Chương 159: Chapter 20: Nameless Stars

Now, with the new earring gracing her right ear and the original remaining in her left, a dialogue of silver and fire on both sides of her face, Selena made her way to her room in the Cloister of the Forest. Her mind was clear, her hands tired but satisfied, and her purpose renewed. She picked up the book by Sulfic the Goldsmith, The Secret of the Artisan and the Alliance of Objects, and sat by the window, where the last light of the day dyed the pages in a nostalgic gold.

She ran her fingers over the place where she had left off, feeling the rough texture of the parchment beneath her skin. Then, the dense, philosophical letters flowed before her eyes and embedded themselves in her mind:"The goldsmith who has already overcome the stage of creating an object with which they feel a true affinity, must ask themselves, their soul, the echo, or the void: What gives center to my soul?

This is of special importance, for the echo that dominates a resonant is never exactly known unless one makes the conscious exercise of knowing oneself. Once we hear all the questions that our mind asks us while we are in silence, we can discern the first threads of that which composes us, that which directs us. That, in magic, usually results in unique things. For example, a resonant who primarily uses fire, if they perform this exercise, may realize that in reality their center is not destruction, but chaos...

or peace. Which would compose a unique resonant object. Impregnating an emotion as magic... that is the true art of a resonant of the written touch. Not just damage. An emotion can save a man when the mind becomes chaotic; it can anchor a spirit to reality when everything else floats in horror." Selena let the book rest on her lap and sighed, a long sound heavy with bitter understanding. Sulfic spoke of something she knew all too well, not from theory, but from the visceral butchery of the dungeon.

An emotion as magic. An emotion as salvation. She remembered Magnor in his final moments, when the purplish parasite was already intertwining with his veins, when madness and pain should have consumed him. And yet, in the midst of that chaos, he had found the clarity to heal her. Not with a spell of brute power, but with a will purified by a pure emotion: compassion, duty, love for a companion on the brink of annihilation. An emotion can save a man when the mind becomes chaotic, she thought with brutal clarity.

That was what Sulfic proposed: not merely creating a resonant object but impregnating it with the very essence of what one was at their center. Moving away from the element one dominated and drawing closer to the emotion that directed it. What is my center? What emotion throbs beneath the layers of survival, of rage, of pain, of cold determination? The questions floated in the stillness of the room, dense and unsettling, without an immediate answer.

But now, for the first time, it had been formulated with a clarity that allowed no evasion. Selena closed Sulfic's book with a soft thud, feeling the weight of the parchment as if it were that of her own conscience. She needed a place where silence was not just the absence of noise, but a space to listen to internal echoes. That evening, she sought out a corner in the university's labyrinthine gardens, a strangely solitary spot, as if the hedges and flowerbeds themselves conspired to keep secrets.

She sat in the center of a small circular clearing, where a mossy stone bench waited under the shadow of a coral tree whose red leaves glowed like dying embers. There, in complete solitude as the evening waned, she closed her eyes and allowed her mind to wander through the questions that, since her arrival in this world, she had pushed into the darkest corners of her psyche. I am Saul, she thought, with the clarity of a geological fact. A thirty-five-year-old philologist. I had a black cat named Rulito.

My best friend was Román. The memories rushed in, not as ghosts, but as sedimentary layers of a previous identity. But then, without transition, she added in a low but audible voice: But I am also Isabella Elizabeth Selena of Solendra. A noble. A countess. Resonant. A wretch with blood-stained hands. The declaration was deterministic, empirical, known. But this time, the feeling that accompanied it was not one fracture, but of a strange, almost chemical union.

Not like two substances mixing, but like two currents of the same river finally recognizing each other. She did not dwell on the sensation; she merely breathed, deeply and slowly, watching the sky turn to orange and lavender. The hours slipped away. Once the clouds took on an intense reddish hue, like open wounds in the firmament, the question arrived.

Not as a whisper, but as an internal tolling that resonated in every bone: Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Are you two, or are you one? It was the cursed question she had never directly asked herself, the one that caused her nausea, tremors, and a visceral chill. But this time, there was no fear. Only a sense of emptiness in her chest, as if her soul were seeking to cling to an anchor that had never been cast. I am one, she thought.

Then, aloud, as if sealing a pact with the twilight: —I am one. Although for nearly a year of living in this world, her mind had always tried to maintain itself as Saul, as a man trapped in an alien body, this time it was unequivocal. —One, and also him, but one. A single body that I already feel as my own every day. A body that makes Maya smile, that imitates Valerian, or that misses Kaela. But also, a body that remembers Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, or English. And all of it... all of it is myself.

It was not a dramatic epiphany, but a quiet, almost resigned acceptance. Like adjusting one's vision after years of seeing double. The pieces did not fit together perfectly, how could they? But now at least she recognized that they belonged to the same puzzle. The hours continued to pass. The sky filled with stars, a tapestry of cold and distant light that she had never admired closely before. New shapes, unfamiliar constellations, suns that had no name in her earthly memory.

New possibilities beneath an alien firmament. The nocturnal insects intoned their chorus among the bushes, a hypnotic and primordial hum. Selena remained lying on the stone bench, impassive, looking up, letting the silent universe wash over her thoughts. A sigh escaped her lips, blending with the cool breeze. And another question, more painful, more personal, emerged from the deepest depths: Did Nyssa die because of me? The answer had never been easy.

Immediately, the visceral memory struck her: the smell of hot iron, the sound of the dull blow, Nyssa's astonished and then empty gaze. Then, the looks of the women from the Sacred Rest, those she had once considered almost family: Kaela, Anya, Pira, Tessa... faces marked by horror and betrayal. A knot formed in her throat. Her hands began to tremble. She looked at them, pale beneath the starlight, and then raised them toward the sky, as if they could be cleansed in the immensity.

—I didn't kill her —she whispered, and then, with more force, declared to the starry void— and I didn't know. But a woman like her, sick, did not deserve to die for this ungrateful nobility. No person deserves it. And I... am innocent of her blood. The words, once spoken, did not bring immediate relief, but they did bring painful clarity. She had been a pawn in a cruel game, but her hands had not wielded the sword. The weight was not guilt, but responsibility. Of having been there.

Of not having been able to prevent it. —You die or you don't die. The voice came from the darkness, not from the sky, but from somewhere among the hedges. It was not a question, but a flat statement, heavy with millennial weariness. Selena did not move. She did not look toward the voice. She remained lying down, her eyes fixed on the stars. —You fall ill or you don't fall ill. Another sigh, deeper this time, as if coming from the lungs of a man who had forgotten how to breathe without pain.

—You go to war or you stay at home. The voice was harsh, broken, but incredibly familiar beneath the veneer of an emotional nakedness never heard before. —You are innocent, and destiny has you in its sights. An eloquent silence followed, dense and expectant. In the garden, even the insects seemed to fall silent for a moment. Selena did not need to look. She recognized the timbre, the cadence, even in its most stripped state.

It was Valerian, but not the jester Valerian, nor the theatrical master, nor even the ironic and distant man. This was a voice that had torn off all masks, one by one, until only the bare, bleeding core remained. —Crimson... —The voice broke, and a guttural sound, a choked sob, filtered through the words— Once, I was married. Once, I had a family. Once, misfortune was not so, the curse did not seem like one to me. There was a pause, filled with the sound of a struggle to contain a torrent.

Then, in a torn whisper, almost childlike: —Little and beloved Lucian... Papa loves you. Papa waits for you every day. The sob that followed was one of the deepest and most desperate Selena had ever heard in her life; it was something animal, primitive, the sound of a heart tearing itself open again and any time on the same old wound. Then, very softly, like a phantom lullaby, he began to hum a simple, sad melody, a lullaby that faded into the air like smoke. Afterward, the sound vanished.

Only the sigh of the wind among the leaves and the distant chorus of insects remained. Selena never turned her head. She made no movement to seek the source of that nocturnal confession. She did not need to. The jester, that night, in that starry garden, had not just taken off the mask of the buffoon. He had stripped away that of the master, that of the resonant, even that of the man.

He had shown, for a fleeting and brutal instant, the naked face of Valerian: a shattered father, perhaps a widower, a soul burdened with a loss so monumental that it had turned his entire life into a farce just to be able to endure it. In that shared silence, beneath the same indifferent sky, Selena felt that her own solitude was no longer unique, but part of a vaster, more painful chorus. It was not answers she had found that night, but companionship in the questioning.

And sometimes, that was the closest thing to peace one could achieve. Selena remained on the stone bench until dawn, watching the stars slowly pale, devoured by the grayish light that preceded the sun. She found no more answers about herself that night, but her mind, previously a knot of tensions and griefs, had become placid like a scattered cloud after a storm. Her body also felt light, loose, strangely relaxed, in a way so natural that before would have seemed impossible to her.

It was as if Valerian's nocturnal confession and her own silent acceptance had relieved a pressure, she did not even know she was carrying.