Aetherian Chronicles, The

This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice. The brass pipes that snaked through the walls of the Academy of Vapor Sciences hummed with the constant flow of pressurized steam, their rhythmic whispers creating a symphony that had become as familiar to Evangeline Ashworth as her own heartbeat. Standing at the observation deck of the academy's highest tower, she watched the great airships drift lazily through the amber clouds that perpetually shrouded the floating city of Aethermoor. Each vessel was a marvel of engineering, their copper hulls gleaming in the filtered sunlight while massive steam engines propelled them through the sky with graceful precision. At nineteen, Evangeline possessed an intellect that had earned her recognition as one of the academy's most promising students, though her unconventional theories about aetheric manipulation often drew skeptical glances from her professors. Her auburn hair was perpetually escaping from its proper pins, a reflection of her restless mind that refused to be contained by traditional academic boundaries. Today, however, her usual enthusiasm for theoretical discussions was overshadowed by a growing sense of unease that had been building for weeks. The morning's lecture on Advanced Pneumatic Theory had been interrupted by the arrival of Professor Aldrich Thornwick, the academy's most distinguished researcher and Evangeline's mentor. His typically immaculate appearance had shown signs of distress, his silver beard disheveled and his usually bright eyes clouded with worry. He had whispered something urgent to Professor Celestine before both men had hurried from the lecture hall, leaving the students to speculate about what could have caused such unprecedented disruption.