The oldest island
Where the Kingdom Began
The Castle stands on the oldest island in the Cloud Kingdom. Its waterfalls were once the old river paths of the Ancient Lands, and the founders built the Castle around them, terrace by terrace, so the water could keep its way.
Aster was born in its gardens under a rainbow, and the first thing she ever saw was a butterfly.
Measure twice
A Hundred Falls, Each Measured
No two of the hundred waterfalls are the same height. The Lampwrights measure every one of them, because a lamp hung too close to the spray will not stay lit. Their tables of the falls are the oldest measurements in the Star Ledger.
The young dragons learn their first measures here, in feet and inches and in meters, before they ever reach the Academy.
From the Star Library
The Dual Skyline
The architects drew the Castle beside the Hall of Acknowledgement and the Star Academy: three monuments, each its own, united as one through the Hall. Below, a section through the kingdom runs from the Cloud Waterfall in the south to the Mountain Lake in the north, every height marked in meters.
Slide across the drawing to see it go from pencil to paint.
Behind the hundredth fall
The Stair No One Has Finished Counting
Behind the hundredth waterfall, the Lampwrights say, there is a stair that no one has ever finished counting. Every dragon who tries comes back with a different number, and every number gets written down.