Night cloaked the Celestial Academy in the specific kind of quiet silence that arrived at altitude — the kind where sound carried differently, where the absence of ordinary noise became a presence rather than simply being the lack of something. Above the floating islands, countless stars shimmered with the particular clarity that came from being viewed through thin air that had nothing to diffuse their light. Below the academy, in the depths where no ordinary student had ever accessed, ancient secrets that had slept for countless generations quietly began awakening.
One secret belonged to the past. One belonged to the future. And one had existed long before either category had been invented to describe how things moved through time.
