CHAPTER 37: Corona Borealis

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The third time I found myself waiting between adventures for a signal to indicate my time to reach Arial passed very differently than the other two.

The journey on Fantastracta had disturbed me deeply. Elmerninis, Arial, Zantas-each had shattered some belief I had. I felt that things were not as clear-cut as I had always believed, that perhaps good guys and bad guys were not always easy to spot. What if I had only listened to half the story? True, I had many questions, but I also knew who could give me answers.

For a few days, things worked as usual: I would walk through the halls of the Divine Castle, gaze up at the starry sky, reflect to myself, conjure up memories; Zantas would disappear somewhere, stop by to see how I was doing and take a look around the area to make sure everything was in order, then leave again. He seemed to walk around until he stepped on my feet.

I remember leaning my back against the lonely wall of a tower, one of many that stood empty for those deserted spaces, drawing with my finger on a golden plaque that stretched toward a corridor before disappearing between the walls of a hall ahead. The moisture of the skin imprinted shapes that lasted only seconds. I drew a miniature flying sign, with me beside it. I retracted my hand and watched him fade away.

I did not have the courage to ask him to explain what Elmerninis had talked about. He and I had been through a lot together-knowing that it had only ever been a deception would have been too much for me.

But by then I didn't know what I had to lose.

Resting my hands on my knees, I stood up and looked over an imposing colonnade that overlooked a garden. It was manicured, with every bush and flower exactly where it should be. I wasn't going to wait for him to come to me, so I set out in search of him. There was only to figure out where he went each time he disappeared from sight.

"He never uses teleportation in the Castle, he prefers to fly," I said to the me reflected on the golden plaque, "so you just have to think about which direction you see him going."

Expressing that thought aloud made me realize that, indeed, whenever he waved me off to go back to where he came from, Zantas always flew in the same direction. Which strangely enough was not that of the Flower of Life garden! Could it be that there was a more important place for him than that garden? The idea left me dumbfounded: I could not even imagine what it could be.

Waving goodbye to my reflection, I hurried down the corridor toward what I hoped was the right direction.

Past a certain point, I realized I was beginning to pass through areas I had never seen before. Soaring vaults that blended with the sky passed over my head, wrapped in spirals of spiral staircases that joined roofs, floors, and walls in a white labyrinth whose shapes I could not distinguish. I was sure it was the right way, but I was also hoping with all my might to meet Zantas as soon as possible-I had no idea how to get back on my own. In order not to panic, I told myself that the only solution was to continue straight without stopping - the less I thought, the better.

After several minutes of running under endless ceilings, the halls finally opened up to an open space, and starlight came back to illuminate my steps. As I breathed in the cool evening air, I nearly fell over in surprise, my feet nailing to the ground.

An upside-down U, a brushstroke of deep white against the dark blue background, sprouted from the ground like an abandoned arch. It was ancient, ruined and eroded by time, but it stood with incredible sturdiness. Small plants poked out of the cracks that decorated it, drawing green patterns on the golden ones already inlaid in the stone. Through its gap, the island on which the Castle stood ended, revealing the expanse of clouds I had seen before extending to the horizon.

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