ERIS
The scent of the Mage Academy library was different from the sterile, imperial smell of Soren's private study.
Here, it was a thick, intoxicating perfume of decaying parchment, dried linseed oil, and the sharp, metallic tang of magical residue.
It was a place where knowledge felt heavy, literally pressing down from the towering shelves that reached into a ceiling lost in gloom.
I moved through the stacks with Bjorn at my heels, his paws clicking softly on the stone floor. Led by the young man who called himself Ellyn.
He looked to be in his early twenties, possessing that particular, endearingly disheveled appearance of someone who spent more time with books than people.
His brown hair was a nest of chaotic curls, and his fingers were permanently stained with the ink of a thousand transcriptions. He wore the simple, indigo robes of a junior scribe, now slightly askew from his unceremonious descent from a nearby ladder.
