The Lantern of Cloud spire

The wind always whispered in Cloudspire. It was not the kind of wind that carried dust or salt from the sea. This wind carried stories. And only a few could truly listen.

Kira Moonfell was one of the listeners.

She wasn’t born in Cloudspire — no one really was anymore. The city had been adrift in the skies for so long that its origins were lost in legend. Some claimed it had once stood atop the tallest mountain on Earth, while others believed it was built by sky spirits and gifted to humanity. Whatever the truth was, Kira never cared much for the past.

Until she found the lantern.

It was hidden in the forgotten chambers below the Echo Library — a place few dared to visit. The library itself hung at the city’s edge, partly crumbling, partly alive. Time had bent the shelves, and gravity had taken most of the scrolls. But Kira had always believed that the forgotten corners of the world held the greatest wonders.

The lantern had no wick, no oil, no heat. Its flame floated, blue and quiet, casting soft shadows on the stone walls. She touched it, expecting it to vanish like many illusions of the sky. But instead, the flame pulsed — once, twice — and then burst upward, shooting a thin beam of light straight through the ceiling.

Wherever the light touched, the air shimmered.

And suddenly, Kira could hear the city.

Not just the usual hum of wind or the creak of old bridges. But words. Whispers. Murmurs woven into the air itself.

“Find the Heart. It watches. It waits.”

She should have been afraid. Most people would be. But wonder chased fear from her heart like dawn chasing away fog.

The next day, she packed her satchel — compass, rope, old maps, and two skyfruit pies. The lantern hovered beside her, tethered only by a leather strap she had looped through its handle.

There were places in Cloudspire that didn’t exist on any map. Places the old folk called the “Breathtaken.” They said those were bits of the city swallowed by cloudstorms — floating in and out of reality. No one who went there came back quite the same.

That’s where the lantern pointed.

Her first step took her across the Bridge of Breaths — a suspended chain of floating stones that trembled under every footfall. The wind carried laughing echoes and the smell of burning spices. Beyond the bridge was the Orchard of Echoes, where glass-leaved trees sang in harmony and birds flew upside-down.

The lantern pulsed again.

Through the Singing Gates, past the Pillars of Weightless Thought, and finally into the Forgotten Veins — a tangle of tunnels that snaked beneath the city’s core. Here, light was rare. But her lantern shone brighter than ever, revealing murals etched in moving stone.

She followed the whispers deeper, down spiral stairs that seemed to descend forever.

Until she reached it.

A chamber with no walls — only sky. A place suspended within the heart of Cloudspire, where gravity danced and time folded. In the center floated a crystal heart — fractured, glowing, ancient.

The lantern drifted from her hand, drawn toward the heart like a moth to a flame. As it touched the crystal, everything changed.

Cloudspire spoke.

Not in whispers. In song.

The city sang its story — of its creation, of the storm spirits that carved it from mountain stone and gifted it flight. Of the people who rose and fell. Of a great silence that had descended when the Heart had cracked — severing the bond between city and sky.

And then, Kira heard her name.

“You are the one who listens. Will you become the one who speaks?”

She didn’t understand. But something inside her — a sense, a knowing — whispered that if she said yes, everything would change.

So she did.

The moment her voice echoed in the chamber, the heart pulsed with golden light. The lantern flared, then melted into mist — absorbed by the crystal. And from that moment on, Kira saw everything differently.

She could read the language of the clouds. Understand the songs of skybeasts. She could feel the heartbeat of the floating city — and in turn, it felt hers.

When she returned to the upper levels of Cloudspire, things were not as they were. Bridges had shifted. Buildings now floated in perfect harmony, and the wind no longer whispered — it spoke.

Kira became the first Skywarden in generations — a keeper of stories, a mender of what the sky had broken.

But most of all, she became a guide — for others who listened, who dared, who wondered.

And in time, Cloudspire no longer drifted aimlessly. It danced — steady, singing, and alive.