... you can't just walk into the Council Hall. You know that. It takes months to even request an audience— and half the time you're ignored."
"I'm not asking," she said, her hands trembling slightly at her sides.
"I'm going to speak. Whether they want to hear me or not."
Aeryn stared at her, his mouth falling open.
Aeryn stared at her, disbelief widening his eyes.
"You'll be arrested before you even cross the threshold," he said, his voice low, almost pleading.
Ellowyn only stared back, fierce and steady, the fire in her chest refusing to waver.
Aeryn groaned softly, dragging a hand down his face.
"I know that look," he muttered, a grimace twisting his mouth. "What crazy plan is crawling through your head this time, little fox?"
He paced once, twice, then froze — realization dawning in his eyes.
"Don't tell me..." he said slowly, almost choking on the words,
"Don't tell me you want me to sneak you past the guards and into the Council Hall?"
Ellowyn's lips twitched — not quite a smile, but close.
"You said it ,Not me" she whispered, her voice light but full of steel.
Aeryn groaned again, rubbing his temples like the weight of the whole Dome had landed on his shoulders.
"Stars above," he muttered.
"You're going to get us both thrown into the deepest pit they have."
Ellowyn just reached out, touched his sleeve gently.
"Only if we fail," she said — and there was something so certain, so bright in her eyes that, for a moment, even he believed they might not.