FORTY-THREE
WIND-SWEPT HALLS
Amara is proving herself to be a true prodigy with a sharp scholar’s mind.
Were it not for the dire need of her gifts on the front lines, I would already be petitioning for her to begin the Air Clan Scholar path.
Perhaps one day. For now, we share the burden of these ancient documents—fragments recently recovered by a trusted colleague from the deeper vaults of the archives.
There is promise in them . . . but I grow increasingly uneasy.
Trust, it seems, is becoming a rare commodity.
—VALEN’S JOURNAL
AMARA
The hours of searching have worn us down. My eyes burn from scanning brittle parchment, my muscles stiff from being hunched over for too long. But the worst part isn’t the exhaustion—it’s the sheer weight of what we’re uncovering.
Across from me, Valen flips another page too roughly, the sound of crinkling paper sharp in the thick silence. His expression is unreadable, but I see it all the same. The tension in his jaw. The rigid set of his shoulders. He’s barely keeping his temper in check.
I exhale sharply, pushing a loose strand of hair from my face.
“If this ledger was so important, why didn’t someone leave clearer instructions?” I mutter. “Every reference we find says it was hidden. Hidden where? A temple? A library? A cave in the middle of nowhere?”
Valen leans back in his chair and rubs his fingers against his temples.
“We know it was given to the Air Clan,” he says, his voice tight. “But if it still exists, we don’t know where or who has it.”
I stare down at the journal, frustration building inside me. We are so close. Yet without a name, a location, or something more concrete, we could spend months searching and still find nothing.
Valen flips another page, his eyes skimming the faded text.
Then he stills.
I straighten immediately. “What?”
He doesn’t answer. His gaze remains fixed on the page as he leans closer, studying the passage.
“Wait,” he says quietly, leaning closer to the page.
Every nerve in my body feels taut.
“Valen?”
He traces a finger beneath a line of text, the ink faded but still legible. Then, quietly, he reads aloud.
“Stored within the archives of the Wind-Swept Halls, far from unworthy hands.”
A chill runs down my spine.
The Wind-Swept Halls.
I murmur the words under my breath, turning them over in my mind.
“That’s not a place I’ve ever heard of.”
Valen’s brows draw together. “It’s not a modern name.”
His fingers follow the faded ink absently as he thinks.
“Centuries ago, before the Air Clan moved their seat of power, they ruled from an older capital. Within that city was a sanctum where their highest-ranking scholars preserved knowledge too valuable to lose.”
He looks up, and his eyes are dark with certainty.
“They called it the Wind-Swept Halls.”
Realization sweeps through me like a storm wind. The ledger wasn’t just given to the Air Clan. It was sealed away in their lost archives.
I press my fingers against the worn parchment, staring down at the faded words.
“Valen,” I whisper. “If it was locked away in an archive that old, what are the chances that anyone still knows about it?”
His silence is answer enough.
The Fire Clan did everything they could to erase this history. Even if the Air Clan protected the ledger once, that was generations ago. The knowledge could have been lost. The archive could be empty.
Or worse, someone could have already taken it.
Uncertainty creeps through me.
“So you’re thinking we have to assume no one has accessed those records in years? Maybe even centuries?”
Valen gives a tight nod. “If the ledger is still there, we’re likely the first people to look for it in a very long time.”
I sit back, turning that over in my mind. If we’re the first ones searching . . . then we’re also the first ones who might lead someone else to it.
My fingers tighten against the edge of the table. “We need to get there before anyone else does.”
Valen’s expression darkens, but he nods. There is no hesitation. No doubt.
I begin gathering the scrolls in front of me, but Valen flips through another parchment and stills. His gaze moves across the faded ink, studying it carefully.
“These records are incomplete,” he says, “but this might be something.”
I lean in as Valen traces a list of Air Clan families, names that once held power before the Shadow Wars.
Each is marked with an engraved crest, faded but still visible beneath the worn ink.
Most of them mean nothing to me. Long-forgotten houses whose histories have been buried beneath centuries of time and war.
But one catches my attention. I frown, leaning closer.
“That name . . . ”
My gaze lingers on the faded script.
“It looks familiar.”
Vhael.
The ink is faded, but the letters remain clear, the name distinct among the others.
A noble house once linked to the scholars and archivists who safeguarded lost knowledge.
I study the crest beside it. A swirling gust of wind encircles an open book, a quill suspended in midair as though caught in motion.
Then I notice something else. A faint flame worked into the design. So subtle I almost miss it.
Valen shakes his head. “It’s old Air Clan nobility, but most of these families either died out or changed their names after the war.”
I study the crest for another moment, a strange sense of familiarity tugging at the edge of my thoughts. But I push it aside. It’s just another lost name buried in history.
Valen exhales and rolls the tension from his shoulders.
“Right then. We have a region—the Air Clan. And we have a location—the Wind-Swept Halls.”
His gaze lifts from the parchment and meets mine.
“Now we need to determine who might know of its existence and whether any of them can be trusted.”
He leans back in his chair, tapping the faded ink with two fingers.
“We’re two steps closer than we were this morning.”