I did it. It's done. The first big turning point of the book! Now things can get moving!

Sophie was a little suspicious when Iltaurielle didn't give them an evening assignment. In the three weeks they'd been there, the work had been nonstop. Up at sunrise, which was earlier every day as the days lengthened and spring began in earnest, and working on stretches and a few exercises for Linh and Marella. After breakfast, Iltaurielle took them to the library. The first day, she gave them a list of subjects and told them to pick out one book on each topic. She had made it clear she didn't care what book it was, they just had to pick one and read it.

The rest of the week they were in the study room, either reading their books or writing about them. Iltaurielle asked them to write a maximum of one page per book if they wanted to, found it interesting, or had questions for her. She would return the papers the next day with her answer written on the back. If she knew that Fitz spent most of the five hours they had to study sulking in his room and only working on his Adealan, she never said anything.

Sometimes they ate lunch in the dining hall and sometimes they were summoned directly to Iltaurielle's rooms and they spent the afternoon out on the plains in front of the city. If they did that, they would be either working on horseback or running. If they stayed in the city, they went down to Iltaurielle's private sparring ring and got their butts kicked.

Sophie remembered when she had wanted to do eight hours of training every day. Now, she was only doing five and a half. But all eight of them were dragging themselves to dinner exhausted. And that was if they finished on time. Sometimes Marella or Linh would have trouble with a form and Iltaurielle would make them run through it until they got it. They would be too scared to summon their elements in too great of amounts.

Eventually Iltaurielle would just send them off, tired. But they always had an evening assignment. It was generally extra studying or to practice a form.

But not tonight.

She frowned at Iltaurielle, waiting for the catch.

"That's it? No extra assignment." Tam gave her a distrustful look.

Iltaurielle smiled. "No extra assignment. Take the evening off. You're getting the next two hours off. My suggestion would be to turn in earlier than usual, but you don't have to. Stay up as late as you want, but please be respectful of other students who would like to be in bed earlier than you."

Sophie was tempted to push farther, but she didn't want to risk Iltaurielle deciding not to give them the time off.

Biana, Fitz, Tam and Dex decided to stay up. They stayed in the common room while the rest of them continued to their rooms.

Sophie was tempted to stay up, but the prospect of two full hours of extra sleep was not one she was going to pass up. She changed quickly into the plain linen nightgown she'd been given along with her other clothes and folded the others neatly and put them away. They'd learned quickly that there were no gnomes to pick up after you and do all the jobs you didn't want to do. If you wanted them done, you had to do them yourself. Even Iltaurielle did her own laundry. Sophie, Tam, and Linh had adopted well, but she had a feeling Fitz and Biana's rooms still looked like a wreck.

She splashed water on her face, sighing in contentment when the built-up dirt and sweat came off under the assault of her favourite exfoliating scrub. Honestly, now that she had skin like this, she was never going to go back to never washing her face. Even if the Lost Cities products were probably going to be subpar to their Adealan counterparts.

When her evening routine was done, another thing she was definitely keeping in the future, Sophie curled up in the world's comfiest bed, reaching over to tap the hidden panel on the upper left bedpost. The wooden panel swung open, showing the setting for the weather screen. She set it to let in and amplify the sounds of the waves crashing on the cliffs, her personal favourite sound to lull her to sleep.

It worked in minutes.

She groaned, trying to block out the soft voice of someone gently shaking her awake. It was too comfy, she didn't want to get up yet.

"Sophie, come on. I've got something cool I need to show you."

Iltaurielle's voice broke through the sleepy fog in her brain and she groaned, rubbing her eyes.

"Mmm, don't wanna."

"Well, you can get up on your own or I can show you the same feature Fitz discovered. I don't think you'll like it."

"Fine." Sophie grumbled. "I'm getting up."

"No need for the military outfit today. Wear something comfortable."

It was still full dark outside, with only the twinkling of the stars lighting the city. Most people would still be asleep.

As she changed into a simple shirt and pants, she realized that this was probably why Iltaurielle had given them the evening off. She wanted them in bed early so she could wake them up early.

Fitz was not going to be happy.

She washed her face quickly, detangling her hair and tucking it behind her ears. Gauging her dark circles in the mirror, she decided they weren't dark enough to warrant concealer and left her rooms, grabbing her dagger on the way out.

Everyone else, minus Linh and Dex, was huddled in the common room looking sleepy. Fitz had a red mark on the side of his face. Both Biana and Marella were wearing the flowy cotton dresses that had been included in their clothing. The boys had gone with the same shirt and pants as Sophie.

"Hey guys."

Fitz grunted. Keefe gave her a little wave and yawned. "Hey Soph."

Marella was the only one that looked awake. "Do you have any idea what she has us doing?"

"Nope. She just told me that if I didn't get up on my own, I'd discover the same feature as Fitz did." Sophie sat down on one of the plush armchairs.

Fitz shot a glare in the direction Iltaurielle had gone. "The beds lift up."

"Huh?"

"The mattress tilts up and dumps you on the floor. I didn't believe her when she told me, but then she pressed a button and it dumped me on the ground."

"I was wondering what happened to your face." Tam brushed his bangs out of his eyes.

"Alright, we're all here." Iltaurielle counted them under her breath as Dex and Linh joined the group. "Does anyone want to grab something light to eat before we go?"

A few people nodded.

"Alright. There are some kitchen staff up. I let them know we'd be leaving early and there are a few people on the early shifts that are up this early."

As Iltaurielle shepherded them out of them dorms and down to the dining hall, Sophie realized that their teacher had never really been informal before. Even when they were just studying or going to the market, she always had the same aloof air about her. Now she was wearing a simple tunic and pants, not tucked in and a little bit wrinkled, as if she'd grabbed them off the floor. Her hair, normally smooth and hanging nicely down her back, was a little frizzy, as if she hadn't had time to brush it.

Sophie also noticed tiny scars on Iltaurielle's face and neck that hadn't been there before. They were pale enough that she probably kept them hidden behind concealer most of the time.

There were small, steaming packages of food waiting on the bar in the dining hall. Iltaurielle checked the labels on each and handed them out. "You'll have to eat them on the way. We have to get there before sunrise."

Great.

The Point of Elements reminded Sophie of Pride Rock from the Lion King. It was a large point of rock sticking high into the air above the ocean. There were faint wisps of light just breaking over the horizon as Iltaurielle settled them in the long grass with blankets and the packages of food.

The Point of Elements had a large clearing at the top, surrounded by trees that looked kind of like Wanderlings, but they were all the same colour. In front of them was a clear view of the ocean stretching past the horizon and the sun just beginning to peek over the waves.

Keefe's brow furrowed in confusion and he turned to look up at Iltaurielle. "So what are we-"

She gave him a small shake of her head and placed a finger over her lips, gesturing to the horizon again.

Sophie frowned, looking around. What were they supposed to find?

It was Tam who saw them first. He gasped, tensing. Linh looked confused, but then she saw them too. "Guys, look."

There were small hunched figures walking through the grass, barely a foot tall. Each of them had long tattered robes and carried hooked staffs with lanterns at the end. In each lamp was a tiny, fairy-like figure sitting on a swing that glowed with a bright white light. The hunched figures were surrounded by wispy shadow and it followed them from figure to figure, snaking between the grass.

Sophie looked around, eyes widening. There were so many. Walking along the tree branches, between flowers, guided by the light of their tiny companions.

Then they began to sing and Tam whispered a single word. "Knegesta."

"What?" Biana murmured.

"That's what they are. Knegesta."

Sophie didn't know what it meant, but she knew it was right. Both for the figures and the song they sang.

At first they sang in simple sounds that made no words, but were soothing and calm. They answered each other and sang together, weaving a soothing melody that made her eyelids heavy. She yawned, leaning her head on the shoulder of the person sitting next to her.

Then the song changed to words.

"High is the moon to-night."

"Hiding its guiding light, high."

Each line was sung by a different figure, complimented by the lighter, younger voices of the glowing fairies that accompanied them.

"Heaven and earth do sleep."

"Still in the dark so deep. I will the darkness sweep."

A new voice joined, the song, bright and cheery and lifting the sleepy aura. "I will the moon to flight. I will the heavens bright. I will the earth delight."

"It's a balance." Tam whispered, watching the figures in awe.

Iltaurielle smiled. "Yes."

"Open your eyes with me. See paradise with me. Awake and arise with me."

The cloaked figures slowly dissolved into mist and the fairies flittered up into the sky, disappearing into twinkling stars. As they did, they waved to the sun, just coming over the horizon, and with it a swell of voices.

"I am the dawn and the new day begun." They were like the knegesta, but instead of shadow this was fire. They were bright yellow, floating straight from the sun to flit among the flowers and trees. "I bring you the morning, I bring you the sun."

Everblaze.

"I hold back the night and I open the skies. I give light to the world, I give sight to your eyes."

But there was no sense of danger or fear. Just the feeling of a long-worn cycle between day and night, sun and moon, fire and shadow.

"From the first of all time, until time is undone." The shadow's voices joined them for one more line before vanishing entirely."

"Forever and ever and ever and ever." The fiery figures danced on the grass, spreading sunbeams with every footfalls, making the flowers bloom and bringing a feeling of bouncy, unnamable joy. "And I am the dawn and the sky and the sun. I am one with the One, and I am the dawn."

Sophie didn't remember standing, but then she was and she was laughing.

"Firefaes." Marella breathed. "They're firefaes."

Just as the word knegesta had felt right for the shadows, firefaes felt right for these. Sophie was used to associating Everblaze with destruction and death and men drunk on their own power. But here it was light and life. It brought the dawn.

Marella was laughing too and everyone else was smiling. One of the firefaes grabbed Marella's hands and spun her around, laughing. The others immediately flocked too her, calling out a single word.

Dex translated. "They're calling you sister."

Sophie watched as the other elements joined the firefaes. Strong horses of water and lighter forms in water vapours. Figures flying on the wind that Sophie somehow knew were wind-sprites. They swept her up with chirping calls, dance with me, dance with me, and she laughed.

There were little men of boulders that danced and popped in the grasses. They gathered around Fitz's feet, tapping out a rhythm that he knew, the same was Sophie knew the wind-sprites and Tam knew the knegesta and Marella the firefaes.

The firefaes danced around Iltaurielle too, though with a greater respect. They knew her.

The figures of water were swirling around Linh, playing with her hair and singing in a voice she knew as intrinsically as Tam did the shadow.

And around Dex, Biana and Keefe was a mix of all four. The firefaes were focusing on Dex and Biana, with Nokks, as Linh named them, and wind-sprites dashing through Biana's hair and lifting Dex off the ground. All four were no less playful with Keefe, but they were more respectful.

And then all four raised their voices in song as they scattered to the sky and the ocean and the trees and the earth with a single certainty.

"I am the sky and the dawn and the sun."

This was what it was to be tied to an element. They weren't separate like the elves claimed they were. They were tied in an ever-arcing balance of night and day, sleeping and waking, night and day.

"I am the sky and the new day begun!

I am the sky and the dawn and the sun!"

And then with a great whoosh, every last one of them was gone, leaving the sun barely peaking over the horizon and a fading sense of right.

It's a little shorter than normal, but it's DONE!

Pretty sure y'all know the review policy by now. I have to go work on homework now.

Shine brightly!

Ruby