The Serenader

Chapter 12

Calya's POV
That was the end of any important conversations between Atlas and I for a while. We talked about little things like the twins' antics, castle food, and anything else Atlas realized he had missed while he was at sea. He also told me that he and our father had been completely out of touch the entire three years, up until about a week ago. Atlas hadn't known of Blythe's arranged marriage or about the music room. To me, that seemed unfair. Atlas deserved to know we all were. The castle wasn't just frozen in time while he got to live his life. Yet thanks to our father, that's how it had seemed to him.

"I didn't need Illusion to tell that Blythe was different from before," he told me. "It caught me by surprise."

I took note of that expression: I didn't need Illusion to... I guessed Atlas just wanted to prove himself, but it felt like it might mean something more than that. He was right about Blythe, though. Forced to grow up and love someone she simply didn't, she hadn't wanted a fiancé at all.

"It just surprises me that Blythe is the first one of us to marry," he added.

"Well, you were away," I pointed out. "You can't get married when you're not around."

"I suppose," Atlas said. "Still, part of me wonders if our father doesn't want me to marry."

"Why wouldn't he-" I started, but then it hit me. "He would not do that."

"Blythe's engaged to an Aeolian noble, right?" Atlas asked.

I nodded. "Yeah."

"So it's clear that our father is trying to increase the prevalence of Illusion," Atlas speculated. I hadn't thought of that before, and I certainly wouldn't say it was "clear", but I had to admit it did make sense in a way. "But only in the regions he knows he can trust and the regions that have no current records of Illusion."

A memory came to me. Once, our dad had casually mentioned the idea of me marrying a Lydian prince around my age. I was thirteen at the time, and the idea had repulsed me.

"Not now," I had said. "I'm too young."

"Obviously not now," he had replied. "But the time will come when I ask you again."

That time had come and gone. The Lydian prince, whoever he was, was no longer a citizen of Harmonia. He was not Noble. On top of that, I doubted I would ever be permitted to marry, with the risk of passing down what I could do.

I pushed that out of my mind. At the moment, I had no interest in getting married anyway. I still thought of myself as a child, as an adolescent, though I was just two years away from being considered an adult. At age eighteen I would be forced to make a decision about my life. The question remained how much of that decision would actually be mine, and how much of that would be determined by my father and handed to me on a silver platter.

Atlas and I stopped again that night. Our conversation had faded into silence hours before, both of us descending into our own troubled thoughts. There was so much to think about at a time like this.

As we settled under a tree canopy, safely out of sight from other travelers, I asked, "You really loved the Navy, didn't you?"

Atlas seemed surprised by the question. "I did," he answered after a moment of thought. "I felt at home there. It wasn't an easy job, but it wasn't like we were running off to battles every day. Now, I fear what I've come to love about the Navy is about to change. If things get worse, so many lives will be lost. I'm willing to give my life for Harmonia and I know everybody there is, but that doesn't mean there has to be a war."

"Was it really just days ago that we lived in Unity?" I asked. What had happened to our home?

"Yes," Atlas said. "It was. Though that might have been, well... an illusion for a while. Things didn't change overnight."

"No, I guess they didn't," I replied. "They couldn't have."

I propped myself against my satchel again. In the wooden shed, I had determined it was the most comfortable position given I had a lumpy bag for a pillow. Through his silhouette, I could see Atlas had a spyglass in his hand, and he was looking up at the stars.

He noticed me watching. "Do you want to see?" He rolled the spyglass towards me. It was dark, but when I took it I could feel intricate patterns on the smooth metal cylinder. It was the size of two of my hands, and heavy too, like it was encrusted with gold or jewels of some kind.

"Why do you have this?" I asked, raising it to my face.

"I happened to bring it with me from the Navy, and it fit in my bag," he answered. "Technically we don't need it for the map, but it never hurts to have star navigation gear on you. If nothing else but entertainment, I'm happy to have it."

"They have names, right?" I asked, surveying the night sky. "The constellations, I mean."

Atlas pointed at the sky. "See that bright star? That's Polaris. It's like the main star - the North Star. It's the center of the sky, so it never moves, even though all the other constellations do."

I found the star he meant. It was straight upward and shined visibly brighter than the others.

"And that one over there is Orion the Hunter," Atlas continued, pointing south of Polaris. "Legend has it Orion originated from an ancient civilization lost to the times." He pointed next to Polaris. "And that one is Sagittarius, a centaur. The best archer around."

I laughed. Even though the constellations were just stories, it felt blissfully lighthearted to learn about them. I personally believed they looked nothing like the so-called mystical shapes they were supposed to be, but it was fun to pretend. Atlas' stories continued on like that, one by one, until we had covered the entire sky.

"And now, we need to get some rest," Atlas said. Disappointed, I rolled the spyglass back to him, the images of the stars still lingering in my mind's eye. "We'll be there tomorrow by lunch, and maybe we'll finally get some answers."