It’s late that eve when Mora docks her skiff against her rune ship after an evening drinking tea with Fyon in the sublands before bringing him up above the clouds. After hours together, with what felt, the whole time, like a crackling attraction between them, he bade her a dauntingly chaste good-night, leaving her more confused than ever.

Mora hangs over her larger ship’s railing and looks past the huge cliff drop toward the glittering tiers of the city below out over the inky expanse of the Vo, topped by a constellation of sapphire runic vessels, myriad bright white stars hanging above it all.

She frowns as an ache takes up residence in her heart. Because as strong as her feelings are for Fyon, he might feel nothing but friendship for her. Now that she’s told him the truth about herself. He was quiet as they flew to the heavens, after insisting that she bring some of the Xishlon tea.

The tea of the love festival.

She felt sure, for a moment, suspended in the sky, that Fyon would kiss her. But he simply sipped the tea as the ship hovered above a lone cloud, the lights of the city twinkling far below, the storm band above the Voloi Mountains putting on a pulsing lightning show, his gaze intent on her the whole time. Unreadable.

And Mora wondered—How can he just calmly sip tea like that, completely unmoved by the skies? How can I have fallen for a man unmoved by the skies?

She turns and listlessly picks up the book on Smaragdalfar culture that Fyon gave to her a few nights back. She flips its embossed green leather cover open, the desire to learn more about her people rising, the Smaragdalfar such a formal people, with hundreds upon hundreds of complicated traditions, some quite subtle. And despite her heartache, Mora is suddenly intent on learning them all, especially after visiting the sublands this evening with Fyon to take in the luminous caverns, phosphorescent plant life, and fledgling farms being established there. And meeting with the Western Realm Smaragdalfar refugees whose deep-seated cultural ties and rich sense of community prompted a bittersweet yearning in Mora that she’s felt throughout a life cut off from those ties.

She might be a creature of the skies, but there’s a large part of Mora that privately longs to be a creature of the sublands, as well.

I’m an impossible creature, is what I am, Mora archly considers as she flips through the pages.

A chapter heading catches her eye. Smaragdalfar Courtship Traditions.

The pang of Fyon’s aloof distance still achingly fresh, Mora skims the section, her eyes widening as her attention hooks on the last paragraph.