🌌S1.16 Galaxy Dynasty: Elyon Veyra Notes from Behind the Veil

Zarapha Calrix's white Jade Bracelet

I hadn’t planned to come tonight. Not with Zarapha Calrix here. But here I am, watching her shimmer in a dress that shows everything and hides nothing, her jade coiling white and proud down her arm like a serpent. I tell myself I hate it — and maybe I do — but I can’t stop looking. Zara always had a way of stealing the room without even trying.

And yet Zara isn’t the strangest part of the evening.

It’s her. The one no one else seems to notice. They said her name was Luma.

She was there before the party even started, helping one of the Judges’ wives arrange the hall. Moving like she belonged, like she had always known where the cups were stored, where the silver threads needed to be anchored. Quiet — but not invisible. No one that young and that beautiful can ever be invisible, no matter how still they hold themselves.

She didn’t speak much, but when she did, it was precise. Too precise. A word here, a phrase there, enough to prove she knew how to keep a conversation afloat without drawing suspicion. But I felt it in the resonance. She raised the field by at least five percent — just with her preparation. That’s not chance. That’s knowing.

The Judges needed this. Their lines had fallen dangerously low — the whole Spiral could feel it. Tonight, with her silent help, at least they’ll return to balance. I don’t know how they’ll hold it afterward. But for now, everyone in this room can breathe.

I’m not like my cousin Nysa. I don't have that intuition not the clear channel. But I can still spot a girl across the room, and I knew exactly what I was seeing.

And still, I can’t place her. A busy bee in the corner, and yet… something about her hums too loudly.

Zara arrived late, of course, with her newest man on her arm — a decent post, a decent purse, and enough vanity to buy her that white jade slice stretching halfway down her arm. Everyone knows white jade is the stone of her House. She flaunts it like a coronation.

But even that isn’t the part that gnaws.

The Judges, in all their flailing, have apparently hired Jordan Selby to look over their resonance numbers this year. Jordan Selby! He can’t tally a cat’s whiskers, much less Renaissance tallies. They should have come to me. I know the flows. I hear the truth in the currents.

But no — they picked the Jester. And while the Jester plays, a quiet girl slips through shadows, raising resonance like it’s nothing.

I don’t trust either of them.

—Elyon