Lyra's "hideout" was more… unexpected than Kael had imagined.
Past the tavern's back door was a narrow alley piled with rotting garbage. Lyra skillfully lifted what appeared to be an ordinary stone slab, revealing a metal ladder leading downward. Below the ladder was a repurposed underground space—less a room, more a cavern submerged in books.
"Welcome to 'The Forgotten Chapter.'" Lyra lit a fluorescent crystal on the wall, illuminating the roughly twenty-square-meter space.
Kael gasped.
From floor to ceiling, every wall was lined with bookshelves crammed with scrolls, ancient tomes, and parchments—some so large it would take two people to lift them, others thin as cicada wings. The air smelled of paper, ink, and old magic. In the center of the room stood a massive oak table piled with open maps, scattered notes, and flickering crystal orbs.
"This is your… home?"
"Research lab, hideout, refuge—call it whatever you like." Lyra kicked aside a pile of books, walked to the table, and lit a brighter desk lamp. "Sit. If you can find a place to sit."
Kael carefully stepped over books on the floor, squeezing onto a chair piled with several thick volumes. The Keeper at his waist warmed slightly, as if expressing some emotion—perhaps excitement, perhaps wariness.
"You can… feel it, can't you?" Lyra suddenly turned, her brown eyes behind glasses fixed on the bundle at Kael's waist. "That book. It's on you."
Kael instinctively covered the bundle. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Stop pretending." Lyra sighed, picking up a bronze device from the table—a complex instrument covered in tiny runes, with a pale purple crystal embedded in its center. "This is a 'Mana Resonance Detector.' I made it. It detects high-concentration magical artifacts. The moment you walked into the tavern, this thing almost exploded."
She pressed a button on the device. The crystal immediately glowed brightly, pointing directly at the bundle at Kael's waist.
"Fine." Kael gave up the pretense, unwrapping the bundle. The leather-bound Codex of the Skyborn was revealed, emitting a soft golden glow in the dim light.
Lyra held her breath. She approached slowly, her trembling hand hovering a few centimeters above the cover without touching it.
"Three hundred years…" she murmured. "The Skyborn Council has searched for it for three hundred years. They thought it was destroyed, or lost in the void… Yet here it is. In a small tavern's basement, held by a mixed-blood boy."
"You know about this book?" Kael asked warily.
"Know?" Lyra suddenly laughed, her smile bitter and feverish. "I spent three years researching it! Or rather, everything recorded about it—legends, fragmented records. My graduation thesis was The Loss and Sealing of the Codex of the Skyborn: An Erased History. Then I was expelled because the academy deemed my research 'contrary to Skyborn orthodoxy.'"
She walked to a bookshelf, pulled out a thick leather-bound notebook, flipped to a page, and pushed it toward Kael.
It was a complex star chart annotated in ancient script. At the center of the chart was a drawing of a glowing book—identical to the Codex in Kael's hands.
"What is this?"
"Page seven of the Stellar Prophecies, drawn by the Skyborn Sage Aetherion three hundred years ago." Lyra pointed to key points on the star chart. "Look here. These stars represent the seven seals of the Codex. Three hundred years ago, fearing its power, the Skyborn Council united to seal it. But look at this—"
Her finger moved to a small symbol at the edge of the chart: a broken chain.
"What does that mean?"
"The seal is weakening." Lyra looked up, her expression serious. "Starting a year ago. To be precise, three hundred and seven years to the day after the Codex was sealed—yesterday. Since then, Aetherion's entire magical field has become unstable. Floating islands tremble slightly, anomalous auroras appear in the sky, ancient magical devices activate on their own… The Skyborn Council's explanation? 'Natural phenomena.'"
A chill ran down Kael's spine. "But you know the truth."
"I know part of it." Lyra closed the notebook. "The Codex's seal is connected to Aetherion's 'Leyline Core.' If the seal weakens, it means the Leyline Core is deteriorating. If the seal breaks completely, two things will happen: First, the Codex's full power will be released, potentially causing disaster. Second, the Leyline Core will collapse entirely, and all floating islands will fall into the void."
The room fell silent. The fluorescent crystals hummed softly.
"She is correct." The Keeper's voice echoed in Kael's mind. "But that is not the full truth."
Kael looked at the Codex. The pages flipped on their own, stopping at a page filled with complex runes and an illustration. The illustration depicted a massive crystal floating in the void, its surface covered in cracks.
"What is this?" Lyra leaned in, eyes bright.
"The Leyline Core." Kael repeated the Keeper's words. "But it is not deteriorating naturally. Someone is deliberately damaging it."
"Who?"
The pages flipped again, this time to an illustration of robed figures in black cloaks. They surrounded an altar, above which hovered a writhing mass of darkness.
Lyra's face turned pale. "This is… a Void Ritual. Forbidden magic explicitly banned by the Skyborn Council. They're draining the Leyline Core's energy to… to do what?"
"To maintain a lie." The Keeper's voice turned cold. "A lie about 'pure-blooded Skyborn.'"
Lyra slumped into her chair. "No… that's impossible…"
"What lie?" Kael pressed.
"The Skyborn Council's elite, the so-called 'pure-blood nobles'—they haven't been pure-blooded for a long time." The Keeper explained slowly. "Three hundred years ago, a magical plague swept through the Sky City. Pure-blooded Skyborn had no resistance; they died in droves. To preserve the race, the Council secretly intermarried with humans, producing mixed-blood offspring. But they hid this fact, using magic and alchemy to alter these descendants' appearances, making them look pure-blooded."
"So the current Skyborn nobility…" Kael understood.
"Are all descendants of mixed-bloods." The Keeper confirmed. "But they themselves don't know. The Council erased all related records, executed those who knew, and fabricated the lie of 'mixed-blood contamination,' exiling and persecuting all true mixed-bloods. And the Leyline Core's energy is used to maintain this appearance-altering magic—a massive illusion covering the entire Sky City."
Lyra covered her mouth, her eyes filled with shock and disgust. "So… they're hunting mixed-bloods to cover up the fact that they themselves are mixed-bloods? And draining the Leyline Core's energy will eventually cause the entire world to collapse?"
"Yes." The Keeper said. "And they know the seal is weakening. They must accomplish two things before the truth is exposed: First, completely destroy the Codex of the Skyborn, because it records the true history. Second, find a new energy source to replace the Leyline Core—such as void energy."
Kael suddenly remembered the old woman's words in the tavern. "Those captured mixed-bloods…"
Lyra looked up sharply, fear flashing in her eyes. "They're not imprisoned. They're… sacrifices. Using mixed-blood lineage in void rituals allows more efficient extraction of void energy. By the skies, we have to stop them!"
At that moment, the ceiling above them trembled.
Dust drifted down.
"They've found us." The Keeper's voice held a warning. "That resonance detector… it doesn't just detect magic. It also emits a signal."
Lyra turned pale. "I… I didn't know it emitted signals. I thought it only received…"
The ceiling trembled again, more violently. Distant sounds of metal clashing and heavy footsteps echoed.
"How many?" Kael grabbed the Codex, stuffing it into his clothes.
Lyra rushed to the wall, pressing a hidden button. One wall turned transparent, showing the outside: at least twenty soldiers in silver-white armor were surrounding the building. On their chests was the emblem of the Skyborn Council—crossed swords and a star.
"Skyborn Guard." Lyra's voice trembled. "The most elite magical warriors. We… we can't escape."
Kael looked at the soldiers, at the glowing staves and swords in their hands. He remembered the moment he fell into the sea during the storm, the helplessness and despair.
Then he remembered the Keeper's words.
"You chose power, so you would never be abandoned again, to protect those you care about."
He took a deep breath and turned to Lyra.
"Is there a back door?"
"Yes, but it's definitely surrounded too."
"Then we go out the front."
Lyra stared wide-eyed. "Are you insane? They'll kill us!"
"Maybe." Kael clenched his fists, feeling the faint but real power within him—the power of wind, the power of the Codex, and… something that had just awakened. "But maybe not."
He closed his eyes, focusing.
"What are you doing?" the Keeper asked.
"What I must do." Kael opened his eyes, a glint of gold flashing in his gray pupils. "You said the wind is my extension. What if I make the wind… become my voice?"
He walked to the door, placing his hand on it.
"Tell them." Kael said, his voice calm enough to surprise himself. "Tell them the truth. Tell the entire Sky City that the Skyborn Council is using mixed-blood blood for void rituals, that they're destroying our world."
Lyra froze for two seconds, then suddenly understood. She rushed back to the table, grabbed the Mana Resonance Detector, and frantically adjusted the runes. "I can amplify the signal's range! But the wider the range, the faster they'll locate us…"
"Then amplify it to the maximum." Kael said. "Let everyone hear."
Outside, the soldiers' footsteps grew closer.
Lyra's fingers flew over the instrument, runes lighting up one by one. Finally, she pressed the central crystal.
"Ready!"
Kael took a deep breath, pouring all his will, all his anger, all his determination into a single thought:
"Listen to me."
The wind began to howl.