It began with wind.
Not a breeze, but a pull — as if the very air had chosen to lift them.
With Velka's mark burned into the ember map, a path opened toward the floating isles of Aetherra, known in legend as Skyreach. There, above the stormline, rested the Third Ember Mark, hidden within a city that defied gravity… and reason.
"You sure this isn't madness?" Lyss asked, eyeing the ancient lift system strapped to a crumbling cliff.
"Absolutely not," Thalia replied, tightening her gear. "This is worse than madness. This is politics."
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Aetherra, City of Heights
Rising on skybridges of windstone and cloud anchors, Skyreach shimmered like a dream. Buildings floated on platforms tied by glowing runes. Skiffs buzzed through the air like bees. Nothing touched the ground — because in Aetherra, gravity was optional.
Kael stepped off the lift, legs wobbling.
"I already hate it here," he muttered.
"Don't look down," Lyss grinned. "Or do — it's fun when your stomach flips."
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The Court of Clouds
The trio was granted an audience with Chancellor Vael, a thin man with eyes like silver coins and a smile far too wide.
"Ah, the heir walks the wind," Vael said. "And brings shadow to our skies."
"We're here for knowledge," Thalia said carefully. "Nothing more."
"In Aetherra," Vael replied, "knowledge is more dangerous than kings."
He offered them shelter in the Cloud Archives, a floating structure filled with scrolls that shimmered and whispered. But Kael quickly noticed eyes everywhere — watchers. Spies.
And then… the sabotage.
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Attack from Within
That night, a section of the Cloud Archive collapsed — not from magic, but from explosives. Kael barely pulled Thalia to safety as windstone shattered and papers rained like feathers.
"Someone wants us gone," she gasped.
"Correction," Lyss said, dagger in hand. "Someone wants us dead."
Worse — the map was gone. Stolen in the chaos.
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The Wind's Traitor
The culprit: a young noble named Ciren, secretly working with the Ash Blades. They'd bribed her with promises of a skybound kingdom — if she delivered the Heir.
Kael caught her just as she boarded an airskiff.
"You're making a mistake," he warned.
"No," she spat. "You're the mistake. Fire doesn't belong in the sky."
A brief battle in the air — Kael leapt across floating debris, shadow and steel clashing. In the end, Ciren fell… but the map fell with her, vanishing into the clouds.
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The Memory Feather
Though the map was lost, Kael retrieved something from the archives before they burned: a Memory Feather — a relic that stores echoes of thought.
He activated it.
A vision played: the Ember King speaking to a winged figure.
"The third mark lies not in sky or stone… but in the fall that never lands."
"What does that mean?" Kael asked.
"It means," Thalia said grimly, "the next clue is in the Tidevault — the ocean tomb."
Kael stared toward the horizon, the storm building ahead.
"Then we sail next."
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