Time in the Sunken Library ceased to have meaning. There was no sun to mark the days, no moon for the nights. There was only the perpetual, soft glow of sleeping knowledge and the profound silence, which we began to fill with the sounds of our own purpose. Our lives fell into a rhythm dictated not by the clock, but by our mission.
The single ripple in the silver sand became my first word. The day after, I managed two. The day after that, a wave. Within a week—or what felt like a week—I could make the entire surface of the sand undulate in slow, hypnotic patterns. My progress was not a straight line. There were days of intense frustration where the sand would not listen, where my own desert instincts for command were too strong, and I would leave the Resonance Chamber with a headache and a feeling of failure.
On those days, Kael was my anchor. While I practiced, he studied. The glowing guide sphere would bring him artifacts from the deeper library—ancient scrolls that unrolled in the air, crystalline plates that displayed shifting text when held, and stone tablets that whispered their histories when touched. He was engrossed, a man starved who had been seated at an infinite banquet.
"Patience, Iris," he would tell me, not looking up from a star chart that showed worlds I'd never heard of. "You are not just learning a skill. You are un-learning a lifetime of habit. You must be as patient as the stone you are learning to speak with."
Slowly, my vocabulary grew. The waves became spirals. The spirals grew into small, solid pillars that I could sustain for a few minutes before they crumbled. I was learning the unique properties of this sand; it was heavier, more 'solid' than the sand of my home, and when I sang the right harmony, it could hold a shape with surprising integrity.
After what must have been a month, Kael set a new test for me. "The pillars are simple statements," he said, gesturing to the throbbing quartz crystal in the center of the room. "The crystal is an amplifier, but its energy is disruptive. It sings its own song very loudly. To reach it, your harmony must be perfect. Build a bridge."
My first dozen attempts were disasters. I would start from the edge of the chamber, weaving the sand into a solid, shimmering walkway. It felt strong, stable. But as it neared the central crystal, the structure would tremble. The crystal's powerful, rhythmic pulse would interfere with my own song, creating a dissonant feedback loop. The bridge would collapse into a shower of silver dust every time, sometimes only inches from its goal.
Frustration gnawed at me. "I can't," I said, slumping to the floor after another failure. "Its song is too loud. It's drowning me out."
"Then stop trying to shout over it," Kael said, finally looking up from a particularly dense tablet. "You are treating it as an obstacle to be overcome. An endpoint. It is not the destination. It is part of the instrument you are trying to play. You must include its song in your own from the very beginning."
His words settled over me, simple and true. I had been fighting the crystal's song.
I took a deep breath, went back to the edge, and began again. This time, I didn't just listen to the sand. I focused on the deep, rhythmic pulse of the crystal, the loudest note in the room. I wove the sand's quieter song around that pulse, using the crystal's thrumming as the beat for my own melody. I wasn't building a bridge to the crystal; I was building a bridge with it.
The silver sand solidified under my mental touch, stronger and more stable than ever before. The walkway extended out over the floor, and when it reached the zone of interference, it held firm. The crystal's pulse, now part of the harmony, reinforced the structure instead of shattering it. Foot by foot, the bridge grew until it touched the base of the glowing quartz pillar with a soft thump.
It held.
I stood up, my heart pounding, and took a tentative step onto the shimmering path. It was solid as rock. I walked the twenty feet to the center of the chamber and placed my hand on the crystal. A wave of clean, focused energy surged up my arm, not painful, but invigorating. The light of the crystal brightened, and the entire room seemed to hum with the strength of my perfect, sustained harmony. I had not just built a bridge. I had conducted an orchestra.
A wide, triumphant smile spread across my face. I looked back at Kael to share the moment, but he wasn't looking at me. He was staring at the tablet in his hands, his face pale, his scholarly curiosity replaced by a look of cold dread.
"Kael?" I asked, my smile faltering. "What is it?"
He looked up, his eyes dark with worry. "This tablet... it's a Magi record from before they seized power. A survey of worlds with... unique magical resonances."
He stood and walked toward me, holding the tablet out. "They weren't just searching for places to conquer. They were looking for something. For specific kinds of primeval magic."
He stopped at the edge of the sand, his expression grim. "Iris... I've found something. About your home. Long before they ever took you, the Magi knew about the Expanse. It was on their list."