Chapter Text
Her father’s house smelled of freshly polished wood and old paper. A place of reason and prestige. Yet for her, ever since her mother’s death, it had become nothing more than a place of silence.
Y/n sat on the windowsill, her fingertips pressed against the leather cover of an old book. The Paths of the Celestial Bodies — found hidden among merchant ledgers and chronicles that no one had touched in years. Since she had discovered it, she had been captivated. Not by the earth, but by the sky.
Her father had taught her to read and write — an education rare for women and tolerated in his house only as a silent exception. Knowledge was allowed, as long as it remained hidden. A virtue, not a dream.
That evening, Y/n heard voices coming from the salon.
Her father was not alone.
Curious, she slipped toward the gallery above the entrance hall, where the soft murmur of conversation rose up to meet her. Below, he sat with a man in a dark robe — a monk, hands folded, speaking quietly. Y/n recognized him from the church: Brother Matthias, known for his strict views and his fear of anything that lay beyond the known order.
“These new ideas…” Brother Matthias murmured disapprovingly. “This talk of a heliocentric universe — pure heresy. And then there’s Badeni, daring to claim he knows the truth better than the Scriptures… They say he lost his eye because of his forbidden studies. A warning of what happens to those who reach too high.”
Her father nodded gravely. “A dangerous man. Ambitious. Proud. Incapable of knowing his place — no respect.”
Y/n pressed a hand to her chest.
A name spoken like a curse in the city’s conversations — and yet it tingled against her skin like a touch she couldn’t explain. Badeni.
Instead of disgust, she felt a flickering fire. Perhaps, just perhaps, this man was the only one who saw the heavens as she did.
She pulled back, her heart beating unsteadily.
While downstairs the conversation shifted back to holy order and the virtues of humility, a thought was growing inside her.
A wish. She had to find him, to meet him.
The fallen monk who dared defy the Church’s virtues.
When the voices in the house fell silent and evening finally gave way to night, Y/n was already determined.
She waited until the house had settled into sleep, listened carefully for the guards' steady footsteps in the courtyard — and then she slipped quietly from her room. In her hand she held the book that had become her small treasure, The Paths of the Celestial Bodies, carefully wrapped in a cloth.
The streets were steeped in dark shadows, and she kept close to the walls to avoid being seen. Her feet knew the path by heart: through the narrow alley behind the market, past the weathered statues of the saints, all the way to the high wall of the city library.
Behind the building, hidden under a gnarled old oak, stood her bench.
Her secret refuge.
Here, she could look at the stars without anyone questioning her.
Here, she was allowed to dream.