Caer' Syllen
**
"Let the heirs chant their names like spells. I'll be the question they never dared carve. Power isn't given or kept, it's taken, the moment you decide 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, A look back
**
The deck of the Skybarge hummed with quiet anticipation. Beneath the thick crystal-glass railing, clouds drifted lazily by, catching the glow of the core-stone 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.
Cold condensation beaded along the inside of the railing. One droplet slid down and warped Khalen's reflection, smearing the braid at his shoulder into a brief streak of firelight.
Khalen Rasheen leaned against the glass, arms crossed, silent as ever. He watched the white mist roll across the sky like surf against the hull. 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," came Novek's voice from his left, low and teasing. "You see him? Mr. Legacy himself."
Khalen didn't move.
"That's gotta be your cousin," Novek went on. "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 was open, effortless, and people tilted toward it without realising.
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 said. Quiet. Flat. "Might as well be strangers."
Novek studied him a second longer, then looked away, as if giving the silence room to stay intact.
The barge tilted slightly as it shifted direction, the hull groaning beneath their feet. Ahead, something moved in the haze, not a shape yet, more a change in light, ribbons of crystal-bright filtering through cloud.
"You nervous?" Novek asked, half-grinning. His boot heel kept tapping without sound, like it couldn't remember how to stand still.
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.
He kept his eyes on the clouds until the first arc of sky-glass broke through the mist ahead.
**
The clouds parted, slow and reluctant, unveiling a sky-born city that did not belong to this age.
Caer Syllen.
The university did not float so much as hover, colossal and still, as if the world itself were holding its Breath. Crystalline ridges shimmered along its curved underbelly, bending sunlight into pale halos. From its Core rose a ring of spires, some thin as needles, others wide and vault-backed, resembling ribs turned to stone. Between the towers, crystalline bridges arched in clean sweeps, the stonework banded with old Breath that pulsed faintly when the light hit it.
It moved with steady patience, as if it had all the time in the world.
A curtain of wildflowers rippled down one sheer cliff wall, vines blooming midair with each shift of wind. No soil. No roots. Just growth held aloft by whatever laws this place had decided to obey. The Living Wall, spoken of only in myth, flora that moved to Breath's rhythm, and, if the stories were true, noticed the people who stared too long.
Khalen's Breath caught. His thumb worried the edge of his braid once, without meaning to, then stilled as if he'd been caught.
A sting of wind-salt hit the corner of his eyes. He blinked it away and pretended it was nothing.
"You okay?" Novek asked.
Khalen didn't answer at first. His fingers tightened on the railing, then eased. "It's bigger than I thought," he murmured.
Novek grinned. "She gets that a lot."
Khalen didn't laugh, but something in his mouth twitched, close enough to count as a win.
Above them, a massive shape drifted through the upper haze, so large it felt like weather. A sky-whale, translucent fins gliding 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 changed. Ozone. Windflower. Resin, sharp enough to dry salt-tight at the edge of Khalen's collar.
The engines under the barge rose a half-step 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 seemed to make room.
Behind them, Bastion shrank into haze.
Before them, the open sky widened.
"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 vault-chimes, whispering through the air like thunder heard through water. As the barge passed beneath the university's coliseum rim, Khalen caught a glimpse through a gap in the structure, a shard of pale bone-wall, and, for a second, the hint of a lower maze.
A reminder.
Where the Breathlings were kept.
Where history breathed through monsters, not books.
Khalen swallowed, throat tight. "I don't know if I belong here."
Novek shrugged, and the grin softened into something quieter. "No one does. Not at first."
He tipped his chin toward the city. "Don't stare too hard. They can smell it."
Khalen's eyes stayed forward. "Good."
Novek's grin returned, relieved to have something to lean on. "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. Not in a breeze. In attention.
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.
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?"
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. 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 while the girl stepped back. The wall sealed itself again, the engraving swallowed by tangled root and leaf.
Khalen's brow furrowed. "What happened to the ones who built all this?"
Novek lifted one shoulder. "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, grin returning. "One that could gift us flight."
Khalen looked up at the sky-whales drifting above the spires. "We already have flight."
"Not like that," Novek said. "I mean real flight. On your own. No ships. No engines. Just you and the sky."
He glanced sideways at Khalen. "You'd jump for that, wouldn't you?"
Khalen didn't answer.
Behind him, the wall made a soft sound, leaf against crystal-root.
For a heartbeat, the pollen drifted wrong, tugged toward him in a thin, hesitant curl, then loosened and rejoined the air.
Heat prickled over his knuckles, sharp and intimate, as if the wall had pressed a thumb to his pulse. It lasted less than a second. Long enough to matter.
Novek's head tipped, just slightly. "Did you feel…"
Khalen shifted, a half-step that put his shoulder between Novek and the wall without looking like he'd moved at all. "No," he said, flat and immediate. His fingers flexed once at his side, then went still again.
**
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 overhead, painting restless shapes across his coat.
The stone under his hand thrummed faintly with stored Breath, older than the university itself, sealed into the roots of the floating city.
When his palm settled, the thrum jumped, a half-step louder, like a held note deciding it could be heard.
Khalen didn't pull away. He only eased his fingers, making his touch lighter, until the stone settled back into its old quiet.
The words carved beneath the statue's feet had been recited to him since childhood, but only now did they sit in his chest with weight:
To shape the world is to first survive it… and to survive it is to pay the price.
If anyone here saw what the wall had just done to him, they would see past the name and find the orphan boy underneath, the one who'd been taught to hide his fire before he could spell it.
"Uh," Novek murmured beside him. "Don't look now, but Elyas is headed this way. Alone."
Khalen's gaze stayed on the stone. "All right."
"You gonna say something?"
"I'll say hello." Khalen's mouth tightened. "I'm not an animal."
Novek eased a step away, sensing this was not his moment to stand too close.
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 light as if it answered only to him. His usual entourage waited a respectful distance away, murmuring about class placements and legacy lines.
He stopped a single pace from Khalen, and for the first time his confidence wasn't flawless. It wasn't a stumble, exactly, more a brief recalibration, as if he'd expected Khalen to turn first.
"Khalen Rasheen?" Elyas asked.
Khalen turned. Measured. Met the gaze with calm detachment. "That's me."
"I'm Elyas." He offered a hand, neither stiff nor overfamiliar. "We share blood, however distant."
Khalen accepted the handshake. Firm. Brief. Respectful. As their hands met, his ring finger went dead for a blink, so fast it could have been imagined. He didn't let his grip change. "So I've heard."
Elyas took in the space around them, the sky-whales drifting above, mist trailing from the Verdant Atrium's waterfall, the Living Wall coiling in the distance with whisper-leaves and crystal-rooted vines.
"First day's…" Elyas exhaled, then let a small smile settle. "It's something."
Khalen gave the barest half-smile. "Maybe. Thanks for saying hello."
Elyas waited, expectant. Most people filled silences with small questions. House, lineage, affinity, the usual offerings.
None came.
So he tried again, softer this time. "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, then settled back, plain as stone.
"Well," Elyas said, adjusting his collar, as if giving his hands something to do. "I should check in with my mentor. See you around, Cousin."
"See you," Khalen echoed, pleasant, uncommitted.
Elyas turned and climbed the steps. At the top he glanced back, not angry, just faintly wrong-footed by how little of himself had been reflected in the exchange. Then he rejoined his group and disappeared into motion.
Novek returned to Khalen's side as if he'd been holding his breath.
"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 muttered, but the grin was there, fond even if he tried to hide it.
Khalen let the moment pass without reply, gaze drifting again to the inscription.
**
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 something heavy that had to be worn.
Nadroj noticed immediately.
"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 ask a single thing. Just stood there like the whole university was a burden."
"He's cautious," Elyas said, and the word sounded more like he was testing it than declaring it.
"Or full of himself," Nadroj replied. "Your mother warned you about them, didn't she? Said they carry that chip like it's a crown."
Elyas's jaw shifted, just once. His fingertip traced the etched crystal line in the railing, then stopped.
"She also said their branch used to lead the council," Elyas said quietly. "Long before the disgrace. Before my father cut ties."
Nadroj blinked. "So what, you wanted to fix that?"
Elyas didn't rise to the jab. He kept looking down, as if trying to see Khalen clearly from this height and failing.
"I thought it might mean something," he said, almost under his breath. "To extend a hand."
Nadroj snorted. "Being seen with you is a gift. If he can't recognise that, that's on him."
Elyas didn't answer. The bell sounded again from the atrium archway, first call to orientation.
He straightened his collar and turned without another word.
But as the light shifted across the spires, he glanced back once, just once. Below, Khalen stared out at the drifting clouds as if trying not to feel the weight of the sky above.
Some people just don't want to be helped.
---