The academy still slept beneath a veil of fog.
Beyond the dormitory walls, faint threads of morning mist wound through the training grounds like restless spirits searching for purpose. Dew clung to the blades of grass, each drop glimmering faintly in the half-light — small, shimmering fragments of Aether lingering after last night's storms. The silence wasn't empty; it carried whispers — of wind brushing over stone, of distant footsteps echoing from the upper courtyards, of dreams fading reluctantly into wakefulness.
Inside the eastern dormitory, Taren sat alone by the window, his breath fogging the glass. He'd been awake long before the bell rang. Sleep had been elusive for weeks now, not because of nightmares — those he could handle — but because of the face that kept returning to his mind: Serin.
Always Serin.
He didn't hate her, not truly. Hatred was too simple a word for what pulsed in his chest when he saw her name at the top of every ranking board. It wasn't hatred — it was fire smothered by envy, pride tangled with admiration. Every time she won, a part of him burned brighter… and another part cracked quietly in the dark.
He tightened his gloves. The faint red glow of his Aether flickered across his fingertips, tracing his veins like molten threads before fading. Even at rest, his power responded to his emotions. "Calm down," he whispered, though his reflection offered no reassurance — just a boy with tired eyes and a will that refused to break.
The academy's bell finally rang — a hollow, resonant chime that rolled across the valley. One by one, the dormitories stirred to life. The smell of oil lamps and steel filled the corridors as cadets rushed out, fastening belts, pulling on boots, shouting about late assignments and sparring partners. The world shifted from stillness to rhythm.
Taren stepped out into the corridor, the hum of young Aether around him vibrant and restless. Training day. The instructors called it Synchrony Drills — exercises designed to measure compatibility between cadets' energy flows. He had no partner assigned yet. He didn't need to check the board to know who his name would be linked to.
He sighed, muttering under his breath, "Of course it'll be her."
The corridor turned sharply toward the central plaza, where sunlight was beginning to pierce the mist. Through the thinning fog, he spotted her — Serin — standing with perfect posture, wind-threaded hair lifting slightly in the morning breeze. She was surrounded by a faint shimmer, her Aether always visible even when she wasn't trying. It danced like silver dust, alive and effortless, as though the air itself obeyed her.
Their eyes met across the plaza.
For a moment, the noise of the academy fell away — cadets laughing, instructors shouting, the wind fluttering banners — all vanished into silence. Something heavy and wordless passed between them, a pulse neither could name. Then the moment broke. Serin turned away first, pretending to check the assignment board. Taren's jaw tightened.
Kael, one of the older cadets and assistant to the instructors, noticed the exchange. He leaned against a pillar, arms crossed, his expression unreadable. He'd been observing these two for months — the fire and the wind, constantly clashing, constantly pulling each other to higher peaks. But lately, something about them felt… different.
During their last duel, Kael had noticed how their Aether streams had reacted strangely — instead of clashing, they had curved toward one another before erupting. He'd brushed it off then, assuming it was coincidence or an instability caused by fatigue. Yet as he watched Taren and Serin now, a faint unease tugged at the edges of his perception.
The drills began.
The central training field shimmered with dozens of Aether circles etched into the ground. Each pair of cadets took their position, hands over their hearts, preparing to channel their inner energy into resonance. The goal was to synchronize with one's partner — matching rhythm, not power. It wasn't about dominance; it was about understanding.
Taren stood on one circle. Serin took the opposite. The instructor, Veyra, looked at them both with that knowing smirk she always wore. "You two again. Let's see if rivalry can be turned into rhythm today."
"Doubt it," Taren muttered.
"Maybe not," Serin replied softly, "but you'll try anyway."
Her tone wasn't mocking — it was calm, confident, maddeningly composed. That made it worse. He wanted her to sneer, to challenge him, to give him something to fight against. Instead, she gave him something to chase.
"Begin," Instructor Veyra announced.
Aether flared across the field — ripples of blue, crimson, emerald, and violet. Each pair glowed in synchronization or faltered in sparks of dissonance. The air thickened with energy.
Taren raised his hand. Flames coiled like serpents from his palm, burning hot and controlled. Across from him, Serin's wind gathered, cool and fluid, swirling like ribbons of moonlight. Their eyes locked again.
At first, the elements resisted — fire hissed against wind, heat clashed with motion. Yet with every breath, something invisible began to align. Their energy waves started oscillating at the same frequency — faintly, imperfectly, but undeniably so. The grass between them bent in rhythm. The Aether circles flickered.
Kael frowned from the sidelines. That wasn't normal.
Veyra noticed too. "Interesting… their resonance levels are—"
She didn't finish. A pulse rippled outward from the center of the circle — silent yet palpable, like a heartbeat in the air. The nearby cadets paused mid-draw, glancing around.
Taren felt it. A sudden warmth, not from his flames but from her. His chest tightened. The flames wavered, responding to something beyond his control.
Serin's wind trembled too, spiraling unpredictably before calming again — as if soothed by an unseen hand.
For a single second, both their energies intertwined, forming a spiral of gold and silver light — so faint, it could've been dismissed as reflection. But Kael saw it clearly. The Aether around them sang — a note too high for normal ears but too sharp to ignore.
Then it vanished.
The pulse ended. The light died. Both cadets staggered back, breathing heavily. The onlookers murmured — some impressed, some wary.
Veyra raised an eyebrow. "That's… new."
Taren said nothing. He didn't understand what had happened, only that for a heartbeat, he'd felt her. Felt her pulse echo through his, like his fire had recognized her wind.
Serin looked just as unsettled. She glanced at him briefly — the faintest trace of confusion breaking her composed mask — then turned away.
Kael's eyes narrowed. There it was again — the anomaly.
He took a slow step forward, noting the faint afterglow around the circle. The energy lingered longer than it should've. Normally, Aether disperses within seconds, but this… it resonated.
Something ancient stirred within his intuition. A whisper of a thought he couldn't quite grasp.
And for the briefest moment, he thought he heard something — a sound within the silence, faint as breath:
> "Bound by fate…"
But when he blinked, it was gone — replaced by the distant clang of training weapons and the instructor's voice barking new orders.
The world returned to normal.
Or so it seemed.
The drills should have ended after that first pulse — at least, that's what Instructor Veyra thought. But curiosity outweighed caution. She paced around Taren and Serin's training circle, boots crunching on dew-soaked grass, eyes flicking between the two cadets. Her voice was measured, yet sharp.
"Again," she said. "Same focus. No interruptions."
Taren hesitated. His chest still felt tight, as if the strange warmth hadn't fully faded. "Instructor, that—whatever that was—it wasn't—"
"Control, not questions," Veyra cut him off. "You felt something unfamiliar? Good. That's the point of training — to understand the unknown."
Serin nodded quietly and returned to stance. Her expression was calm, but the faint quiver in her fingertips betrayed her unease. She could still feel it too — the echo of his flame in her veins, the ghost of heat that didn't belong to her. When she'd looked at him just moments ago, her Aether had responded, like it had found something it had been waiting for all along.
She hated not understanding why.
Kael lingered near the edge of the field, pretending to take notes on his clipboard but really watching their every move. The earlier resonance was still replaying in his mind. The spiraling light, the harmonic vibration — it hadn't been any normal synchronization. It was as though their energies had recognized each other, responding with an instinct far older than training or willpower.
"Begin again," Veyra commanded.
Taren inhaled, flame coiling up his arm, the air around him heating. Serin exhaled, summoning her wind — soft at first, then gathering into sharp precision. Their energies flared and collided, sending dust spinning in concentric rings around them.
The world seemed to narrow to the space between them.
The clash of flame and wind always created chaos — fire feeding on air, air cutting through heat — but this time the elements hesitated before colliding. There was a momentary delay, like the world itself waiting to breathe. Then, instead of an explosion, the two forces curved, twisting around each other in perfect symmetry.
Kael's pupils contracted. "No way…"
Veyra's smirk faded.
A low hum filled the field — faint, almost imperceptible at first, but growing steadily. It wasn't coming from any one place. It was everywhere: the grass vibrating, the metal racks trembling, even the nearby trees swaying though there was no wind strong enough to move them.
Cadets across the field began to notice.
"Hey, do you hear that?"
"Sounds like… singing?"
"No, it's more like—buzzing—"
Taren gritted his teeth. The hum was inside him too. His fire rippled uncontrollably, flaring with each beat, not to anger but to some rhythm he didn't command. He looked at Serin — and saw her eyes widen. She was feeling it as well.
Their Aether threads glowed brighter, interlocking like woven silk. Flame twisted into ribbons of heat that merged with wind currents, forming golden arcs that spiraled upward before fading into the air. It was beautiful — too perfect, too synchronized to be accidental.
Veyra took a cautious step back. "That's… not possible."
Kael's clipboard slipped from his hand. His mind raced — resonance levels that high between cadets hadn't been recorded in decades. Not without years of partnership. And even then, it was usually achieved under ritual conditions, not spontaneous training.
Something brushed past him — a flicker of sound, softer than whisper, clearer than wind.
> "Listen…"
Kael froze. His gaze darted across the field, searching. Nobody else seemed to hear it. But he could swear the air itself had spoken.
Taren's control faltered for a heartbeat. The fire at his fingertips surged violently — then abruptly calmed, as if someone else's will had reached into it and steadied it. His eyes widened. She's inside my rhythm, he realized.
At the same time, Serin felt her wind slow down unnaturally — harmonizing with the pulse of his flame. Their energies were now intertwined beyond conscious control, responding as one.
It shouldn't have been possible.
The hum deepened, resonating now in their bones. It wasn't loud — it was vast, ancient, like the voice of the world itself murmuring through the air. The ground shimmered faintly, Aether lines lighting up beneath their feet.
Every cadet stood frozen.
Then — silence.
The hum vanished as suddenly as it came, leaving only the faint scent of scorched grass and cold mist. The golden afterglow faded. The world resumed its breath, unsure of what it had just witnessed.
Serin stumbled slightly but caught herself. Her pulse raced; her face was pale. She looked at Taren — truly looked at him — and for once, there was no rivalry, no sarcasm. Only confusion… and something else she couldn't name.
Taren, equally breathless, muttered, "What was that?"
Veyra exhaled sharply. "That… was not supposed to happen. Everyone, clear the field."
Cadets began dispersing hesitantly, whispering among themselves. The words "weird," "Aether surge," "curse," and "link" floated through the air.
Kael didn't move. His eyes remained locked on the circle. Even now, faint trails of energy lingered between their footprints, forming tiny spirals that glowed for a second before fading completely.
He whispered to himself, "Resonance beyond synchronization… impossible unless…"
He didn't finish. The thought felt dangerous to even imagine.
As Taren and Serin walked off opposite sides of the field, the last trace of the anomaly shimmered faintly in the mist. A single droplet of Aether condensed midair — golden and fragile — before dissolving into nothing.
Kael watched it vanish, unease tightening in his chest. He didn't know it yet, but what he had just witnessed would mark the beginning of something the world hadn't seen in centuries.
Something that didn't just link power…
but souls.
By the time the training ground emptied, the mist had thinned into silver threads drifting through sunlight. The usual morning chatter of cadets filled the air again — laughter, clanging practice weapons, the soft hum of Aether lamps awakening across the campus.
Everything seemed normal.
But Kael knew it wasn't.
He stayed behind after the others left, standing alone in the center of the field. The scent of burnt grass lingered — faintly metallic, like ozone after lightning. He crouched, tracing his fingers over the faint grooves in the soil where the resonance circle had been drawn. Though the markings were fading, the warmth beneath his fingertips remained. Aether residue.
That shouldn't have been possible. Residue of that intensity only remained after ritual duels or failed containment experiments — not simple Synchrony drills.
He whispered, "They changed the frequency."
"Still here?" a voice called behind him.
Kael straightened quickly. Instructor Veyra stood at the edge of the field, her coat fluttering in the morning breeze. She was usually unreadable, but there was something in her gaze today — a trace of curiosity, maybe even concern.
"Sorry, ma'am," Kael said, composing himself. "I was… recalibrating the Aether density readings."
Veyra walked closer, arms crossed. "And what did your 'recalibration' tell you?"
Kael hesitated. "That their resonance levels exceeded the upper sync threshold."
She raised a brow. "By how much?"
"By… a lot." He glanced at his notes. "Normal synchronization between cadets averages 20–25%. Theirs spiked to 62% before the field shut it down on its own."
Veyra's eyes narrowed. "Sixty-two?"
Kael nodded slowly. "I triple-checked the readings. It wasn't an error."
For a moment, the wind carried nothing but silence. The distant cries of training cadets in other fields seemed muted, as though the world itself were listening.
Finally, Veyra spoke — softer this time. "Those two… they've always been competitive. But this—this isn't rivalry. It's interference."
Kael frowned. "Interference?"
"Two Aether flows overlapping beyond their natural frequency," she explained. "When that happens, the field responds by amplifying the shared rhythm. If it continues unchecked, it can distort the internal cores of both users."
Kael absorbed her words carefully. "Then we should separate them during drills."
Veyra looked away toward the horizon, where the sunlight filtered through training spires. "No. We observe first."
Kael blinked. "Observe?"
"There's something unique about their flows. I've seen interference before — chaotic, unstable, destructive. But theirs was… harmonic. The system didn't reject it; it adapted. The field responded in tune."
Kael's mind raced. "So the hum wasn't feedback — it was adaptation."
Veyra nodded faintly. "Whatever they triggered wasn't an accident. It might be a resonance pattern we've never recorded before."
The word hung between them — resonance.
Kael felt it echo through his thoughts like a stone dropped into deep water. Resonance. It wasn't a term used casually in Aether studies; it referred to the rare phenomenon when two or more energy streams vibrate at a frequency that enhances both — sometimes exponentially. In history, it was mostly theory, something scholars debated in dusty halls. There were whispers, though — stories of pairs who achieved unnatural synchronization, their powers merging in ways that defied logic.
But no confirmed records existed. Until now.
"Permission to log this event under anomaly class C?" Kael asked.
Veyra shook her head. "Class B. This isn't some harmless surge. If we're right, this could rewrite what we know about Aether compatibility."
Kael hesitated. "And the students?"
Her eyes softened briefly. "They're unaware. Leave it that way for now. Children shouldn't carry the weight of discoveries they can't comprehend."
He nodded, though his curiosity burned brighter than before.
When Veyra walked away, her silhouette faded into the misty light, leaving Kael alone once more. He looked back at the circle and noticed something he hadn't before — faint particles of golden dust floating just above the soil, dissolving as he reached out.
Not residual flame. Not wind. Something else.
He closed his notebook and whispered to himself, "Aether doesn't lie. Whatever that was… it recognized them."
The words unsettled him. Recognition implied consciousness — as if the world itself had acknowledged their existence in a way it never should.
Kael glanced toward the eastern dormitories, where Taren had gone. Then to the western training halls, where Serin's class was gathered. Two opposite sides of the campus, yet the air between them still pulsed faintly, as if invisible threads stretched across the distance.
He pressed a hand to his chest, trying to sense it. For a second, he felt it again — that same low hum, buried deep beneath the noise of the world. It wasn't gone. It was simply quieter now, waiting.
"Whispers of the Aether…" he murmured. "So that's what it feels like."
He didn't realize how accurate those words were.
For by sunset, the whispers would grow louder.
Afternoon descended over the academy like a sigh.
The once-bright sky had dulled into pale gold, clouds drifting lazily above the spires that crowned the horizon. Bells marked the change of class — a gentle chime that echoed down the marble corridors of the Aether Halls.
For most cadets, the strange event from that morning had already become gossip.
> "Did you see their energy spiral?"
"It was like the whole field hummed!"
"Maybe they broke something in the barrier."
Laughter softened the unease, but curiosity lingered like smoke that refused to clear. The story spread faster than any official report, mutating with every retelling — from a duel gone wrong to wild tales of forbidden spells.
But while the academy returned to routine, something beneath that routine had shifted.
The Aether crystals embedded along the corridors — usually steady with blue light — began flickering irregularly. The instructors dismissed it as a calibration fault, yet maintenance adepts couldn't find the cause. The lamps responded normally in every other hall… except near where Taren and Serin walked.
They never noticed.
Taren trudged through the eastern corridor, hands in his pockets, mind heavy with questions he couldn't voice. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw that spiral of gold and silver light — the brief instant when their powers had intertwined without his command. It hadn't felt dangerous. It had felt right.
That scared him more than anything else.
Serin, on the other hand, tried to bury the memory beneath routine discipline.
Precision. Control. Breath. Focus.
She repeated the words like a mantra as she practiced wind forms alone in the courtyard, the air swirling obediently around her. But the rhythm of her breath kept shifting, aligning with something distant. Each time she exhaled, her Aether pulse seemed to echo faintly — not in the air, but through it.
When she stilled, she could almost hear it — a soft hum beneath the quiet rustle of leaves. Not wind, not energy. Something subtler. A heartbeat.
And it wasn't hers.
She shook her head sharply and dismissed it. "Get a grip," she muttered, wiping the sweat from her forehead.
Unseen by her, the grass around her feet swayed in circles — not from the wind, but from a resonance that rippled outward before fading.
---
Inside the instructor's archives, Kael sat surrounded by books and old data scrolls. The chamber smelled of dust, paper, and faint ozone — the scent of preserved knowledge. He had spent hours searching the academy's records, chasing even a fragment of explanation for what he'd witnessed.
The results were meager.
Every file on Aether Synchrony ended at the same note: "Full resonance between two distinct cores is theoretically impossible due to repulsion of Aetheric signatures."
He leaned back, rubbing his eyes. "Then how did they do it?"
The pages whispered as he turned them. Most contained research diagrams — intersecting waves, spectral analysis, mathematical ratios of energy compatibility. All logical, all predictable.
But buried deep in one of the oldest volumes, written in ink so faded it was barely legible, he found a margin note scribbled by some forgotten scholar:
> "Two streams, when born of opposing nature yet joined in pure intent, may reach harmonic unity.
Such moments are called Resonantia Aetherium."
Kael's pulse quickened. Resonantia Aetherium — Aether Resonance.
He ran his fingers over the words, the letters trembling slightly under his touch as if charged with static.
> "Born of opposing nature…" he whispered. Fire and wind. Taren and Serin.
The pieces began to fit together, uncomfortably so.
Suddenly, the light in the archive flickered. Then again. The glowstones lining the walls dimmed, brightened, then dimmed once more. Papers rustled without breeze. Kael froze, staring up.
Then — there it was again.
The hum.
Low, distant, yet undeniably there.
He turned toward the open window. Outside, faint trails of golden motes drifted in the air — only visible for a second before dispersing like dust. The sound wasn't loud; it was something deeper, felt in the chest more than heard with the ears.
Kael whispered, "You're not done, are you?"
He closed his eyes and tried to focus on the rhythm. The hum pulsed in three beats — slow, steady, alive. It was moving, not randomly but directionally, following something.
He followed its pull out of the archive and down the hall, each step echoing in sync with the faint vibration in his bones. When he turned the corner toward the western courtyard, the sound grew stronger. Through the archway, he saw Serin finishing her drills. The air shimmered faintly around her, rippling with tiny motes of light.
And though the distance between them stretched across the courtyard, Kael could feel it — the same hum mirrored somewhere else on the other side of the campus.
He turned east. There, beyond the trees, a flicker of crimson light flashed briefly. Taren.
The hum deepened.
For a fleeting instant, Kael saw what others couldn't — thin golden lines, invisible to normal sight, connecting two distant points through the air. They pulsed once, twice, then vanished as though the world itself denied their existence.
Kael's heart pounded. "Aether threads… impossible."
But he knew what he'd seen.
The world wasn't ignoring them anymore. It was listening.
And somewhere deep beneath the foundations of the academy — in the sealed catacombs where Aether currents converged — something ancient stirred in response.
The last echoes of the resonance still lingered in the courtyard. Dust motes hung mid-air, glimmering faintly in the slanted light as though refusing to settle. The ground still radiated warmth where Taren's flames had touched Serin's wind, yet neither moved. Their breathing came shallow, eyes locked, confusion mingled with something unspoken—an unfamiliar rhythm pulsing beneath their skin.
Instructor Veyra strode in before the silence grew unbearable. Her crimson cloak trailed the smell of ozone; her sharp eyes swept the field.
"What in the name of the Aether happened here?" she demanded. "That wasn't standard form practice."
Taren opened his mouth but found no words. The flame that usually obeyed his will felt… aware. Beside him, Serin clutched her arm where the wind had turned warm instead of cool, her aura flickering between hues of emerald and gold.
"I — I don't know," she murmured. "It just… changed."
Veyra narrowed her gaze, scanning the aetheric remnants through her monocle lens. The readings danced erratically. "Residual fusion? Impossible… unless…" Her voice trailed off, the thought unfinished. Then, shaking her head, she clapped once, dispersing the energy field with a resonant pulse of her own.
"Enough. Both of you, report to the infirmary. Kael, with me."
Kael hesitated, eyes still tracing the invisible waves hanging in the air. "Instructor, there was a fluctuation—"
"I said with me," she cut him off sharply, her tone leaving no room for debate. "Whatever anomaly you think you saw will be handled by the Council."
Taren exchanged a glance with Serin, a fragile thread of understanding weaving through the silence. For once, there was no insult on his tongue, no smirk on hers—only the shared realization that something beyond rivalry had brushed against them.
As they left, the Aether field flickered again—just once. A faint, harmonic hum rippled through the stones before vanishing completely.
---
Later, in the infirmary…
A healer ran her hands above their arms, her touch glowing pale blue. "Minor over-resonance. You'll be fine," she said, but her tone held uncertainty. "Whatever you two did, don't repeat it."
Taren exhaled slowly, staring at his palm. The small spark that rose and fell with his heartbeat no longer felt his. "I didn't do anything," he whispered.
Serin turned her gaze toward the window, watching the last streaks of dusk fade into indigo. "Maybe it did it on its own," she said quietly.
Kael, standing outside the room, caught those words through the half-closed door. On its own… The phrase lodged itself in his mind like a seed, taking root in the fertile soil of curiosity and fear.
---
The corridors dimmed as the academy prepared for night. Students murmured about the strange light at the training grounds, dismissing it as an experimental flare. But Kael knew better. The resonance had felt sentient—like an unseen hand tuning two dissonant strings into harmony.
He looked up toward the observatory tower.
> If the world had truly whispered…
Then he needed to learn what it was trying to say.
He turned and began the long climb up the spiral staircase—
toward the night of silent resonance.
The academy fell silent under a silver-stained moon. The courtyard, once filled with laughter and clashing energy, now lay hushed—its lanterns dimmed, its winds still. Aether currents that normally shimmered faintly along the training fields had quieted too, as if holding their breath after what transpired that day.
Kael sat alone in the observatory chamber atop the eastern spire. The room was circular, surrounded by crystal conduits that pulsed faintly with captured Aether. Each flicker of light cast fleeting reflections across the countless tomes scattered before him. His ink-stained fingers trembled slightly as he flipped through the pages of an ancient record — the Codex of Harmonic Convergence.
> "When two flows meet without guidance, and the world holds its breath…
Resonance may whisper, binding what should remain apart."
The verse was written in a language older than the Academy itself, its meaning uncertain even to scholars. But Kael felt it — that same whisper he'd heard in the training grounds when Taren's flame had curved into Serin's wind. It wasn't coincidence. It was something alive, something that had chosen them.
He rose from his desk, walked toward the large circular window, and gazed upon the moonlit practice fields below. The very air shimmered faintly, like ripples spreading across still water.
"Whispers of the Aether," he murmured. "You've found new voices."
The words left his mouth almost involuntarily. He didn't know what compelled him to say them, nor why the Aether conduits seemed to hum in reply — a soft, low note resonating through the chamber. He instinctively placed his palm against the nearest conduit. For a heartbeat, he felt warmth — and then a flicker of duality. Two signatures. Two flames. Two winds.
Taren. Serin.
The image of them flashed before his eyes — the way their powers had collided earlier, the shimmer that followed, the strange pulse that rippled through the entire field. It hadn't been an accident; the Aether itself had recognized something.
Kael stumbled back, heart pounding. "No… that's not possible."
He turned toward another book — The Chronicles of Aetherborne. It spoke of bonds formed by shared trauma, shared intent, and occasionally… shared souls. But those were myths, stories to keep first-years entertained during storm nights. Yet what he'd seen today didn't feel like a myth.
He lit another candle, his eyes scanning through the brittle pages until he found a passage marked with red wax:
> "When Resonance awakens without intent, it heralds the convergence of destinies.
Few survive its call. Fewer still understand its cost."
Kael's breath hitched. The candle's flame quivered, then steadied, mirroring the resolve forming inside him.
He couldn't tell them — not yet. Taren and Serin were still too young, still trapped in the cage of rivalry. But he would watch. He would learn. Because whatever this was, it wasn't just a rare Aether anomaly.
It was a beginning.
Outside, the winds stirred softly again, brushing through the open window. Kael felt the whisper once more, faint but clear — like a voice trying to form words within the current.
Aether carried secrets, and tonight, it had chosen its first audience.